The What-If-O-Matic

Chapter 1
"Jessie, would you mind coming down here a minute!"

Jessie Fletcher jerked her head up from the picture she was drawing, a rather elaborate sketch depicting an animal not native to the planet, and pulled the earbud of her CD-player from its place in her pointed ear. Well, technically the CD player wasn’t hers, but she usually ignored this fact.

"Coming, Dad!"

She scrambled up from her bed and trotted out of her room, slowing down a little when she reached the stairs. Her father hadn’t sounded angry, but for some reason, whenever a parent calls you downstairs you always feel like you’re in trouble, no matter what tone they use. And when it came to Jessie, she often had good reason for this. But when she reached the living room, he had an amused smirk on his face that told her she had nothing to worry about.

"Would you mind explaining why there is a fire extinguisher stuck up the chimney?"

Jessie blushed almost immediately. Everyone in the family usually asked her first when something bizarre happened in the house, but this time, it actually was her fault.

"It was an accident, Daddy, really."

"I’m sure it was, but why put it there in the first place?"

Jessie glanced downward and nudged the rug with her toe.

"Well, uh...we don’t want Santa getting his breeches burned, do we?"

Lawrence looked at the fireplace, which had a warm fire ablaze in it, and let out a laugh.

"No, we most certainly don’t." He hugged her and ruffled her grassy-green hair.

Right around then, what appeared to be a mountain of Christmas decorations with legs came bouncing happily down the stairs, whistling “Jingle bells” as it went.

"Phineas, what are those for?” Jessie asked, speaking to her stepbrother who was hidden behind the massive assortment of lights, tinsel, and paper snowflake chains. "This place already looks like it was built by an army of elves."

"Well, yes," he said, setting the box down and starting to hang things up. "But there’s no such thing as too much Christmas spirit! Especially today!"

He was quite right, because today was Christmas Eve. And nobody in the Flynn-Fletcher household could possibly be any happier. Nobody, it seemed, except one particular member:

Bang!

Everybody jumped. Somebody, who was so wrapped up in scarves and coats that she was not immediately recognizable, had wrenched open the door, letting in an icy blast of wind, and slammed it behind her just as fast. She was leaning again it and panting as if she had just ran a mile.

"There were so many...” she whimpered.

"Good heavens, Candace, what happened?” Lawrence asked, alarmed.

"I thought squirrels hibernated during the winter?” Jessie remarked.

"I thought they did too...” she was covered from head to boot in gnaw marks. As soon as she’d removed her many layers of scarves, leaving them scattered on the floor in a pile of mushy snow, she stomped upstairs to her room. After getting over the shock of being chewed on by an infantry of rodents, she seemed very angry. Then the door opened again.

“Actually, they were hibernating,” said a low, British-accented voice. Ferb, by some sort of mysterious means, had heard the conversation through the door. "I was in the park collecting charity money, and I guess I played my music a trifle too loud."

Phineas thought of how Candace was in the morning if woken too early, and snickered.

"Just give her a minute, she’ll come around. It’s impossible to stay mad during the holidays."

Ferb agreed, but just to be on the safe side, he thought a little extra cheering up wouldn’t hurt.

--

Candace, now in her room, started mumbling to herself. "Lousy squirrels...What was Ferb thinking, going around, waking them up...?"

Then she remember what she was doing out. Candace and Jeremy had discovered this new movie that they both thought would be amazing. Apparently, so had many other kids. She had to stand in a line for five hours and she had to use the bathroom the whole time. But when she finally got the last two tickets, she knew it would be worth the kidney damage. She picked up the tickets and smiled. A romantic night with Jeremy on New Year's Eve would make her happy no matter what. She opened the door...

Bang!

It took Candace about ten seconds to make sense out of what just happened. All she knew was, something very bright had exploded the moment she opened the door, making her hands burn and showering her entire front with an even layer of black. She blinked, clearing her dazed head, then processed it: Ferb, in a last-ditch and unnecessary attempt to cheer her up, had left some sort of miniature Christmas tree in front of her room, and it had blown up in a festive mushroom cloud the moment she opened the door. Ferb stood there, blinking at the shriveled dark remains of his gift. It now looked a lot like the flimsy little tree that belonged to Charlie Brown. Candace looked down at her hands. They were stinging with minor burns, but that wasn’t why she was looking. Her precious tickets, the ones that she had spent five hours and the possible health of her kidneys on, were now crumbling into little flakes of useless ash.

“Oh...oh dear...” said Ferb, looking guilty at what used to be his gift. “That...that certainly wasn't wasn’t supposed to happen...”

Candace didn’t respond. The look on her face was making Ferb think of a volcano that was about to erupt. If they were in a cartoon, steam would’ve been hissing out her ears.

“That...is...”

The volcano erupted.

"IT!"

Her voice exploded into a furious roar,

"I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU AND YOUR SO-CALLED “CREATIVE” LITTLE NICK-KNACKS! DO YOU EVEN REALIZE WHAT YOU JUST DESTROYED?!?! I MIGHT NEED TO GET MY KIDNEY REPLACED NOW, AND BECAUSE OF YOU, IT’S FOR NOTHING!”

