Chapter Text
Sitting at the kitchen table. feeling like she was being suffocated by the stench of whatever was lying in wait on her plate, Candace kept trying to tell herself that it was the reeking scent of supper that was making her want to gasp for air and not the fact that she was just an average, confused and besieged-by-hormones teenage girl trying to figure out life and the world.
It didn't help that what was also making her feel crazier was the fact that her mind was constantly obsessing over two seemingly unrelated things: Jeremy was set to call her (like always) sometime after supper and that she was still wondering where, on Earth, she had seen Henry Fred Zoominshiltz before.
Of course, being a few years older than the girl whom had once tried to drag her mother home to see a rollercoaster which had mysteriously vanished, she had become better at hiding her preoccupations from her family.
Either that, or they had learned to ignore them entirely.
"So how was your day today, kids?" Linda Flynn-Fletcher asked, seemingly unaware that her only daughter was staring at her plate, a distressed look on her face.
Shaking her head to help pay attention, Candace didn't know if she still liked being called a kid when she was 18 years old. She didn't feel like a kid, not the same one she used to be anyway. The most moments she still felt like that was when she was attempting to bust her little brothers, but that usually was just heightened in the summer now, or those moments when she was almost positive that she could do it. Now she was more distracted by other things, having grown out of it. Now she just kind of wished that her mother would stop thinking of her as that same teenager whom used to bug her every single day and actually realize that she was a grown woman.
Hopefully when she became class president something like that would finally happen.
A young woman could dream anyway.
Phineas, whom still was a kid, however, answered before Candace could even get a word in about her age or her fledgling steps to becoming senior class president.
"Well, we went to this strange guy's unusual house downtown and dropped off some things he wanted us to pick up for him. Actually, I think we've seen him somewhere before, but things are muddled, what with it being back to school and everything. We left him with a card incase he needed anything else from us and he called us a little while ago to send him some fonts."
Candace didn't think that sounded particularly safe, going to some random guy's house and buying stuff he'd asked for. And then she'd never word it like "incase he needed anything else from us." Like who was this man anyway? And why would he let children do his errands for him? Wasn't their mom supposed to run a check on him first or something?
Mom being mom, however, she just smiled and said, "Well, you two boys are making an income now! I'll have to stop calling you kids and refer to you two as my two little business men, won't I?"
Rolling her eyes, Candace played with her meal, unsure of what was exactly even on her plate. How come Phineas and Ferb got away with stuff like that, but if she did, mom would still treat her like a child and demand to know everything about the guy? Luckily, she didn't need to worry. The only unusual looking building she knew of downtown belonged to Vanessa's dad and that guy was totally trustworthy, a grade A human being and not some weirdo whom was obsessed with creating inventions out of spite to help resolve his painful back story or taking over the Tri-State Area, or something like that. He certainly wouldn't have children doing his shopping for him. She'd even caught a glimpse of him just a few months back picking up Back to School specials.
Other than a kind of resemblance between the separate individuals, Candace actually trusted him as opposed to the someone else she knew of, someone she could actually reference now as the major point of interest in her own day.
"We had a new foreign exchange student in class today..."
"Oh that's nice," Linda remarked, squeezing her equally foreign husband's hand underneath the table.
"Have either of you ever heard of a Henry Fred Zoominshiltz? Supposedly just came to town from Transylvania?" Candace tested out the waters, wondering if her family could help her solve her conundrum.
"It kind of rings a bell," Phineas stated, "but it seems all kind of jumbled in my mind. As I said, school really takes away from the more important stuff."
"No, Candace. And that's the kind of name you remember," Linda commented. "The kind you don't want to have to pay by the letter for when having something engraved."
"Zoominshiltz is not typically a Transylvanian name...infact, I'm not sure it's a real name at all," Ferb suddenly stated, breaking free from his silence.
"Aha! Hmm...hmm..." Candace stated, pointing at her brother and happy to be vindicated, even though her family didn't know of her suspicions about the new student yet.
"Now Ferb," his father chastised, ignoring Candace's reaction, like the family often tried to. "Just because we're not familiar with something doesn't mean that it isn't real. And just because it isn't real, doesn't mean that we've never heard of it before and it's unfamiliar. There's lots of things that you might never have heard of that are or are not real, but which we may experience, if we are or may not be real. Take today's supper, for example! I never would have thought about adding marmalade to a dairy free Cesaer salad until your mother brought it home from her cooking class!"
"Actually, that was a mistake," Linda interrupted with a grimace. "A very bad one, I might add. Charlene got confused with the mayonnaise and I was running late so I just brought it home for supper."
"See, so there you go!" Lawrence Fletcher exclaimed cheerily, taking another bite.
