"Are you sure these are all the things you want to take?" Farmer nodded at the bag made of a blanket Sassette had brought with her from the Smurflings' house.
"These are all my winter clothes and Lou," the redhead said quietly, then kicked the bag casually.
The brown-haired snorted with a small laugh, glad that at least now Sassette didn't seem so depressed about the death of her family. The girl focused on the shallower feelings of here and now, which made it easy for the brothers, because they could focus on the task and not on comforting their sister.
"And what's in your bag, Farmer?" Sassette asked.
"Winter clothes," he replied shortly. "There's no point in taking garden tools if there are no conditions to grow anything. I only took my lucky sickle, maybe it'll come in handy for cutting something."
The red-haired slowly nodded.
Farmer frowned thoughtfully. He was still planning their next move. After they collected suitable clothes and small personal belongings, he wanted to look for undamaged kitchen utensils in Chef's and Baker's houses, take some of Handy's tools if he hadn't already packed them in his bag, the fabrics from Tailor's house, his sewing kit, some pillows and blankets from various houses. After they gathered everything in one place, the trio would leave the village in search of a good place for a new home and item storage. Unstable mushrooms couldn't be repaired in eternal winter weather, so there was no chance of staying in the village.
Handy joined his siblings and threw his bag on the snow. He must have taken a lot of stuff with him, he probably was unable to part with them or his reason had told him that it was worth taking each of these things.
Seeing the confused expressions on Farmer's and Sassette's faces, he sighed. "Clothes, basic tools, and a few small pieces of wood," he explained.
The dark-haired nodded slowly, raising his gaze from the bag to his brother. "If these are all our possessions we're going to take," he sighed heavily, "let's take it all to the storage house for now. We'll pick up other stuff from the village and place it there, too. Then we'll eat something and take a walk around."
"What for?" Sassette asked, confused.
"To find a new home."
That said, the Smurf slung his bag over his shoulder and walked confidently toward the storage house. Sassette groaned quietly and picked up her bag, blowing out her cheeks. Handy snorted a laugh, lifting his own bag with some difficulty due to the wounds on his hands.
They hid the blanket bags at the door to the storage house, then the boys split up around the village, leaving Sassette wrapped in a blanket, next to the bags. It's not that the redhead didn't want to help or the brothers didn't want her to help them, but the girl was scared of more unpleasant views, and Farmer and Handy didn't want to expose her to them.
The Smurfess leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The air was frosty but fresh and clean. There was a light wind blowing, it was still bright and pleasant for winter conditions. Sassette tried not to think about the cataclysm, in her mind she was creating an idyllic picture of a real winter which she would have spent together with the other Smurflings building snowmen and having snowball fights. Often, older Smurfs would have joined in their games, even Papa Smurf would have happened to hit someone with a snowball a few times.
The redhead snorted slightly, imagining herself making angels in the snow with Smurfette, and one freezing tear ran down her smiling face.
She had no idea how long she had slept, but when Farmer's voice and a hand tugging lightly at her shoulder woke her up, Sassette opened her eyes and saw a gray-blue sky that seemed to darken with every blink of her eye.
The Smurfess yawned and shook her head vigorously, rubbing her eye. "Is it night already?" she asked quietly.
"No, but it seems that the spell not only caused winter all over the world, but also began to interfere with the movement of the globe and its position relative to the Sun," Handy muttered, leaning out from behind Farmer.
The blond was holding a torch, thanks to which the Smurfs didn't have to deal with the lack of light. Fortunately, there was no strong wind, otherwise who knew how the trio would have fared in the darkness. Apart from the torch, the boys only had Farmer's lucky sickle with them.
"Did you find everything you wanted?"
"Not everything, but enough for now," Farmer replied. "It's time to go, we need to find a good place."
Sassette frowned. Were her brothers really planning to roam the forest in the dark? How were they going to find anything when they could barely see the tips of their noses? Besides, the girl was still sleepy and would've gladly taken another nap. There was no point in looking for a new home, they could spend one more night in the storage house.
"I don't understand," she mumbled, slowly getting up.
