"Fireside Diaries"
Story Written by Freedom Fighter
In a normal world, what happens in this entry would be grounds for ending a relationship. But in the Phineas and Ferb world? Hmmm... something to think about as you read.
Disclaimer: The characters of 'Phineas and Ferb' belong to Disney.
"ADYSON SWEETWATER!"
Adyson groaned as Isabella stomped angrily towards her, the former sitting in front of the computer at the lodge with Gretchen, who was updating the website with a few new entries.
"Look," Adyson explained herself as Isabella stopped in front of her, with her hands on her hips, "if you're busting me because Phineas smiled at me the other day and I decided to smile back..."
"Number 103, Adyson!"
Adyson turned to Gretchen for clarification, and the glasses-wearing girl filled in the blanks. Remorsefully.
"Don't blame her, Chief. I'm the one responsible for actually uploading all of the entries."
Isabella gasped. "Gretchen! How could you?"
"Me? Chief, you sent it to me and told me to post it!"
Isabella's jaw dropped in stunned silence. She wondered how she could have made such an egregious error.
"I don't get it," interjected Adyson. "What's so bad about 103?"
"Bad? How can you NOT know about 103?"
"Simple," Gretchen explained as she pulled up the entry onto the screen. "This all happened on the LAST weekend of summer break. And Adyson was out of town with her family the entire time."
"Whoa! And you guys kept it a secret from me? It MUST be good!"
Gretchen slid over so Adyson could read the entry. Isabella peeked over the brunette's shoulder, but did not lift a finger to stop her.
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Entry #103 [FSD105] - Silence is Not Golden (08.04.11)
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[Entry #103 - Written by Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, troop leader
Isabella, again. Mood: disbelief.
The most horrific thing in the world happened to me today! Well, other than the - ahem - 'paper' incident. You have to promise NEVER to tell anyone about what I'm writing in you. EVER!
That being said... I guess I should take you back to Thursday. And it all started with an innocent game of Truth or Dare...]
Flashback to said day, or rather, night, as the core members of the troop, minus Adyson, were gathered around a campfire in Isabella's backyard, just off to the side of her outdoor pool. Three tents had been pitched, and they were about to head off to sleep, having been told to do so by Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro just a minute ago.
But first...
"Last turn!" Holly announced. "Make it good!"
Everyone turned their attention to Milly, who was wearing her mustard-colored shirt inside-out, as she had been dared to so earlier in the night.
"Isabella!"
The others slid away from their troop leader, leaving a direct line of sight between the two girls.
"Truth... or dare?"
Isabella smiled. This was Milly after all, the sweetest girl in the entire troop... next to Isabella herself, that is. There was no reason to suspect what was coming.
"Okay, Milly. Dare."
Ah. My first mistake. Picking dare.
Milly thought long and hard of a dare. Isabella patiently waited for her to come up with one.
"Okay. Isabella, I dare you... to not talk about Phineas in any way, OR talk at all whenever Phineas can see you, for 72 hours straight!"
The others were amazed at hearing Milly come up with such a clever dare. But maybe too clever...
"No way she does it," Gretchen whispered to Ginger. "Chief would never be able to do that."
And here comes numero dos...
"I'll do it!" Isabella declared, amped to take on the challenge.
The next morning, Isabella and the girls walked across the street from her house to Phineas' backyard.
"Do we HAVE to do this?" Isabella asked. "It's hard enough I can't talk about or to Phineas... but you're still making me see him?"
"It's not any fun if you play 'keep away' the whole time!" explained Ginger.
The six of them proceeded to the backyard, where they found Phineas and Ferb already hard at work on their Big Idea of the Day, which had something to do with early 20th Century planes, since they had begun building one from the ground up.
"Hey, Phineas!" all of the girls, minus Isabella, said in greeting.
"Hi, girls!" Phineas said back, waving hello.
The girls all turned towards Isabella, smiling as they knew what was supposed to come next. Isabella stood there, twiddling her thumbs, trying to resist the temptation of asking what Phineas was up to in her own, special way. Phineas, as if expecting it, was looking her way as well, not intending to get back to work until he heard her say...
"Whatcha doin'?"
That blurt out had not come from Isabella, but from Ginger instead. At first Phineas seemed confused, but then he shrugged his shoulders and went along with it.
"We're building some old-fashioned flying machines so we can recreate the famed Dogfight Over Danville of 1920!"
At that moment, Buford walked in, carrying Baljeet by his tail. Why tail? Because they were both wearing dog suits - Buford was dressed as a beagle, Baljeet as a miniature poodle.
"See?" Baljeet berated Buford. "Not THAT kind of dogfight!"
"Aw man! I was so in the mood to bark angrily at you all day!"
They spent all day putting the planes together, constructing six in total.
"Say, Isabella!" Phineas called out to her. "You wanna be my wingman? Or winggirl?"
She wanted to say yes, but with the girls watching her, she could not.
"I guess that's a no? Okay... I guess it's you and me, Ferb!"