Candace didn't know if this Henry was a mistake or not...she was just pretty sure, no matter that he claimed otherwise, she was not mistaken about having seen him before. The question was where.
"Now, what I want to know is what's with this reaction of yours, Candace?" Linda Flynn-Fletcher addressed her daughter, apparently having noticed it afterall. "Do you not trust this new exchange student?"
"Well," Candace stated, squirming in her seat and feeling embarrassed now, put on the spot, when all she basically had was a gut feeling and Ferb's now shot down support. "I just have a feeling like I've met him before, which would be impossible if he just got into Danville."
"See, that's just what I was saying," Lawrence began again. "Sometimes something that isn't real can feel familiar."
"Oh is that what you were saying?" Linda asked, resting her chin on her hands and staring saucily at her husband. "I thought you were just rambling on to appear stuffy, pompous and British."
"And I still wonder if you were this sarcastic before our marriage," he growled in reply.
They were staring at one another like a couple of lovestruck teens and Candace looked away, feeling enviable and self conscious because her relationship with Jeremy felt a million light years away from her parents' these days. She looked down and started to fiddle with her fingers, making chapels and zippers with them, trying not to feel so depressed. Luckily, her mom soon remembered her train of thought and hopped right back on board.
"Anyway, Candace, you shouldn't just go around accusing every foreign exchange student you see, just because they look familiar. That's rude and gives people whom come to our country a bad first impression. I mean there is probably a very good explanation for it. Look at Perry, afterall...he comes from Australia and he resembles a beaver, a North American mammal."
Candace was about to ask how that exactly proved anything when Phineas began to look around the kitchen and underneath the table for the referenced platypus. "Hey where is Perry?" he asked, obviously missing the little fella.
"Oh, he's sleeping on Candace's bed," Lawrence stated. "He's been there most of the day, from how it looked. I saw him there after I did the laundry for your mother, while she was at cooking school."
"Oh, Lawrence! You shouldn't have!" the woman exclaimed.
"Oh, yes, yes I should," he replied and the two shared a kiss, making Candace feel bad again about the current state of her relationship with Jeremy.
* * *
Sure enough, Perry had been sleeping on her bed when she'd gone to her bedroom, after a supper that made her stomach upset. The little platypus looked like he'd been sleeping there a long time when she had to wake him up so she could kick him out. In the nicest way possible. A decided difference from the days when she'd call him smelly, bland and useless.
"Hey, Perry. Phineas and Ferb were looking for you. I think they'd rather you be doing nothing in their vicinity right now than mine."
The little semi-aquatic mammal rose to his webbed feet, gave a yawn and a stretch, and then hopped off of the bed and waddled to the door. Candace accompanied him for the short journey and opened the door, quickly shutting it after he was gone.
Candace returned to her bed, sparing an anxious look to her clock before she plopped down on the mattress. Did her ceiling always look this gloomy, she wondered, or was the marmalade drenched salad currently being digested messing with her mind?
Oh yeah...the same salad Mom's cooking partner had goofed up, although probably with a little help from mom. Of course, the other woman hadn't needed to take the disgusting thing home to eat because, from what Vanessa told her, her mom was filthy rich.
Having Charlene Doofenshmirtz mentioned hadn't helped matters, Candace guessed. That was Vanessa's mother afterall - her father's ex. Thinking about Vanessa's dad being her father was sometimes strange enough, a reason why she had to keep reminding herself that he was her friend's father and, because of this fact, so much older than she was. Having an ex wife also added to this. An ex wife he'd obviously been physically intimate with or else Vanessa wouldn't have been born. To have both an ex wife and a kid made him ancient.
With this blatantly rubbed in her face, Candace knew that she wasn't supposed to find the man cute, or feel strange inside when she saw him or they talked to one another...she wasn't supposed to feel sad when she thought of Charlene, or feel guilty because a tiny, unwanted part of her kind of wished that Vanessa had never been born because, what if, her dad would have been around her own age instead?
Gee, Mom was right, afterall, Candace guessed: she was still just a kid.
Candace rolled onto her stomach, holding her Ducky Momo doll to her heart.
Better to think of Henry Fred instead.
Whom actually resembled a much younger version of Vanessa's dad.
Now that guy was closer to her age, so if she found him cute, inspite of herself, that was a whole different issue. And if he reminded her a lot of Vanessa's dad, well that was impossible and...hello...awkward as heck...so she just relegated that whole messy subject to the back of her mind, where she put things that were useless to her, like algebra, CD players and last month's big budget blockbuster.
