Reese was awakened by her alarm clock. This wasn't out of the norm. Being woken by your alarm clock was how things were supposed to go. However, there was a problem with that on this day.
You see, Reese did not often wake to her alarm clock. She usually started her day at sunrise. She practiced her training, exercising. The alarm clock was more to tell her when to stop training.
She slept in today. Now everything was thrown out of whack.
Reese groaned. She looked over towards her snake, who was just getting up from the alarm. Some mornings, Reese wondered if the alarm was for her sake or for the snake's.
"Great- now I have to rush." Reese complained. She took a calming breath before getting to work.
She rushed about the room, changing out from her pajamas into her usual clothes. She gave her hair a quick brush. She debated just pulling the thing back into a ponytail but decided against it.
Her cobra came out of the bed. Reese barely noted it as she pulled out a travel toothbrush and toothpaste from her Bag. Reese hummed as the snake bopped her nose on Reese's ankle.
"Don't have time to play, Zara." Reese explained. She knelt down to put on her shoes. The cobra hissed. "There's a carnival today, which means I have to book it down there to make it in time for- for whatever they have today."
The snake curled around Reese in argument. Reese huffed, her head falling back so she could groan to the heavens.
"Fine, I'll stay for food. Happy?" Reese conceded.
The snake stayed where she was.
Reese rolled her eyes. She limped out of her room. The cobra was dragged behind her, her long tail leaving a trail. Reese still got herself together for some breakfast. Her snake let out a satisfied hiss.
==W&R==
The carnival looked really fun. Reese had managed to do some fun stuff before the day's events began. She did the ring toss! Unbelievably, Reese won a second row toy. The giant purple octopus/bear toy was tied by the arms around her neck. Her other victories- the games ball toss and balloon darts- had given her bottom row gifts. They were tucked back into her Bag. They were less fun to wear as a cape.
She skipped up to the pony show. She crossed paths with Isabella, giving the Fireside Girl a big smile.
"Hey Reese." Isabella greeted. "Whatcha doin'?"
Reese pointed with her thumb to the toy on her back. "Winning stuff. I'm naming it Jerry."
"Cool." Isabella praised. "I was milking cows for my milking badge." She held up the big blue badge.
"That's so cool!" Reese cheered. "Do you know where the boys are at? I saw them earlier, but I lost them in the crowd."
Isabella looked ahead, squinting into the distance. "I think I see them this way."
The two girls walked over to the horse pen. Phineas and Ferb were climbing out. Neither of them looked too excited to be leaving their latest companions. The redhead boy smiled wide when he saw his friends though. If there was any sort of facial tic on Ferb's face, Reese couldn't see it from where she was.
"Hey, Isabella. Hey, Reese. What are you doing here?" Phineas asked.
"I won the carnival booth games!" Reese showed off her makeshift cape. "This is Jerry, he came from the ring toss."
"I just earned my milking badge, and it was so easy. All you do is squeeze and pull and squeeze and pull and squeeze and pull and squeeze and pull, and- so, whatcha doin'?" Isabella asked.
"We're riding ponies-" Phineas switched to a classic cowboy accent. "-but it makes a feller hanker for the real thing. You know, livin' out on the open range. Ridin', ropin', brandin'. Bustin' broncos and breakin' wind with your amigos under the western skies." He turned to his brother, excited enough to drop the cowboy twang. "Heck, we could even ford a stream! I don't even know what that means, but it sounds fun!"
Ferb spit on the ground. It came with the added cartoon effect. Reese was not surprised.
"Oh, and spitting. Hey, where's Perry?"
==W&R==
Termites.
Termites happened next.
Reese always knew bugs were the source of her struggles.
The Doofenshmirtz controlled termites ate the fences around the carnival. Particularly the animal fences. The cows were the first animals released into the world.
"Wow, a stampeding herd of cattle." Phineas mused.
"They're headed straight for town! We gotta do something!" Isabella cried out.
"All we need are a couple of horses and we could-" Phineas began. He was stopped when the termites moved to the horse pens. The two horses that the brothers rode earlier were freed. "Huh. Let's go!" He and Ferb ran to their horses, putting their cowboy hats back on. "Let's round us up some cows! Come on, Isabella! Yee-haw!"
Isabella and Reese searched for horses to ride. They spotted them in the distance, released by the termites. "Ooh." They cooed.
Isabella had noticed a tiny pony, wearing a rein covered in hearts and a bright pink saddle.
Reese saw a horse so cool and rebellious that it didn't even have a saddle!
Isabella went to her pony, excited and cheering as she climbed on.
Reese ran to the stallion. His coat was dark black, and he had rage in his eyes like a thousand thunderstorms. There had been a sign in front of his fenced-in home, warning that he was a danger-danger-danger with three exclamation points, so you should take it seriously.
Unfortunately, that sign had been made of wood.
Even if Reese had seen the warning sign, she would've ignored it.
The horse was not excited about a little human girl approaching him. He had wanted to enjoy his freedom, to be free in the wild once again. This child was blocking his path!
Reese held up a carrot from her Bag.
This child could be trusted with his life.
Reese grinned. She pulled out a saddle from her Bag- she liked being prepared, sue her. Once she was seated, she fed the horse the carrot. As he chewed, she scratched the horse's neck.
Together, the four kids went off on their ponies to herd some cows. Much to Candace's annoyance.
==W&R==
Reese decided his name was Spirit. He'd earned it. She rode with the crowd, doing her best to herd cows. Can she change the phrase from herding cats to herding cows? Cause this was hard.
Cats could be guided with a laser pointer. Or a fake rat.