"What?"
"Why we are going to the forest."
"Ah..." the brown-haired groaned, tired, jerking his arms and raising his eyes to the sky. "I've already explained this!" The boy ran his hands over his face, hiding behind them for a moment. "Does it all have to be so complicated?" he complained, lowering his ears.
The red-haired stared blankly at Farmer, apparently still not understanding why he was so eager to carry out his plan. Handy sighed sadly, putting his hand on the taller Smurf's shoulder. The dark-haired had taken responsibility for all of them, at least for these few days, and Sassette didn't make anything easy for him. She had no idea how important it was to leave the village immediately.
"Take it easy, Farmer." The shorter boy stood between Farmer and Sassette and rebuked their sister with a sharp glare. "The village is not safe. There's no a single undamaged building left, and Smurf knows if something will smurf on our heads in our sleep. We can't stay here any longer," he said in a calm but firm tone.
A grimace of dissatisfaction appeared on the Smurfess' face, but Sassette finally seemed to understand the message. She wouldn't have dared not understand, Handy's half-lit face looked like something out of a horror story. The redhead swallowed and nodded uncertainly. Satisfied, the blond turned to Farmer, who was watching them from between his fingers. The boys exchanged only brief nods and brown-haired moved to make space for his brother.
Handy walked first, while Sassette stayed close to Farmer. She felt terribly stupid for her behavior, especially since, despite being difficult to deal with, both brothers cared deeply about her safety. For a moment she thought that they were doing it out of necessity, because it was improper not to help their younger sister, but she quickly realized that none of the brothers thought that way. Both brothers cared for her, and their love for her was so great that no amount of her misbehaving could have ever weaken it.
When they were so far from the village that they couldn't have been able to see it even during daytime, a freezing wind began to keep them an unwanted company. Sharp gusts hit their backs and tested their torch.
Sassette grasped Farmer's arm and clamped herself on him, afraid of being blown off the ground. A jerk drew the dark-haired Smurf's attention to his sister. The wind was slowly getting stronger, and if it wasn't going to give up, a few more minutes would be enough to sweep the three of them over the treetops. Farmer squeezed one of the Smurfess' hands and moved on.
The flame on the torch made a sharp and spasmodic movements, as if it had an epileptic fit. Handy kept changing the position of the flame in relation to his own body every now and then so as not to burn himself. But with each gust, the flame grew smaller. The Smurfs watched it do so with concern. Without fire, they would find nothing to use as a new home.
At some point, the blond stopped fighting with the torch and stopped, pointing the flame down. Farmer and Sassette exchanged surprised glances.
The taller Smurf shrugged. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Something happened?"
Handy didn't answer, staring at the snow in front of him.
Sassette tugged her brother by the hand. "Farmer," she whispered. "I don't like his behavior." She nodded at the blond.
Farmer dropped his ears and frowned at the redhead's face.
Sassette was very concerned and full of fear. "Ever since he's seen Papa Smurf at Mother Nature's house..."
They both looked back at their brother. The blond barely moved. Only his hat and his hair sticking out from under it were moving in the wind.
Farmer tugged Sassette lightly and, despite her resistance, approached Handy. "Handy?"
He didn't react, still staring at the snow in front of him. Only after a moment, Handy nodded at the snow, without looking at his siblings, which finally drew Farmer's and Sassette's attention. And there was a lot to pay attention to.
The snow illuminated by the torch had numerous depressions with characteristic shapes and patterns. Someone must had passed that way recently, the traces were fresh, not windblown, not snowbound. Perhaps they wouldn't have caused such a sensation in the trio, if not for the fact that these were well-known traces for the Smurfs. They belonged to more creatures than one. Two of them were undoubtedly human, the third was an animal. Judging by the shape of the paw and its pad, as well as the number of fingers, Farmer had no problem identifying the species. A cat. Such a group of footprints could only say one thing.
Sassette took a sharp breath, bulging her eyes at the traces. "Gargamel," she squealed in a small voice.
