Candace Against the Universe

by Disney Books

  The kids each pulled out a remote control unit. They pressed the buttons, and a rumble filled the air as giant rolling robots thundered into the stadium.

  “Oh, no!” Super Super Big Doctor said, feigning fear. “What are we gonna—Thermal cannon!”

  The alien leader’s order was carried out immediately as the thermal cannon fired, reducing the kids’ giant robots to ashes in a second.

  Then the thermal cannon was trained on the kids.

  “Uh, guys?” Isabella said, pointing this out. The kids dove from the scoreboard onto the playing field just as the thermal cannon blasted the scoreboard into itty-bitty scoreboard pieces.

  The crowds of people in the bleachers fled.

  “Soak up that carbon dioxide, Mama!” Super Super Big Doctor said.

  As the crowd ran from the stadium, an oblivious Jeremy stayed at his post in the Slushy Dog truck. Busy preparing his live-action role-playing gear, he wasn’t aware of anything outside—until someone dove into the truck to escape the madness.

  “Wow, Jeremy,” Stacy said. “You’re already getting ready to fend off the alien invasion!”

  “There’s an alien invasion?” Jeremy asked. He turned from his LARP equipment and saw the hordes of people running and screaming.

  “Ferb and I have gotta get on that ship and get to Candace,” Phineas said.

  “Go for it!” Isabella said. “We’ll run interference!”

  “Yeah, I’m great at interfering!” Buford insisted, and he was not incorrect.

  Buford disappeared from the dugout, followed by Isabella and Baljeet.

  A moment later, the doors to the clubhouse opened, and the Narwhals’ golf cart careened onto the playing field. Buford was behind the wheel, thoroughly enthused. Baljeet sat beside him, holding a rake, while Isabella threw chalk bombs at the aliens.

  “Eat canoe, alien freak boys!” Buford shouted. His precious canoe was tied to the back of the golf cart, knocking over alien guards as they drove. “We’re using it again!” he pointed out, nodding toward the canoe.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll make you a patch,” Isabella said, shaking her head.

  Candace was on the bridge of the mother ship, slumped over on the treadmill. She was stumbling over her feet as the treadmill slowly cranked on. Monitors surrounded her, and the chaos from the baseball stadium filled the screens. But Candace didn’t even look up.

  An alien guard, who presumably was supposed to be watching Candace, was on the phone instead.

  “Hey, Sand Toaster!” the alien said. “You’re never gonna guess where I am. Her Highness put me in charge of the Chosen One!”

  The alien on the other end of the line babbled excitedly.

  “Ha ha, that’s right! She’s on a treadmill, making a lot of CO2, and let me tell you, this is the big time. Ol’ Toilet Flower here is going places!”

  The alien on the other end of the line babbled even more excitedly than the first time.

  “You’re under attack?” Toilet Flower said. “Oh, wow, from who? Let me go to the monitors.”

  Toilet Flower looked at the monitors and saw utter chaos outside. “Oh, yeah, I see ya there,” he said. “Oh, wow, you are under attack.”

  Candace, her eyes heavy, her feet tired and sore, looked up at the monitors. She was absolutely floored to see, among all the activity, Phineas and Ferb sneaking up the ramp of the mother ship.

  “They…they escaped?” Candace said quietly. “But how did they make it back to Earth?”

  “Let me see what else is going on,” Toilet Flower said to the alien on the phone. “I think I’ll check this monitor to my left.”

  “Uh, hey, excuse me, Mr. Toilet Shower?” Candace said, trying to get his attention.

  “Toilet Flower,” the alien insisted.

  “Oh, sorry. Hey, these shoes pinch. Yeah, I’d be able to create much more carbon dioxide if you just loosened them a teensy bit.”

  But Toilet Shower—sorry, Flower—wasn’t paying attention. He was still on the phone. At least he wasn’t looking at the monitor, so he wouldn’t see Phineas and Ferb sneaking aboard.

  “I gotta let you go,” Toilet Flower said, then hung up the phone. “All right,” he said to Candace. “I want you makin’ a lot of CO2.”