Cows had to be yelled at.
There was so much more work.
In their defense, that could be because there were only four kids against a whole barn full of cows. Maybe that's why this was so hard.
But Reese had Spirit on her side. There was a chance.
All four of them ended up in the local mall to chase out these cows. Reese and Spirit had chased them into a bookstore at one point. If Reese accidentally stole some books, it was because a handful of cows had chewed on them. They would've been thrown out anyway.
Reese could hear Phineas singing in the distance. She did her best to point Spirit that way. It was hard to get the horse to do much. To Reese, it felt like everything she was telling the horse to do was what the horse wanted to be doing regardless. His wants were paired with her's for the time being.
There was no reason to counter that.
She didn't command the stallion's moves. She gave very firm suggestions. Spirit fought her at times, usually giving in as long as Reese gave him times to run wild.
But they could both agree on this:
They would stop running to have lunch. Conveniently, all the cows and the rest of the cowboys stopped to eat too.
There weren't many words spoken between the two. They weren't needed.
==W&R==
The four of them were riding alongside each other. Reese had just worked with Spirit to loop in the last few straggler cows. She blamed those cows on Candace.
"Yep, just a-lopin' them doggies down the long, lonesome trail. Ain't this livin?" Phineas asked, still using his cowboy twang.
"Boy, howdy!" Isabella cheered, copying his twang.
"Yippee kay yay!" Reese shouted. She waved her cowboy hat in the air, just for the heck of it.
Yet as they guided the cows along the many roads of Danville, it was clear that these cows didn't want to move where they were going. The traffic of the highway was rising again. Too many loud car horns had the cows spooked. They rushed out from the controlled grouping by Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, and Reese.
Spirit was starting to get shaken by the loud noises. Reese brushed on his neck, whispering calmingly into his ear. The stallion neighed in agitation. Reese had a snake for a pet, and lived with Mr Martin. She was a 71 year old who worked a lot in law enforcement. She made it a point to learn how to deescalate a situation.
She let her hand rest on the stallion's neck, leaning so her tiny body rested against him. She leveled out her breathing. The stallion was huffing, tossing his head about in stress. Reese kept her breathing slow. Her heart rate was kept calming as well. Thankfully fast, Spirit calmed down quick enough. Mission accomplished, Reese continued the chase.
"They're headed for a cliff!" Isabella warned.
Reese pulled her stallion to a halt. Spirit listened. Together, they watched the cows stop just before falling over the steep cliff.
"Ferb, strum something! It'll calm them down!" Phineas instructed.
Ferb tried. His guitar barely got a note out before a string broke.
"That's not good." Reese mused.
"Nope." Phineas agreed.
Down below, the cows yelled and screamed as they ran down off the cliff. Reese sighed. Disappointed, but not surprised. She gave Ferb a packet of guitar strings for later. He gave her a curt nod in reply.
All at once, the four cowboys leapt off the cliff. The three speakers shouted cowboy phrases as they did so.
Reese laughed in delight when the fall was broken by a waterslide. Ah, the world of Phineas & Ferb. You really couldn't make this stuff up. The cows were enjoying it too. They performed interpretive dances at the bottom of the waterslides.
"Yo, cows. Uh, hyah." Phineas prompted them. The cows, realizing that they should be on the move, obeyed with embarrassed expressions. "Hey, Ferb. We're fording a stream."
Reese brushed on Spirit's neck. "Good boy." She praised him, hugging him for added benefit.
==W&R==
The cows were all returned to the carnival. Seeing as all the pens were eaten by termites, they had no place to put them. The cowboys ended up moving them into a suddenly appearing makeshift fence.
Reese noted Doofenshmirtz being chased by termites on the rollercoaster. She saw no reason to tell anyone else about it.
"Well, this has been fun, but we ought to be getting the herd back into a coral. Where can we find a coral?" Phineas wondered.
The rollercoaster collapsed. It was such a perfect fit to the makeshift coral that happened to have formed around the cows.
"Well, that was easy." Phineas cheered.
Happy with a job well done, the four cowboys climbed off their respective horses. Reese untied Jerry from her shoulders as she took back her saddle from Spirit.
She replaced the reins with Jerry. She held the stallion's cheek.
"Go now, be free!" She instructed.
The stallion nodded. Reese waved the horse off.
"Huh. That was so awesome." Phineas cheered.
"Woo-hoo!" Isabella agreed.
Linda walked up to the kids. The ones she believed just had an innocent afternoon at a carnival. "Hey, kids. Did you guys have fun?"
"Yee-haw!" Phineas waved his cowboy hat.
"Yo, doggie!" Isabella agreed.
"Woohoo!" Reese spun around in place.
"Good." Linda cheered. Her eldest child walked to the car, looking like she'd been hit by cacti, scorpions, and snakes. Oh also mud. "Candace! Are you okay, sweetie?"
"I so don't want to talk about it." Candace warned, climbing into the car.
"All right. Get in the car, snappy pants." Linda replied. She smiled at her less problematic boys. Or at least the ones she thought were less problematic. They'd just led a stampede through town. Candace would be brushing out cactus spines from her hair for a week. "What was that about?"
"I reckon herding cattle ain't for city folk." Ferb explained.
Reese was snickering all the way back home. If she heard a happy horse calling out as he ran into the sunset, then that was just her secret joy.
==W&R==
AN: Sorry this took so long to write. It's 85 degrees in my town, and the heat is slowly killing me. I'm happy to be writing about the cold in S'Winter tomorrow. Like...so much happier.
Thanks to Lord Archer Sirius Rigel Black for favoriting and following