Now this Henry guy was not being honest with her, but for totally different reasons than Jeremy was. Afterall, if she knew Henry, it was only in a vague sort of way, she assumed, and not the obsessive crush kind of way that Jeremy Johnson had dominated her thoughts and soul for years now.
Thinking of Jeremy made Candace Flynn's stomach turn again, but not in the past delightful way of feeling like a billion butterflies were bursting out of rainbows inside of it. Now she just dreaded the thought of their evening phonecall, where once upon a time it had been the highlight and sweet sendoff to the day. Now they were sick butterflies all languishing, dying on a rainbow that had turned a dull, monotone of grey.
But maybe Jeremy would know Henry, one of the butterflies unexpectedly cried out, seeming to come to life at the memory of her encounter with the exchange student after school! Maybe, being a guy with connections, and whose family had them too, he could help add some pieces to the mysterious puzzle that was Henry Fred Zoominshiltz!
Perfect, Candace thought, springing up to a kneeling position on her bed. She could merge both of her obsessions together and get one of the problems bothering her over with!
For the first time in a long time, she phoned Jeremy first.
"Candace! What a surprise! Usually I'm the one to call first," her boyfriend even mentioned the fact, making Candace feel awkward and a little bit guilty.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" she asked, aware that he was in college now and was balancing several other things in his life. Being aware of this still didn't help answer why things felt different for her though, it only made it worse. Afterall, if she could account for several mitigating factors for his being somehow distant and still have a feeling that something was wrong, it upped the chances that Jeremy's feelings for her had changed, didn't it?
Pushing this off to the side, along with Henry's reminding her a little of Vanessa's dad, Candace decided to get right to the motivating force for her break in routine. There'd be time to get back to the pleasantries of the day, what she needed now was a satisfying scratch to the itch she was getting.
"Ahhh, so Jeremy, you're family's pretty popular around town...not like mine that deals mostly in antiques...have you heard anything new and exciting about anybody coming to town?"
He gave it some thought, as indicated by the silence. "Nope. Not that I can remember."
"And your dad works at the space station still, right? He could have seen everything, I mean from a real long distance? Like Europe?"
"Are you worried we're being invaded or something?"
"No, no, it's nothing like that...I just wanted to know if anything seemed, you know, suspicious."
Some more silence, but when Jeremy spoke, his voice sounded almost excited. "Candace, are you back to trying to bust your brothers? I thought with school being back in, it was off season?"
"No..." she groaned. "This is actually about somebody else."
Candace clapped a hand over her mouth. What was she saying...she wasn't trying to bust Henry Fred Zoominshiltz, was she? That was just poor etiquette, she reasoned, just like mom had said. All she was trying to do was find out where he looked familiar from. He hadn't done anything bustworthy yet, although if he was lying that could constitute as...
No!
What was she thinking!
Was she so addicted to busting her brothers, she needed a stand-in now to help ride her through the school year? How pathetic was she?!?
Still...she couldn't help from asking...
"Have you or your friends ever heard of a guy named Henry Fred Zoominshiltz?" she asked, drumming her fingers on her nightstand.
"No...wait! I think I might have given him guitar lessons a few years ago. Let me go look at my files...I keep track of stuff like that to keep my dad off my back."
Candace was squirming in excitement. If Jeremy had given Henry lessons that meant she did know him from somewhere and he was lying about being new to town. She was still twisting about in joy when Jeremy came back to burst her bubble. "No, sorry. Turned out that was a Dr. Doofenshmirtz."
Her face swiftly fell. "A Dr. Doofenshmirtz with a daughter named Vanessa?"
"I don't know her name, but he did have a daughter. Dressed in a black one piece, just like you did that one time."
Oh great, Candace thought. Now Vanessa's dad wasn't just the sexy mad scientist type he was also skilled at playing an instrument. Wait! What! Did she just think of him as sexy? She wasn't supposed to do that. What she meant was the admirable, yes admirable, intelligent, hot...no, not hot...distinguished scientist. Whom happened to play an instrument. No big deal. Liberace had played the piano and she never once thought of him as sexy or hot.
"Don't know why I was thinking about him, anyway. Must be because they are both such weird names and sound, I don't know, European?"
"Does it sound Transylvanian to you?" Candace inquired.
"Ah...no. More German or Russian...and Zoominshiltz, gotta be honest, that just sounds made up."
Candace paused, thinking this over. Added to what Ferb had said, she was starting to be even more curious about Henry. Curious and suspicious. Curious, suspicious and obsessed."
"So...Candace...what's this all about? Should I be jealous about this Henry Fred guy?"
Candace found herself snapped out of her silent contemplation by the words of her boyfriend. "Oh, no, please," she said, trying to regain her composure. "He dresses like my brothers picked out his wardrobe! He's not cool like you. He just turned up in a few of my classes and I thought he looked familiar. I asked him about it, but he denied everything..."
