Chapter 30 of A New Redheaded Cheerleader

Chapter 30

On the shoulder of the highway, Candace grunted with frustration. Monique and Bonnie was sitting in the backseat of Tara's car.

"T, can you try to turn the key over or hitting the dashboard or something?" Bonnie suggested.

"I'm trying, B..."

Tara, meanwhile, was trying to start up her car, banging on the dashboard, but all she can hear was the grinding and stalling of the motor.

"Oh no..." she cried, putting her arms on the steering wheel, "my dad is so not going to be happy about this!"

"Ughh...my brothers are going to get away with whatever contraption that they are building!" she groaned.

Stacy then got out her phone and dialed a number.

Candace turned around and asked, "Stacy, who are you trying to call up?"

"Coltrane, Stacy! Hopefully he'll have some gas and jumper cables in his car." Stacy replied.

Candace folded her arms and said, "Hope so, I don't want to be stranded here all night long without my daily dose of busting!"

Stacy sighed in disappointment and sat on the hood of Bonnie's car, hoping for Coltrane to come.

(35 minutes later)

Stacy and Candace were leaning against the car because the metal of the hood got too hot for them to sit on.

Then, they saw a blue truck pulling on over to the shoulder with extra jumper cables and a 3-gallon tank of gas.

Bonnie turned her head around and sighed with relief, "Finally, someone's here to help us!"

Stacy jumped up and down for joy, for she saw Coltrane driving the truck.

Coltrane got out of his truck and hugged his girlfriend and gave a kiss to each other.

"So, what's up, Stacey?" he asked with a click of his tongue.

"Well, we have a little bit of car trouble, Coltrane, so can you give her car some gas?" Stacey asked giggling, pointing to Bonnie's car.

"Of course!" Coltrane replied with a smile, getting the tank out of the bed of his truck. He got the pump and began to insert the nozzle into the gas tank.

A few minutes later, he filled up the tank.

"But what about Tara?" Stacy then asked, pointing to Tara's car.

"Don't worry, Stace bear, I'll fix it immediately!" Coltrane winked as he took the jumper cables. He popped open the hood of his truck and hooked the cables to Tara's battery hoping to give it at least a little charge.

"Okay, Tara, try to start it up!" Coltrane then exclaimed, turning to Tara.

"I'll try…." Tara tried to turn the engine over but it wouldn't work.

"Try again…give it a little more juice…." Coltrane suggested.

Again, Tara tried and the engine wouldn't start up.

After four tries and no successes, Coltrane sighed, "Well, we can't fix it….well, listen, I'll ask my dad for someone to tow it into the shop to see what's really wrong with it."

Tara gave a weak smile and replied, "Thanks anyways!"

Coltrane then turned his attention back to Stacy, holding her hands. "And you are always the light of my world!"

"Awww, Coltane!" Stacy smiled as she kissed him on the cheek, "I think we do have enough gas to get to the Flynn-Fletcher house, even though Tara's car battery is kaput!"

"Okay, girls, I'll see you at the Independence Day concert!" Coltrane replied back as he got back into his truck and began to travel back on the highway.

Once he drove away, Stacy then turned back to Bonnie's car. "Okay, since Bonnie's car is the one operating one, we'll take her's!"

Bonnie then got out of Tara's car and asked, pointing to it, "But what about T's?"

Tara sighed with disappointment as she turned to the brunette, "Bonnie, my car can't start up! I guess I'll have to drive...the 'Rust Bucket'!"

Candace interrupted with sarcasm in her voice, taking Tara by the arm , "Yeah...yeah...yeah! Look, we gotta get to my brothers' house this instant!"

All Tara could do was moan as she went into the back seat of her best friend's car, along with Candace and Stacey. Monique took the passenger side in the front.

She scoffed, "Let's go ahead and see what this...hotel...is all about!"

Bonnie's car then merged into the highway traffic en-route to the house.

Back at the Flynn-Fletcher house, Phineas, Ferb, and the Fireside Girls were building floor after floor of the tall fun resort. One by one, they were building fun floors with one containing a jungle while another contained an upside down roller-coaster. They were on floor number 46 when Buford and Baljeet came into the backyard, arguing.

"Buford, next time, please don't give me another wedgie!" Baljeet exclaimed to his frenemy.

Buford scoffed, making a fist, "Listen, nerd, I'm gonna give you a wedgie whether you like it or not, even if it is from a tall building!"

The two then looked up and saw the construction of the giant hotel.

Phineas, who was working on a circus floor for the building from a robotic hovercraft, saw the two with a pair of binoculars and exclaimed, "Hey guys, wanna come join in and help us?"

"Umm..." Buford thought, scratching his head, "what are you guys building by the way?"

"We're building a giant fun hotel with over 100 floors!" Phineas explained the meaning of this big project, extending one hand to the half-completed product.

"A giant hotel, you say?" Buford asked with fear, backing away from the hotel "Umm...I may have some doubts about this..."

"How come?" Phineas wondered.

Buford began his explanation, "It all started around a year ago..."

(cuts to somewhere in Downtown Danville a year ago at a roach motel where Buford is screaming into a wooded area in fear as a swarm of roaches trail after him)

"And let's just say that it took me five baths to get the smell of roaches out of my clothes!" Buford concluded his story on the roaches.

"Well, Buford," Phineas laughed, "these materials are totally roach-proof! You won't have to worry about insects! So what do you say?"

"I'm totally in!" Buford exclaimed then grabbed Baljeet, "Come on, nerdlinger, we got work to do!"