Ferb had appeared in the back seat of the plane's cockpit, having already donned a hard half-spherical hat and goggles. Isabella was forced to settle for pairing with Gretchen for the reenactment.
Similar situations unfolded the next two days, as the girls helped Phineas and Ferb create an efficient, non-polluting energy source whose main ingredient was tree leaves on Saturday, and run a maid cafe that sold sweets and lightly-caffeinated beverages on Sunday. On both days, Phineas had offered Isabella many chances to spend some time together, up close and personal. But each time she could not accept, just because she was so determined to complete the dare.
But the inability to interact with her crush was starting to get to her. By the time the cafe was whisked away by the same mysterious occurrences that took away of the boys' creations at the end of the day, Isabella's hair was in a frazzled state, the purple bow in her hair was lopsided, her left eye was twitching involuntarily, and she had numerous iced hot chocolate splotches on her apron.
Phineas had noticed Isabella's current, uncharacteristic look, as everyone other than the two of them and Ferb walked out of the backyard - including the rest of the troop. He decided to go over to her and ask her what was up.
"Great job today, Isabella!" he complimented her. "A couple minor complaints of your dirty apron towards the end there. But that's my fault for deciding to go with cloth ones over the non-stick, cast iron ones. Maybe next time."
But despite all of his praise, Isabella did not respond.
"Hmmm... are you upset because today's the last day of summer? I know we've had a lot of great times together, Isabella, but they don't have to end when school starts tomorrow..."
Suddenly, Gretchen stuck her head back into yard, having remembered someone was supposed to be keeping an eye on Isabella at all times to see if she would crack. Just in time, because she saw Isabella's expression change. To Gretchen, it looked as if Isabella was ready to crack, and she was going to take it out on an unsuspecting Phineas.
Gretchen quickly rushed in, grabbed Isabella and pulled her around the corner to the far side of the house.
"It's okay!" Gretchen told the heavy-breathing Isabella. "Even though we're still in the yard, you can talk since Phineas technically can't see you."
Isabella took that opportunity to finally get everything off of her chest.
"I can't take it anymore, Gretchen! Interacting with you-know-who is as natural to me as breathing air! I can't live without doing it!"
"Chief... you're coming real close to losing the dare..."
Isabella grabbed Gretchen at the elbows and started shaking her.
"I'm not gonna make it to tomorrow morning! I... have... to... say... it..."
Back with the boys...
"In hindsight," Phineas realized, "we should've had the girls make cupcakes shaped like our heads. Those would've been big sellers."
"PHINEAS! WHATCHA DOIN'?"
Isabella came sprinting towards them, with hearts in her eyes. At that exact moment, Buford, Baljeet, and all of the girls walked back into the yard. They were surprised to hear Isabella calling out Phineas' name.
"Wow," gasped Holly. "She didn't make it?"
"I guess even Isabella's not perfect," Ginger stated aloud. "And Milly wins Truth or Dare."
Milly clapped her hands once in glee. Then...
"Is there a patch for that?"
Remember those two mistakes I made earlier? Well...
Isabella jumped into the air, intending to land in her crush's arms, and he appeared ready for it, as he put out his arms to catch her.
...here's strike three.
Unfortunately, she had mistimed her jump and had landed short.
"Isabella!" Phineas exclaimed. "Are you okay?"
No, not that.
Phineas extended his left hand out to help Isabella up, but she decided to reach for it without looking. But her aim was a little low, as instead of grabbing his hand, she got a hold of the right leg of his short.
And then she made a downward pulling motion.
That.
Isabella had pulled Phineas's shorts down, revealing his underwear.
"HA!" pointed out Buford. "Isabella just pantsed Dinner Bell!"
Everyone laughed mockingly at Isabella's embarrassing mistake.
Adyson stopped reading. She was stunned in disbelief. Her jaw hung wide open as she turned to look at Isabella, then went back to staring at the screen. Adyson read the last few lines again, to herself. Once she was finished, she still had that same dumbfounded look on her face as she turned her head towards Isabella again.
"Wow," Adyson finally managed to utter. "Wow."
Isabella was confused by her friend's reaction. "Is that the good kind of 'wow' or the bad kind?"
Adyson chuckled as she got up out of her seat and patted Isabella on the shoulder.
"Okay, Izzy, I give! Phineas is yours, Phineas is yours! You don't have to make up some crazy story to stake your claim to him! Ha!"
"Huh?"
"But that was a good read, though. Thanks for the laugh!"
She giggled some more as she walked off, leaving a perplexed Isabella behind to ponder Adyson's strange reaction. But Gretchen had a perfect explanation for it.
"I guess everyone really DOES take bad news differently."
"Yes," agreed Isabella. "Yes they do."
End Entry
Author's Notes:
You've probably figured out by now that this is the incident Buford used to blackmail Isabella in "I'm Your Next Class President!" It was a story that had to be told, and it's a cute wrinkle in the relationship between Phineas and Isabella. One that damages it beyond repair? One that they'll look back on and laugh at several years down the road? Perhaps.
But the only one laughing right now is Adyson... because she thinks it's too ridiculous to be true.