Chapter 5

(The Pancake Hut, Batesville, 8am)

The entourage entered into the restaurant where a waitress, named Belinda Sue, came to seat them. She was in her mid 20s, Caucasian skin, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, with her hair tied up in a ponytail.

"Hi, y'all! Welcome to the Pancake Hut! How many do y'all have in your party?"

"Five adults and seven children and one pet. I would like for myself, my husband, and the other parents will be in one both, Phineas and his friends in a second, and Candace and Stacy in a third. Perry will be with the kids." Linda said. She organized the seating arrangements beforehand.

"Right this way!" Belinda Sue replied, grabbing the menus. She pointed to three empty booths right near the windows.

The waitress then looked at the costumes the kids were wearing and asked a question to Linda.

"So, what are these young'uns dressed up for?"

"Oh, we're going to a Mark Twain festival up in Tunica. They're re-enacting scenes from his most famous story, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer!" Linda replied.

"Aww…." the waitress swooned, "…ain't they so cute? I read Tom Sawyer around seven times!"

"Wow! You must be a really big fan of Twain!" Linda exclaimed.

"Yes, yes I am!" Belinda Sue replied with a smile. She took out her pencil and writing pad and said "Now, what would y'all like to drink?"

Once the parents discussed what their breakfast drinks would be, Linda gave out her order.

"I would like three coffees, one with creamer and sugar and the other two with only sweeteners. My husband would like the unsweet English Tea and Mrs. Tjinder with a lemonade."

"Comin' right up!"

She walked next to the booth of Phineas and his friends.

"And for you young'uns?"

"Me and Ferb would like two glasses of milk. Isabella and Buford would each have an orange juice, and Baljeet would have chocolate milk! For Perry, can you give him some water?"

"You mean your pet frog, right?" Belinda Sue wondered, looking at Perry in his frog costume.

"He's not a frog, to be exact. He's a platypus in a frog costume. He doesn't do much."

"Ohhh…" Belinda Sue understood. "I'll get your plat-ey-pus some water right away!"

And finally, she came to Candace and Stacy's booth. Stacy was sitting across from Candace.

"Aww…she looks soooo cute!" she exclaimed, looking at Candace's sailor suit. Belinda Sue then pinched Candace's cheeks, speaking to her in baby talk, "Aww…who's the cutie-poo? Oh yes you are! Oh yes you are!"

"Please…stop…" Candace begged, "I'm supposed to be sixteen, not two!"

It didn't help much that her giant lollipop was sitting right next to her.

Once she stopped pinching Candace's cheeks, Belinda Sue got down to business.

"So what would you two like, and your little lolly?"

Candace was crestfallen. She buried her hands into her face at being treated like a child instead of a young lady about to be sixteen.

"I'll have a chocolate milk." Stacy replied, turning her head to her best friend.

"And I'll have coffee…three tall and large cups of black, dark-roasted coffee!" Candace muttered through her hands.

"Wow…three cups?!" Belinda Sue exclaimed in amazement.

"Let's just say that she needs the caffeine….and lots of it!"

"O…kay…"

The waitress wrote down the remainder of the drink orders and left.

"This…is officially the worst day of my life, Stacy…" Candace moaned, "I'm supposed to be sixteen! And people are still treating me as if I am two years old! And worse, that photo of me in this stupid sailor suit is circulating somewhere on the Internet! If Jeremy finds out about my photo, I'll never show my face in public ever again!"

"Candace, maybe you're overblowing this out of proportion!" Stacy replied, seeing Candace before in that state.

"I even made a paper bag saying that 'I AM MRS. LOSER' on it!" Candace sighed, showing Stacy the paper bag with the aforementioned writing on it.

"I retract my former statement!" Stacy said with realization. She then began to think.

"What are you contemplating, Stacy?"

"A way to help you to prevent Jeremy from seeing the photo!" Stacy explained. "Who knows if that photo can fall into the wrong hands?"

"But how? I would be humiliated if that happens!" Candace asked when Stacy's phone went off. The ringtone to her phone, though, was familiar to Candace. It was Four similar beeps going "beep-beep-be-beep"

All of a sudden, an image of Kim holding the Kimmunicator came up in her mind.

She gasped with joy.

"Stacy! That's it!"

"What's it, Candace?"

"You know that tech dude that we saw Kim talk to in that…Kime…Kimu...that….what-chamacallit?" Candace interjected, but pronouncing the name of the device wrong.

"Can you just call it her advanced phone?" Stacy suggested as Belinda Sue gave them their beverages.

"It was kinda like a yPhone but it had live chat on it!" Candace tried to explain, sipping on one of her three cups of coffee. "But that's not the point, Stacy! The point is that her tech dude can help me with that photo problem!"

