Chapter 2: 1.01: Rollercoaster

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Summer Vacation Day 104

By early afternoon the Memory Cartoon-inator had received memories from Candace, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, and (Phineas thought this was his idea) Perry. Buford and Baljeet had not been present for the first rollercoaster, so their memories were left alone for the time being. Phineas promised he would let them know when he and Ferb were ready to make cartoons of the other hundred and two days of vacation.

"It could take a full day for the Memory Cartoon-inator to finish a single day's cartoon. Or longer, we don't really know yet. But we'll be at this for a while, months probably. We'll bring the first episode to class tomorrow, unless it goes horribly wrong."

"Could I see the episode even if it somehow does go wrong?" asked Isabella.

"Sure Isabella. Hopefully it should be finished by this evening, so we'll call you if it is a disaster. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait until tomorrow," he said playfully.

Their friends left in good spirits, with best wishes for the –inator and for a new school year (especially from Baljeet, who intended to go to bed at eight o'clock in order to get up super-early and…well, it was Baljeet). Phineas and Ferb carried the Memory Cartoon-inator into a corner of the garage. It was heavy but not overly so; at heart it was just a glorified computer. And they intended for this invention to last for a long time, which meant not leaving it outside at the mercy of the elements, or Mom's car.

Candace accosted them as soon as they came in. "So, is it ready yet? How long will this thing take? Can I see a preview?" Her words streamed out, barely understandable.

"The Memory Cartoon-inator is running right now," grunted Phineas. "With luck we should have a cartoon ready this evening. Could you move that table a bit back, Candace?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, sure. And somebody needs to keep an eye on this machine until Mom gets home. I know having it inside the house offers us some degree of safety, but the mysterious force that vanishes all of your inventions from the backyard may still tear the roof off the garage, or open a giant pit under it, or turn the machine invisible, or…"

"Candace, I'm sure nothing like that will happen. But if it will make you feel better, we'll leave the door to the house open so we can watch the Memory Cartoon-inator. I can't wait to see how it turns out."

"Neither. Can. I." Candace's eye started twitching. As soon as her brothers had put the machine down, she ran to the kitchen, grabbed a chair, set it up right by the door to the garage, and sat down staring at the Memory Cartoon-inator. "You two go ahead. I'm not leaving this spot until Mom gets home!"

"Uh, you do realize that's still a few hours away."

"I know."

"Well okay. Come on Ferb, let's see if we still have time to do something small but fun."

As it turned out, they did not. Ferb considered that once the Memory Cartoon-inator made the cartoon, it would not be the ideal machine with which to actually watch the finished product. The screen was not particularly large or high resolution. And certainly they couldn't bring it to school; the machine wasn't exactly small.

So Phineas and Ferb rode their bikes into downtown Danville and bought a large supply of blank DVDs. Phineas was a bit chagrined that he had not thought of this earlier, but it wasn't really a big deal. Ferb comforted him, and they were back home and settled in within the hour. However, that also blew the time they may have had to do another project.

The two boys instead spent the afternoon engaged in commonplace pursuits. Watching some television, playing a few videogames, routine maintenance and restocking the paint for their automatic platypus-assisted system for getting dressed in the morning, the usual.

Candace spent the afternoon staring at the Memory Cartoon-inator, all the while engaged in a running prayer to what she called 'the mysterious force', pleading for it to spare the machine.

Perry spent the afternoon with Phineas and Ferb, just enjoying the day with them and thinking how much better it would be once his secret was known.

Late that afternoon, just as the sun was beginning to get low in the sky, the four of them heard Linda pull into the driveway. Candace jumped up at once.

"She's here! Phineas! Ferb! Get down here right now, we've gotta show it to her!"

"Okay, Candace." Both boys thought she was being overly concerned, but were happy to play along. And of course they loved Mom and were always happy to see her.

Linda, concerned with parking the car, did not yet notice the Memory Cartoon-inator. Phineas and Ferb came into the garage to meet her.

"Well hi, boys. Did you have fun today?"

"We sure did Mom," Phineas replied. "We've built the most amazing thing, you've gotta see it!"

"Just let me drop these off in the living room and then I'm all yours" said Linda while walking into the house with both arms full of bags of school supplies. As soon as she crossed the threshold Candace was all over her.

"Well, well, did you see it Mom?"

"Candace, whatever it is, it can wait until…"

"No time! Move! Now!" Candace grabbed the bags and dropped them on the floor, then started dragging her Mom back into the garage.

"Candace, I am not in the…"

"Go go go! It's inside the garage; I might have a chance this time!"

"Candace!"

But Candace had already forced Linda back into the garage and around the car. Linda looked ready to start on a really good diatribe against Candace, but then she saw the boys' construction.

Now, although Candace's claims regarding her brothers had been unsubstantiated almost every day over the summer vacation, there had been a few exceptions. Linda had seen, for instance, the fort Phineas and Ferb had built, and their ship S. S. Nosebud, and had heartily approved of both constructions, both being 'simply' wood and nails. She also knew about their attempt at an animal translator, which apparently proved that Perry's "k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k" did not mean anything in particular. That project, while involving electronics, she deemed 'safe' after seeing it, and was quite impressed at the effort her boys had shown.

So in the present instance, Linda's first reactions were both positive: amazement and curiosity.

"What is this, boys?"

At seeing this calm and non-busting reaction from her Mom, Candace was baffled momentarily, before she stomped off into the kitchen. She would have gone even farther away to be depressed in solitude, but she still did want to hear the conversation.

"Do you like it Mom? It's our Memory Cartoon-inator."

"Your Memory…what?"

"Well basically, the helmet takes copies of our memories of this summer. The Memory Cartoon-inator stores them, and then compiles them together into one video in the form of a cartoon."

As accepting as Linda was, this sounded more complex, and more dangerous, than an animal translator that likely had not worked anyway. But more important, the concept was so outlandish that Linda was lost and not taking in Phineas' description. "Make copies of…how is that even possible?"

"Something to do with magnetic fields and tracers. Except the helmet doesn't actually use a dye as such, it's…actually it's really interesting. You see…" It was the phrase 'magnetic fields and tracers' coupled with the machine having a helmet that did in fact drive Linda into the realm of anger.

"That's incredibly dangerous! Messing around with the brain can go wrong in so many ways!"

Ferb piped up. "At heart, it's similar to an MRI machine. And they're perfectly safe."

"Yeah," Phineas continued. "We all gave our memories earlier today, and nothing bad happened."

"That's even worse! Experimenting on yourselves! And without adult supervision or permission. You could have given yourselves permanent brain damage! It doesn't matter if it seems like it should be safe. If someone experienced has not approved of an experiment, you don't do it."

Now Phineas was torn. On the one hand he and Ferb had done so many amazing and impossible things over the summer, and even though he thought most of them had been approved by either Mom or Dad (and due to massive miscommunications, he had good reason for thinking this a lot of the time), there had rarely been an adult figure supervising anything. And they had always turned out successfully and safely.

On the other hand, the boys had only infrequently messed about with anything to do with biology. The few times they had; the shrinking machine, the growth potion, that time in Hawaii with the A-Primes, using their molecular separator on a person, to name a few; well, everything turned out alright in the end, but there had definitely been some problems. That was why he and Ferb usually stuck to either large structures, or breaking laws of physics. Biology was not their strongest suit. And extracting memories from a person's brain definitely fit under biology.

The latter argument won out in his head, and Phineas looked quite downcast and apologetic. Linda saw this, and seeing as how there hadn't actually been any harm done, was in a forgiving mood. "We'll talk about this more later. I probably would have been okay with you using this helmet if I knew all the details of it. Now…you said the machine takes the memories and turns them into a video? How does that work?"

"Well," Phineas said shakily, "that's just done with software. Ferb programmed the Memory Cartoon-inator to turn the multiple viewpoints into one."

"You know how to do that?" Linda asked in amazement.

Ferb nodded.

"Well. That is very impressive."

"Ferb's amazing at the keyboard. Not only does the final cartoon have a single viewpoint, but it also self-corrects to make the overall story coherent and entertaining."

"Final cartoon?"

"Well human memory isn't perfect. In order to smooth out any differences between different peoples' memories, and to save energy usage on the graphics, it turns everything into a cartoon. See; here's our cartoon selves" said Phineas, pulling the pictures up.