  He loosened Candace’s shoes and turned his head slightly—almost, but not quite, enough to see Phineas and Ferb on the monitor.

  Thinking fast, Candace kicked Toilet Flower in the chest. He fell right over onto the treadmill. Then she stomped on him.

  Toilet Flower screamed, “It’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt! I can’t believe you did this to me!”

  Then Candace kicked the remote on Toilet Flower’s belt into her hands as he was practically consumed by the treadmill.

  “It’s so much worse underneath!” Toilet Flower yelled.

  Pressing a button, Candace released the handcuffs.

  The treadmill spat out Toilet Flower, and he landed in a ball right in front of Phineas and Ferb as they entered.

  “Candace!” Phineas shouted.

  “Phineas and Ferb!” Candace said. Then she ran toward a nearby alcove, sobbing.

  “Candace, are you okay?” Phineas asked.

  “I’m just so ashamed,” Candace said with a sniffle. “I can’t believe you guys came to save me after all those awful things I said. After everything I’ve done, all summer…I’ve been ruining everyone’s fun.”

  “What are you talking about?” Phineas asked.

  “I’m not the Chosen One. I’m not special. I’m not even a good sister,” Candace said mournfully. “You guys are better off without me.”

  “Candace, open our gift,” Phineas said.

  “The gift?” Candace said. “Oh, you were even trying to give me a gift, and I wouldn’t take it. I’m so horrible!”

  “Please, Candace,” Phineas said, handing the present to his sister. “Open it.”

  Candace did. It was a mug that said WORLD’S #1 SISTER.

  “You got me a coffee mug,” Candace said. “And I don’t even drink coffee! I can’t do anything right!”

  “Push the button, Candace,” Phineas said.

  Only then did Candace notice a little button on the handle. When she pressed it, the room lit up, projecting holograms of Candace everywhere. Each hologram showed Candace doing something amazing: performing one-handed push-ups; wrestling an alligator; playing the bassoon, the banjo, and the bongos, all while singing.

  “Wow,” Candace said with a gasp. “What is this?”

  “It’s all the things that make you the coolest person we’ve ever met,” Phineas said. “You kick butt! You rock out! And you can always make us laugh. The kinda laughter where stuff squirts out of your nose. Summer would be no fun without you! We just wish you could see yourself the way we see you. You may not be the Chosen One…”

  “But we’d choose you as a sister every time,” Ferb said, finishing his brother’s sentence.

  Candace looked at the holograms and then at her brothers with tears in her eyes. “Oh, guys,” she said.

  They smiled at their sister, and for a moment, it was possible to forget they were on an alien mother ship.

  “I could not have chosen better little brothers,” Candace said. “And you know what? I know what we’re gonna do today. Save the world.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Phineas said.

  “Okay. We’ve got to figure out a way to stop Super Super Big Doc,” Candace said. “Wait. Is today free T-shirt day?”

  “Focus, Candace,” Phineas said.

  “Oh, I am.”

  Super Super Big Doctor smiled. Soon this foolish resistance would all be over, and she would have an endless supply of carbon dioxide and mind-controlled servants.

  “Hey, Shoe Monkey!” Candace cried to one of the alien guards. “How about a free T-shirt?”

  “Free stuff?” Shoe Monkey screamed. “Just like my birthday!” Instantly, Shoe Monkey became so excited that the alien’s top half exploded.

/>   All heads in the stadium whipped around to see Candace standing on the ramp of the mother ship, holding a T-shirt cannon in her arms. Normally the cannon would be used to blast T-shirts into the crowd for cheer-happy fans. But not today. Today it would become a weapon of freedom.

  “She escaped?” Super Super Big Doctor shouted. “Get them!”

  “You know, I used to think the universe was against me,” Candace said. “But now I realize it’s me against the universe!”

  “Us,” Phineas added gently.

  “It’s us against the universe!” Candace said, amending her previous statement. “Duck!”

  Then she started blasting free T-shirts at the aliens.

