Chapter 1 – Who's My Daddy?

Phineas' POV

My whole life turned around all because of that day.

It was a sunny day in June, another day of summer vacation. I woke up to bright sunshine coming in through the window in me and Ferb's room. A moment later, the alarm clock next to my bed went off.

A pretty typical day. How summer days always started, ever since we were ten. The summer we actually got into inventing and building the craziest contraptions we could think of. And this summer was no different.

Well, some things were different. When I look in the mirror, I don't see the little ten year old from that summer, and neither does Ferb. We've both 15 now, and definitely a lot different than when we were younger. Though Ferb is still taller than me, at 5' 6'', I only trail him by a about 4 inches. My hair is still an orange mess on my head, and my face still looks similar. Same with Ferb, and his hair is still green.

Our personalities are pretty much the same, except Ferb's sorta broken out of his shell, and he's way more social; he's not a one-line kinda guy anymore.

We've changed the clothes we wear all the time, too. Orange still dominates my wardrobe, with mostly polo shirts and sweaters, and the occasional t-shirt; I still wear blue shorts all the time, but obviously not the exact same ones; I'd outgrown them awhile ago. Ferb still wears purple all the time, but substituted his beige shirt for a purple one with a Union Jack on it, and he's switched to jean shorts.

Ferb interrupted my thinking with his yawning – he still got up a minute or two after me. We crawled out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast with mom and Candace. Perry was still sleeping in his bed in the corner, and dad was on a business trip in New York.

After breakfast, we went out to the backyard under our thinking tree. Just like all our previous summers. However, our inventions lately aren't as big and amazing as they used to be. While we used to build roller coasters and ski lodges, now we focus more on smaller things, like locators for finding lost stuff. Not that we don't build water slides and things like that, but when we do, we usually just keep it at a smaller scale and only invite a few kids instead of the whole neighborhood.

So here we were, thinking of the day's invention, when Isabella walked in with her usual "Whatcha doin'?"

Izzy's changed over the years, too. Though she's still shorter than Ferb, she's at my height again; I swear she's got an inch on me. Her hair is much longer now, and due to her growth spurt her bow is much too small. She attached it to a headband and wears that instead. And she's ditched her usual pink dress for a light pink blouse and a darker pink skirt.

Her personality changed a bit, too. She used to be this little 'girly girl', if you ask Buford, but she hated people thinking of her that way and now tries to be more tomboyish. She's still part of the Fireside Girls, and she joined the girls' field hockey team last year. She also doesn't just give out threats like when we were 10; she actually carries them out. But you can still see the girlish side to her, because everything she owns is still pink.

I still call her Izzy like when we were 10. She's my best friend that isn't related to me (Ferb is my best friend that is), and the nickname thing makes me feel like we're still close; that's one of the things that definitely hasn't changed over the years: how close we are.

Anyway, back to what was happening.

We noticed that she wasn't that cheerful today. She had a fake smile on her face.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked.

She sighed. "'Cuz I hate this time of year."

"But I thought you loved summer?"

"I do," she explained, "but I hate this day."

That was confusing; what's so weird about today? It's just a regular summer day. I told her so.

She sat down next to me. "It's not a regular day, Phineas. Today's Father's Day."

Oh, now I got it. Father's Day was always a tough time for Izzy. She hasn't had a dad since she was really little, and no one knows what ever happened to him, not even Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro.

I gave her a hug to comfort her. "That's alright, you can hang out with us for the day. We'll help you deal with you know what."

Her face turned pink a bit. Funny, I don't remember her wearing makeup. She hugged me back. "Thanks, I really needed that." She sighed. "I just thought maybe it would get easier each year, but it doesn't, not really."

It was while we were sitting here talking that the thought came to mind. Isabella and I are kinda alike, in the dad department. Obviously I have Ferb's dad, so technically he's my dad, too. But what about my biological dad? Come to think about it, I don't think I've actually ever seen him before.

That bugged me. Izzy could remember her dad from when she was 3, at birthday parties and things like that. But I couldn't remember anything at all.

And now I wondered why I'd never thought of it before. The whole stepdad-stepbrother thing pretty much dominated my time when mom got married, so I never thought to ask after that. And I was too young to think about stuff like that before time.

Curiosity got the best of me yet again, and I told them what I was thinking. At first, I though Izzy might be a little sensitive to the subject, but she seemed to be listening intently as I spoke my thoughts.

When I finished, Ferb said, "If you're really interested, I'm sure mum could tell you."

"Yeah, if anyone would know, it'd be your mom," Izzy added. She must have forgotten for the moment that when she asked her mom the exact same question, she didn't get an answer.

"You know, you guys are right. I'm gonna go find mom." I stood up from my spot, as did Ferb and Izzy. We headed inside, bumping into Candace on our way.

Candace is 21 now and has been going to state college. But she gets vacation time once in awhile, hence her being home that weekend. She looks pretty much how we saw her when we went in the future, but she's her regular 5' 8''. She's also still intent on 'busting' us - which she still hasn't succeeded in doing, and mom is still oblivious - but has calmed down a bit since she left for college a couple of years ago.

"Watch where you're goin', guys!" she said as we breezed by her. We skidded to a stop.

"Sorry Candace! Hey do you know where mom is?" I asked, all in one breath.

"Umm…probably in the living room," she replied.

We all ran towards the living room, shouting thanks to her as we left. We found mom in the living room, like Candace said, watering one of the plants in the corner. She saw us come in and smiled.

"Hey boys, Isabella. What are you up to today?" she asked.

I knew this was my only chance to ask, because if I waited too long dad would be home and she may not want to tell me in front of him. I gathered up my courage and asked her,

"Mom, I want to know about dad. My real dad."

Her smile faded and she dropped the watering can in her hand.