Linda leaned in to look at them, and smiled. "Aww, don't you two look cute as cartoons? Phineas your head looks even more triangular on the screen."

"I know. The machine exaggerates things like that for ease of recognition."

"Well, it certainly looks distinctive." Linda sighed. "For the life of me I can't see harm coming from this. Boys, promise me you won't ever mess around with testing anything on people without professional adult supervision again. Okay?"

"We promise." The boys' voices were small, but understanding – at least for the particular field of human biological experimentation.

Candace had been attentively listening from kitchen. Her spirits, momentarily lifted at her Mom's earlier outburst, fell once again. "What? That's all you're going to do to them?"

"Well nobody was hurt, and the machine seems to be safe enough – that is somewhat lucky I'll admit – but the boys understand that what they did was wrong, and they won't do it again. Plus the machine seems to work…speaking of which, why exactly did you build it in the first place?"

"Oh that's easy. We're going to turn the memories of everything we did over the summer into a cartoon, and bring it into school tomorrow. You know that the standard question everybody asks the first day back, teachers included, is 'what did you do over the summer?' And they expect a real answer. Well, instead of just telling everyone, now we can show them!"

"Well isn't that clever! Do you think your dear old Mom can have a look at the video too?"

"Mom!" Candace said exasperatedly. "Why aren't you busting the boys for this? One little tap on the hand and a vague promise and suddenly everything's peaches and roses and you're oh so accepting!"

"What? The boys promised not to do anything like this again. The machine is already built and thankfully it's harmless. As long as that's the case, and as long as making this cartoon is just as safe, then we might as well enjoy it."

"Oh, you're gonna love it Mom! The cartoon should be done later this evening. It's only one day of the summer but man, was it a cool one!"

"Well don't spoil the surprise for me. We'll watch it after dinner. I'm sure you father will be very interested as well. He'll be home soon too. Now I've gotta get dinner started." With that she turned and went back into the kitchen.

Phineas turned to Ferb. "Huh. When you think about it, she has a point. Biological engineering is one of the harder branches of the field. And we've never officially studied anything about it. It took us like half an hour to figure out the difference between Candace and a dog!"

"Well, it is a lot harder looking from the inside."

"Arrrgh!" Candace yelled. "I don't know how you two managed to get away with this, what on earth Mom is thinking…but just you wait! When she finds out about the rollercoaster…"

"Oh yeah! Absolutely nothing to do with biology. Just straight up construction. And really big construction at that. She'll be so impressed!"

"You…you two are just…" Candace gave up. "I'll be in my room. We'll see who has the last laugh. You two may have a few more hours reprieve, but you are going to be sooooo busted!" With that she too ran into the house.

Phineas and Ferb stood there. "I don't think any of us were laughing, Ferb." Ferb gave Phineas a look. "Oh, ohhhhh! It's an expression. Right. Doesn't quite seem to fit, though."

Lawrence arrived home a while later, and when he heard about the Memory Cartoon-inator he gushed ecstatic. All over dinner he praised his boys' inventiveness and construction skills, while Candace just sat in silence, listening as if in physical pain.

"Aww thanks Dad. But just wait until you see the actual cartoon!" Phineas replied.

He and Ferb went into the garage to check on the machine's progress several times that evening. Finally, at eight thirty, the cartoon was finished. Ferb copied it to one of the DVDs, while Phineas gathered everyone in front of the television.

"I can't wait to see if it used the theme song we gave it."

"You boys made a theme song?" Linda asked.

"Well, it's only a rough sketch, really. And it needs a proper introduction. But yeah, it's just something Ferb and I came up with. We gave it to the Memory Cartoon-inator to see what it would do with it. If it likes it, the song should be right at the beginning, you know, as if introducing a real televised cartoon."

"You two are so creative!"

Candace sat there in anticipation. "Just wait Mom. Just you wait. This cartoon is going to vindicate me. Finally, you'll see that I'm not crazy. Then you'll really have to bust them, for true this time."

"Candace, just because your brothers built this one interesting device and have active imaginations does not a bust equate. Anyway, this time I could actually see what they built; it's sitting the garage. How do you explain every other day this summer?"

"Sometimes I ask myself the same question."

Ferb came in with the DVD and put it in the player. Phineas turned to his family and announced "Okay everyone. Get ready for the first installment of a cartoon from Phineas and Ferb productions. I give you…The Rollercoaster! From the first day of summer vacation. Ferb? Start it up if you please."

Ferb pressed the play button.

The first thing on screen is a tear-off calendar showing the date to be June third. Pages start flying off into the sky before the view moves back down, through a tree, to show Phineas, Ferb, and Perry in front of said tree in their backyard.

There's a hundred and four days of summer vacation, then school comes along just to end it.

So the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it.

"That's gotta be a lead-in chord, Ferb!" Phineas said excitedly but quietly to his brother.

Ferb smiled back, but waved towards television screen, as if to say 'yes, now be quiet and watch'.

Like maybe:

Building a rocket, or fighting a mummy,

Or climbing up the Eiffel Tower;

(Very briefly, Phineas conducts Ferb and four penguins playing a trumpet riff)

Discovering something that doesn't exist ("Hey!" comments Phineas)

Or giving a monkey a shower.

(Now Ferb and two penguins have switched to guitar, while a third is on drums)

"Hey, what happened to the fourth penguin?" Phineas asked.

Surfing tidal waves, creating nanobots,

"Who cares, Phineas, now pipe down. I want to hear this!" said Candace frantically.

Or location Frankenstein's brain ("It's over here!" says Phineas off to the side)

Finding a dodo bird, painting a continent,

"My word, that is quite an unusual list of activities" commented Lawrence.

Or driving our sister insane. ("Phineas!" yells Candace from inside a picture frame)

"Oh yes," replied Candace, "but basically all of them have…Hey! Did the song say 'driving your sister insane'! Phineas!"

"Sorry, Candace. It's just for the rhyme."

In the background Phineas, Ferb, and assorted other people are seen directing a movie, operating a giant robot dog, building a racecar in the garage, sitting in a rollercoaster car as it re-enters the earth's atmosphere, and finally pushing an elephant across the backyard in a wagon.

As you can see there's a whole lot of stuff to do before school starts this fall, ("Come on, Perry!")

So stick with us 'cause Phineas and Ferb are gonna do it all!

Candace angrily tries to hit much smaller versions of Phineas, Ferb, and Perry as they keep popping out of an arcade game called "Whack a Pest!"

"Well, I can believe that" said Linda in amusement.

Finally, while stopped-frame scenes move across the background too fast to really tell what they are in detail, Phineas and Ferb dance in the foreground, Ferb wailing away on a guitar.

So stick with us 'cause Phineas and Ferb are gonna do it all!

Candace walks in. "Mo-om! Phineas and Ferb are making a title sequence!"

"Oh, this cartoon has got you nailed, Candace!" Linda said while laughing.

"Mo-om!" Candace whined.

The boys glance at each other, then give one final guitar chord.

"I must say, boys, the art certainly is 'cool', you two look quite dashing in two dimensions" Lawrence said.

The boys and Perry are motionless in the backyard; Phineas lying against the tree, Ferb sitting there reading, and Perry just lying there doing nothing.

"I agree," said Linda, "and you two have such wonderful imaginations at coming up all of the scenes for the background during that song."

"Well, they all really happened!" Phineas replied happily.

"Of course they did" Linda said patronizingly.

"So Ferb, what do you want to do today?" asks Phineas.

"Hey, what gives? My voice is not that high! Or that…bad" Phineas said a trifle indignantly.

"Perhaps we need to fine-tune the audio programming" Ferb replied.

Ferb just shrugs in reply.

"No, remember Phineas?" Candace piped in. "Early in the summer your voice pretty much dropped half an octave. Good thing, too."

"What about Perry? What does he want to do?"

"Well, I think you sound perfectly lovely" Linda said.

Phineas shrugged. "I guess it could be worse."

Ferb turns to look at Perry. His only response is to go "k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k".

"Well, he's a platypus, they don't do much. I for one am starting to get bored, and boredom is something up with which I will not put." Phineas rises to a sitting position, getting ever-more animated.

