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| - "Ashley!" my father calls. "Come here!" I sigh and go see my dad. "Yeeees?" "Here, stamp these papers with my signature stamp." He holds out a stamp covered in black ink to me. "You have a signature stamp?" I ask. "Why on earth would you need that?" "Well, as mayor of Danville, I'm simply too busy to actually sign things, darling, you must know. I'm not like my brother, who has too much time on his hands and dedicates his day to evil." "I like Uncle Heinz," I say. "Thank you, Ashley, but I don't think I was asking you. Now please, stamp these." He holds out a stack of papers. The topmost one is about protecting the city from robot rampage. "Dad, you say Uncle Heinz is ridiculous-- look at what you have here! Robot rampage, when does this ever happen?" He hands me a copy of the Fireside Girls Gazette. I look at him. "You seriously subscribe to this?" "As mayor, it's important to keep up on what people are saying about current events." I roll my eyes. He always sounds like a pull-my-string doll. "As a mayor... being mayor... as the mayor... as mayor of Danville... being mayor of Danville..." I read the paper. It's a report from a girl who's about ten years old, named Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, reporting on a superhero called the Beak. How interesting. NOT. I sigh, set the newspaper down on the desk, and stamp the papers. "Thank you for cooperating, Ashley. Now, if you must excuse me, I must take time out of office to visit my insane brother." He begins to stand up. "Wait! Can I come along?" I ask. "Now, now, Ash, it's going to be very boring. We're planning our mother's birthday." "But doesn't he have a daughter?" I pester. "Please, Dad?" He sighs. "Fine. You may come along. Now go get in the car, I'll be right back." I walk out of his office and take the elevator down to the first floor. I heard a girl once got to the topmost ledge and almost fell off. I don't believe it, nor do I believe 'the Beak' saved her. It's obviously just a dress up game, complete with complex technology, the kind that only nerds use. The elevator door opens, and I walk out the front door and down the large set of stairs. I go to hit the unlock button on his keys, but hit the panic button. That can't be good. Dad's always told me to never touch the panic button. A flashing light, the likes of which I've seen on cop cars, emerges from the roof. An earsplitting wail is emitted from the car as a woman's computerized voice says, "Please step away from Roger Doofenshmirtz, the mayor of Danville's car." A million security guards run up to me, bearing sticks and preparing to whale on me. I flinch. "No!" I cry. "It's me! Mayor Doofenshmirtz's daughter!" One of the security guards lowers his stick, and the others follow suit. I fumble with the keys and press the panic button again. The flashing light descends into the car, the wail stops abruptly, and the woman shuts up. The security guards file into city hall again, and I take a moment to regain my dignity. Dad comes running out of the building, looking absolutely livid. "Didn't I TELL you not to press the panic button?" he bawls. "Didn't I?" "I-I didn't mean to!" I scream. "I meant to hit the unlock button." "You better have!" he shouts. This is ridiculous. "Dad!" I cry over his shouting. "Calm down, for crying out loud." He hears my words and I see him deflate. "Okay," he says. "Get in." I open the passenger door and slide in. He gets in beside me and turns on the car. Some political talk show blares through the car. It seems like two seconds to the large purple building. I can practically hear the jingle going off in my head: Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated! My father shakes his head. "It's honestly quite sad that I'm related to him." "Stop ragging on Uncle Heinz, Dad," I say. "He's not that bad." "He is that bad," he replies. "I hope you don't follow in his footsteps. Follow in mine, you'll go down the right path. You won't get blown up as many times, too." He begins to get out of the car, but I stop him. "Dad. Is it really up to you to decide EVERYTHING? I know you're mayor, and you can decide big things like the budget for robot rampage recovery, but you can't decide what your daughter wants to do, that's her choice. I will follow in Uncle Heinz's footsteps if I want to, and maybe one day I will be mayor of something. But for now, I'm choosing the Heinz road." He looks shocked as we take the elevator to the forty-eighth floor. The elevator door opens and we walk in on the strangest scene ever. My uncle is talking to a platypus who is trapped in a snowglobe, wearing a fedora. My uncle is jabbering away to the platypus, but falters when we walk in. "Excuse me, Perry the Platypus," he says, walking over to us. "Hello, Roger." Then