Finding Dad (Chapter 3)

Chapter 3
~Isabella~

After I told Phineas about my idea last night, I actually got to sleep! So this morning, I'm super energetic! I feel a little stupid for forgetting what today was, but I know Phineas doesn't mind answering any of my questions. He seems a little distracted this morning, I wonder what's eating him. Well, you won't know unless you ask, right? "Phin, are you okay? You seem…. I don't know… bothered this morning." He almost seems to jump at my question. "No, I-I'm alright. J-Just confused." "About what?" I ask. "Nothing!" he replies, a little too quickly, "Just forget about it." "Okay?" I say. By this point, we've hit the breakfast bar. I just pick up a piece of toast and put some butter on it. Phin picks up a bowl of cereal. Classic Phin. We watch the TV. It's the morning news. To our surprise, there is a story about two missing kids. I drop everything I'm holding, because those kids are us. Apparently, Phineas' mom went insane once Phineas was missing. I wonder if Mom tried to stop her. Even if she didn't, I can't believe Mrs. Flynn (or is it Mrs. Fletcher, or Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher? I don't really know.) would report us to the Missing Children people. I know that's not their name, but I'm not entirely sure what they're called. Sure enough, the news lady is saying, "These two children, Phineas Flynn and Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, are missing." A picture of the two of us together appears onscreen. It was a fairly recent picture; Phineas and I were walking home after I discovered he was The Beak. "They were last seen last night, in their respective homes in Danville, VA. If anyone sees them, call us immediately. There will be a reward for any information." I freeze. I look at Phineas, who has also dropped everything. Then, I realize that someone in the breakfast area is staring at us quizzically. She says to her friend, "Aren't those the missing kids?" Before I even know what is happening, Phineas grabs my hand and just runs. He runs and runs and runs. "WAIT! PHINEAS!" I scream. But he doesn't stop. He continues to run down the street, dragging me along with him. "We can't be found!" he says between heavy breaths. "We have to keep moving!" Although I enjoy him holding my hand, we get about a mile down the road and I free myself from his grasp. "PHINEAS!" He finally stops and turns around. "WHAT?!" he screams kind of rudely, and this scares me, because he never screams. He must see the semi-shocked look on my face because he says, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you." "It's okay, but why are you so angry? And it's okay, you can vent if you need to, I won't take it personally." "It's just," he starts, "The whole point of this for was Mom not to find me. She needs to understand that I'm gonna be fine. I mean, I don't blame her for being worried about me, but I haven't given her a reason not to trust me. So, she should know that I didn't run away. She should at least give me that." He looks at me, almost as if he thinks he's inconveniencing me by having issues. "I'm sorry you have to hear this," he tells me. "No, don't worry. I'd rather you vent to me than anybody." "And now, we're not safe anywhere! We probably can't get on the plane, we can't find our dads, and I can't go home to Mom, she'll kill me!" He's yelling now, so I say, "Phin, calm yourself down." "I'm sorry," he says again, "really I am. You shouldn't have to see me all angry like this." "Phineas, as my Mom says, if I can't take you at your worst, then I don't deserve you at your best," I say.

~Phineas~

For the second time today, I wonder what is wrong with me. I don't typically get angry, but the fact that Mom's got who knows how many people after us just really makes me mad. To make matters worse, I'm taking it all out on Isabella, and that's the last thing I wanna do. She's being so understanding; I don't deserve a friend like her. She looks at me and says, "Phineas, please don't worry about me. Everyone needs to get angry sometimes." "I'm sorry," I say yet again, "but what can we do now? Everywhere we go, people are going to try to turn us in-" "-How do you know that?" Izzy interjects. I sigh. "I guess we could try," I say halfheartedly. "You guess? No, we will try. You are the one who taught me, taught all of us, that anything is possible. This time, we've got a nation looking for us. Okay, but not everybody watches the news. I don't. So let's just head to the airport, and see if we can get on a flight." Did I really teach her all that? "Okay Izzy. Let's find out where the airport is." We head back towards the hotel and see a guitarist on the street. He is a tall African-American, with ragged looking clothes. He is playing a sweet sounding song and has his case open for tips. I ask him, "Do you know where the airport is?" He stops playing for a minute and looks at me, then at Izzy, then back to me. He points back towards the hotel. "Couple miles thatta way." Then he continues playing. He seems to enjoy playing, which reminds me of how I get when I play. I miss my guitar. "Sorry to interrupt you again, but can I play?" Wordlessly, he hands me the guitar. I play the first thing that comes to my mind: the chorus from Gitchee Gitchee Goo. I can't explain how much better this makes me feel, to be able to play again. After a couple minutes, I hand the guitar back to him. "Thanks man," I tell him. Before I leave, I find a 20 in my pocket and leave it in his case. The man looks overjoyed. "You kids are too kind," he says. "Sorry about that," I say somewhat sheepishly, "I get weird around guitars. But you knew that." "Yes, yes I did," Isabella replies, "now let's go find that airport!" We head back the way we came from, and Izzy asks, "Phineas, what if they don't let us on the plane?" I had to think about that one. "Well, I guess we'd either go more buses, which would take a long time, or we could sneak on." "That doesn't seem like you," Isabella says. "I know, Izzy, but we've made it this far. Why turn back now?" She nods, satisfied with that answer.

