Worth Its Weight In Gold
By: xXxDaughteroftheKingxXx
©- Disney
AN: And I'm back. See, it didn't take nearly as long as the last update!
So, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is: I have up to Chapter Nine written for this story, plus Chapter Twelve and the Epilogue. The bad news is: I start school next Monday, so if I can't finish the story this weekend, it'll be harder for me to write. But never fear, I will do my very best to finish this story. I only have two or three chapters left to write.
But enough talking about my updates. I hope you enjoy this chapter; it's the first of several plans Isabella and the Fireside Girls have concocted to convince the Flynn-Fletchers to stay.
Enjoy, and please review! :)
Chapter Five- A Plan in Action
A few days had passed since Isabella found out about the Flynn-Fletchers' move, and she and most of the teenagers of Danville had been busy coming up with ideas to keep them here. So far, they'd come up with seven or eight ways to so, some being way more desperate than the others. That, Isabella mused, would be their back-up plan.
It was getting a bit crazy… with going around the entire Tri-State Area and asking anyone to sign their petition to keep Phineas and Ferb in Danville. Heck, sometimes, people would actually go up to the Fireside Girls and ask something along the lines of, "Can we sign the petition too?" How they had heard of the petition in the first place, or how they even knew the brothers… well, the world may never know.
"Has anyone ever told you that you are a cruel, cruel leader, Isabella?" Gretchen groaned, leaning into her beanbag. "Counting the names… of thousands of people who signed this petition…"
"Endless paper cuts," Ginger moaned.
"Too many papers," Holly added, just for good measure.
Isabella looked up from her own stack of papers, shooting her friends a glare. "If we're going to keep the boys in Danville," she said with a frown, "it's going to take work. Now, I don't like it, but that's just what we have to do… How many names have you got so far?"
"From my twenty pages that I have actually managed to get through?" Milly said dryly. "Well, about 1,000."
"I've got nearly 10,000 counted," Ginger said. "If you approximate how many names are on one sheet, then count the number of papers, you can easily figure out the number of people."
This caused Katie to ponder something. "Ginger's got a point… Why didn't we just number the stupid papers?!"
Isabella blinked as all the other Fireside Girls looked up and met eyes. "That's an... excellent question, Katie," she said slowly. "Someone remind me to do that next time because it's far too late to change anything now. Get back to counting, ladies!"
In perfect unison, the six teenagers groaned, but did as they were told.
"I... do... not... understand," Baljeet panted, "why... I... am... the... one... doing... this!"
Isabella looked up from her clipboard and turned around to see the small Indian boy tugging the wagon with the piles of paper in it. He was red in the face, and clearly was struggling to keep walking.
"Buford!" Isabella shot her stocky friend a glare. "I thought I told you to pull the wagon, not Baljeet!"
Buford merely shrugged. "What can I say? Buford lazy."
Isabella huffed. "Buford..."
"Fine, fine. But next I'm tryin' to give a nerd a wedgie, you don't interfere, got it, Girly?"
The Fireside leader merely rolled her eyes, turning back around and focusing her attention on the clipboard. Written down neatly on a piece of notebook paper were eight ways to try and convince the Flynn-Fletchers to stay in Danville. Underneath the ideas was a schedule tracking how long they had until the family made the move. It was currently June, and school started back in early September, so they had about three months to do put all their plans into action and keep the Flynn-Fletchers where they belong.
Asking Phineas and Ferb's parents to give up an incredible job opportunity was a big task, and while Isabella did admit that she was scared things wouldn't work out, she was confident in the things they had done. After all, when they were ten, they traveled through time, built a rocket ship, followed the sun for the longest day of the year, and so much more.
Convincing a family to stay in Danville? Yeah, they so could do this.
With her newfound confidence, Isabella walked up to the Flynn-Fletcher's door and knocked on it steadily. Buford and Baljeet were still a few feet away when the door swung open, revealing Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher.