"What kind of phrasing is…"

"Quiet, Candace!"

"The first thing they're going to ask us when we get back to school is 'what did we do over summer?' I mean no school for three months; our lives should be a rollercoaster! And I mean a good rollercoaster. Not like that one we rode at the state fair."

"That's how you came up with the idea?" Candace yelled indignantly.

"What, did you think we planned this stuff in advance?" Phineas asked genuinely curious.

"Well…frankly, yes."

"Oh no, you see…"

In what is clearly a flashback scene, Phineas and Ferb are sitting in the front car of a rollercoaster as it crests the first hill…only to discover the drop is one of perhaps five feet and that this comprises the entire ride. The ride operator says simply "Please exit to the left" in a bored voice.

"I'm sorry to interrupt but, is this a flashback scene?"

"Yeah Dad."

Back in the present, Phineas continues with an annoyed look. "Man that was lame. Why if I built a rollercoaster I would…" suddenly his eyes fly wide open with a dinging sound. His expression turns positively gleeful. "That's it! I know what we're gonna do today!"

"And there's the line" said Candace dully.

"I just keep saying this, but you two have such wonderful imaginations" said Linda smiling still.

"Phineas, Ferb," comes a voice from off-screen. Their Mom, Linda, has walked into the backyard.

"I'm going to go pick up a few things. You boys stay out of trouble, okay?" She motions goodbye while already walking away.

"Aw, honey, you look so lovely in two dimensions."

"Thanks, dear."

"Okay Mom" Phineas replies shortly. He turns back to Ferb, and concludes in a very excited voice, with arms extended for emphasis: "We're gonna build a rollercoaster!"

"How wonderful, a play rollercoaster!"

"It's real, you know. You'll see this time" Candace mumbled.

As Linda enters the car, a head can be seen looking out from a house window. Candace immediately pops away from the window and then outside next to the car.

"I'm in charge, right? You did tell them I'm in charge?"

"Relax, Candace," Linda replies. "Nobody has to be in charge."

"Really? You end up leaving me in charge pretty much every day."

"But what if there's an emergency?" Candace goes on, not quite in a whiny voice but close.

"Frankly it's just quicker, Candace."

"Like what?"

"What if, uh…" after a moment of thought Candace gasps, both hands to her face. "What if a satellite falls out of orbit and crashes into the house?" She concludes this with a ding and attempting an angelic smile.

In a somewhat dull voice Linda replies "If that happens you're in charge."

"Yes!" Candace exclaims with a fist pump. She runs back and opens the gate to the backyard, sticks her head through.

"Mom says I'm in charge conditionally."

Facing her and Phineas and Ferb, each one with pencils and straightedges, sitting in front of construction boards, and with rolls of both fresh and crumpled paper everywhere. They are clearly immersed in their work. Perry is just lying under Phineas' table.

"Whatever," Phineas replies before turning his attention back down to his paper.

"Wow. You two got really involved for just a play rollercoaster" Linda commented.

"Wait a minute, what are you doing?"

He glances up briefly again. "Homework."

"Oh yeah, I remember that. It was like the only time we lied to you Candace."

Candace looks skeptical. "It's summer."

"Yeah, why did you?"

"That's cool. You wait 'til the last minute then."

"I…don't actually remember. But it didn't feel right."

She stares some more. "Well I'm watching you" she says in a cold voice, before turning to walk back to the house. She turns while on the threshold of the doorway. "And I'm in charge. Conditionally!" She slams the door and goes inside.

"And a good thing, boys. Even if it's about something minor like this, lying is wrong" Linda said.

"We know Mom."

Her face reappears peering outside through a window. But then the phone rings. Candace goes to answer it.

"Hello? Oh hi Stacy" she says in a much brighter voice. She swoops over to sit in the chair by the phone. "No I can't go the mall right now. Mom just went to go to the store. She left me in charge."

Meanwhile in the background, Phineas, Ferb, and Perry have walked across the yard. Now they return, Phineas holding several planks of wood. Ferb is pulling their wagon, piled many feet high with planks of wood of all sizes and types.

"That's a lot of wood for just a small play rollercoaster" Linda said, frowning.

"Well, wood's really only good for the track cross-planks, but even so you need a lot."

"Just exactly how big was this rollercoaster?"

"Well, you know, conditionally. Oh if you go, can you see if Jeremy is there? No, no, he's the cute one that works at Mister Slushy Burger." She stretches out to recline sideways over the chair.

Having dropped off the wood and walked back, now Phineas comes back carrying a jackhammer. Ferb is pulling the wagon again, now filled with dozens of huge I-beams and pulley.

"We made it go all over Danville."

Linda's frown intensified. She wanted to dismiss this out-of-hand as youthful exaggeration, but the events going on onscreen were making her increasingly suspicious, and worried.

"Where on earth did you get the I-beams, boys?" Lawrence asked, not mad but intrigued.

"Yeah, he totally smiled at me the last time I was there. I just about died!" She flips over to lie face-down. "No I told you I can't. I'm watching my brother and stepbrother." Now she sits on top of the backrest of the chair.

On the third trip Phineas is carrying a plunger. Ferb is holding a hammer in one hand. The other hand pulls the wagon, this time filled with what appears to be several kitchen sinks, a toiler, and a water heater. Ends of pipes extend in all directions.

"Well those were spares from…"

"Are those pipes?" Linda was frowning deeply by now. "What are you doing with pipes?"

"We used them for the superstructure."

"Yeah, and they never get into trouble, 'cause Mom never catches them." She flips to lying upside down in the chair. "One of these days, though, I'm gonna see to it that she catches them red-handed."

Now Phineas is carrying a pink flamingo. Ferb, wearing a safari hat, is pulling the wagon, now holding a huge cage containing a live lion. The lion roars loudly as it crosses past the window.

"But we didn't have a lion. Huh. The Memory Cartoon-inator pulled it out of thin air…comedic effect maybe, Ferb?" as Phineas glanced sideways at his brother.

Ferb shrugged.

Candace jumps up and runs over to the window just too late to see everything, and yells: "Will you hold it down, I am trying to use the phone!" Then she runs back to lying in the chair.

"Yeah. Comedic effect."

Candace buried her head in her hands and mumbled "Oh, I could have just turned around and looked out the window at any time!"

By now Linda just wanted to see the rollercoaster so she could judge everything for herself. It must have been a huge model based on how much Phineas and Ferb had gathered to make it. Unless…she gasped! If they had actually ridden the rollercoaster…

"But Mom left me in charge so there'll be no shenanigans today. What are they doing right now? Why do you ask? What do you mean you can see it from your house?" She jumps up with an anguished look. "See what!"

She runs outside, and stops and stares in horror just past the door. In the backyard is the beginning of what looks like a rollercoaster track. A two-car train waits on the ground, beneath a sign that reads "Phineas & Ferb, Coolest Coaster EVER". The track climbs very steeply very fast, and a wild-looking metal support structure, perhaps using the piping, rises along with it. A sink and a faucet can distinctly be seen in the structure, as can three pineapples.

One thing was certain: that rollercoaster was definitely big enough to ride, and Phineas and Ferb onscreen looked like they had every intention of doing so. Linda might have said something here very loudly and angrily, but instead she just went into shock.

"Oh come on!" Phineas exclaimed. "Where's the truss?"

The track rises just higher than the tree, and at the very top Phineas and Ferb are hard at work. Ferb is tightening something on the rollercoaster track, while Phineas is unloading several planks of wood delivered via crane.

"What was that, Phineas my boy?" Lawrence asked, very into the cartoon by now and not angry in the slightest.

"There's a fine line between comedic effect and being insulting" Phineas said indignantly. "Anything metal as large as that rollercoaster has to have a triangular truss to support it. Everyone knows that!"

Candace says in distress and disbelief "Phineas, what is this?"

"Oh of course, of course, got to keep structural soundness, eh?" Lawrence agreed.

It looked as if Linda was about to say something to her husband, but she was still taking in the image onscreen.

"Do you like it?" Phineas replies with a smile. He and Ferb are on a small wooden platform, big enough for just the two of them and a jar of peanut butter.

"Ooh, I'm gonna go tell Mom and when she sees what you are doing, you are going down!" She stomps off across the yard. "Down, down, down!"