he sees me. "Look, it's my favorite niece!" "Hi, Uncle Heinz," I chirp. He turns back to my father. "What are you doing here?" "I am here to plan Mother's birthday," my father says snidely but smoothly. "Oh!" Uncle Heinz cries. He walks over to the trussed-up platypus and releases him. "On your way, Perry the Platypus." A normal girl who didn't know my uncle would think that he was a mental patient for talking to a platypus like he could understand. But I know the whole story. My uncle is a mad scientist with a nemesis. He's a normal platypus with an alter ego as a secret agent, working undercover for an agency called the O.W.C.A, or the Organization Without a Cool Acronym. I'm actually fairly familiar with Major Monogram, Inspector Initials, and Admiral Acronym, who lead different divisions of the agency. My dad is acquaintances with them because he needs to know the defense system, locally and universally: Inspector Initials is from Britain. Anyway. I see my cousin, Vanessa, lurking in a doorway. I go over and say hi. "What are you doing here?" she asks. Not exactly the nicest welcome. "I had to come along, my dad is planning his mother's birthday with yours." "Whatever," she says. "You're such a goody goody." "...I thought you liked my dad," I say. "Not anymore," she says. "I'm taking after my dad now." "Cool," I say. "I want to follow in his footsteps, too." She looks shocked. "You're the mayor's daughter, you're supposed to want to be good. It's how you were raised, right?" "Not really," I say. "I'm a completely different person from my father. It's possible, however much it may shock you." "Oh, it shocks me, all right." "Trust me, it's boring being a mayor's daughter." "I would think so. My dad's blowing himself up every day. Oddly, he's only been arrested once." "For what?" This should be interesting. "Shoplifting." Are you serious? "What was he shoplifting, exactly?" "Pizzazium Infinionite," she says. "It's a rare chemical." "I'm aware what it is, Vanessa," I say. "What does it do, then?" "I've been trying to find out," I admit. "I'm experimenting with it in the basement of city hall." That catches her interest. "Oh, really. What have you found, then?" "Nothing, really," I say. "Besides the fact that it helped me with my math homework." She snorts a little, as though math homework is for five year olds. She's so condescending sometimes. "Listen," she says, her voice masked by conversation about colored streamers, "my dad is working on something big. He's planning to send out a mind control satellite into space so that everyone can act the way he wants. It sounds cliché, but it's actually pretty cool. I mean, if you and I joined in, we could get a say in how some people act. For example, the guy I like, Johnny-- I wish that he'd be more of a boyfriend and less of a friend, so that little green-haired creep can stop stalking me. You could probably have control over whomever you want." That does sound cool. And evil. Coolly evil. Evilly cool. "I'm in," I say, then pause. "Green-haired creep?" "Yeah," Vanessa says, "his name's Herb or something. But I mean, he helped me get the Pizzazium Infinionite for my dad and I kissed him on the cheek, and now everyone thinks we're a couple! I mean, hello? I'm sixteen. He's ten. It won't happen. "Okay," Vanessa says, actually looking kind and not condescending for once. "But here's the real problem-- much worse than green-haired boys. When they arrested my dad, they put someone out there to track his actions during the day. Of course, they don't get him unless he's doing something big-- the other day, he was trying to switch everyone's good food with junk food, which isn't exactly too bad, considering we're in a state where there's more junk than good food in people's homes. But something like this? A ray that acts as a real-life Imperius Curse? They'll get him for sure, so he has to work by night. You'll have to sneak out at night to come work with us." "I don't mind," I say. "I'm more of a night owl anyway." "Cool," she says. "Meet us tonight in the basement of this building, eight-thirty sharp." "I'll be there." Sneaking out unnoticed isn't exactly easy. My dad has eyes like a hawk and doesn't miss a detail. I wait until he's fully asleep, then slide down the banister and creep out the front door. The thing about Danville at night is that it's not always... well... pretty out. My uncle blows himself up fairly often, and instead of still, quiet, clear skies, there's always a man flying away on a giant firecracker or something. I take my spare key out, unlock the door, and let myself inside. I find the stairway to the basement and a strange sight meets my eyes. My uncle and Vanessa are standing there, bent over some machine that's humming and whizzing, beeping and whirring. It's absolutely alive with excitement, and