  Throughout the stadium, the sound of CANDACE, CANDACE, CANDACE echoed every time an alien’s top half went kablooey.

  “And you get a shirt!” Candace shouted, blasting shirts everywhere. “And you get a shirt! And you get a shirt!”

  The aliens were no match for the sheer glee of Candace’s T-shirt ploy.

  All save one.

  Super Super Big Doctor was laughing, grinning. Menacingly.

  Mama the plant had finally grown to mind-control proportions.

  “Candace, what about her?” Phineas said.

  Candace swung her T-shirt cannon around and leveled it at Super Super Big Doctor. But when she tried to fire, nothing happened. “Oh, no,” Candace said. “I’m all out of T-shirts!”

  Suddenly, the plant began to spin, spitting mind-control spores into the stadium crowd. Almost immediately, the assembled people went into a trance. They were now under the control of Super Super Big Doctor.

  “Gas masks, quick!” Phineas shouted, and the kids pulled them on.

  “Ha!” Super Super Big Doctor chortled. “It’s working!”

  Then, to test her newfound control over the humans, she said, “Sit down!”

  And the crowd sat down.

  “Stand up!”

  And the crowd stood up.

  “Get those kids!” she screamed.

  “Get those kids!” the crowd roared, and swarmed after them. The kids were outnumbered ten thousand to one.

  “Run!” Phineas hollered.

  But the crowd was moving too fast. They grabbed Baljeet, Buford, and Isabella and passed the kids over their heads.

  “My personal space!” Baljeet screamed.

  Candace looked around but didn’t see any sign of her brothers. “Phineas? Ferb?” she called.

  “Yoo-hoo! Over here!”

  Candace turned her head to see Super Super Big Doctor aiming a blaster right at Phineas and Ferb.

  “You and I need to have a little talk,” the alien leader said. Super Super Big Doctor kept moving the blaster from one brother to the other and back. “I’m disappointed in you, Candy Corn.”

  Candace walked through the zombified crowd toward her foe.

  “We coulda been something,” Super Super Big Doctor said. “Two girls against the universe…and you threw it away. Oh, sister. You could have been special.”

  “I’m not your sister,” Candace said, her voice strong. “And I am special. My brothers showed me that.”

  Both Phineas and Ferb awwwed.

  “Pffft,” Super Super Big Doctor said. “Brothers.”

  “And you know what? Maybe you should reconsider your relationship with your brothers, too,” Candace said.

  The alien laughed. “Why would I do that?”

  “Think about it,” Candace said, walking closer. “Is it possible, just possible, that this obsession you have with controlling—controlling the planet, controlling your brothers—is really just a distraction from your real problem…which is how you feel about yourself?”

  “You mean like a…tiny, meaningless speck in the universe?” Super Super Big Doctor said.

  “That’s good, keep going….”

  “It’s just that everyone always thought my brothers were so special,” the alien said. “No one paid attention to me at all. So I made myself special by controlling everybody else. Wait a minute…. This hasn’t been about my brothers at all. It’s just been about my own self-worth! Wow…. what a breakthrough!”

  Candace was very nearly overjoyed that her plan had worked. We say “very nearly” because that was when she noticed Mama growing even bigger behind Super Super Big Doctor.

  “I don’t need any of this!” the alien continued, not noticing the enormous plant. “Listen! Listen to me!”

  “Yes?” the crowd replied in one voice.

  “You do not have to listen to me!”

  “I’m confused,” everyone in the crowd said at the same time.

  “I am not going to control you anymore! I was seeking validation through the mindless obedience of others, but no more! Because I am enough! I am spe—”

  Super Super Big Doctor’s big moment was thoroughly derailed when Mama gobbled her up.

  Then the giant plant broke free of its base and sprouted enormous legs. It stomped through the stadium, swiping the mind-controlled minions aside with its tendrils.

  “Well, that victory was short-lived,” Isabella said.

  Things were not looking good.

  “Run!” Buford shouted. “It’s gaining on us!”