"So Scruple succeeded," Farmer muttered gloomily, squinting his eyes hatefully. "But how?"
"Azrael, and more importantly Gargamel, are quite large creatures," Handy began. "The glacier didn't smurf right next to them, like it did in Mother Nature's case. Scruple's actions were quick enough to save them. Too bad," he added through gritted teeth.
"There's nothing we can do about it." Farmer put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "We have to focus on surviving."
There was no trace of daylight outside. The sky had turned completely black, even the stars had disappeared from it. This forced the Smurfs to split the fire into three torches, which was no easy task. They had no flammable substances with them, all the branches they found were wet, not to mention material that could be sacrificed. Plus, one torch meant no splitting up in the search.
Not that Farmer wanted them to split up. Even during the day, he wouldn't let Sassette or Handy get more than a meter away from him. After such s great loss as a whole village full of loved ones, the dark-haired wasn't ready for yet another loss.
They eventually looked unconvinced at a branch broken off by the gale. There were smaller twigs growing from the branch. Farmer shrugged, feeling Sassette's questioning gaze on him. They had no other choice. All the branches in the forest were the same, there weren't worse and better ones. Farmer broke off two twigs he thought would be suitable for torches for him and Sassette.
"Thank you," the redhead mumbled as she received her twig. She stared at it blankly for a moment, then frowned. "What will you wrap the ends with?"
The boy didn't answer this question. He gave his siblings a quick glance, then looked at himself. The siblings still hadn't worn thick warm clothes, but the dark-haired knew that there would be no situation in the future where one of them wouldn't change into winter clothes. At the moment, each of them had scarfs around their necks and gloved hands.
With one jerk, Farmer took off his orange scarf, then stepped on one end, lifting the other as high as possible, stretching the fabric. Handy watched him without a word, Sassette shook her head. The Smurfess wanted to protest, but she couldn't get the words out. The brown-haired clenched his other hand on the handle of his sickle, then he hit the blade with a quick movement, perfectly in the middle of the scarf, cutting the material into two shorter strips.
Sassette found her voice only when the dark-haired finished wrapping the end of her stick with the fabric. "We'd find something else," she muttered. "You didn't have to waste your scarf."
"We don't have time for the most convenient solutions right now, Sassette," Farmer replied in a low tone.
The girl silently watched her brother, her mouth puckered. She was beginning to dislike that kind of a treatment. More and more, she had a feeling that her brothers weren't telling her everything they talked about when she wasn't around.
"It's no loss, really," Farmer carried on, noticing his younger sister's displeasure out of the corner of his eye. "We have lots of scarfs after all."
I can always take a scarf from one of our dead brothers, he added ruefully in his mind.
When he had finished preparing a torch for himself, he extended both sticks toward Handy, pointing the scarf-wrapped ends at him.
The blond put his fire under them and waited for the scarf to start burning. "These torches won't last long for you," he said. "So we'd better hurry. Try to stay close enough to see the light from my torch when yours are extinguished."
The taller Smurf nodded. "We're not going to split up," he pointed out firmly. "We're just going to widen our field of vision a bit, that's all."
Of course, he didn't believe it himself. If he or Sassette saw something interesting, they'd immediately go away to take a look at it.
"Let me remind you that we are looking for a good place to live in it and hide at least some of the stuff we intend to use. Therefore, the place must be quite big and roofed enough so that the snow does not cover the inside."
The trio moved on, with a little more space between them, with Handy in the middle and in the lead. The wind had calmed down, but that didn't stop the siblings from shivering from the cold. Paradoxically, it got even colder. Well, it was night after all.
While Sassette wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to look at in detail, Farmer stayed close to one slope, squinting at the darkness below, as if expecting them being attacked by some animal.
Time passed inexorably, and the boys began to fear that if they didn't turn back now, they would soon be lost, and then it would get really dangerous. What's more, the rumbling in Sassette's stomach was getting louder and louder, and although the red-haired ignored it bravely, it was hard not to hear it at this stage.