"Yeah. And we went to all that trouble picking lengths of pipe and welding them just so as to make it be a solid triangular truss. I know that's a lot to show in a cartoon, but this way it just looks as if we don't care about safety."

From atop the rollercoaster, Phineas and Ferb watch with mild interest. Candace can still be heard: "'D', 'O', 'W', 'N', Down!"

"Welding?" Lawrence asked. "You mean you boys had a blowtorch?"

"I think that line's coming up now."

Phineas turns to Ferb. "We're gonna need a blowtorch and some more peanut butter."

"A BLOWTORCH!" Linda screamed, snapping momentarily into focus.

"Don't worry Mom, Ferb's certified to use it" Phineas said smiling.

At that Linda just lay back against the couch, shock and disbelief intensifying.

Candace by now was filled with several emotions. Near the top of the list were: ecstasy whenever she glanced over at her Mother's face, and a fluctuating mixture of delight and humiliation from watching herself in the cartoon. And yet, at the same time, she was at least mildly impressed at how good the cartoon was, and was becoming increasingly drawn into it as it went on.

Candace immediately is on her bike and racing down the driveway, just in time to pass a younger girl wearing a pink bow. Isabella turns to her and asks "Hey Candace, is Phineas…" but Candace ignores her and rides into the street. "…home?"

"Awesome" said Phineas, "Isabella's in the cartoon too. I was pretty sure, but it's nice to confirm."

Candace rides furiously down the sidewalk. "Down. Down I say!"

Back at the house Isabella opens the gate. "Hey Phineas" she says, with hearts in her eyes.

"Umm…why are there hearts in Isabella's eyes?" Phineas asked somewhat uncomfortably.

Phineas, now on ground level and rooting around in a chest, waves and replies "Hey Isabella" but clearly not with much attention.

"Ah, Phineas, that's standard practice in cartoons. It means she's deeply in love!" Lawrence answered.

"What'cha doin'?"

"Building a rollercoaster."

"I know that. But…um…" Clearly he did not get it.

Isabella has walked over to him by now, and asks dubiously "In your backyard?"

"Some of it."

Ferb just looked at Phineas, in fact it was borderline a glare. Phineas glanced at him, confused.

"What?"

She turns to the rising construction, and gazes in awe. "Wow. Isn't that kind of impossible?"

"Some might say" Phineas replies with a contented smile.

Now Candace joined in the glaring at Phineas. "Oh, you don't know the first thing about love, Phineas!"

Isabella waves up to the platform. "Hey Ferb."

Ferb just waves back with the hammer he is holding, silent.

"Well I'm only ten."

Candace sighed, deeply. "I'll explain once the cartoon is over."

"Okay."

Isabella glances back at Phineas. "Does your stepbrother ever talk?"

"Ferb? He's more of a man of action."

As if to prove Phineas right, Ferb chooses just then to hammer a nail securing the next wooden cross-beam to the rollercoaster. It seems to have little effect. He just blinks in surprise.

Candace went on. "Waiiiiit a minute. This was the first day of vacation, right? How come Isabella is obviously not surprised at what you two are doing?"

"Well the last day of school was a Monday, remember? Only one day that week. We got started the previous weekend teaching monkeys to juggle bicycles, and Isabella and the Fireside Girls helped out. So she kind of knew we were going to be doing something fun on Tuesday."

Linda jumped at the mention of monkeys and bicycles. She remembered fleetingly that being one of the first things Candace had accused the boys of. And they just said that they did it.

Isabella continues. "I was gonna go to the pool. You wanna go swimming?" she asks with a look in her eyes.

"Kind of in the middle of something here" Phineas replies with a gesture.

"Oh, right. Okay, I'll see you later then" Isabella says, slightly disappointed, walking away.

"Ferb? Was I really that…unfeeling…towards Isabella that day? 'Cause every other time she comes by, we always invite her to join the project."

Ferb nodded. "You had a strong personality change after that one day."

"Okay" Phineas says, all attention back to the chest. He finally finds what he was looking for: a box of rivets. He turns and calls up "Hey Ferb, you got enough rivets up there?"

Ferb gives him a thumbs up, then turns back to the coaster. He has abandoned the nail concept, and instead uses a hand-held riveter to attach three rivets to three wooden cross-beams almost instantly. He blinks in satisfaction, then blows across the nozzle of the riveter, as if it is a smoking gun muzzle.

Phineas turns in surprise. "Hey, where's Perry?"

"And there's that line" Candace groaned.

Perry can be found walking around a corner of the house, out of sight of the boys. Once secluded, he jumps up onto two legs, and his eyes suddenly acquire focus. He pulls out a brown fedora, which he puts on, and a small controller. He presses a button on the controller, which opens a hidden hatch built into the side of the house. He steps into the small room thus opened, and the hatch closes. The room turns out to be an elevator, going down, very quickly.

"Huh? What's cartoon Perry doing?" Candace asked, dumfounded.

"How is he acting with such purpose?" Lawrence inquired, intrigued.

"Do you think something went wrong when we tried to get his memories?" Phineas wondered. No one was actually answering the others' questions, because no one had any idea what was going on.

Perry was, at this moment, hiding underneath the couch, watching the cartoon with interest. He had decided to reveal himself personally once it finished.

His destination is a huge underground room. A map hangs from one wall, control stations are set up all around the perimeter. A large talk filled with water takes up the opposite side of the room, and a comfy chair and side table with drink sits in the water. In front of one particular chair is a huge screen that says 'Incoming Message'.

"Hey," said Phineas, "that looks sort of like the room you built for us that day we were secret agents, Ferb!"

"Look, for the last time, I didn't make any of the things we used that day" Ferb replied, irritated.

Perry runs over to this chair, swivels around to face the monitor, and simultaneously pulls a handle and presses a button. This causes the screen to show an unopened letter, and a cursor moves over to click on it. Once opened, a man's face appears on screen; middle aged, harsh, military bearing, military attire.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" said Candace. "When was this? I don't remember you two ever being secret agents."

"I think that was the day you were on tour with The Bettys."

"Good morning, Agent P" Major Monogram begins. "The evil Doctor Doofenshmirtz is up to his old tricks," as a bad picture of a man in a lab coat appears on the side of the screen. "For reasons unknown to us he's bought up eighty percent of the country's tinfoil." Perry is listening attentively, and has a pad and pencil out and is taking notes. "I want you to get over to his hideout right away, find out what he's up to, and put a stop to it.

"As always, Agent P, it is imperative that your cover identity as a mindless domestic pet remains intact. Now get out there." Perry salutes quickly and runs off. "We're all counting on you."

"And that picture kind of looked like the pharmacist who popped by earlier today. We used his memories too…but his were of the whole summer. Maybe both sets of faulty memories combined to make this?" Phineas pondered.

"But you boys must admit from an artistic standpoint, you can't tell the difference between your events and Perry's" Lawrence said.

"Maybe, but our events actually happened. We've gotta check this out later. Maybe it's a bug."

Perry arrives at a platypus-sized hovercar. He gets in and starts the vehicle, and gets out through a very wide and reasonably clean sewer. His face is a mask of professionalism and concentration. He rises out of the sewer and into open air via a hatch, hidden underneath a large rock.

Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah, doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah. Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah, doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah. *sting* *chords!*

"Cool background music though!"

Perry's eyes widen as he nears Phineas and Ferb, standing on top of the rollercoaster. He pulls his hat to one side to cover his face as he flies by, but Phineas and Ferb are too concentrated on their work.

"So the way I see it," Phineas says to Ferb, "the solid fuel rockets kick in in the mall parking lot; then we release the snakes during the corkscrew around the interstate. I'm gonna go get the snakes."

"Why on earth do you need snakes for a rollercoaster!" Candace asked stunned.

"Makes it more fun!" Phineas replied.

Phineas climbs down from the rollercoaster very satisfied. Ferb puts on a face mask, starts up a blowtorch, and begins welding together the next two parts of the rollercoaster rails.

"Well I must say Ferb, it does look like you know how to use one of those things" Lawrence commented.

Linda broke out of shock again to glare sideways at Lawrence, and was about to say something, but then her cartoon self came up on the screen and she broke off.

