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Perry heard the leaves rustling as he lay back against the trunk of their oak tree. He was struggling to keep his eyes open. Agent Brian the Brown Bear had been captured by an evil zoologist in Russia; Perry had been sent to rescue him and had spent the entire night battling an army of genetically altered, mind-controlled bears. It had been quite a challenge—especially since Perry didn't want to hurt the bears—and then he had to ensure they all made it back to their natural habitat.
He might have had a few bear scratches on his back, but the worst part was the noise. He was extremely sensitive when tired, so he could clearly hear even the fluttering of a butterfly's wings, and almost anything louder than that gave him a headache.
"I guess it's already as sunny as it's gonna get," said Phineas from the tree. "Wow, it's not even lunchtime, and we're already done with today's project. Think about that, Ferb."
Perry heard something sliding down the tree trunk—a very fragile-sounding something. Luckily, his fatigue wasn't slowing down his reflexes. He turned and caught what looked like a good-sized egg in one swift motion.
"That means we have the whole rest of the day to do another project." Phineas and Ferb slid down from the tree after the egg. "Hey, Perry, do you have any cool ideas for projects? Ooh, what’s that you’ve got there?"
"I’m not sure. I think it fell from the tree."
"That’s an egg. Perry found an egg!" Phineas reached out to pet the egg as though whatever was inside it could feel it. "What kind of egg do you think it is?"
"No idea," said Perry, looking up at the stuffy branches. "I didn’t see its mother, and it’s pretty cold."
"Oh, no!" Phineas touched the egg with the back of his hand, as if checking its temperature. "What are we going to do?"
"Well, back in Australia, my mom used to rescue lots of orphaned eggs and take them to my uncle's clinic; he’d look after them until they hatched and the babies were strong enough to live outside the incubator." Perry chuckled. "I tried feeding them animal crackers once, but of course, they were way too small for that. And they were all kinds of eggs—even platypus eggs."
"Do you think this could be a platypus egg?"
"Uh, well..." Perry hesitated, but looking into Phineas's big, sparkling eyes, he didn't want to disappoint him. "Maybe. Why not?"
"Did you hear that, Ferb? How cool would it be to have our own pet platypus!"
"Yeah, imagine that," Perry said awkwardly. His mom had pretty quickly shut down his attempts to adopt a platypus when he was little.
"Wow, your uncle and your first mom sound incredible," said Phineas. "What about you, Ferb? What was your first mom like?"
"She was a rocket scientist and taught at Oxford," said Ferb.
"Wow! How about that! You know, sometimes I forget that we all come from different moms." There was something uncertain and almost sad about Phineas's smile.
Perry glanced at the egg and placed it safely into his brother’s hands.
"You know, we might not know where this egg came from or what will hatch from it, but the one thing that's certain is that it needs a family—someone to help it grow."
Phineas looked up at Perry with his wide eyes and gave him one of his biggest smiles.
"Think you’re up for that?" asked Perry.
"You bet!"
And this came just in time, for Perry felt his communicator vibrating on his wrist.
"Right then, I’m leaving the egg in your hands. I have to go knit winter sweaters for the shelter cats." It wasn't Perry’s best lie, but he hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours.
"But it's summer," Phineas pointed out.
"Better sooner than later. Speaking of which, the most important thing is you keep the egg warm. I know you two will come up with something."
Phineas and Ferb nodded solemnly, and Perry slipped out through the wooden gate. But he had barely taken two steps before entering the garage, the door of which was already raised. Major Monogram always insisted that Perry test the latest entrances installed for his secret lair. The sheer number of secret entrances around his house alone was excessive by this point, and the Major likely had them installed for his own entertainment. It didn't matter that Perry sometimes struggled to fall asleep at night, wondering what might happen if a family member accidentally stumbled upon one of them.
He wasn't too sure about this particular entrance, either. Perry had to flip a switch on their old vacuum cleaner. A green, human-sized tube emerged from the ceiling and sucked Perry’s hat and jacket right up inside. It would have sucked up even more if he hadn't held onto the rest of his clothes. It nearly yanked the hair right off his head before pulling him up entirely. He was spat out into his briefing chair; his jacket was tossed back onto his shoulders, and his fedora slapped onto his head.