"You can have my kidney...” Ferb squeaked timidly.

"I DON’T WANT YOUR STUPID KIDNEY! I DON’T WANT ANYTHING AT ALL IF IT COMES FROM YOU!"

"I’m...sorry?"

"OH, YOU'RE SORRY! SURE, SAYING SORRY WILL REPLACE THE HUNDRED DOLLAR TICKETS YOU JUST BLEW UP! YOU JUST DON’T CARE, DO YOU?! YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING JUST AS LONG AS YOU GET ALL THOSE PSYCHOTIC INVENTIONS OF YOURS BUILT! I CAN HANDLE IT ANY OTHER TIME, BUT WHEN IT STARTS GETTING IN THE WAY OF MY PERSONAL STUFF AND MY LOVE LIFE...OH, THAT IS THE LAST STRAW!

Candace grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled his face about an inch from hers.

"I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU'D NEVER EVEN BEEN BORN!"

She dropped him, having finally yelled her self out. She stood there for a second or two, panting from her outburst, giving him a look of absolute loathing.

“I hate you,” she said in a final tone that was somehow more painful than shouting “You’re dead to me.”

Ferb sat there for another moment, then stood up and ran, down the hall, into his room, and through the door. He slammed it shut and locked it. A definite sign that he was hurt.

Candace stood there, fuming and exhausted from her rant. Downstairs, it had gone quiet, meaning she’d probably been heard. Great, she was going to get in trouble. She didn’t really care, though. She’s just released seven years of repressed anger on her good-for-nothing excuse of a little stepbrother, but for some reason, did not feel any better. She had just turned to go back into her room and brace herself for her parents to come in and ask what happened, when a seemingly disembodied voice spoke:

“Ya wish he’d nevah been born, eh?”

Candace nearly jumped clean out of her skin. The voice was female, had a New Jersey accent, and had a sort of mechanical edge to it, as if it was a computer and not a real voice talking. She spun around, alarmed, when it spoke again:

“Down here.”

Candace looked down, and found the source of the noise. She hadn’t noticed it before, but Ferb had been carrying another one of his and Phineas’s contraptions, and had dropped it when the Christmas tree exploded. It didn’t really look like much, just a silver metal box about six inches tall with a large purple button on the top, but Candace knew her brothers well enough to not judge their inventions by their cover.

“Are you...talking to me?” Candace stammered.

“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you,” the machine said. “Now would ya mind openin’ this thing, already? It’s as cramped as a porta-potty in here.”

Candace looked uncertainly at it. She thought she would never hear that voice again. Then, sounding impatient, it spoke again.

"The button, ya goose, push the button!"

Candace did so, and in about three seconds, the box had popped open like a Jack-in-the-box and unfolded, revealing a sort of electronic orb that Candace thought looked like a crystal ball from a year thirty years into the future. Candace had just enough time to take this image in, before a hologram was projected from it. Well, “projected” isn’t exactly the right word, apparently, it had been programed it so that it floated out in an ominous, genie-like fashion.

“‘Baut time, gool,” said the projection. Apparently, this was how she pronounced the word “girl.”

The holographic person, who appeared to be about Candace’s age, maybe a little older, was wearing a dark purple sweater and a tattered pair of jeans. She and choppy pink hair about to her shoulders, amber-golden eyes, and very pale skin, giving Candace the impression she was a vampire. She was thin to the extremes, and was stretching lazily as if she had just been rudely woken up from a pleasant sleep.

“...Bobbi?! What are you doing here?”

“Takin' a nap. What do ya think I was doin'? Nevah mind. Long story short, I ain't really Bobbi, I'm a holographic whatever made by Phineas and Ferb.”

“Phineas and Ferb?! Ooh, they are so-”

“Don’t even go there, Missy.”

“Wait, wait a sec... if you’re not Bobbi, then... what are you?”

“I am the What-if-O-Matic.”

"The what-y what now?"

"It’s a device your brothers made. Using some sort of technology you ain't smart enough to undahstand, I can make your little wish come true. I can make ya a whole othah reality where Ferb was nevah even thought about."

The mention of that name stirred back the blind rage that had been temporarily subsided by Hologram-Bobbi’s appearance.

“You’re serious?”

“I’ve nevuh been more serious in my life. Okay, weird choice of words. So, what do ya say, do ya really wish Ferb was nevah born?”

It was a tempting offer, but Candace still hesitated. Ferb may have been nothing but a quiet, green-headed pestilence to her ever since the day he’d become part of the family, but did she seriously, honestly not want him to exist?

She probably would’ve said no, and there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell, if she hadn’t chosen then to glance down at her hands. They were still burned from the explosion, and a few sad grey flakes were still stuck to her fingers, the only evidence that her tickets had ever existed. All thanks to Ferb...

“Yes,” she decided “Yes I do.”

Chapter 2
Hologram-Bobbi smiled, an almost evil smile.

"Awesome. Now just step into this bubble-thingy. Man, that's a bad design, I mean it's cramped enough by myself, but when you join. Ugh! Just get in." Candace walked towards the bubble still floating a few feet above the ground. She wasn't a hologram, so she doubted she'd be able to fit in without breaking the bubble.