  Suddenly, a screech came from the sky. The kids looked up, stunned to see a dragon-like creature swooping in from above. On its back were Vanessa and Dr. Doofenshmirtz.

  “Quick, get on!” Vanessa said.

  Vlorkel snatched up all the kids right as Mama was about to crush them.

  Mama chased Vlorkel through the stadium and out into downtown Danville. Vlorkel went around buildings, under the freeway— anywhere to try to evade the enormous plant.

  While the chase continued, Candace turned to Vanessa. “Wait. How did you get back to Earth?”

  “The good ol’ Chicken-Replace-inator,” Vanessa said.

  “Chicken-Replace-inator?” Candace asked.

  “You shoot something; it switches places with the nearest chicken,” Isabella explained.

  “Vanessa remembered it had a setting for the furthest chicken,” Dr. Doofenshmirtz said. “So we switched places with the furthest chicken, which was here on Earth.”

  Candace nodded, pretending it all made perfect sense.

  Suddenly, Mama reared up in front of them.

  Vlorkel recoiled and screeched. Vanessa pulled hard on the reins, causing Vlorkel to turn sharply away from Mama toward a towering radio tower. The space dragon flew upward inside the structure as Mama attempted to push the tower over onto the city below.

  Agent P clung to Vlorkel’s underbelly for dear life. As she flew up, the tower got narrower.

  Right as Vlorkel was about to free herself from the tower, Mama succeeded in pushing it over. When the kids went flying, Vlorkel scooped them up in her enormous wings.

  Agent P let go of the dragon and landed on the steel bars of the radio tower moments before it began to fall.

  Downtown Danville would be crushed.

  And Agent P would be crushed along with downtown Danville.

  With a High-Tech Secret Agent Gadget in each furry teal webbed foot, Agent P shot out two grappling hooks. One latched on to a billboard. The other wound around a rooftop water tank. Agent P anchored the High-Tech Secret Agent Gadgets to the tower bars.

  The tower kept falling faster, faster, faster. Then a little slower. Then a lot slower. Then it stopped, twenty-six feet or so above the street.

  Agent P had stopped the tower from falling!

  A moment later, the tower fell right on top of Jeremy’s food truck.

  Candace climbed out of the tower and saw her friends. “Stacy! Jeremy!” she exclaimed.

  Dr. Doofenshmirtz fell out of the tower next. Candace helped him to his feet and picked up the -inator that fell out of his pocket.

  “Here you go,” she said. “Wait, is this the Chicken-Replace-inator?”

  “That’s how we got back,” the doctor said. “We switched places with a chicken on Earth.”


  “You mean there’s a chicken on that planet?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Dr. Doofenshmirtz said.

  The other kids climbed free of the tower wreckage, but Vlorkel was still trapped inside.

  “Cover me!” Candace said. “Something’s about to switch places with a chicken.”

  Mama suddenly appeared, stomping toward Candace. Candace fired the Chicken-Replace-inator, and a second later, the giant plant vanished from the face of the Earth. In its place stood…a chicken.

  But before Candace could relax, she heard a monstrous roar. Turning her head, she saw that Mama was now behind them, inside a petting zoo! She was there with bunnies, and ponies, and even more chickens.

  “Why is there a petting zoo downtown?” Candace said, freaking out.

  “Yay, my petition worked!” Baljeet whooped.

  “Yeah, you gotta set it for the furthest chicken,” Dr. Doofenshmirtz advised her.

  Mama drew closer, opening its plant jaws, threatening to devour Candace. Candace turned the Chicken-Replace-inator’s setting from NEAREST, past BEVERLY HILLS, beyond BEVERLY HILLS ADJACENT, to FURTHEST.

  Right as the monstrosity tried to take a bite, Candace fired the -inator. Mama was instantly replaced with another chicken.

  Candace looked around. There was no sign of Mama anywhere.

  “Hey, look! It worked!” Candace said. “The spores are gone!”

  Sure enough, the humans around them were no longer under any kind of mind control. The kids took off their gas masks.