Major Monogram greeted him from the monitor, and there was something different about him. Perry couldn't remember the last time his hair and mustache had been black. Had it really been that long, or was he even more sleep-deprived than he had thought?
"How did you like our new pneumatic transporter? I used it myself this morning."
Perry squinted his dark-circled eyes, trying to get a better look at him.
"What? Oh, who am I kidding?" The Major wiped off the black marker. His head looked very strange without a single hair on it. His nose took up such a large portion of his face that his mustache did him a huge service.
“The new pneumatic transporter sucks. I mean, literally, sucked every piece of hair off my body. Anywho, Doofenshmirtz has brought up the Tri-State's entire supply of krill. Krill?”
"It’s a small, shrimp-like marine crustacean with a hard exoskeleton," said Perry, who really knew his animals.
"Right then—krill. I have no idea what that could possibly have to do with anything."
"Well, sir, it also plays a major role in the humpback whale's diet," Carl added from somewhere in the background.
The Major shrugged. "Still doesn't ring a bell. So get out there, Agent P, and find out what Doofenshmirtz is up to."
Perry yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth. "Fine, but it had better be important."
***
"You know, Ferb, Perry's egg is still kind of cold," said Phineas as he and Ferb held the egg together, taking Perry's words about leaving the egg in their hands perhaps a little too literally.
Ferb placed a handkerchief over the egg.
"No, I don't think that's gonna cut it. We can't let Perry down. This calls for desperate measures. We need the ultimate, best-ever egg hatcher. Ferb, I know what else we're gonna do today."
Perry had trusted them and told them to come up with something, and since he knew what good inventors they were, that was likely what he had meant. Well, maybe not exactly that. Phineas wondered if the platy-posterior was perhaps a bit too much—or not enough. They hadn't had time to build the rest of it. The egg needed urgent help. But Perry was going to love it. They’d even made it turquoise in his honor. Because nothing said "I appreciate you" quite like having your signature color on a giant robotic platypus butt.
Candace, however, didn't seem to agree; she burst out of the house screaming like a character in a horror movie and snatched the egg from right beneath the platy-posterior while the heater was running. Even the platypus-lullaby loop didn't seem to impress her—and it had taken him and Ferb quite a while to collect the most convincing, realistic platypus sounds they could find on the internet.
"What are you doing to this precious gift of life?"
Phineas didn't quite understand what Candace was getting at, but he liked her spirit.
"Perry found an egg and left us to look after it," he said from his seat in the platy-posterior's cockpit, while Ferb held the blueprint of an egg. "Given the rudimentary needs of the average egg, we calculated the heat transfer due to elemental exposure, plus the positive developing life responses to familiar and expected sound, and factored the obvious visual surroundings. The result was the Plat-a-Droid."
Candace stared at the platy-posterior as the platypus lullaby played on.
"That's so wrong in so many ways, I don't even know where to start! An egg is like a little baby. It needs a living, breathing mother."
"But Perry said his uncle used an incubator to help orphaned eggs hatch," said Phineas.
"Well, Perry isn't here, okay?"
"Maybe not, but he knows more than we do about animals—and babies in general."
Candace looked from Phineas to Ferb, who shrugged and said, "He’s babysat every kid in the neighborhood and every pet."
Candace groaned. "I hate to admit it, but you guys have a point. Perry's probably the most nurturing person we know. Maybe what this egg needs isn't a mother, but a motherly big brother; it needs... Hold on one second."
Candace ran into the house and came back out—kicking the door open less than a minute later—dressed in her Big Brother Perry Inaction Figurine costume from back when she was working at the toy store; it was really just Perry's regular clothes and a turquoise wig.
"Okay, this should help me get inside Perry's head." Candace closed her eyes as if deep in meditation; when she opened them, her pupils looked strangely dilated. She tried to smile the way Perry usually did, but the result was painful-looking and a bit creepy. "Ooh, look at me, I'm Perry! Everyone loves me, and I love everyone. Ooh-la-da-dee! And I love nature and animals—even bugs are my friends."
