4.
"Papa Smurf, what's happened?" Brainy exclaimed. "How did you end up like this? Where are all the other Smurfs? Where's Smurfette? Where are the Smurflings?"
At the mention of the Smurflings, the emaciated Smurf 's face twisted into an expression of such searing pain and sorrow that it hurt the two healthy Smurfs to look at him.
Brainy's reedy voice took on a compassionate tone.
"What's wrong, Papa Smurf? Please, you can tell us!"
The gaunt, ragged Smurf sighed a sigh so deep it sounded as if it had come from beyond his toes. Slowly, he lowered himself to the mess of a floor and put his head in his hands. His shoulders began to shake, and the two Smurfs realized the poor Smurf was crying.
Clumsy looked down at him helplessly.
"Gosh... This is terrible. What can we do, Brainy?"
Brainy picked his way over to the weeping Smurf. He crouched down next to him and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
The emaciated Smurf flinched, but did not pull away.
"Please, Papa Smurf," Brainy said. "Please, tell us what happened."
Slowly, ever so slowly, the starved Smurf lifted his ragged head.
"You-you're real, aren't you?" he asked.
The Smurf's voice sounded hesitant and gravely, as if he hadn't used it in years. Still, Clumsy recognized it at once as Papa Smurf's. He gasped, and slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Yes, Papa Smurf, we are real," Brainy said, giving the poor Smurf an encouraging smile. "And we're here to help you. Please, tell us what's wrong. Where is everysmurf?"
"Alas," sighed Papa Smurf. His voice was as fragile as the breeze. "If you've come to help me, you've come too late. Much, much too late!"
He crumpled into tears again.
Brainy was getting ready to stand, at a loss to figure out a way to comfort this Smurf, when he started speaking again. The more he spoke, the stronger his voice became.
"It all happened...oh, maybe forty, fifty years ago, now," he said. "My poor little Smurflings...they thought they were so grown up, but they were just babies. Oh, my poor little baby Smurfs!"
His breathing became ragged.
Brainy and Clumsy shared a worried look, afraid he might start crying again, but he managed to pull himself together and continue.
"It was Hotep. The evil imp, Hotep. I...I remember, as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I was coaching my little Smurflings' smurfball practice..."
The mid-morning sun shown down on a Smurf Village alive with shouts and cheers and happy laughter.
Little Clumsy Smurfling loped down the smurfball field, trying his best to keep his eyes fixed on the big, orange ball as it was kicked from Smurfling to Smurfling.
"Whoa—uh—whoops!"
Papa Smurf blew his whistle.
Every Smurfling stopped in his tracks, revealing little Clumsy sprawled out in the dirt.
"Penalty on little Clumsy for tripping!" Papa Smurf called. "But, since he tripped himself, I am awarding him a free kick!"
"A free kick!" Hefty Smurfling exclaimed. "But, that's not fair, Papa Smurf! If he smurfed himself up, he should be out of the game!"
"Yeah!" Tuffy Smurfling said. "Clumsy little Smurflings like him have no place on a smurfball field, if you ask me! He never smurfs the right position, and he's always smurfing to the wrong end of the field!"
"No Smurfling can smurf the ball with his big, clumsy feet in the way!"
"I hate big, clumsy feet!"
The Smurflings all began talking at once, most of them glaring down at little Clumsy.
Clumsy put his hands over his hat and cringed.
Papa Smurf blew his whistle again, louder than before.
"Enough, my little Smurflings! I said, that's enough!"
The Smurflings quieted down, but their angry expressions remained.
"I think you are being very unsmurfy to little Clumsy," Papa Smurf said. "He can't help his nature, any more than you Smurflings can, and he has just as much right to play this game as any smurf of you. Now, Clumsy, stand up and smurf your free kick."
Clumsy climbed awkwardly to his feet and loped over to the ball.
The other Smurflings jeered at him.
"Spoiled Smurfling!"
"Papa's pet!"
Hefty crossed his arms.
"I still say this isn't fair. I wouldn't get a free kick if I tripped! It's not fair that a klutzy Smurfling like that gets special treatment just because he can't smurf on his own two feet!"
"Yeah! Where's it say tripping smurfs you a free kick?"
"It doesn't say anywhere!"
"Then how do you know who can smurf free kicks?"
"That Smurfling has a point!" said Tailor Smurfling. "It's not like there's any real rules to this game! Papa Smurf just makes it all up as we go!"
"In that case, I want a free kick!"
"Me too!"
A frightened and bewildered Clumsy dove out of the way as a horde of his angry peers charged for the ball.
