2.
"How much longer will I have to wait before you can talk? Or walk, for that matter," Brainy snapped at the giggling Baby Smurf in his arms. "You're even more boring to be around than my books!"
After being dismissed as a hindrance by every Smurf in the Village, and then by Papa Smurf himself, Brainy had decided to take his unwanted charge to play by the Great Oak. That way, no Smurf would be forced to put up with his presence. The way he was feeling, he didn't want to be forced to put up with anysmurf's presence either. Least of all the presence of the littlest Smurfling.
Baby Smurf looked up at him and tried to touch his glasses.
"Don't do that!" Brainy exclaimed. "You might smudge them!"
Baby giggled again, and reached up for the glasses with both hands.
"You stop that, you hear?" Brainy commanded, holding down Baby's tiny blue hands with his own.
Baby looked at his restrained hands, his large eyes welling up with tears.
"Oh, no! Don't cry, Baby, please!"
But, it was too late. Baby's mouth opened so wide it seemed to take up the whole of his tiny face.
Brainy cringed at the tremendous wail that emanated from that vast, dark opening.
Baby squirmed and kicked and screamed and cried.
Brainy was not in the mood to put up with the temper tantrum of a Baby Smurf.
"Fine then," he snapped. "If you're going to behave like a spoiled Smurfling, we're stopping right here."
True to his word, Brainy stopped in his tracks and placed the bawling Smurfling on the ground. As he did, he also dropped the blocks he'd been carrying along with him.
As soon as Baby saw those blocks, he stopped crying at once.
Brainy rolled his eyes and sat down on the grass.
Baby crawled happily over to the scattered blocks and started making contented burbling noises.
Brainy shot him an annoyed glance, then shook his head.
"Oh, what's the point in being mad at you?" he asked, speaking at Baby, but knowing he was really talking to himself. "You're too little to understand what a bother you are sometimes. But, I'm not."
Brainy scowled and twisted his fingers through a tuft of dry grass, then got to his feet and began to pace.
"I know when I'm not wanted. I know when everysmurf wants to get rid of me. And I'll tell you, I've had it! If they don't want my help, then I don't care. They'll find out their mistakes soon enough without me to help prevent them from smurfing them in the first place. One of these days, they'll realize that I'm always right, and then they'll smurf to my door just begging me to share some of my wisdom with them! They'll live to regret that they ever said 'hello' to me, really meaning 'go away'! I can tell when they do that. I wasn't smurfed yesterday, you know!"
"Oh, gosh, Brainy! Everysmurf knows that! You were smurfed a hundred years ago, just like the rest of us."
Brainy stopped in his tracks, surprised by the unexpected voice beside him.
"Clumsy!"
"Right the first time, Brainy!" Brainy's best friend replied with a chuckle. "What'cha doin' with Baby?"
Brainy sighed and sank back down to the ground.
Clumsy sat good-naturedly beside him.
"Papa Smurf didn't want my help with his experiment, so he told me to take care of Baby," Brainy said. "Of course, what he really meant was 'Go away, Brainy. I don't need you.'"
Clumsy's eyes went wide.
"Gosh, Brainy, really? I'd have though he meant he needed you to take care of Baby. Papa Smurf always tells me it takes a responsible Smurf to take care of Baby."
Brainy glared at him, but bit back what he was about to say. He wanted Clumsy to stay. Clumsy may have been the most accident-prone, non-intellectual Smurf in the Village, but he was good company.
"Oh, Clumsy," Brainy moaned, "I feel so useless! No Smurf wants my help. They're all so busy all the time doing useful things to help out the Smurf community. And, what do I do? I annoy them!"
"Um, you write rule books and useful quotations and tell everysmurf how they should do things differently from how they're doing them. You call assemblies together and lecture everysmurf about how you know best. You're a very good organizer," said Clumsy with a big smile.
Brainy groaned loudly and buried his spectacled face in his hands.
"Gosh, Brainy," said Clumsy, concerned. "You don't look so good."
Brainy looked up.
"You know, Clumsy," he said seriously, "sometimes I envy you."
Clumsy felt shocked. He thought of Brainy as the most intelligent, talented Smurf in the Village, even above Handy. He'd often wished, late at night, that he could be just like him. Sometimes, he even wished he could have glasses like him. The thought that such a wonderful Smurf would envy him, Clumsy, was overwhelming.
"Who, you? Envy me? But, Brainy, I'm always tripping and kicking the Smurfball into the river. I mean, I can barely read! Why should you envy me?"
"Because even for all your clumsiness, everysmurf likes you, Clumsy," Brainy replied. "They don't mind having you around. They all hate me."
Clumsy's eyes were so wide they were in danger of falling out of his head.
"But, that's not true, Brainy! Everysmurf likes you!"
"Oh, really?" Brainy exclaimed. "Then how come every time I try to help them, they as good as tell me to smurf off?"
"Gosh," said Clumsy. "They do?"
"Yes!" Brainy cried. "They do! Even Papa Smurf!"