Phineas tried to stifle a laugh, nudged Ferb, and whispered, "That sounds just like him."
"Oh, I have to go knit winter sweaters for puppies!"
"Uh, actually, kittens," Phineas remembered. "Last week it was puppies."
"Anywho." Candace dropped the act and put a hand on her hip. "Let's just do this already!"
"Oh, yeah!"
Phineas was really excited. Even though he and Candace came from the same mother, curiously enough, they didn't have much in common—but this time, they shared a goal. Maybe this was their chance to spend more time together.
***
Perry found Doofenshmirtz in the middle of the ocean on his hovercraft, staring at a bucket full of krill for quite a while before dumping it into the water. Perry landed his jetpack. There didn't seem to be a trap this time—which was probably a good thing, seeing as the two of them barely fit on the hovercraft.
"Ah, Perry the Platypus! You're just in time for my backstory. You see, it all started a lifetime ago," Doofenshmirtz began without further ado.
Perry really wasn't in the mood for a backstory, but the tale was so bizarre and unhinged that his groggy brain registered every word. The part about the girl who loved whales wasn't hard to believe—Perry was an animal enthusiast himself—but things quickly took an unexpected turn.
"And do you know what the whale said to Elizabeth, Perry the Platypus? He said,"—here Doofenshmirtz deepened his normally scratchy voice—"'What a loser that guy up there is! She should ditch that pink chimp and go out with a real mammal, like me.'"
Perry blinked, giving the Doctor time to say that the last part was just a joke, but of course, it wasn't. In the time he’d known him, Perry had learned that Doofenshmirtz took and meant everything literally.
"So, you see, Perry the Platypus, my fifth girlfriend left me for a whale."
"That's rough, buddy."
"Seriously?"
"What? How was I supposed to reply to that?"
Doofenshmirtz huffed and put his hands on his hips. "Anyway, my Translator-inator only worked in one direction. So I was not able to tell the whales what I thought of them. Until today. Watch this." He then began a very annoying, brain-grating imitation of a whale, just as a humpback whale poked its head out of the water. "See, I taught myself whale song. I just told him he's fat, and he has barnacle breath."
The whale made a confused sound.
"Come on, come on—who's diabolical?"
Perry couldn't believe he’d come all this way for this. And to think he could have been in his bed right then—or fighting another bear, because even that would have been a better way to spend his time.
***
Candace had swaddled the egg in a blanket and was cradling it in her arms. They were sitting in the shade of their tree, looking through an old photo album. There were pictures of Perry holding Candace and Phineas just like that shortly after they were born—though not Ferb, since he had already been three when Perry first met him.
There were also photos of Perry reading bedtime stories to Candace, feeding Phineas in his high chair—spooning in that gooey orange stuff babies eat—and a picture of him teaching Ferb to ride a bike in the park, followed by one where he was putting a band-aid on Ferb’s scraped knee; Ferb was being very brave about it.
They weren't sure if any of these methods applied to caring for an egg about to hatch, but there was no harm in trying. Candace placed the egg on a cushion, sat cross-legged on the grass, and began reading The Ugly Duckling to it. It was a bit of an odd thing to do, but they hadn't managed to find any children's stories featuring platypuses.
"I know what we're gonna do tomorrow, Ferb. Let's write a children's book with a platypus protagonist and become best-selling authors."
"Could you two keep it down?"
"Sorry, Candace, but look—we brought the little guy a snack." Phineas showed her the bowl he was carrying.
"Eww! What's that?"
"Platypuses eat worms, so we borrowed some of Dad's fishing bait and tried to make a paste, kind of like baby food."
"Sometimes, I swear, I'm the only normal one in this family," said Candace, adjusting a stray strand of her Perry wig and showing the egg the picture on the next page of the storybook.
After lunch, they decided to take the egg for a walk in the park, just as Perry used to do with the three of them. Perhaps they could have shown it the ducks on the lake, giving the egg an idea of how to use a bill and webbed feet. Candace wheeled the egg along in Phineas’s old stroller, while he and Ferb followed on their bicycles. People stared at them a bit. They might have assumed it was one of those school projects—where you had to look after an egg all week without breaking it to prepare for future adult responsibilities—had it not been the middle of summer vacation.