"You sure it'll work?" Candace asked unsurely.

"Course! It hasn't not worked yet."

"Really?"

"Yeah really. You're the first one." At that note, Hologram-Bobbi grabbed Candace (to her utter surprise, since technically she should have passed right through her) and pulled her into the bubble. Apparently, the same technology the boys used when they made the giant bubble was what made Candace pass through with ease.

Inside the bubble was not very pleasant. Hologram-Bobbi had described it like a porta-potty, but Candace had been inside less cramped boxes (not an experience she liked to reflect on). She felt as though she would suffocate to death. But that was only the beginning.

"Say it!" came the muffled voice of Hologram-Bobbi. Candace couldn't see her face, but she figured it could kill her if looks could kill. She tried to ask what she meant, but Hologram-Bobbi's foot was pressed against her face. Then the latter growled. "Say your freakin' wish! Ugh, maybe I should stop callin' ya a goose, it's an insult to geese everywhere."

Candace wiggled her head out from behind Hologram-Bobbi's foot and barely got out, "I wish Ferb was never born."

At those words, the bubble started shaking, making Candace feel very nauseous. Then, the bubble dropped to the ground with such force, she was surprised she didn't break a limb. "Please tell me this is the worst," she said, holding back possible vomit.

"If I did, I'd be lying," replied Hologram-Bobbi. Then, the bubble started compressing, squeezing her. If she hadn't been suffocating before, she definetly was now. As she started gasping for air, the bubble felt as though it were being flung through the air, with such force it gave Candace whiplash. Then, it just popped.

Candace lazily rolled out, panting and feeling very incapacitated.

"Uhh..." She carefully stood up and looked around. Everything seemed about the same. Her room pink with posters of Tiny Cowboy. Her bed neatly made. And the best part of all: no explosion. Ferb was not here or anywhere. She picked up the family portrait on her nightstand. No Ferb. Not even a gap where he used to be, Just her, Phineas, and her parents. She grinned

"What did I tell ya?” said Bobbi.

"It worked!" Candace squealed, feeling giddy with excitement "I can’t believe it actually worked!"

"Well, ya better believe it, cuz that thing won't have enough juice to make another trip for a while."

Candace jumped up and practically pranced to the door, prepared to enjoy a happy, Ferb-less Christmas. She headed down the hall, humming to herself, then glanced over her shoulder, sensing somebody was behind her.

"Oh, hey Phineas."

She looked back, then did a double-take. Her jaw dropped.

"Phineas?!"

Candace had to blink a few times to make sure. Yes, it was definitely Phineas, she barely recognized him.

Phineas was leaning against the wall, his hands deep in his pockets. His hair was lank and flat, quite unlike the jaunty mess she was used to seeing him wearing. but one thing shocked her the most: He wasn’t smiling. He was just staring at the wall, his eyes half closed, looking deathly bored.

It was Christmas Eve, and Phineas wasn’t happy. That was possibly the creepiest thing Candace had seen in her life.

“What do you want?” he asked. His voice was almost unrecognizably glum.

“...What...happened to you?”

“Me? You sure are one to talk, since when did you care about anything that I do?”

It took Candace a minute to process that. How could he say that, when she usually spent just about every waking minute obsessing over what he was doing.

“Since...always? Okay, seriously what is wrong with you?”

“If anybody here has something wrong with them, it’s you, Freak!”

Just then, a very exasperated voice shouted from downstairs.

“Phineas, can’t you do something besides torment your sister?!”

The voice sounded similar to a woman Candace knows, but she couldn't place the voice exactly. She followed her brother, if she could even call him that, down the stairs to the owner of his voice. Much to her surprise, the voice belonged to none other than her mother. Linda was dressed in messy sweats and her hair was sticking up in many spots.

But she only had about a second to take that in when even bigger surprise hit her:

Everything was completely blank. All the Christmas decorations, from the miles and miles of tinsel chains to the half a ton of artificial icicles, were gone. The walls and ceiling were stripped completely clean, now looking bleak and desolate. There was still a tree, but compared to the one Candace had helped her family put up weeks before, it looked downright depressing.

Candace felt like a plug had been pulled in her brain. This couldn’t be right...

“Shocking, ain’t it?”

Candace turned around. Bobbi was standing there, appearing to enjoy seeing Candace squirm.

“I...think you mad a mistake on the machiney-dealy-bob...thingy. I asked for for Ferb to be erased from existence, not the warm fuzzies of the entire family!”

“No, it did exactleh what ya asked it to do.”

“Well, then-”

“Candace? Who are you talking to?”

Candace looked behind her and saw...Dad? It looked like him, but she hadn’t seen him looking that glum in ages.

“I...I, uh...can’t you see her?”

“See who?”

Candace realized that Bobbi must be invisible to everyone but her, immediately giving her the impression that she must look like an idiot, standing there, talking actively to thin air.

“Uh...n-never mind...”

He gave her a look, then returned to the newspaper he was reading.

At that moment, Candace suddenly further understood of her decision: She hadn’t just wished away her brother, she’s wished away her parents’ son...

Was his impact really that much?

To be continued...