At some point they separated so much that Handy had trouble seeing two smaller flames, which kept on gradually getting narrower in the frosty air. Farmer had disappeared somewhere over the small hill, in the ditch he had been watching intensely. Their sister, on the other hand, was lost in the nearby maze of bushes. The blond didn't panic yet, but his nerves were put to the test.
Still, as long as he didn't hear screams or other disturbing sounds that might have indicate his siblings were in trouble, he continued on through the snow. The ground had become harder at night, making travel difficult. But the Smurf kept walking, eyes fixed on one spot. He had just found something worth looking at, and icy snow couldn't stop him.
With every step, the flame of his torch shed more light on the object of his sudden interest. It was a tree, nothing special at first glance. But Handy never spent time on something that had no potential. The blond approached the tree, noticing more and more details. It was a massive beech with a small hole between the outsides of the roots, just big enough for a Smurf to get inside.
With the greatest caution, Handy entered the inside. It was a little warmer there, though the air lacked freshness. It wasn't a big deal though. The blond raised the torch above his head and opened his mouth in amazement. This tree must had survived some kind of fire! It was burned from the inside out! What's more, if his eyesight wasn't failing him, there were several holes at the top, too small for the snow to have a chance to fill the tree from the inside, but big enough for any fire smoke to escape from the beech.
"Perfect," the Smurf sighed, walking in circles around the inside of the tree.
Meanwhile, Farmer and Sassette's makeshift torches went out.
"Chilled Chihuahuas!" Sassette squeaked, emerging from among the bushes. She cast one last glance at the stick with the remnants of the burnt scarf, frowning, then tossed the used torch into the snow.
"To Smurf!" Farmer moaned, nearly simultaneously hurling the torch stick into the snow beneath his feet. The brown-haired looked around hastily, then started climbing back up blindly.
Sassette looked around, and when she realized that she couldn't see much, she didn't hold back the panic as Handy had done. She looked around again, and again, and again, each time more nervously and uncoordinately. No lights meant no brothers, no brothers meant she was alone. Alone in the dark and cold. She had no supplies, no light, no source of heat. She didn't know which part of the forest she was in or how to get back to the village. She had little chance of finding herself.
Farmer was climbing, following his intuition. It was so dark that he could barely distinguish the white snow from anything else that wasn't white. It was madness! He had known it would have ended up that way. He had felt that they would have eventually split up anyway, and then it would have ended in trouble! And just look now!
"Farmer!"
Sassette's voice carried quite far. It was a good thing the wind had stopped, otherwise no one would have heard her, not even herself. The dark-haired followed her voice, hoping that the redhead was in one place and he was indeed approaching her, not some deceptive echo.
"Handy!" the girl screamed, pressing her hands to the corners of her mouth.
When Farmer climbed back onto the trail, the pale moonlight made it a little easier to find his sister. Fortunately for him, the redhead stood in one place and only looked around, turning her head toward every sound she heard. She was so taken over by everything around that she didn't notice the brown-haired until he grabbed her hand. Then she squealed in terror.
"Calm down, for Smurf's sake!" Farmer screwed his face and bared his teeth, lowering his ears.
"Scaring Scorpions, it's you, Farmer," the Smurfess sighed in relief, placing her free hand on her chest. "Why are you sneaking up on me?"
"I'm not sneaking up on you." The boy smiled slightly, but the smile quickly disappeared from his face and the Smurf looked around hastily. "Oh, we should have stayed together," he muttered, standing on his tiptoes as if that would have helped him. "Handy!" he shouted almost in the redhead's ear.
She yanked her hand out of her brother's grip and covered both her ears, closing her eyes. Farmer listened for a moment, but no one answered his call. The boy grabbed Sassette by the sleeve and dragged her further along the trail. Without the light, the forest was much scarier. Trees and bushes took on terrifying shapes, and the sounds of animals seemed so much more sinister and ominous.
"Farmer," the Smurfess said after a while of walking, stopping the dark-haired. "Look there." She pointed to one of the trees with her finger. There was a very faint orange light coming out of it. It must have been their torch!