Baljeet sighed, "The next time I go to the store, I'll try and buy some stretchproof shirts..."

As the Sloth crawled into the street where Larry's house was at James groaned as he saw through the cracked windshield. The part of the street leading to Larry's house was packed with cars.

"Oh great..." James groaned with utter frustration, seeing that other nerds like him were bringing in destructive robots that belonged to him"I forgot that today was Robot Rumble night for him..."

"Hmm..." Ann looked around for an empty parking place and saw that a couple of the cars were parked in the grass on his property, "Let's try parking over there!"

"Umm..." James muttered, an unsure look on his face, "We'd better ask Larry about this..."

Larry, meanwhile, was conveniently sitting on his front porch with his own robot and saw the rusted Sloth with the thick puttering black smoke behind it and the sound of the engine backfiring and puttering.

"Ah yes, the rusted spaceship finally makes it with my earthly relatives inside..." he said, adjusting his glasses as he got up and walked on over to the car.

James manually rolled down his window and asked to Larry, "So where can I park here? The place is crowded!"

"Oh yes, familial units, you can park over there at that landing dock!" Larry said, pointing to an open space of grass on his property right near an oak tree.

"Oh thanks, Larry!" James smiled as he pulled in the Sloth into the open patch of grass. Once the whole family got out of the car, James looked around and asked, "Nice crowd, huh?"

"Family, we are practicing for the 3rd Annual Middleton Robot Rumble held at the City Park later on today for the rhythmic ceremony of the Independence forged by our forefathers….

"You mean the 4th of July celebrations here in Middleton?" James deducted, trying to clarify what Larry said.

"Of course, and why are you wearing such strange clothes?" Larry asked, tilting his glasses forward to see the rapper clothes that both Ann and James were wearing.

"Oh yeah," Ann giggled with a slight blush, "We're wearing them for a skit to prove the dangers of drinking and driving and we performed it in front of Kim and Monique this morning!"

"Did they enjoy it?" Larry questioned.

"Ohhh….of course the both of them did!" James uneasily replied with an anxious smile, tugging his pants up. "We're just setting up for the real thing at the car show!"

"Oh yes, I have heard about it!" Larry continued on, "They are going to show a lot of cars from some old sci-fi shows, including the one from Lost in the Universe season 2 episode 6 where they drove a car underwater!"

"Well, we got Larry on board, so let's try and….." James grinned before hearing a small explosion in the backyard. "What the heck…..?"

One of the robots emerged from the smoke in the backyard. It had tank treads, had a silver body in both front and back, and on its front was a steel hammer weighing in at 30 pounds. It spotted the Sloth in its crosshairs and treaded towards the back of the vehicle.

The nerd that was the owner of the robot emerged from the smoke yelled, "Someone please stop that robot!"

James, Ann, and the twins watched in horror as the robot lowered its hammer and ran into the rear of the vehicle, causing one side of the rear bumper and the license plate to fall off and also causing huge dents as the trunk caved in to a shape of the letter C and the trunk door popped open. The robot then stopped its rampage on the back of the car and proceeded to crawl up on the top of the car. The hammer then rotated around onto the hole in the roof on the front passenger side and began to hammer away, making the hole bigger and bigger until it reached the driver's seat. The hammer then took one swing at the windshield as the glass completely shattered. The robot then preceded down to the grass as it faced the left rear passenger door. It charged forward and, with one attack, the caved-in passenger door instantly fell down into the grass. Then it went around and performed a hammer attack on the driver's door, creating a medium-sized dent.

"Oh no…." James sighed, looking at the damage so far to his car.

"Aren't you gonna stop it or something?" Ann asked in horror, as the renegade bot was now concentrating to the drive's side of the car, right next to the hood. It took out a circular buzzsaw and carved a panel of the car surrounding the driver front wheel from the front bumper to the driver's side door. It, too, fell into the grass.

She then looked at the twins, "Boys, can you do something?"

The Tweebs replied with a smile, "We're on it! " They each then whipped out a device and typed in a few keys!"

Jim assumed with confidence, "It'll stop right about….."

The robot was about to hit the hood of the car with the vital engine and battery when it suddenly died.

"Now!" Jim exclaimed as the robot came to a screeching halt.

The owner of the robot rushed up to the discarded robot. "Oh thank you! I was afraid that it would destroy your entire vehicle!"

James looked behind at his rusted and heavily-damaged car, "Mmm…she'll make it! Hopefully we can make it to the car show!"

"Umm…what are we gonna do with the broken parts?" Ann asked about the rear bumper, rear passenger door, and the front driverpanel of the car lying in the grass.

"We can simply duct-tape the things together!" James smiled, pulling out a roll of duct tape from the glove compartment of the trashed Sloth.

A few minutes later, duct tape was on the panel on the driver's side of the car, the rear bumper, the passenger door, and the license plate was duct-taped on to the caved-in trunk. He tied down the trunk door with the duct-tape on the sides.

He then called out, "Come on, gang, let's go!"

Larry then whistled at the sheer damage that the renegade robot did to the Sloth, "Are you sure this piece of junk can run?"

"Of course, Larry, she has never let me down before!" James laughed before opening the driver's door, which creaked as if it were nails on a chalkboard before shutting it. Ann opened up her door as the top of her hair poked through the large hole. The Tweebs and Larry climbed into the back as the passenger door creaked with the duct-tape and closed it. All five of them buckled up their seatbelts.

James then put the key in the ignition and the engine turned over, alongside with the sound of backfire and the thick smoke coming from the tailpipe. The Sloth sputtered on from Larry's house en route to the car show.