~Isabella~

It was awesome for me to see Phineas play the guitar earlier today. I've never seen him more peaceful. He really needed that. I look to my right at him. I know I've always loved him, but I find something new about him every day that amazes me. Now that I think about it, even with all of the money we had, I wouldn't have made it this far on my own. I don't even know if I would have left. I couldn't have done any of this without him. He really is amazing. "Spaced out again, Izzy?" he says. "Oh! Uh- yeah!" I say. "Hey look! The airport!" he cries. I honestly don't know what I expected, but this place is huge. "You sure you're ready for this?" he asks me. "With you, of course I am!" I reply. He looks a little confused at my response, but we head into the airport anyways. We get inside and it's incredibly crowded. Like, I probably can't see ten feet in front of me without staring at someone. Without a word, Phineas grabs my hand and we navigate through the people. I can't even see him, that's how crowded it is. Smart guy, he is. But I already knew that. We reach the ticket counter, but we have to wait in line. He continues to hold my hand. Reading my mind, he says, "We have to stay together. I can't lose you." Something about the word "can't" gets those butterflies in my stomach going. We always were good at passing time. Even when we were little kids, we didn't mind car trips. For the most part, we played I Spy. There are so many things in an airport to "spy." We reach the front, and the lady talks down to us, like we're three or something. "Are you kids missing your parents?" she asks us. "No ma'am, we want tickets on the next plane to New Orleans." "Golly, you can't do that by yourselves." "Yes, yes we can. Will you please allow us to buy tickets?" Phineas pleads. "How old are you kids, six? I can't let you do that." Phineas gives her that look which I've come to know as The Look. Basically, if he gives you this, you've really made him angry. God, I can only imagine what's coming. "Excuse me, we're eleven. All we want from you are some tickets to New Orleans, so we can get there as soon as possible," he says tensely. I smile slightly, because it's kinda funny to see him angry. But I know better than to laugh. "Fine," the ticket lady says, "the next flight to New Orleans is in thirty minutes. Got any luggage I need to check?" "Nope. How much are we talking about for the tickets?" Phineas asks. "Well, it's gonna be $160 per person. So either you give me $320 for you and your girlfriend, or get outta my line." To her surprise, Phineas actually pulls $400 from his pocket. "Give me my change," he says rudely. The lady, still shocked, hands us two tickets and $80. "This better not be counterfeit!" she calls after us. Oh don't worry, it isn't, I think. The tickets say D6 on them, so we head towards Terminal D. He grabs my hand again, so he doesn't lose me. Awesome! Something just occurred to me. "Phineas, you didn't argue with her when she said I was your girlfriend," I say in a singsong voice. He blushes. "True, but you didn't either," he fires back. Touché. "And," he continues, "we were kinda arguing with her about everything else, so that comment didn't really bother me." Swoon. Realizing what he said, he blushes even deeper, "No, that's not what I meant!" he blurts. I laugh. "It's okay," I say, "I'm just messing with you." We see a Starbucks on the way to the terminal. He heads over there, "Come on, let me buy you something," he says with a smile. To the casual observer, we would seem like a cliché young couple. We're holding hands, Phineas wants to buy me something, and we're laughing and messing with each other, smiling like idiots the whole time. But of course, the Starbucks is crowded so we have to entertain ourselves again. We're not ones to complain, though. "We have to keep an eye on the time," I say, "or we're gonna miss our plane." I've never actually been in an airport, so I don't know how this works. "They call it on the intercom when a plane is boarding, no way we can miss it," he reassures me.