The pair of Smurfs changed direction, approaching the tree slowly. Then the flame appeared in front of the tree, and with it the sought-after Handy. He grinned at the sight of his siblings, clearly pleased. Farmer and Sassette ran to him.
Before Farmer could scold his brother for being careless, the blond told them the good news. "I think I found the right place for a hideout."
This effectively shut the taller Smurf's mouth.
Due to the difficult conditions, the trio had spent the night in a burnt beech. The boys had quickly lit a fire, which had gone out after less than three hours, but it had effectively warmed the inside of the tree enough to make the night in it bearable.
The boys woke up early in the morning. They both had slept on opposite sides of the fire. Farmer was laying completely on the ground, Handy was sat up, leaning his back against the wall. Sassette was sleeping next to him, curled up, and he rested his head against her head. After waking up, the brothers looked at each other in silence for a while, listening to be sure that it was safe outside.
"I think the hideout passed the test," Farmer murmured as he sat up. The brown-haired yawned, frowning and wrinkling his nose, and rubbed his eyes with his fists.
"It's a good location." Handy nodded. "It's not as far from the village as we might think now. Moreover, if my internal compass is correct, this tree is about halfway from the village to Gargamel's hovel."
At this information, the taller Smurf stared at the blond in a slight panic.
"No, no, that's actually very good!" the boy reassured him. "This hideout will give us the perfect base to watch and see if that old wizard is up to something bad."
Farmer nodded slowly, squinting his eyes as if he didn't quite believe the idea. However, he himself didn't have a better one at the moment, and it would have been a shame to waste such a great place for a home. "We could use a place somewhere near the smurfberries." The dark-haired rubbed his temples, thinking.
It was Handy's turn to yawn, but he covered his mouth with his hand just in time. The movement, however, pulled Sassette out of her slumber. The redhead moaned softly, rubbing her face against her brother's side and curling tighter. She opened her eyes to slits, putting a grimace on her face. "Good morning," she grunted in a sleepy tone, screwing her face more with each movement Handy made. Who wouldn't grimace at a squirming pillow?
"We've just finished discussing our next course of action," Farmer informed her.
"Oh." The Smurfess finally moved away from Handy. "So what do we do next?"
"We need more hideouts," the blond said. "We won't hide many things in this beech, but clothes and some kitchen utensils will do for now."
"For now?"
"Once we know what and how, I'm going to smurf some modifications to our hideouts. Make some shelves on the walls or something so our stuff don't take up the floor."
"Jumping June Bugs, a smurfy idea, Handy!"
"Don't get so happy yet," Farmer interrupted. "We still have a lot of work ahead of us. First, we need a hiding place close to the food source, and one large hideout for most things we won't be using on daily basis."
"It seems bright and safe outside."
The trio looked at the exit from the beech. The sunlight reflected in the snow shone in. The Smurfs couldn't hear the wind whistling, which was a good sign. The weather promised a day good for further exploration.
The siblings quickly left their new hideout. They had nothing to eat, they had to go back to the village. Along the way, the boys talked about potential places where it was worth looking for some hideouts. In the meantime, Sassette was looking for animals. Something must had survived the passage of the glacier, and it couldn't had been just large animals like the male deer.
During the day, most creatures hid from humans and other diurnal creatures. No wonder the redhead saw nothing the entire way.
They got back to the village surprisingly quickly. Farmer shared the smurfberries between them. While Handy and Sassette were busy eating, the brown-haired went in search of a new scarf for himself. It must have been orange because. He just didn't take into account a different color of the scarf. So he went to the ruins of Jokey's house. This was one of the less damaged houses, only one small section of the wall had collapsed here and the roof had tilted toward the resulting gap, but hadn't fallen completely and had been well blocked by the upright sections of the wall.
His siblings ate in the open, sitting on the ruins. Sassette stared at Handy, who looked around, but didn't focus on anything in particular. He finished his bowl much faster than his sister, and set the bowl on some hill, probably a wall covered with snow. The boy scratched his cheek absentmindedly, accidentally scratching the wound that only had started to heal. He didn't feel it or didn't care.
