Chapter 1: Gutsy
Papa Smurf looked uneasily outside, where a thunderstorm seemed to be brewing. This was bad because Papa was expecting the stork to arrive with another smurfling and he was worried that arriving in storm might affect the smurfling in some way. He glanced at the smurflings already under his care; Hefty, Handy, Tailor and the youngest, little Baker. Just then, thunder boomed and Baker began to cry, scared, but just as Papa was about to comfort him, there was a scratching sound at the door. The stork was here.
"Please don't let anything be wrong" Papa murmured but suddenly lightning crackled and lit up the sky threateningly. Papa picked up the smurfling that had been left, as usual, on the doorstep and looked worriedly at his face for any signs of trauma, but the smurfling was smiling and giggled at the next thunder clap. Shaking his head in wonder, Papa carried the little smurfling inside and put him down in the middle of the room. "Smurflings!" he called "Come and meet the newest addition to the family!" The others all crawled over and started "talking" to the smurfling in baby talk as Papa walked around the nursery house, bolting the door and windows against the storm. When he came back, Tailor pointed at the little smurfling and said,
"Clothes!"
"What about his clothes?" Papa asked, expecting the smurfling to be wearing what all the others all wore. Tailor repeated his statement. Papa looked more closely at the smurfling and saw that he had what looked like a blue tartan cloth round his waist. However, he thought little of it and left them all to play.
A couple of hours later, Papa got all the smurflings ready for bed. After he had tucked all of them in bed, wished them good night, and was about to shut the door, something made him turn round and he noticed that the new smurfling still had his eyes open and was looking round with a mischievous look on his face. When he saw Papa looking at him, he widened his eyes and raised his ginger eyebrows in a picture of innocence, but a cheeky grin was still tugging on the corner of his mouth.
"You're going to be trouble, you are. I can tell." Papa smiled and the little smurfling gurgled as if to say; me? "Yes you" Papa chuckled "Go to sleep now."
Around five minutes later, Papa was about to go to bed as well when he heard strange noises from the roof. Wondering if the storm had come back, he went outside and was shocked to see the little smurfling sitting on the roof, giggling at Papa's expression. "How the Smurf did you get up there!?" Papa cried. The smurfling pointed to the chimney and giggled again. "You climbed up the chimney?!" The smurfling clapped, nodding. Papa knew he should be cross with this little troublemaker, but in truth, he couldn't help being impressed. This smurfling couldn't even walk or talk yet and had done this?! Then a thought occurred to him. "How are you going to get down?" He asked. The smurfling looked around him, crawled forward cautiously, and then slipped forward, landing on the windowsill. Papa picked him up, carried him back inside and tucked him back in bed. "Go to sleep." Papa said firmly "You don't want to be exhausted in the morning." The smurfling grinned cheekily but his eyelids were already drooping and he was asleep before Papa had closed the door.
It usually took about three days for a smurfling's name to be revealed and this smurfling, despite being different in many ways, was no different in this case. But the day before the little smurfling got his name; Papa discovered something else interesting about him. He had been trying to smurf a difficult potion when Hefty and Handy had come in.
"What's it called when a Smurf's voice is different?" Hefty had asked.
"Every Smurfs voice is different, Hefty" Papa had replied absent-mindedly, trying to get the potion exactly right.
"But what if they say some words differently to the way we do?" Hefty persisted and Papa put the completed potion down and turned to face the two Smurfs, perplexed.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"It's the new smurfling we're talking about." Handy explained. "He says our names with an 'i' sound instead of an 'ee' and the way he says 'Tailor' is really weird."
"Yeah, he says it 'Tai-lerr'" Hefty chipped in. Papa followed them through to the nursery, trying to hide his concern. No smurfling had had problems with names before. As soon as they came in, the smurfling, who had been playing with a small wooden sheep, looked up and called out with a massive grin on his face.
"Papa!" He cried, pleased with his ability to say Papa's name.
"'Hefty and Handy are right, there is something different about his voice...'" Papa thought. After getting the smurfling to say "Tailor" and listening to the way he said, Papa realised what it was.
"I know what your secret is, Trouble" He smiled and tickled the smurfling under the chin, making him squirm and giggle. "You're Scottish! And what you're wearing is a kilt, isn't it?" The smurfling nodded and clapped.
"I don't get it!" Handy whined so Papa started to explain what he meant, therefore failing to notice the smurfling's gaze fix on the view from the window and the mischievous smile return.
The next day, Papa took all of the smurflings out for a walk in the forest at a time when he hoped any dangerous predators would be asleep. He gave them all strict orders to stay on the path, but was distracted from the others when Baker fell and hurt himself. When he had gotten Baker back on his feet, Papa did a quick head count and murmured,
"Oh no", when he realised who was missing. "Have any of you seen where the new smurfling went?" He asked. The unanimous reply was a shake of the head. Papa was about to gather the smurflings closer to him, but he didn't have to because suddenly there was a feline yowl from the trees and the others all scuttled to Papa's side, scared. Then a wild cat kitten sprang from the darkness of the trees, hissing at something behind it. Then familiar laughter rang out from one of the small trees and a tiny pebble smacked the cat on the nose. "Oh Smurf" Papa muttered as he saw the smurfling crawl out onto the lowest branch, grinning like the Cheshire Smurf. Then, to Papa's horror, the smurfling called,
"Kitty!" The cat located him, sprung towards the tree and started to climb. Tailor yelped and clung onto Papa, his eyes closed, unable to watch while the others, and Papa, couldn't tear their eyes away as the cat climbed higher and the smurfling just stood there on the branch, grinning and waiting. But when the cat reached the branch the smurfling was on, he just plucked a bit of bark from the tree and flung it with astonishing accuracy into the cat's eye. It gave a yowl of pain and fell off the branch, making it shake and causing the smurfling to wobble precariously but he seemed to regain his balance.
"He's gonna fall!" Hefty moaned.
"No, he's not." Handy mumbled. But Hefty was right. The smurfling wobbled again, then tumbled backwards of the tree. But he seemed to enjoy falling and used his hat as a parachute to land safely. The other all rushed over and the smurfling giggled and said,
"Bad kitty"
"He's got the nerve to do anything!" Handy said, his eyes wide.
"Not quite." Papa murmured, smiling. "You've got the guts to do anything, haven't you?" he said to the smurfling "And that will be your name; Gutsy Smurf!" The newly named Gutsy laughed, his grin wider than ever, and the others laughed with him, sending birds shooting out of the trees in alarm.