Brainy hung his head.
"You know, Clumsy, sometimes I feel it would have been better if I'd never been smurfed."
Clumsy gasped.
"Brainy! You can't mean that!"
"Yes I can, Clumsy. Sometimes, I really do think the Village would be better off without me."
Before Clumsy could reply, the Smurfs were interrupted by an unfamiliar voice from out of the trees.
"Is that so?" came the voice. "I'll bet I could help you."
Brainy stood up and looked around.
"Who's there?" he demanded, painfully embarrassed that a stranger had heard his intensely private, heart-felt confession. "Don't you know how rude it is to eavesdrop on a Smurf's private conversation?"
"I'm sorry, my friend," said the voice. "But your conversation woke me up. Don't you know how rude it is to interrupt an imp's nap?"
"An imp?" said Clumsy.
"That's right."
There was a rustle of leaves and, suddenly, a slender imp with long, pointed ears and a bright green cap was standing in front of them.
Baby looked up at him nervously.
"Mandrake the Mischievous, at your service," the imp announced, and politely tipped his hat.
"Mandrake the Mischievous, eh?" Brainy repeated, unimpressed. "And how could you help me?"
The imp looked smug.
"Well, for one thing, I could grant your wish."
Brainy drew his eyebrows together.
"What do you mean?"
The imp looked down at his fingernails, then rubbed them absently against his tunic.
"I could show you what your village would be like if you'd never been 'smurfed', as you so quaintly put it."
Clumsy gasped.
"No, Brainy, don't do it! This mischievous imp is up to mischief, I just know it."
Brainy turned to the imp.
"Why would you want to do this for me?" he asked. "You don't even know me."
"I know how you're feeling. Unappreciated, underrated, misunderstood, unfairly put-upon, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Am I right?"
Brainy still didn't trust him.
"So, what if I am?"
"Well, this would be a way to show them all just how important you really are, wouldn't it? If they had to get along without you to help them, they'd soon realize how much they needed a-what did you say you were? A Smurf?"
Brainy and Clumsy both nodded.
"They'd soon realize how much they needed a Smurf like you."
"But," Brainy pointed out, "if I'd never been smurfed, no Smurf would remember I'd ever been around. How could they feel my absence if they didn't realize I was absent?"
The imp paused for a moment, then smiled.
"Good question. I see now how you got your name, Brainy Smurf."
Brainy looked smug.
Clumsy looked proud.
"Well?" Brainy pressed. "How could they?"
"I'll make it so you can converse with your friends. As soon as they see how useful you are to them, they'll wish they had a Smurf like you to give them advice. The reason they don't seem to appreciate you is probably because they're so very used to you always being there for them."
Brainy's eyes widened behind his thick glasses.
"You just might have something there, Mr. Mischievous," he said, a small smile starting to tweak the corners of his mouth. "But, how would I be able to smurf everything back to normal? I mean, it would be awful to be a stranger in your own village for too long."
The imp looked impressed.
"Another good question, Brainy."
Brainy puffed out like a stuffed pigeon.
"All you have to do is to call upon me when you want everything 'smurfed' back to normal. Of course, none of them will remember what happened. You'll be the only one."
"Wait a minute," Clumsy spoke up.
The imp turned to him.
"Yes, Clumsy Smurf?" he asked.
"What if I want to go too? And, what about Baby Smurf? Who's going to take care of him while we're away?"
The imp smiled.
"If Brainy Smurf wishes you to go along with him, I could make it so," he said. "What do you say, Brainy Smurf? Do you want to go for it? Or, would you rather go on being brushed aside by your fellow Smurfs?"
Brainy bit his lip, then looked at Clumsy.
"You're sure you could smurf things back to normal any time I asked?"
"Any time," Mandrake replied.
Brainy screwed his face up into a brave, determined look.
"Very well. But, only Clumsy and myself. Baby Smurf might get scared."
Clumsy nodded in agreement. A might-have-been reality was no place for a little Smurfling.
"How about this," Brainy proposed. "I'm done watching over Baby at dinner time. Will you still be here in three hours?"
The imp shrugged.
"Sure."
"Good. Clumsy and I will return here then. Then, you can smurf your magic."
"I'll be only to glad to be of service. I know what it's like not to be appreciated. It will be a pleasure to assist you."
"Thank you, Mr. Mischievous," Brainy said politely.
Mandrake smiled.
"Please," he said. "We're all friends now. Call me Mandrake."
Mandrake the Mischievous laughed longer than he'd laughed in a long time once those foolish Smurfs had gone.
"Ha ha!" he cackled. "How perfect! I wish for the ideal victim and, lo and behold, he falls right into my lap! That ridiculous Smurf with the glasses is so arrogant and pompous, his fellow Smurfs probably would be better off without him! The look on his face when he realizes..."
The imp bent double with laughter.
"Hoo hoo, hee hee! It's going to be delicious! This will be the best trick I've ever played!"
To Be Continued...