Meanwhile in town, Candace has arrived at a store called 'Super Food Stuff Mart', and runs inside. She quickly reaches Linda, who is busy browsing the aisles.

"Mom, you gotta come home, right now."

"Did a satellite crash into the house?" Linda asks doubtfully.

"No, no, no!" Candace says cringing in exasperation. "You gotta see what Phineas and Ferb are doing."

Linda talks while pushing her shopping cart down the aisle. "Seems like we've had this conversation before."

"What do you mean?"

"I seem to recall you telling me that the boys were training monkeys to juggle bicycles, and when I came home, there was a stunning lack of monkeys."

"I still don't know how they cleaned that up so fast."

"A travelling zookeeper asked if she could have the monkeys for an exhibit. We said yes."

Linda looked pained at recalling this. Not actually at her boys' antics: as far as it went, teaching monkeys to juggle bicycles did not appear to be too dangerous. But Candace had tried to tell her what was going on, and she didn't believe her own daughter, evidence or no.

"So what's the emergency this time?"

"They're building a rollercoaster!"

"Candace, seriously. Isn't Phineas a little young to be a rollercoaster engineer?"

Meanwhile, in a car factory, Phineas can be seen wearing a hardhat, on the factory floor talking to a supervisor. In the background, Ferb is still busy welding the rollercoaster together as it progresses through the factory. The man looks from a clipboard down to Phineas.

"Aren't you a little young to be a rollercoaster engineer?"

"Wow. The Memory Cartoon-inator even has a good sense of cross-scene cut timing" Phineas said happily.

"Yes. Yes I am."

The supervisor stands there in silence for a few moments. Then: "Well, I…must say I'm very impressed. The forms all seem to be in order although I've never seen them filled out in crayon before, so if there's anything I can get you, anything at all just, uh, let me know."

"Wha…hu-mu…how could he just accept it like that!" Linda broke out.

"Ah, that's another thing I love about you Americans. Age is not a limiting factor" Lawrence sighed.

"Do you think we can borrow one of those gadgets?" Phineas asks, pointing over towards a large robotic arm.

The answer is clearly yes, as Phineas and Ferb can next be seen riding in the two-car rollercoaster train, filled with completed track sections. The robotic arm is attached to the front car, and it very rapidly takes track sections and places them ahead to extend the rollercoaster. In this fashion the rollercoaster is built, amazingly quickly.

"Now this is the life" comments Phineas, lying back in the rollercoaster car with his head resting against his arms.

The track is extended past a large oddly-shaped purple building. As Phineas and Ferb move past it, a closer look at the building shows it to be labeled 'Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc.' A hole is cut out of a few floors on one side of the building, while a ledge hangs out over the other.

Suddenly Perry swings in on a rope, kicks open an upper-story window, and lands inside the building in a fighting stance. In front of him stands Doctor Doofenshmirtz, recognizable through the photo.

"Ah, Perry the Platypus, what an unexpected surprise." His voice is almost grating, and has a heavy German accent. "And by 'unexpected' I mean "COMPLETELY EXPECTED'!" Doofenshmirtz slams his hand against a button on the wall labeled 'arms'.

"Yeah, and that voice sounds exactly like the pharmacist's did" Phineas exclaimed. "Clearly this has something to do with us taking his memories…I just don't know how."

From out of four hatches in the wall four large metal arms spring out surprising Perry. Before he has a chance to react, claws at the end of the arms grab his four limbs and restrain him in midair. Perry just hangs there with a slightly worried look, facing Doofenshmirtz.

"Hey, what's he doing to Perry? Get away from our platypus!"

"I, Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, have covered the entire eastern seaboard in tinfoil" he explains, pointing at a monitor. Then he pulls back to reveal several large assemblies. "And when I put my giant Magnet next to my ingenious Magnetism Magnifier, I will pull the east in a westerly direction, thereby reversing rotation of the earth!

"No, that wouldn't work" Lawrence broke in, "Since the magnet is also attached to the earth, there would be an equal force pulling eastward…"

"But isn't the magnet…" Candace turned to her father in confusion. She was forgetting her physics, which is understandable, it being the end of a long summer vacation. "…I mean, it's the only thing exerting a force, right?"

"No, the tinfoil would also attract the magnet, Newton's third law and all that. If there was nothing supporting the magnet it would fly to the east, but…"

"You may well ask yourself 'Why would he do this? What could he possibly have to gain?'" Perry was paying minimal attention. After first banging his head against one of the metal arms, he glances down and sees a single screw lying on the floor beneath him. He then glances up to see several lights above him, wires connecting them. He frowns in concentration, thinking hard.

"Well, let me just answer that by saying I haven't really worked out all the bugs yet. I mean, you know, the tinfoil alone cost a lot."

"Perhaps" suggested Ferb, "we should leave this part in, even if it is totally made up. Certainly it makes for a nice B-plot."

Phineas looked at him as if he were crazy, for perhaps a whole second. Then he seriously considered. "Maybe. As long as Perry gets out of it alright."

Candace and Lawrence, meanwhile, looked ready to have a very long impromptu physics argument, but then Candace saw herself again onscreen, and cut off at once.

Back at the supermarket, Candace trails after her mother. "But Mom, I'm telling you, they're building it, and it's huge!" Ferb meanwhile has entered and staples a flier to a column in the store, then walks out. Candace misses Ferb but sees the flier, and walks over to examine it.

"'Phineas & Ferb present The Coolest Coaster EVER! Now Open'! Mom!" She runs off back to Linda.

"You invited other children to ride your…your…giant rollercoaster!" Linda shouted.

"Well we weren't about to keep all the fun to ourselves."

In her absence, three other kids run up to the flier. "Phineas and Ferb got a rollercoaster?" one asks. "You think we get a discount if we bring the flier?"

"It's bad enough you risked your own lives on this thing, but dragging in other kids…"

"But Mom, the cartoon hasn't been showing any of our safeguards."

One of the others replies "Maybe we better take it," while grabbing the flier. The three then run off, leaving no trace of their presence and the column unadorned.

"Ooo, so that's what happened! When I get my hands on those kids…" Candace ranted.

Candace meanwhile has succeeded in dragging Linda back. "Here. Look, look, look, see? I told you I'm not crazy! I told you!" while gesticulating at the column but facing her mother.

"And you're not crazy because…" Linda replies in an annoyed tone.

Candace frowns, then turns back to the column, and sees the poster missing.

"AAAAH!" Her face condenses into a pout.

"I see your point Candace. No crazy person would scream at a post like that. I'll be in the dairy section if you want to come yell at some cheese or anything." She pushes the cart off, leaving Candace on the verge of tears in front of the column.

"Wow" Phineas said flatly. "Talk about bad timing. You say stuff like that happens every day, Candace?"

"Mm-hmm" she replied in a small voice.

"I am so sorry" Phineas said sincerely.

Linda was right about now feeling pretty bad. Most of her was still in shock at the whole cartoon, slowly accepting that what it depicted had actually happened, as everyone else talked about it as established fact. This was not helped by the side-plot with Perry; clearly that had to be an error the machine put in somehow.

But since everything else had really happened, that meant Candace had really tried to tell her what had been happening and, proof or not, she had dismissed her own daughter out-of-hand and harshly.

Back at the Flynn-Fletcher house, another copy of the flier is on a sign out by the street. Wooden arrow signs directly everyone to the backyard, and kids are running there in large numbers. The first part of the rollercoaster is covered by a large colored circus tent, with a fence surrounding it and a red rope. Ferb stands at a gap in the fence, under a crudely drawn sign labeled 'Entrance', dressed like an usher. As the last kids run in, Ferb clips the section of rope closed, then follows them.

"You boys made a grand entrance tent, too?" Lawrence asked, ever-more amazed.

"Well, that part was easy. Just a few poles for support and a rented crane to lift it into position."

Inside the tent, a large crowd of kids stands looking at a small wooden stage, with a microphone and a spotlight set up. Ferb walks up to the microphone, taps it to ensure it is working, (it is), blinks, and walks off to the side, gesturing back to the stage.