Papa Smurf blew his whistle again and again, but by this time, Tuffy had thrown a punch at Dreamy. The two smurfball teams quickly dissolved into one big, multi-limbed scuffle, kicking up a dirt cloud so thick Papa Smurf could barely distinguish one Smurfling from the other.
"Smurflings! Stop this! My little Smurflings, listen to me!"
"Oh...oh woe! How can we stop them, Papa Smurf?" Poet Smurfling cried.
Papa Smurf sighed.
"Little Tailor was right. If only I'd thought to write down the rules for this game, I could have stopped this fight before it started."
He straightened.
"That's it... That's what I'll do. Poet Smurfling, I want you to- Wait, what's that!"
High above the dusty scuffle, something loomed, large and ominous.
"Gosh... Uh, what is that, Papa Smurf?" asked Clumsy.
A huge creature with sharp talons and bat-like wings swooped down from the sky, aiming straight for the fighting Smurflings.
"Oh my- It's a goblin!" Papa Smurf cried. "Run, my little Smurflings! Quickly! Into your Smurf houses!"
The Smurflings looked up, and screamed.
Dozens of goblins circled above them, pink and green and yellow and gray.
The tiny Smurflings ran for cover, but the goblins dove like hawks, snatching them up one by one until every Smurfling had been captured...and Papa Smurf too.
"Oh no!" Papa Smurf cried, struggling to loosen his captor's bruising grip. "They're carrying me away from my little Smurflings! Let me go! Let go of me, you monster!"
"Okey dokey!"
The goblin dropped him, and he tumbled through the air down, down, to the bottom of a smooth-sided crater.
Shaking off his fall, Papa Smurf tried to climb out of the hole, but the sides of the crater were too sheer. Unable to find any handholds, the bearded Smurf kept sliding back to the bottom.
"How will I ever be able to get out of this pit?"
"You won't, Papa Smurf!"
Papa Smurf shielded his eyes as a short, cloaked figure appeared above him in a flash of light.
"Hotep!" he cried.
The red-clad imp twirled his pencil-thin mustache.
"The one and only!"
Papa Smurf glared up at him.
"What wicked plot has your evil mind hatched this time?"
"I've discovered an ancient formula with which I can turn your precious little Smurflings into precious little gold bars."
"Please, Hotep," Papa Smurf begged. "Allow me to join my little Smurflings, so that I might share their fate."
"Oh, no, no, no, Papa Smurf," said Hotep. "Your cleverness and magic powers are well known to me. You will remain here, helpless, while I complete my plan!"
With another flash of light, the wicked imp disappeared, leaving Papa Smurf alone...
The ragged Papa Smurf took in a shaky breath, his eyes welling up with tears.
"Once that terrible imp had gone, I remembered I still had my whistle," he said.
"I knew it was a long shot, but I blew that whistle as hard as I could. The resonating sound split a large crack up the side of the sheer crater-just enough to allow me to climb out.
"Once I was free, I ran back to the Village as fast as I could. I knew that if I could only get to my lab in time, I could create an apparition formula that would allow me to appear instantly in Hotep's lair, along with a special spell to help free my little Smurflings.
"Well, I made it. I created the apparition formula, then went to work on a spell that would allow me to halt whatever apparatus Hotep might be using to make my poor Smurflings into gold.
"All this was done more quickly than I would have thought smurfly possible. But even with all my speed, I was not fast enough.
"As soon as I apparated in Hotep's hide-out, I knew that I was too late. I shall never forget Hotep's awful laugh..."
He heaved a deep sob, his tears cutting blue trails through the dirt on his face.
"I was just in time to-to see the last of my little Smurflings fall screaming into the vat of Hotep's gold-making formula. The rest of them, all of them, were lined up in golden rows. The looks on their little faces!
"I'd failed them! I was too late. It was just as Hotep said, over and over and over again! I was too late!"
His voice rose in a shrill approximation of Hotep's voice.
"Too late, Papa Smurf, too late!"
"I-I'm not really sure what happened next. I felt this strange power welling up inside me, like nothing I'd ever felt before. I just hated that imp, so much! The next thing I knew, Hotep and all his goblins, every last one of them, had been incinerated. I watched in amazement as their ashes fell to the floor in little heaps. I still, to this day, have no idea what I did, or how I did it. But, it was done.
"In a sort of trance, I gathered up my little, golden Smurflings. I apparated all of them back to the Village with me. But, no matter what I did, no matter how I tried, no matter how far I traveled or whom I consulted, nothing would restore them to their former selves. They remained forever statues.