"Hey, Candace, want to put the egg in our bike basket and take it for a spin?"
"No way! What’s wrong with you? It’ll crack."
"We thought of that. We brought band-aids." Phineas showed her the whole pack of Ducky Momo band-aids he had in his pocket.
Candace looked at him, unimpressed. "Like I said, I’m the only normal one around here." She wiped the sweat from her forehead. She looked pretty hot in Perry’s denim jacket. "I knew this was a bad idea. I’m going home."
"Aww, but we haven't seen the ducks yet."
Candace sighed, "Fine, but we aren't teaching the egg how to swim."
***
Doofenshmirtz kept talking to the whale, worsening Perry’s throbbing headache. Even the whale looked like it had a headache.
"I just told him his macaroni and cheese recipe is too cheesy and not macaroni-y enough!"
Perry pinched the bridge of his nose. "You know, this is just sad."
"What, is this not evil enough for you? The humpback whale is a protected species—what was I supposed to do? I've just insulted his macaroni and cheese recipe! Ha! I bet he wishes he were an extinct species now!"
"I wish I were an extinct species now," said Perry. "I'm out of here."
He activated his jetpack and took flight over the ocean, but Doofenshmirtz didn't take it well and started chasing him on his hovercraft.
***
They returned the egg to its cushion in their backyard.
"None of these methods worked," said Candace, closing the photo album. "It’s time to do things my way. We’re going to need way more cushions and every soft thing you can find. We’ll get this egg to hatch, or my name isn’t Candace Gertrude Flynn!"
"I thought you didn't like your middle name," said Phineas.
"Just go already!"
"Aye, aye, Candace," Phineas saluted. He loved it when his sister got excited about something—and even more so when she knew she could count on them.
Together, he and Ferb scoured the house and enlisted the help of neighborhood friends to see if anyone could donate mattresses, blankets, or stuffed animals they didn’t need anymore. Isabella even contributed her old baby crib. They built a tower of mattresses and placed the crib at the very top. Candace climbed inside—still wearing her Perry suit—and cuddled the egg to keep it warm.
All in all, Phineas felt he had learned a great deal about motherhood and brotherhood alike.
***
Doofenshmirtz kept pursuing Perry even after they had reached the skies above Danville.
"Stymie meee! Foil meee!" he yelled as they passed over a rooftop pool and a blissfully unaware lady sunbathing on a lounge chair.
Perry descended and hid behind a dumpster in a deserted back alley. He just stood there quietly, wondering what his life had come to—hiding behind a dumpster from a middle-aged guy who had been holding a petty grudge against whales for years. Perry could understand that Doofenshmirtz was attached to their little routine and desperate for validation, but no one ever thought about what Perry needed. Some Ibuprofen for his headache would have been a nice start.
"Twart me, Perry the Platypus!"
Perry wasn't prepared for that jump scare, but he was too exhausted to react strongly. He had no idea when Doofenshmirtz had managed to sneak up on him unheard—especially since his hovercraft made quite a racket.
"I've just had it! You know what this is? Stalker behavior!"
"Oho, that’s rich coming from Mr. Top Spy himself, don't you think, Perry the Platypus?"
"I have a license to stalk certain individuals, so it’s not weird or illegal when I do it. It’s professional and impersonal."
Doofenshmirtz harrumphed. After a few too-nice-to-last seconds of silence, he said, "Impede me, Perry the Platypus!"
Perry flew out from behind the dumpster, wondering how much fuel was left in his jetpack. Maybe if he crashed and staged his own death, Doofenshmirtz would finally let him rest in peace.
"Okay, okay. I have something really evil. Really, really. It's-It's actually evil."
Perry turned toward Doofenshmirtz, just wanting to get this over with. Technically, he wasn't allowed to initiate an attack, resort to violence, or otherwise do anything that might cause bodily harm unless his nemesis did something serious enough to justify it—so perhaps Doofenshmirtz was finally going to give him something to work with.