Sassette's eyes widened, the girl swallowed loudly. "Handy." Her voice caught his attention. "You're bleeding." The redhead pointed to her own cheek.
The blond looked at his fingers. He had taken off his gloves before breakfast because he would have felt weird eating in them. Now fresh blood was drying on his fingertips and behind his fingernails. The Smurf licked his fingers without thinking, wrinkling his nose in mild disgust at the metallic taste in his mouth. Ignoring his sister's shocked face, he reached for a shard of one of Vanity's mirrors, which was lying by his leg, and looked at himself in it. He hissed, baring his teeth, and bent down to scoop up some snow with his free hand. Without taking his eyes off the reflection, he wiped the wound with snow, washing away the blood.
"Don't you want to cover it with something?" Sassette asked, having finished her bowl of smurfberries.
"It wouldn't make much sense," Handy muttered. "It's just a slight scratch. See, it's not bleeding anymore." The Smurf turned his wounded cheek toward her.
Indeed, the cheek wasn't bleeding. Sassette looked down at the trickle of blood flowing from the sharp piece of the mirror, and shook her head sadly. How were Handy's wounds supposed to heal in such conditions?
This time the blond noticed the blood by himself, though not without hints in the form of the redhead's gaze.
When Farmer returned, there were only a few red patches left in the snow around the blond. The brown-haired didn't comment on this. Sassette smiled at the sight of the new scarf, but quickly became sad. She knew Farmer had taken the scarf from one of their dead brothers.
The boy sat down next to her and took his bowl. "There is one place," he began slowly, digging his hand through the berries as if he expected to find some treasure hidden among the black fruit. "It's a long way from here, the shorter way to it would be from the beech than from here. It's located on a hill, there are smurfberry bushes there, surrounded quite densely by trees. There must be a good hiding place out there somewhere."
Handy and Sassette nodded in unison.
As planned, the Smurfs left as soon as Farmer finished eating. The dark-haired led the way, he knew the path well. The weather was fine, and the boy hoped that it would not only allow them to find a hideout in the place they were heading toward. The perfect day would have been if they could find the large storage space he and Handy had discussed earlier.
Sassette followed Farmer a bit, holding his hand. Handy, walking in the back, had offered her his hand, but for some reason the redhead had refused to take it. Of course, she immediately felt bad about that decision, seeing how much her refusal saddened her brother, but she didn't change her mind. Ever since they had escaped from Gargamel's hovel and returned to the village, there was something about Handy's behavior that made the Smurfess very concerned.
Although the road to travel was longer than the road to the burnt beech from the previous day, the trio managed to reach their destination in a much shorter time, thanks to favorable conditions. It probably helped that they knew where they were going and why.
As Farmer had described it, the place was on a fairly high hill. The trees overgrown this part of the forest more densely, being an ideal protection and barrier for the smurfberry bushes during excessive snowfall and powerful gusts of wind that could tear such a small bush even from the hard-frozen ground. Four medium-sized bushes covered with smurfberries grew there.
"What do you think?" Farmer asked as the Smurfs climbed the hill. The brown-haired put his hands on his sides and looked expectantly at Handy, waiting for an answer. The taller Smurf was a bit out of breath.
The blond looked around the trees. Not all of them had trunks thick enough to be suitable for housing. Some, however, had potential.
The Smurf nodded slightly, stepping forward a little. "Maybe we can find something here," he said, folding his arms.
Sassette climbed up the hill, panting. The girl was panting so loudly that the sound echoed through the trees. The Smurfess hunched over, put her hands on her knees and took deep and ravenous breaths. "Suffering Silkworms!" she gasped. "If we don't find anything here, I'll smurf out of my way and multiply myself in frustration or something."
"Good, there will be more hands to help," Handy said, examining each tree carefully.
Farmer snickered, though the redhead wasn't laughing. "Calm down, Sassette. Look at that breath cloud you're producing around you," he said, suppressing the urge to laugh.