"Finally, I gave up. I had spent decades trying to break that spell, and still I had made no progress. So, I did the only thing I had left to do."
He heaved a shuddering sob.
"I-I-I b-buried them!"
He collapsed into tears again, burrowing his face in his hands.
Brainy and Clumsy looked at each other, absolutely speechless.
The emaciated Papa Smurf shook, then took a deep breath and went on.
"After that, I gave up. I wrecked my lab. I just didn't care anymore. Without my little Smurflings, my life has no meaning. I want to die! I want to be with them! I want to tell them h-how s-so-sorr-rry I am!
"Th-that's what I was doing when you found me. I have hardly eaten anything for three years. I only rarely get up from my bed. I just want this awful nightmare to end!"
Brainy and Clumsy felt like crying themselves. But, somehow, they knew they shouldn't. They had to be strong to save Papa Smurf.
"Papa Smurf, we'll help you," Brainy said. "But, first you have to go back to bed. You look like you're about to fall over."
Papa Smurf heaved and sobbed.
"Oh, let me die! Let me die!"
Clumsy and Brainy stared at each other.
"Come on, Clumsy," Brainy said in his most authoritative voice. "Help me smurf him into bed."
He and Clumsy each supported Papa Smurf under an arm and carefully led him through the wrecked lab into the shabby bedroom.
"Self pity never got anysmurf anywhere, you know, Papa Smurf," Brainy said as they lay the sobbing Smurf down on his dusty mattress. "All it can do is cloud your judgment. That's what you've always told me when I was in a slump."
At that, Papa Smurf sat up. It looked as though it took a great deal of energy.
"But, who are you?" he asked. "I've never seen you before. I've never known any Smurf to need glasses."
Brainy straightened in shock.
"What do you mean you don't know me? I'm Brai-"
Then, he recalled his foolish wish.
"Oh, right," he said sheepishly. "I remember."
Brainy searched around for a moment until he found a chair that looked like it would stand upright without wobbling or collapsing under him. He gestured for Clumsy to join him.
Clumsy piled a stack of books and sat on them.
"What'cha gonna do to help him, Brainy?" he asked in a near-whisper.
"I'm going to tell him a story of my own," Brainy replied. "Then, Clumsy, we're going home."
"Why can't we go home now?" Clumsy asked anxiously.
"I can't leave him here like this. I know this is just a might-have-been reality, but he's still Papa Smurf. I have to comfort him, even if he doesn't really exist."
Clumsy nodded.
"I understand, Brainy. Go ahead with your story."
"All right then," Brainy said. "Here we go."
Taking in a bracing breath, Brainy leaned over the sobbing Smurf.
"Papa Smurf?" he queried.
"You know," said Papa Smurf quietly, "if they'd lived, my little Smurflings would be just about the age you are now. What did you say your names were?"
"Well, Papa Smurf," said Brainy, "my name is Brainy Smurf. And this is my best friend, Clumsy Smurf."
"Did you say Clumsy Smurf?"
Papa Smurf sat bolt upright in bed. He stared at Clumsy with such ferocious intensity that Clumsy almost fell off his book stack.
Clumsy shot Brainy a very nervous glance as the emaciated Papa Smurf stretched out a wasted arm to touch his round, blue face.
"Clumsy!" Papa Smurf breathed, unable to believe his eyes. "It really is you! You're alive!"
He turned eagerly to Brainy, so excited he was practically dribbling.
"Tell me, Brainy, how did you do this? Can you save the others as well?"
Brainy grimaced uncomfortably. "Well, erm-"
Papa Smurf grabbed him by the shoulders, wide eyes wild.
"TELL ME!" he screamed.
Brainy blinked.
"NOW!"
"All right, Papa Smurf!" Brainy squeaked. "If you calm down, I'll tell you my whole story! But, let me warn you, it's not what you're expecting."
Brainy and Clumsy watched as Papa Smurf made a visible effort to calm himself. Slowly, he lay back down on his pillows, the wild fire draining from his dark eyes.
"Tell me your story, Brainy," he said. "I'm ready to listen."
Brainy hesitated for a moment, but Clumsy urged him on.
"All right, Papa Smurf, here it is. And, please, no matter what you hear, please don't interrupt! Promise?"
"Smurf's honor," Papa Smurf replied.
Brainy nodded, and began his tale.
To Be Continued...
REFERENCE NOTE: Papa's Smurf's story was inspired by and, in parts, quoted from the Season 5 Smurfs episode "Papa's Family Album."