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| - "Isa!" my mother calls. "They're here!" I say goodbye to Phineas and log off instant-messaging. Coming downstairs, I see my cousin, his wife, and their daughter, Mackenzie. "Hey, Isabella!" my cousin says. His wife smiles. "Nice to see you." Mackenzie bounces up and down, her hair flying. "Hi Isabella! Hi Isabella! Hi Isabella!" I give them all a hug and smile. "I haven't seen you in forever." "I know, right?" says my cousin's wife. "I was figuring you could bond with Mackenzie and take her to Jumpin' Jack Cheddar's for a while?" No, no, a thousand times no! the OCD me in my head screams. Going to Jumpin' Jack Cheddar's is amazingly fun if you're a kid, but amazingly annoying if you're a teen. And germaphobic mothers... forget it. I have this vague childhood memory of going to Jumpin' Jack's for my friend's birthday party. The mother was an incredible germaphobe and, every five minutes, would wipe down her daughter's hands with anti-bacterial wipes and check her hair for lice. Yuck. But I really don't want to disappoint Mackenzie, and it'll be a chance to show my parents I'm responsible with both a car and a kid. And Jumpin' Jack's isn't that big, either, it's not that hard to get lost in. Okay. Deep breath. "Sure," I say. Mackenzie squeals and hugs me around the middle. "It'll be so much fun! Yippee!" She starts dancing around the living room and almost breaks a vase. While my mother tends to that, I slip on my shoes, take the keys to the station wagon, and brace myself for the lecture I'm sure to get. My mother doesn't fail in lecturing me, either. "Isa, one scratch on that car, and I might not be able to trust you. Driving is a big thing." "Yes, Mom." "Now, do you have your license on you?" "Yes, Mom." "Don't yes me to death," she says. "It's your fault when the police pull you over and you have no proof that you can drive a car." Okay, Mom. I turn to Mackenzie. "Ready to go?" "Yes!" sings Mackenzie, dancing out the door. I follow after her and get into the front seat. "Can I sit shotgun?" asks Mackenzie, smushing her face against the glass. "Nope," I say. "You're too young." "Aw!" she says, dragging her face down the window and leaving long smudges. "Sorry, Charlie," I say. "Get in the backseat." The car jounces as she gets in and shuts the door. I put the key in the ignition and turn it. The car roars to life. My mother and cousins are on the porch, waving at me. "Bye, Isa!" I wave back and then keep my eyes on the road. Mackenzie takes in the neighborhood, and I pray that she doesn't see Phineas. Too late. She does. "Who's that?" she asks, smushing her face against the window as I'm pulling out of the driveway. "Phineas," I say, hoping she doesn't see my face turning magenta in the rear-view mirror. "Who's Phiiinneeeaass?" she says in a singsong voice. Does that girl have hawk eyes? "Um, no one," I say, waving slightly to him as we pass. "Hmm." She sits back in her seat, and the car bounces again. "Hmm what?" "He doesn't seem like no one," she says, grinning. I choose not to respond to this and glance up to see that flash of red hair in my rear-view mirror one last time before I turn right off Maple Drive and toward Jumpin' Jack Cheddar's. I lock my eyes on the road, but Mackenzie is a chatterbox. She asks me what my favorite color is, why the sky is blue, why the grass is green, why the platypus is teal, what's my nickname, and a million other things that don't make sense. "Mackenzie, I have to keep my focus on the road," I say. "Cop! Cop!" she chants, bouncing the car. "Stop!" I say. "You're distracting me!" Just then, the cop pulls me over and my heart sinks. "Excuse me, miss," he says, "but you don't look old enough to drive a car. I'm going to need some identification." "I'm sixteen!" I say indignantly. "I can drive!" "Don't talk back to me, young lady," he says. "Let me see your license." I hand him the piece of laminated plastic and he holds it up to the light, trying to detect fraud. After about five minutes and a billion sighs from Mackenzie, he hands it back to me. "Okay, young lady. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Go right on ahead." I drive the car away and into the parking lot for Jumpin' Jack Cheddar's. A large brown mouse holding a block of cheese tops the building, and Mackenzie squeals at the sight of it, nearly making me crash into a nearby lightpost. I unbuckle her seat belt and she skips off through the parking lot. "Mackenzie!" I scream, locking the car with my keys and running after her. "Get back here!" She giggles and ducks behind a car. I grab her elbow and tickle her. "Nice try, but you're not going in alone." "Aw!" We walk toward the building together, and at that moment I really wish Phineas and Ferb are with me. Because then, at least, you know, I could see Phineas. (Insert love-struck sigh here.) Well, you know, they aren't here. We walk in, and I pay for us. The guy there stamps us with that special stamp with the blacklight ink. I've always found that interesting. Mackenzie, however, takes too much interest in it, and I have to physically push her out of the way of the queue that was gathering. We get into the main place and Mackenzie runs toward the stage with the creepy animatronic animals. And then, she lets out a bloodcurdling scream. "Isabella!" she shrieks. "I don't like them!" She runs back to me and buries her face in my skirt. I carefully pluck her off me and look at her, awkwardly ignoring an annoyed employee. "They're not real," I say. "They're just robots." Creepy robots, I'll give her that, but still. "I still don't like them." "You don't have to look at them if you don't want to. Do you want to play some games?" "Yeah!" She sprints off toward a machine with two realistic-looking BMX bikes. "Play this with me." I sigh inwardly. "Okay, Mackenzie." She keeps requesting replay after replay, and after a while I get a headache from looking at the screen for so long in such a dark room. That's when I hear a sneering voice say, "Oh, Sean, thank you for winning that game for me..." Isabelle, I think. Sure enough, she rounds the corner just as Mackenzie blasts me off my bike. "Oh yeah! First place!" Mackenzie screams, dancing in a circle, while Isabelle snorts. "Who's this?" "My second cousin." "Interesting." She pauses for a moment, then says, "Where's Phineas?" "Huh?" "I figured Phineas would be with you. You guys are like an item, right?" "Um..." Behind me, Mackenzie is wiggling her eyebrows. "Not really..." "Oh, really?" she replies. "Sean and I are an item. He's here because I'm watching my step-sister. And I figured, I think Sean should come with me, because then at least, you know, I could see Sean." She sighs and links arms with a sandy-haired boy who walks up. "Hi, Sean." "Hey, Isabelle," he replies in a strong Irish accent. He looks at me. "Who's this?" "Sean, this is Isabella. Isabella, this is Sean." "Oh, I know you," he says. "You're Phineas's friend, aren't ya?" "Um... yeah... how do you know Phineas?" "Who doesn't know Phineas?" Isabelle interrupts. Just then, Mackenzie cuts her off and says, "I don't!" "Here," says Isabelle. "Go play a game with Shannon." Sean walks off and Isabelle looks at me. "Isabella, it is so obvious you want Phineas to be here." I don't answer, but blush a deeper pink. "Really," she says. "You're like a little lovesick puppy." Did she really just compare me to a puppy? "So?" I say. "So," she says, like it's the thickest thing on earth for me to be questioning it, "why don't you call him up and ask him to come?" "I — I want him to come, but..." "You think he'd be bored? Come on, Isabella, get real. This is the boy who can do anything and have a good time, okay? He even got you and your friends off that stranded island that time. Just call him up!" When I don't reply, she snatches my phone out of my purse and begins looking through my contacts for his number. "Hello? Phineas?" I hear her say in a very good imitation of my voice. "Hey, could you come to Jumpin' Jack Cheddar's?" Pause. "Yeah." Pause. "Okay, great, see you then!" She hangs up the phone and hands it back to me. "Problem solved, Isabella." Just then, I see a glare of red hair. Oh, no. Phineas rounds the corner and looks at me. "Isabella?" "Phineas?" Isabelle smiles like a proud mother whose children are getting along. "I'll just run along, then," she says, and runs off to be with Sean. Phineas looks at me. "Hi... Isabella?" "That wasn't me that called you," I say, my words coming out in a rush. "It was Isabelle. She said — oh, um..." My voice trails off, but Phineas gathers what I'm saying off my face. "Let me take a wild guess." He makes his voice high-pitched. "'Isabella, it is so obvious you want Phineas to be here, really, you're like a little lovesick puppy, why don't you call him up and ask him to come?'" My jaw drops. "That's exactly what she said." Phineas laughs. "Exactly what I mean by that. She's predictable, that one." "Well," he says after a moment of silence. "Do you want to play some games with Mackenzie?" "Sure," I say. Phineas, it transpires, has amazing hand-eye coordination (but of course) and wins fistfuls of tickets for a squealing Mackenzie, who dances around and then uses them to get a Barbie. As she's making Barbie dance along the edge of the stage near the creepy animatronic animals, my phone buzzes in my pocket. "Isa!" my mother's voice says. "Where on earth are you?" I laugh. I'm not on earth anymore, I think. I'm on cloud nine.
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