From a lift in the floor ascends Phineas, looking bored. But then he grabs the microphone, and disco-style white lights turn on all over the stage. Very animated he begins speaking.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages! May I present to you a spectacle most of the morning the making:…"

To the side, Ferb is not only playing guitar, but also holds a drumstick and hits a cymbal from a drum-set at appropriate moments. He is also wearing a construction hat, and hanging from it via hooks is the disco ball supplying light.

"I didn't get to say so at the time, but nice job with the effects Ferb!"

Ferb flashed a thumbs-up at Phineas, with a dinging sound.

"The Coolest…"

*chord*

"Coaster…"

*chord*

"Ever!"

With that, Ferb pulls down the curtain to reveal the rollercoaster. Phineas stands there gesturing at it with a big smile. The kids look on in awe.

"You boys are sure doing a good job of selling this" Lawrence said.

To a triumphant trumpet fanfare, the rollercoaster is seen in all its glory. Tracks go in all directions near ground level, but at the very beginning two hills reach to stratospheric heights. The first one in fact rises above cloud level. A bird flying by crashes into the hill and falls down.

"Wow. I never saw the first hill – that thing is huge!" Candace exclaimed.

No one else commented, but clearly they all agreed.

"So, who wants to go first?" Phineas asks, as the bird hits the ground next to him.

All the kids raise their hands, still looking in amazement, except for Isabella who smiles.

The rollercoaster train climbs slowly up the monstrous incline. Phineas sits in the lead car facing the other passengers. "To fasten, insert the tab into the metal buckle. To release, just pull back on the…" he demonstrates on a free belt, but in releasing accidentally lets go of it. It falls back to ground level over everyone's heads. "…oops. Well you get the picture. Well that's about it. Enjoy the ride!"

"Again with showing us as not caring about safety! The seat restraints were more than enough, but do they show up in the cartoon, noooooo!" Phineas griped.

The train finally reaches the top of the incline. Looking down shows them to be far far above the buildings of downtown Danville. The train pauses for a moment at the top.

"You all signed the waivers right?" Phineas says just before the train begins its drop.

"And that line was just for dramatic effect. There were no waivers, none were needed."

Everyone screams as they go down the first drop, faces pulled back due to their huge acceleration. Screams not letting up for an instant the rollercoaster plays itself out at level with the skyline of Danville – a vertical triangle, a sideways loop, an angular figure-eight, before flying off into the distance. As promised, a long corkscrew begins with the interstate at its axis, and trucks rumble slowly past as the rollercoaster train speeds around them.

A crane-suspended box labeled 'Snakes!' opens up, and hundreds of snakes drop onto the train as it swoops past. Eyes wide open and everyone still screaming loudly, the snakes land on people's faces and bodies, and then they too stream back in the slipstream. Phineas gets up grabbing one of the snakes to announce "Relax! They're just rubber" before the coaster takes another drop.

The track falls into a large bucket labeled 'Mud', and the train enters it with a huge splash. Sounds of screaming fade for a moment while the rollercoaster does who-knows-what in the mud. A few seconds later the train exits the mud, just as fast as before, and now everyone wears a full-body coat of mud, flecks flying off behind them. Phineas' huge smile can just be made out.

Watching the cartoon rollercoaster, Phineas' real-life grin was even larger. Sure it's not the same thing as actually riding it, but the Memory Cartoon-inator had done a great job; the whole thing was amazingly immersive. And after all, it was this rollercoaster that jumpstarted the entire summer. Lost in the memories, Phineas just watched on in pure bliss.

Beside him, Ferb even wore a small smile, the only sign of his equal enjoyment of the cartoon. Of course, there were a few changes to the machine's programming that he was already thinking about…for instance they definitely had to show at least some modicum of the safety procedures they had used in future endeavors, even if it made the cartoon slightly less 'fun'. But all in all, this was probably their best invention ever.

Candace was watching in, she hated to admit this, awe. Taking together everything her brothers had done over the summer, she had been involved in perhaps even half of their crazy activities, never mind if she tried to bust them afterwards. And they had been, almost always, amazingly impossible and supremely fun. The few exceptions; having her mind swapped with Perry's came to mind immediately but there were others; well, at the moment she was not thinking about those. In fact an uncomfortably large part of her mind was only thinking how cool it would have been to ride the rollercoaster. Only for the rest of her mind to immediately start pummeling that part.

Lawrence was almost entirely immersed in the cartoon and not particularly thinking about anything. He had been concerned for his boys' safety at a few moments but based on their comments that seemed a product of the cartoon more than reality. In fact he was more impressed than anything; that rollercoaster looked 'cool', and that his own children had built it was a fact to be proud of.

Linda looked as if she would start hyperventilating at any moment. Her active mind was torn between praying that her boys came out of this alive, and blaming herself for not believing Candace and not doing anything about it. A level lower, she was frantically trying to convince herself that no matter how dangerously reckless, however life-threateningly irresponsible her boys had been, they were here now and unharmed, and there was no way Candace was right about everything else. Because, after all, it was surely impossible for the two of them to do something as insane as this every day. Right?

Perry was just enjoying the cartoon from under the couch. He was sorrier now more than ever that he rarely got to be at home while his boys were doing their amazing things. He only ever saw them at the end, when his fights with Doofenshmirtz usually cleaned up the scene. Considering that Phineas and Ferb were sitting on the couch above him right now, unharmed, he was not hugely concerned for their safety, and was just amazed at their ability and energy. And yeah, that rollercoaster looked darn cool! He only rode the last bit, after all.

The tracks descend to ground level and the rollercoaster enters, of all things, a car wash. The train emerges at the other end with cars and riders looking all cleaned up, but the rollercoaster comes to a sudden halt at the car wash exit. During the pause, an employee takes a cloth and wipes down the front car of the train, making it sparkle. He then waves the cloth in the air as a signal, and the train restarts, the rollercoaster moving on back at cruising speed. Except for during the pause, everyone's screams have not let up the entire time. Even Ferb's face is unusually grave; as if screaming in silence. Phineas' grin, however, approaches manic.

He glances over at Ferb. "Hey look! Here comes the 'Aah-aah-aah-aah-aah'."

The rollercoaster track takes a series of four extremely sharp inclines and equally sharp descents. The naming is apropos twice over. Viewed from the side, with horizontal struts supporting the track, and a building called 'Exclamation Finance' in the background, it looks like the rollercoaster is spelling out 'AAAA!'. At the same time, when the train goes over this section, their screams modulate as Phineas promised, five times.

"Oh that is wonderful! It's a pun on two levels" Lawrence commented in delight.

Continuing on, the rollercoaster loops three times around the building of Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc., then flies off to the right and down. But the action inside the building is about to intensify as well.

Perry is still restrained, not particularly listening to Doofenshmirtz's rambling.

"When I really make all my money back I'll, we…de…uh…buy a bunch of east-facing real-estate and sell it again with a nice sunset view. I don't…"

But Perry has his escape plan ready. Despite all four limbs being restrained, his beaver-like tail was still free to move, and long enough to reach the floor. After taking a few practice swings, he flicks his tail towards the floor, hitting the loose screw, and sending it flying through the air towards Doofenshmirtz.

"What's Perry doing?" Candace asked in annoyance. This part, after all, could not possibly have happened, so its mere existence only detracted from the rest of the cartoon in terms of busting potential.

Doofenshmirtz stops talking in surprise, and quickly ducks. The screw goes right through the space where his head had been, and bounces off of part of the extensive metal control panel. Doofenshmirtz straightens up with a grin.

"Hah! You mi-issed" he says mockingly.

But Perry remains motionless with a very serious expression. The screw was still going. In banking off of the panel, it flies up into the air towards the lights. It is halted by the wire between two of the lights, bending back like a slingshot. Sure enough, the wire flings the screw back towards the ground with a great speed, and it finally impacts, point first, in Doofenshmirtz's right foot.

"Wow. What a flight pattern" Phineas said, impressed.

"OWWWW!" Doofenshmirtz's face was one of considerable pain, seemingly out of proportion to what the screw could do. He begins hopping up and down on his left food, cradling his right, face contorted in agony. "Ow, ow, ow, owwww!"

But while hopping he pays no attention to where he was moving. He rapidly hops backwards towards a large control panel. Thus it is a great surprise to Doofenshmirtz when he backs up into the button labeled 'Arms', and presses it. His eyes fly open again as the arms restraining Perry let go and retracted. Perry at once leaps into the air, punches Doofenshmirtz in the face, and forces him to the ground.