The younger Smurfess grumbled, snorted, and crossed her arms. However, she quickly joined her brothers in the search. The Smurfs walked around every tree, and the boys additionally climbed some in search of an entrance to a potential hollow. However, despite so many different trees, they managed to find only two hollows, too small and too high above the ground to be a comfortable and safe place.
It took them over an hour to search the area around the bushes. Farmer was inconsolable, and Handy and Sassette were frustrated. The dark-haired stood in the middle of a small clearing and put his hands on his hips, puckering his mouth. Handy was standing with his arms folded, his back against one of the trees, biting his bottom lip. Sassette sat down by one of the bushes and picked a few berries from it. She looked tired and bored.
"I can't believe we didn't find anything," the taller Smurf sighed finally, tangling his fingers in his hair under his hat.
Handy clicked his tongue, moving away from the tree. They wasted precious time coming here. "Holy Smurf!" He shouted in frustration and slammed his hand against the bark.
Their sister didn't share their mood, but she was also disappointed. The smurfberries fell heavily down her esophagus and slumped heavily into her stomach, doing nothing to cheer her up.
For several minutes, no one spoke.
A flock of titmice flew over the clearing, heading further over the hill. Farmer watched them until they disappeared behind the trees. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. He pointed in the direction. "Let's go there," he called.
"Where?" Handy almost growled. "Further away? It doesn't make sense!"
Sassette looked in the indicated direction, frowning. She had no desire to wander any further from the village. On the other hand, she didn't want this trip to be in vain. The Smurfess sighed, picking herself up off the ground and brushing the snow off her pants.
"Anyway," Handy carried on, spreading his hands, "we have no guarantee we'll find anything there."
"There's only one way to find out. Let's go."
Not waiting for his siblings, Farmer headed north. Sassette looked from one brother to the other several times, and finally ran up to Farmer. Handy scowled at hem, but also followed in his brother's footsteps.
Beyond the hill, the forest thinned again. The Smurfs looked around carefully, Farmer tried to spot the titmice or some other birds. The flock had to fly even further north.
Or hide in a hollow.
Handy and Sassette might not have understood his logic, but since the birds living in hollows had flown to this area, it was very likely that there were empty spaces somewhere in these trees. "Look around," he ordered quietly. "Pay attention to birds."
Sassette ran to a huge oak with a rather complex structure and a powerful crown. The tree seemed very wrinkled, its trunk unusually thick. It must had been quite old. The Smurfess walked around it, running her hand over the bark.
Farmer was examining another tree, also quite huge. It was a tall poplar, not as thick and complex as Sassette's oak, but it was impressive enough to be worth checking out.
Handy was digging up the snow around one of the pine trees in search of a hidden entrance to its interior.
"I got something!"
The boys looked up at their sister's scream. Farmer reached her first. The Smurfess stood in front of the wide but low entrance to the oak and waited. The dark-haired put his hands on her shoulders and moved her slightly, wanting to be the first to check if the area was safe.
Thanks to numerous openings here and there, the interior wasn't completely devoid of light. Despite the thick trunk, the space of the 'room' was smaller than that one in the burnt beech, but the oak had a very important advantage. Pits and mini-rooms were everywhere in the walls thanks to an internal network of solid twigs. The brown-haired checked their strength by pulling some of them and trying to break them.
When Handy reached the oak, Sassette was casually kicking the snow, waiting for some sign from Farmer. The blond pointed to the entrance with his finger and his sister nodded. Raising an eyebrow, the boy looked up at the oak tree.
"Handy! Come in here!" Farmer shouted.
The blond obediently entered the inside of the tree. Sassette spread her hands with an offended expression, then ran after her brother inside.
The trio stared open-mouthed at the walls full of pits. "And?" The brown-haired looked at his brother with undisguised pride and superiority. "Is there potential?"
Handy rolled his eyes at that, but he couldn't deny that they had found the perfect hideout. Well, it was a little far from the hill, but still closer than the burnt tree, and that was what the trio wanted most.
"So what? What?" Sassette asked impatiently, jumping up and down.
Handy whistled in amazement.
"I guess that translates into 'You did well'." Farmer ruffled his sister's hat with a smile.