it gives off a greenish glow, lighting up the dark cellar. Vanessa and Uncle Heinz are both wearing goggles and lab coats. Very evil scientist chic. Vanessa hands me a lab coat and a pair of goggles, which I slip on. "Why do we need to wear goggles?" "If you look at the glow too long, it burns out your eyes," my uncle says nonchalantly, not looking up from the machine. Ooookay... "How far along are we?" I ask. "Almost ready for launch," Vanessa says excitedly. "Excellent," I say, smiling. "So your plans for use of the machine are...?" "Gosh, isn't someone just full of questions?" Vanessa says. "Well, I already told you I'm going to use it on Johnny so that green-haired kid will leave me alone for once, and my dad is planning to use it to... well, he can explain." "Backstory time!" exclaims Uncle Heinz. "You see, P-- Ashley, when I was younger, nobody ever gave me presents for my birthday. The only exception was my parents, who gave me a toothpick one year. "That will end soon enough with my Mind Control-inator! This way, every year on my birthday, everyone in the Tri-State Area will give me presents for my birthday! "But wait-- there's more! "I've been plotting the downfall of your father for quite some time now, Ashley," my uncle says, practically dancing with delight. "Once I have the Mind Control-inator ready, I can force your father to hand over his power to me, Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz! And then I will be able to control everyone, excluding you two. "And now-- to launch!" We wheel the machine silently into the back area of D.E.I. My uncle throws a lever and the machine rockets off into the sky, leaving our pristine white coats black and charred. "Quickly, under here," Vanessa says, leading us under a dome. I see a flash of green light up the whole city, and my uncle is looking at a computer. "Can I see?" asks Vanessa, and her father moves aside. I see her type in 'Johnny Malone' and hit the enter button. She types into the computer what exactly she wants Johnny to do. "Hey, Vanessa," I say putting my hand over hers, slowing her typing. "Wouldn't it just be easier to search up this green-haired kid and get him to leave you alone?" "That would be smart," she says, "but I don't remember his name too well. I know the last three letters, but I don't know the first letter." "We'll search him up." I take control of the computer and say, "Let's go through the names alphabetically." I type in Berb. No results come up. "I stink at the alphabet," I say. "Vanessa, can you run through the possible names?" "Cerb, Derb, Ferb--" "Wait! I've got something!" A picture of a boy who looks quite like a rectangle with green hair pops up on the screen. "That's him," she says, reading his profile. "Ferb Fletcher." "He's odd looking," I say, reading his profile. According to the profile, he's a ten year old British boy who moved to the USA around the age of two. Interesting. NOT. "I know, huh?" Vanessa comments, looking at the picture. "One of his eyes is bigger than the other." "Really? That's creepy." I open up the command window and type in Leave Vanessa Doofenshmirtz alone. No results show up for Vanessa, though. "Oh, I forgot," says her father, pushing me out of the way and tapping in something on the computer. "It goes by completely full names. There." It now reads Leave Vanessa Ann Doofenshmirtz alone. "Your middle name is Ann?" I ask. How old fashioned. "Well, as you now know my middle name, I get to know yours," she says. "What is it?" "Kendra," I say. "That's actually cool in an old fashioned way," she says. "Jeez." The next day, I meet Vanessa at the Superduper Mega Superstore to go shopping for lab coats. (Don't judge me.) Unfortunately, we run into Ferb there, who looks completely dazed. He continues to follow us around the store, thinking we're not looking. "Didn't you command him to leave you alone last night on the computer?" I ask in an undertone. Just then, Vanessa's phone rings. She holds up one finger, meaning, Hold on a second, and fishes out her phone, pressing TALK. "Hello?" she says, then covers the mouthpiece. "It's my dad," she says, panicked. "We need to run over to his place." We bolt out of there, Ferb on our heels. I swear, the boy has no sense of spying. Reaching Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, we find my uncle in the backyard, looking at the satellite we launched last night. "What happened?" "I nearly got in trouble," he says. "It crashed into a house on Maple Street, and I had to get it quickly before anyone saw it." "So that's why Ferb was following us today," I say. "He wasn't leaving Vanessa alone, he was practically right behind us the whole time." Vanessa sighs. "Well, my dad's inventions rarely work. Oh well." "Yeah," I say. "Oh well."
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