"But how are you going to reach Kim? The cell signal isn't strong enough here!" Stacy said, bringing up another problem.

"You're right! Looks like we're going to have to wait until we get to the convention center." Candace sighed, continuing to sip her coffee. "I just don't want anyone to download that photo!"

"Don't fret, Candace! No one's even going to look at that photo!" Stacy grinned.

(The Starlet Mansion)

Veruca entered into the security wing of her best friend's mansion. Her ever-present servants were working on the computers, going through pictures of Candace.

"Come on! I need to find something humiliating so that I can blackmail her and set up the final phase of my plan to destroy Candace's life!" the heiress exclaimed. "And I don't want to be late on my trip to London!"

"Do not worry, Our Glorious Leader! We shall find you a humiliating photo of Candace soon enough!" Servant 55 replied.

Veruca sighed, resting on her golden lion throne.

Sometimes, I am surrounded by idiots.

Then, a beeping came from the computer.

"I found a photo, Our Goddess of Perfection! I found one!" Servant 55 exclaimed.

"Print it out and bring it to me!" Veruca demanded.

Servant 55 printed out the photo and brought it to his 17 ½ year old superior.

Veruca grabbed it from his hands and smirked.

"Yes! This is the final ingredient that I need! You shall be promoted to Servant 51!"

"Thank you, O All-Seeing Leader of Glory!"
_

At the kids' booth, Phineas still pondered on the Big Idea.

"Hmm…what can we do on the Mississippi River?" he wondered, "There's gotta be something that we can build!"

"Phineas, if it is fine by you, maybe you can brainstorm some ideas from my picture book!" Baljeet offered, holding the picture book in his two hands. It was about the Mississippi River itself.

"Pfft…" Buford remarked, "What good's that going to do?"

"I was only trying to help him!" Baljeet countered.

"Point taken. But the next time Phineas is thinking of an idea, I am going to help him first!" Buford demanded.

Isabella groaned, but said nothing and folded her arms, glaring at Buford.

Phineas received the photo book and looked through it, turning through the pages.

"Let's see….boring…boring…AHH…boring…"

Then he came across a picture of two steamboats, the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee , racing. It was titled as "The Great Steamboat Race of 1870".

Phineas observed the picture with extreme interest.

"That's it!"

"What's it, Dinner Bell?" Buford asked.

"We can race steamboats like what they did over 100 years ago!" Phineas replied, showing the picture to the rest of his friends.

"But how?" Baljeet wondered, "Steamboats are relatively slow to race in today's standards as compared to 1870! They are not equipped to handle the rigors of 21st century travel…"

"…Until now!" Phineas grinned.

"Guys, I know what we're gonna do today! We're going to bring steamboats into the 21st century and make the best and most badical steamboat race ever!" he shouted with joy.

"Badical?" Buford questioned the phrase.

"I got it from Ron." Phineas replied with a smile. "Hey, maybe Perry would like to be first mate!"

He looked around and asked.

"Hey, where's Perry?"

Perry crawled to the men's restroom and locked it. Since it was unoccupied, Perry tossed aside his frog costume, stood upright, and put on his fedora.

Agent P pressed a tile on the floor, which activated a tube. He jumped into the tube and began to slide upwards out of the restaurant. He landed feet-first on top of an 18-wheeler and another tube came and sucked him downward to his seat.

The eighteen-wheeler was modified with his equipment and his briefing monitor. On the outside, the side of the truck read: "Our Worldwide Cherry-picking-truckers of America"

Major Monogram came on-screen and said, "Morning, Agent P! Ah, I see that you found our new modified Eighteen-Wheeler lair! You like it so far?"

Agent P gave his approval, a thumbs-up.

"Now, let's git er' rollin' … or however that's supposed to go!"

The eighteen-wheeler drove from the restaurant and merged onto the interstate. Monogram began his briefing.

"We have intelligence sources pointing to Doofenshmirtz's latest whereabouts, a submarine right underneath the Mississippi River! Carl went undercover and investigated the scene from Natchez from a nearby bed and breakfast overlooking the river!"

"I cannot wear that disguise ever again!" Carl exclaimed, "I looked like a girl!"

To Agent P's horror, Carl came onscreen wearing a Southern belle ballgown and a bonnet. He also held a parasol in his hands.

Monogram continued with the briefing. "Earlier, he has stolen the following items: Seventy gallons of Canadian extra-sticky syrup, one rhinestone jumpsuit, and, most disturbingly, two-hundred orders of bacon, peanut butter and sliced banana sandwiches! Find out what Doofenshmirtz is up to and sink his plans to the bottom of the river!"

Agent P saluted to his superior and activated his jetpack. A hole opened up at the top of the trailer of the eighteen-wheeler as he flew through. He began his search, planning to stop Doofenshmirtz's latest plan.