"Oh, hi, Isabella!" the woman greeted cheerfully. Then, with a cheeky smile, she added, "Whatcha doin?"
Isabella did her best not to flinch at the use of her catchphrase, plastering a sweet smile on her own face. "Hi, Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher," she said. "Could we come in?"
She nodded. "Of course, guys, come right on in. Phineas and Ferb are just up in their room—"
"Actually, Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher, we were wondering if we could talk to you and Mr. Fletcher," Isabella interrupted as Buford and Baljeet rolled the wagon in. "We, uh, wanted to show you guys something."
"Oh, of course!" Linda smiled. "Lawrence! Can you come down here? Isabella, Baljeet, and Buford are here, and they want to show us something!"
Well, at least they knew where Candace got her pair of lungs from.
There was a brief moment of silence, then the sound of someone walking down the stairs became prevalent. "Yes, of course, dear," Lawrence flashed a grin at his wife. "What's up, kids?"
"Um, well, you see..." Baljeet began, glancing helplessly at Isabella, who sighed. She should've known Baljeet would stumble on his presentation to the Flynn-Fletchers. "We have gathered, um, some—"
"Oh for crying out loud," Buford cut off. "89,585. That's how many people want you two, Phineas, and Ferb to stay in Danville. Mainly just Phineas and Ferb, but what can ya say? We went around and asked probably the entire Tri-State Area to sign, then went around and counted every single signature. So, yeah, if you guys could stay and all that, awesome."
Linda and Lawrence both blinked, as if processing the request, and Isabella sucked in a nervous breath. It was now or never.
"Oh, kids, that's so sweet of you," Linda gushed. "I can't believe you took the time to gather all these people together!"
"So you guys will stay?" Isabella said hopefully, a large smile growing on her face.
"I'm afraid not." Lawrence shook his head, and Isabella felt all her happiness deflate like a balloon. "Much as I do love Danville and our antique shop, this job over in Springfield pays much more than we could ever dream."
"And in this economy, we need all the help we can get," Linda added. "I'm sorry, you guys, but this was incredibly thoughtful of all of you. We're going to miss you all so much."
With that, both parents leaned in and gave the kids a tight hug. Buford and Baljeet adopted matching uncomfortable looks, but Isabella merely looked devastated.
After the hug ended, Linda smiled once again at her sons' friends. "Do you need me to call Phineas and Ferb? I'm sure they'd love to see you guys."
Baljeet opened his mouth to answer, but Isabella beat him to the punch, "No thank you, Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher," she said curtly. "We, uh, actually had something else to do. But tell them we said hi!"
And with that, the Fireside girl grabbed the two boys' arms and pulled them towards the front door, leaving behind the wagon full of papers. Once the door had shut behind them and they were back on the sidewalk, she let go of their arms and motioned for them to keep walking, pulling out her clipboard.
"Isabella!" Baljeet whined. "Why did you do that?"
"Yeah!" Buford chimed in. "I wanted to see if we could do something with Phineas and Ferb today. It's been a while, ya know?"
"That's not important right now, you guys," Isabella said with a deep frown. "What's important is trying to figure out what we should do next. Clearly, 89,600—"
"89,585, to be exact," Baljeet corrected.
"—signatures," Isabella continued, shooting him a glare, "from the citizens of the Tri-State Area isn't enough to convince Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher not to move to Springfield, so we're going to have to think bigger. We're going to have to make our ideas come to life even bigger and better than they did this time!"
"I don't like it when she goes off it this," Buford muttered as Isabella continued her tangent. Baljeet nodded.
"We... we... We need to outside the box!" Isabella exclaimed. "After all, not even the sky's the limit! These ideas are great, but we need things to be absolutely amazing if we're going to convince the Flynn-Fletchers to stay in Danville!"
She grinned at the two boys, who both looked slightly afraid. "Buford, Baljeet, call in the cavalry. We've got work to do."