Furiously, Doofenshmirtz reaches to the side and pulled out a wrench. Perry gets out his own wrench, seemingly from nowhere, and the two of them have an intense wrench fight, as if with swords. Intending to end it quickly, Perry slams his wrench down on Doofenshmirtz's already injured right foot. Doofenshmirtz drops his sword at once.

"OWWWW!" he screams again. Not giving up the fight, he grabs a free-standing battery cart and rolls it towards Perry, hitting him. Perry, seemingly unhurt by the impact, climbs to the top of the cart, and jumps off. The cart continues rolling, crashes through the walls of the building, and falls. Perry glares at Doofenshmirtz.

"Go Perry!" Phineas knew, probably, that this hadn't happened, but hey, he could dream. And Perry was awesome anytime, even if he wasn't a super secret agent. So of course he would have to be just as awesome in the cartoon, if they kept this part in.

Doofenshmirtz, however, is standing by a large lever, smiling. He pulls it.

"Now you are too late!" With the lever pulled, the roof of the building slowly retracts. The giant magnet is already in place, pointing towards the newly made opening. Via a rising platform in the floor the Magnetism Magnifier rises in front of the magnet. An east coast city can be seen through its target. The magnet turns on.

"Quake in your boots and watch helplessly as the unimaginable electromagnetic forces pull the eastern seaboard, thereby reversing rotation of the…"

Indeed, over at the eastern seaboard, the tinfoil covering the city's buildings is being pulled to the west. However, at once all of the tinfoil is pulled off of the buildings, and while it does fly west, the eastern seaboard remains in place. Doofenshmirtz sees this via a nearby monitor.

"Well. That didn't work" he says in a mildly chagrined voice.

Everybody by now was just watching on in almost total silence. Ferb made a mental note to not change a single thing on the background music settings of the Memory Cartoon-inator, because it had worked out well.

Meanwhile the tinfoil in flight rapidly congeals into a single mass. Now hurtling towards the west is a huge ball of tinfoil spinning through the sky. Doofenshmirtz sees this too.

"And now we have a two-ton ball of tinfoil travelling two hundred miles an hour DIRECTLY AT US!" Both he and Perry's faces look terrified. "Quickly! We must separate the magnet from the magnifier before it is to la-ate!"

Doofenshmirtz tries to lean back against the Magnetism Magnifier and push it away from the magnet, while Perry pulls the magnet in the other direction. However, both attempts seem to fail.

"I don't remember hearing about a giant ball of tinfoil" Lawrence commented. "So what happened to it? Did it even exist in…"

"Shhh! We'll find out" Phineas said, suspicions beginning to form. Not that he would consider them at the moment, what with the climax of the cartoon being at hand and all, but for later.

Meanwhile at the supermarket, Linda is at the checkout.

"Now I know I have that club card in here somewhere. I always have it with me but my purse is a disaster area. You know how it is." The lady at the checkout line listens indulgently.

Candace is the only one of them to hear loud screams coming from outside. Wide-eyed, she runs to the door and looks out. She arrives just in time to see the rollercoaster fly by, as it dips in and out of the store parking lot. All the riders are still screaming.

"Oh, oh, oh, oh ooh! Mom! Mo-om!" and she runs back in.

"I knew it! I knew it was there! So what on earth happened to it?" Candace said in despair.

On top of the Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. building, Doofenshmirtz despairs.

"It's no use! It's no use, we are doomed!"

Perry however is still looking for relief. He looks up, and an idea comes to him as he sees a helicopter fly by. Perry fires a grappling hook towards the helicopter. It takes.

Perry then very quickly ties the other end of the hook's string around the magnet. The helicopter, impeded by the giant weight, stops flying forward and swings up following the rope. The giant ball of tinfoil flies ever closer.

Finally, the helicopter wins the fight of forces, and pulls the magnet straight up, very fast, with Perry riding it. Doofenshmirtz rejoices.

"You did it! You saved us, Perry the Platypus…"

But for him, it is too late, as the tinfoil ball flies into the building. It tears apart the roof, and carries Doofenshmirtz off with it, as it finally falls to the ground in the distance.

"Curse you, Perry the Platypuuuuussss!"

"Yeah Perry! Show that pharmacist who's boss!"

Perry watches him roll off idly, as he and the magnet fly in the other direction dangling from the helicopter. Meanwhile, in the destruction, the Magnet Magnifier flies into the air and, being itself metal, is attracted by the magnet. Thus the strong electromagnetic forces reform, but this time pointing downward. The helicopter serendipitously flies just above one of the hills in Phineas and Ferb's rollercoaster.

"Wait. How did the magnifier only just now reach the magnet? Either it would have gone upward immediately, or it would have flown sideways, right?" Phineas asked.

Ferb shrugged.

The magnet, reinforced by the Magnet Magnifier, gets stuck to the track at this highest point. The helicopter stops moving, straining against its newly increased burden. Finally, it succeeds in lifting the entire rollercoaster into the air, from all over the city.

"Darn that helicopter! When I get my hands on it…" Candace started ranting again.

Candace frantically drags Linda into the store parking lot.

"Look! Look, look, See!" she says, gesturing to where the rollercoaster track just was, seconds ago. In fact, Linda only did not see it because she was facing Candace while the rollercoaster was rising into the air. When she finally does look, no trace of the rollercoaster remains.

"And again, she doesn't turn around. Of course, missing everything, by literally seconds" Candace said desolately.

"Okay I give up. What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"I thought you were exaggerating, Candace, but that is really just weird. Does the universe not want you to show Mom what we were doing?" Phineas said considerately.

Candace's satisfied look crumbles, as she too turns to face the rollercoaster…and finds it to be no longer present. Her eyes fly open in surprise and anguish, hands clamped to her face.

"You don't know how much it feels that way sometimes."

"No! It's not possible!"

"I'm going to go get the cart" Linda dully says, walking back inside.

"It was right here and it was huge!" Candace insists, arms extended, walking a few steps away from the door. She turns to her side, in time to see the rollercoaster being flown away, disappearing from sight behind the store wall. "Mom!" she cries exasperatedly.

"Time to go, I've got frozens", she replies, pushing the cart outside.

But Candace has one more idea to try. She runs to keep up with her Mom. "Okay, so you think that Phineas and Ferb are still under that stupid tree in the backyard, right?"

"Well yes, that would be my guess."

In triumph, Candace grabs the cart from Linda and sprints forward with it. "Fine! Then let's go home. Now!"

"You do know that would not actually prove we had made the rollercoaster. Just that we weren't present, right?" Ferb said reasonably.

Candace glared in reply.

The rollercoaster is still in midair, towed by the helicopter. Perry, looking for a way to resolve everything, pulls out a small rope cutter, and breaks the rope between track and helicopter. He grabs the top piece and flies up with the helicopter, almost jumping up as its burden is removed.

At the same time the rollercoaster falls to the ground, hard. Its riders have apparently suffered no ill effects from being towed in midair, as the train continues on its course. Half corkscrew into a half helix, curve back around, once again 'merely' at level with the Danville skyline.

Perry, at just the right moment, lets go of the rope, and falls away from the helicopter. With expert timing, he falls into the rollercoaster train just as it passed beneath him.

Phineas glances back to see what just happened.

"Oh there you are Perry!" he says brightly.

Perry has, indeed, near-instantly taken off his hat, dropped to all fours, and once again looks like just a mindless house pet.

"k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k"

"Wow. In real life he even did just seem to pop up out of nowhere right about then. For a completely made-up side plot, that was pretty darn good" Phineas said.

"Nice hat Isabella" Phineas goes on.

Indeed, Perry's hat was removed by putting it on Isabella's head. In surprise she takes it off, and examines it in idle curiosity.

"Wait a second" Phineas said suddenly remembering. "Earlier today we actually saw Perry wearing a hat. And it looked a whole lot like the cartoon one."

"Wait another second!" Candace jumped in. "If that entire side thing with Perry and that Doofenshmirtz guy never actually happened, then how on earth did the rollercoaster keep disappearing in real life! The timing in the cartoon was spot-on!"