"Which made you want to bust him?"
"Uh...no," Candace answered, feeling confused. Did she want to bust him? Did Jeremy want her to bust him? It was so confusing...and exhausting. There was a time when she used to adopt interests or feelings just to please Jeremy Johnson now she was finding it so hard to keep doing. It was almost...tedious. She was just tired she guessed. All she could reply was, "I don't know, it's just kind of weird. Phineas and Ferb were always so honest about what they were doing, I feel like this guy is dishonest...Why should I feel more interested in busting my brothers and more..." she couldn't use the word she was thinking, curious about Henry Fred Zoominshiltz as a person, not so much riled up and angry. He'd have to do something pretty big to inspire that inside of her. "and more blase about this Zoominshiltz guy lying straight to my face?" she chose to word it, knowing Jeremy had been to France, having stalked him once there.
"Maybe it's because you're conditioned to go after your brothers, the whole psychological impact of the family dynamic. I learned all about it in class today," Jeremy stated. "Professor Freudenkeppler was saying that..."
Candace stayed on the line for another thirty minutes, listening to Jeremy go on and on about his latest Psych course. She wasn't quite sure why he'd chosen the subject, but she guessed intense personalities interested him. She wished she could claim the same. Once again, she was feigning interest, something that used to prove easier to do.
By the time, she finally made the excuse that she had homework to do, pulling the subject of the textbook she'd been holding up to her chest while introducing herself to Henry, Candace was grateful to finally be free of talking to her boyfriend. The feeling that something had changed in their relationship was still bothering her and she just wanted the call to be over so she didn't need to pretend anymore. She wanted to be a lawyer someday, but finding out the mindset of criminals or psychopaths didn't really interest her, her overwhelming need for justice did.
"Well, it was great talking to you, Candace," Jeremy stated. "Let me know how the busting goes." She was about to remind him that she wasn't so much interested in busting Henry Fred Zoominshiltz as getting to the truth behind him, when Jeremy added, "I love you so much," to the send off, in a tone that sounded more like he meant it than he had in the last few weeks.
"I love you too, Jeremy," she said, but wondered why her own voice didn't match his level of passion. It was probably just her fear from before coming out, she told herself, the anxiety that he was no longer as interested in her as he had once been.
The conversation finally finished, Candace let out a sigh of relief, sitting on the edge of her bed, as she tried to collect her thoughts and calm all of the turmoil inside of her soul it had caused, as well as whatever the heck her mom and Charlene Doofenshmirtz's salad was doing to her inner workings.
In time, she stood and walked over to her desk, seeing the copies of the poster she had been working on for the past few days - with Albert Dubois' help and his knowledge of graphic design and possession of state of the art printers - lying there.
In a multitude of bright colors, and with the utmost sincerity and confidence, the poster declared:
Candace smiled, tracing the image of her smile on the poster, wishing it felt as real as it looked.
Not that it mattered what she was feeling now. In a few weeks she would be Senior Class President and then she would be happy about that, at least, because it in no way involved Jeremy Johnson, Vanessa's dad or weird new exchange students she thought she knew.
At least, she would have being class president all to herself.
And, at least nobody could take that away from her, unlike her brothers inventions, which always sooner or later disappeared.
* * *
At school the next morning, on her way to class, Candace Flynn stopped along the way, something on the wall having caught her attention.
No that wasn't entirely accurate.
Several somethings had been plastered all over the walls, each garnering her attention to the sound of a sharp chord played by violins and violas, underscored by a cello.
"Ahhh Stacy, what the heck is this?" Candace asked, having an inkling, yet hoping her friend would tell her that she was hallucinating.
Stacy, whom had been several feet ahead, now came to stand by her side again, staring at the item with the same reaction Candace was suppressing...
Shocked horror.
"I think it's a campaign poster..." Stacy Hirano commented and then looked at the others lining the hallway. "I think they are all campaign posters..."
"I hate to say it Candace, but it looks like you have some serious competition," Stacy remarked, and then noticing the expression on her best friend's face, and the way she was clenching her fists at her side, the textbook she'd been holding now lying at her feet, repeated in concern, "Candace? Ca-Candace?"
"Th...tha..." Candace was struggling to say, "Hen...Henry...Henry Fred Zoominshiltz...you...you are...you are so..." she suddenly pointed at the man's smiling face on a poster that looked even better than hers did, declaring loudly in a voice that meant war, for the whole Danville High School to hear, "HENRY FRED ZOOMINSHILTZ, YOU ARE SOOOO GOING DOWN!"