"Just kidding!" Doofenshmirtz laughed and continued his atrocious whale song.
Then again, Perry wasn't above lying in his report. He hit the eject button located on the edge of Doofenshmirtz's hovercraft, and Doofenshmirtz was launched into the air by a spring mechanism. It looked like he was heading back toward the ocean, but as his whale cry faded into the distance, all Perry could hear was peace and quiet.
***
There was a cracking sound, and Candace set the egg down on the mattress. "I hope it's a girl! Come to Mommy, snooka wookums!"
Phineas hadn't considered the gender reveal before. He was sure he’d like their new pet platypus regardless, but Perry had told him that male platypuses had venomous spurs on their feet, so maybe that was something they should have taken into consideration.
Yet when the egg finally cracked open, all that emerged was a funny-looking orange bird. It had a long neck and a beak like a bicycle horn, and for some strange reason, it was born fully feathered and able to fly without practice.
"That’s not just any bird," Ferb said from beside him. "It’s a rare whale-song-singing double-breasted angle-hooper—the natural enemy of the platypus in the wild."
The little bird began pecking at Candace while singing its strange whale song.
"Of course, like many Australian birds, it is also highly aggressive toward humans."
Then there was that strange thing that passed overhead, blotting out the sun and making whale sounds. Could it have been the little guy's mother? It certainly seemed to think so, because it left Candace alone and went after it.
Not a second later, Linda walked into the yard and saw Candace atop the stack of mattresses.
"Candace? Why are you wearing Perry’s clothes? Is this some new fashion trend I should know about?"
"What? No, it's my... nurturing, motherly big-brother suit?"
"I'll try to take that as a compliment," said Perry, who had walked in through the wooden gate and was leaning against the fence. "Aww, look at you. No one will ever think we aren't related now."
"Very funny," Candace muttered as she climbed down the ladder.
"You know, Candace, you're gonna have to clean all this up," said Linda. "Where did you get all this stuff, anyway?"
"Our friends helped us," said Phineas.
"Then you kids will have to return everything."
"We're on it!"
"Well, I'm going to go get dinner ready. What do you say, Perry—want to help me nurture them?"
Perry chuckled. "I'll be there in a jiffy, Mom."
"How do you only manage to see this one? Why only mine?" called Candace as Linda went back indoors.
Just then, Jeremy let himself in. "Hey, Candace! I was just stopping by to invite you..." He paused and took a closer look at her. "Hmm... Well, I like your nurturing, motherly big brother suit.
"See, he gets it!" Candace yelled so Linda could hear.
"You know, I could probably use one too. I have to look after Suzy this weekend. Perry, do you happen to have any clothes I could borrow?"
Perry sighed and motioned for Jeremy to follow him into the house.
***
Later that evening, Perry sat on the couch with his siblings. Between helping Linda prepare dinner and playing dress-up with Jeremy, he hadn’t had a moment’s rest, yet he was never too tired to spend a little time with them. Besides, he was quite curious to find out what had happened while he was away.
"A whale-song-singing, double-breasted angle-hooper? Nasty little things. I have no idea how one of them ended up in our tree. Still, I’m proud of you for helping it hatch."
"You should thank Candace. She did most of the work," said Phineas.
Candace sat sulkily in the armchair.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Perry asked her. "You didn't catch any rabies?"
"Nah, your stupid jacket and the wig blocked most of the bites. But I think I'm done watching nature documentaries."
"We’re sorry we couldn’t be a family to the bird, like you told us," Phineas said, looking genuinely dejected about it—even though the egg hadn’t turned out to be a platypus, as he’d hoped.
Perry smiled and gently lifted Phineas’s chin. "Hey, it’s okay. Sometimes family isn’t about where you come from or even who raises you; sometimes, it’s about choosing to stay."
Phineas smiled back and then hugged Perry, burying his face into his denim jacket.
"Ugh, you guys are so corny," Candace said. She picked up the remote with its new batteries from the coffee table and turned on a game show, though she kept the volume low, so as not to spoil their moment.
Perry appreciated that, even though his headache was gone. Sometimes, a little family time was better than Ibuprofen.