But finally, it becomes clear that the rollercoaster did suffer from being dropped to the ground, for the track ahead of them is broken, and it dumps the train into the streets of Danville. Now off its track, the rollercoaster train races along the road.

"And the track definitely did not break of its own accord" Phineas said suspiciously. "I didn't feel us being lifted into the air, but then it was a pretty fast rollercoaster. And it would explain the free-form part of the ride."

It flies into the air using the angled back of a dump truck as a ramp. Screams of terror unabated, the riders go through the incomplete superstructure of a building. Arcing downward, the train is next caught by the hook of a construction crane. It flings them up into the air, as the rollercoaster flies upward, rotating as it goes.

"But but but…there's no way that whole thing actually happened!" Candace said frantically. "Perry can't be a secret agent."

Phineas promised to himself to think more about the problem later, but right now onscreen was the most fun part of the ride, and his attention was diverted.

Perry smirked mischievously for a moment as speculations flew on the couch above him, before refocusing on the cartoon.

"Funny. I don't remember this in the blueprints" Phineas comments.

Continuing its ersatz ride, the train caught by the tail of a passing airliner. Cars wrapped around the tail, everyone else continues to shriek as loudly as ever.

"And I'm sure this is new" he says to Ferb.

Now Linda really did start hyperventilating, once the rollercoaster train with her boys in it was off of its tracks.

"Don't worry Mom, it turned out alright" Phineas tried to comfort her.

It didn't work.

Down below, Linda is driving herself and Candace back home. Candace sticks her head out of the window, and she sees the plane pass by overhead, rollercoaster train visible from ground level. She puts her head back into the car, and slaps her hands together rapidly, laughing manically.

"Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. Hah-hah-hah." Her eyes twitch.

"I worry about you sometimes, Candace."

Finally, the train falls free from the tail and drops. They clearly have covered some distance, however, for next the train impales itself on the torch of the Statue of Liberty. The copper lady bends over, straightens back up, and flings the kids back westward, train still spinning all the while.

"My word you got a lot of air time, to get all the way to New York" Lawrence commented.

"I know. It was darn impressive."

After another epic flight, the train approaches Mount Rushmore. It falls into the glasses frame of Teddy Roosevelt, and circles about it extremely fast, as everyone screams louder than ever. Flying out of this, the train uses a pine tree as its next element.

The tree bends over, and for a moment, the train stops in front of a small fast food store.

"Welcome to Mr. Slushy Burger. May I take your order?" the operator asks.

Phineas turns back to the riders. "Anyone want fries?"

"Now that's just for the comedy. We didn't really have enough time for a conversation."

But to no avail, as the tree too bends back and flings the train back eastward. After its longest flight yet, the train his upon, of all things, the Eiffel Tower. It too bends to near ground level and the train stops in front of a French fast food store.

"Croissant?" this one's operator asks.

"Anyone want a croissant?" Phineas asks, the key word accented in French.

"But, apparently it works in a cartoon setting. I like it" Phineas said.

Again, however, the Eiffel Tower bends back before the point is settled. This time the train flies straight up, no spinning, and reaches stratospheric heights.

No, scratch that, it goes beyond the stratosphere, as only above the atmosphere can one clearly see stars in the daytime. For just a moment, the train remains hanging there in space.

"Now that is just sad. As a matter of fact, we did have a cool little gismo to increase the oxygen content around the ride, for the first hill you know? But there's no way it would work for as long as it takes to reach…"

Below it, a satellite orbits past, beeping.

Phineas turns to Ferb with a solemn expression. "You know if that thing crashes to earth Candace is in charge."

"Oh I get it. Cute...but maybe over-the-top. Ferb, what do you think?"

Ferb shrugged.

At last, the train plummets back to earth. The screams and shrieks of the riders reach their loudest level ever. As it reenters the earth's atmosphere, the front car begins to burn up, from the huge air friction. Clouds fly by as the train falls lower. The entire city of Danville is laid out below them, like a toy. Or a zoomed-out Google Maps image.

Phineas once more glances to Ferb. "We should have charged more."

"And remind me why we charged anything at all for this?"

"It was only fifty cents" said Ferb, "I think to pay for renting the crane to set up the tent."

Down below, Linda pulls the car back into the driveway.

"Okay, we're here. Are you happy now Candace?"

Candace leaps out of the car, laughing crazily, and rushes to open the backyard gate. Looking in with an expectant smile, she sees just the tree. Phineas and Ferb are, obviously not there.

"Yes!"

She turns back to face Linda. "See Mom? I told you they weren't there!" pointing towards the gate. Eyes closed, she gestures with a smile towards the backyard. Thus, perhaps she misses a small swooshing sound.

Linda walks over and looks through the gate.

"Oh hi boys."

Sure enough, sitting in front of the tree are Phineas, Ferb, and Perry.

"Hi Mom" Phineas replies with a wave.

"I see what you mean Candace."

"Well it's okay, little bro. Now we have the cartoon to see it all after the fact!"

"Come on Candace, help me with the groceries."

Candace looks into the backyard, and sees her brothers there. Her arms fall limp, her eyes widen, in shock. It might be right to say that Candace is broken, in more ways than one.

"Uh-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-but-buh-bu-bu-buh-…"

Linda grabs Candace by the shoulders, and begins dragging her back to the car. "Let's go" she says with irritation.

"…-buh-bu-bu-but-bu-buh-bu-…" Candace's arms wave in front of her, but to no avail.

In the backyard, a commotion is heard in the tree above Phineas and Ferb. Kids begin dropping out of it.

"Hey Phineas, that was great!"

"Way too cool!"

"That was awesome! Can we do it again?"

The train has crashed into the tree, and is in fact on fire in a few places. No one is at all hurt, and all the kids let themselves out of the tree in safety. Not that they particularly care – they are on a post-rollercoaster high.

"Sorry. Only one ride per customer" Phineas replies.

"And one more time with the safety thing. We had parachutes to slow the rollercoaster down in case of emergency, like this. There was no fire…well…there was a small one, which we put out immediately. Ferb, we have got to program the Memory Cartoon-inator to show our safety measures."

Isabella is the last to come out. "That was great, Phineas. So, what are you gonna to do tomorrow?"

"Don't know yet."

Widely smiling, she leans down and pets Perry. "Maybe you can teach Perry some tricks."

"Well he is a Platypus. They don't do much."

"Yeah. We're keeping the B-plot, just for that line."

At long last, Ferb speaks, with a British accent. "They're the only mammals to lay eggs."

Both Phineas and Isabella look at him.

"Maybe he'll lay an egg." Phineas agrees.

"Cool. See you tomorrow" Isabella says, as she gets up and walks off. At the gate, she turns around, with a huge smile and a sincere voice. "It really was the coolest coaster ever. You guys make a great team."

"Well a brother is a brother, but I couldn't have asked for a better one than Ferb. You know what I mean?" Phineas says with a hand on Ferb's shoulder.

In response, Ferb belches, loudly. Phineas' eyes fly wide open.

"Oh-ho-ho man! I can smell the peanut butter" he says with a hand to his nose, but with a smile.

Isabella rolls her eyes. "That was impressive. See you guys" she says, finally walking away.

Phineas leans back against the tree. "So what should we do tomorrow? There's a world of possibilities. Maybe we should make a list!"

After a pause, the rollercoaster train explodes, taking half of the tree with it. Clearly Phineas and Ferb are unharmed, but from inside the house comes Candace's cry.

"Mom!"

"Give it a rest Candace!"

"And the tree didn't explode at all. It was just a car alarm going off."

And as the smoke from the tree rises into the sky, the last thing to be seen is the tinfoil ball, rolling quickly across town in the background.

"Well, overall, I have to say…that was totally awesome Ferb! The visuals came off great and the music too! Of course, we'll have to modify some things…"

Ferb raised a finger, ready to comment.

"I know, and what on earth happened with Perry and Doofenshmirtz? I mean, it was fun, and it fit into the cartoon, but still."

Ferb nodded.

"Yeah, we'll work on it. Anyway, did you like it Mom, Dad? Um, Mom?"

For while Lawrence did indeed look like he had enjoyed the cartoon immensely, Linda was finally overcoming her initial shock. And the look that was coming to replace shock on face was one that Candace had tried and tried to achieve all summer long.