For The Smurf Of Money/Part 3

Empath watched as Trader paced around inside his house. He could sense that Trader was deep in thought over this idea that has captured his attention.

"Let's see...how do I introsmurf money into our village," Trader said to himself. "First of all, I need to convince the other Smurfs that it's a smurfy thing to do...second, I need to smurf them how it works...but most of all, I need a program, something that I can smurf them..." Then suddenly came an idea. "Currency! I will smurf up the currency! After all, how can they trade if they don't have anything to trade with?"

He ran out of his house and headed straight for Painter's studio. He knew his artistic skills would come in handy for this part of the plan.

"Can you smurf me up a sketch of Papa Smurf's face inside the smurf of a circle?" Trader asked.

"Mon ami, it will be done," Painter said. Trader watched as Painter got out his drawing tools, first creating a large enough circle on a sheet of paper with a compass, and then within the circle he drew a realistic image of Papa Smurf's head.

"That's just what I need," Trader said as he inspected the work. "Perfect!"

"Say, what do you plan to do with the image?" Painter asked as he handed the completed work to Trader.

"It's a surprise, Painter," Trader said. "You'll smurf it when I'm finished."

Empath followed Trader as he now headed for Sculptor's studio. He was busy working on a statue when Trader asked him to do an engraving.

"You want me to engrave what?" Sculptor asked, sounding curious.

"A small circular mold no bigger than your thumb, and the thickness smurfing half the size of a fingernail," Trader described. "And the mold will contain this image smurfing inside." He then showed Sculptor the sketch Painter had made.

Sculptor looked at it, briefly pondering. "Well, Trader, I can start smurfing on it right after I smurf the finishing touches of my Discus Throw Smurf statue," he said, turning his attention toward his current project.

"NO! THIS IS IMPORTANT!" Trader shouted, as if he was eager to get it done now.

Then came the sound of the dinner bell. "Ah! Meal time!" Sculptor said as he dropped his tools and headed for the dining commons. Trader followed, less interested in food and more interested in seeing his project completed.

Empath watched as Trader had to endure sitting through an entire meal being served by Greedy, waiting for Sculptor to finish eating. It was apparent that Sculptor did not like being rushed through a meal.

"Hey, Trader, you sure I couldn't interest you in smurfing around for a bowl of this smurf?" Greedy asked, ready to give Trader a serving. "There's plenty enough for everyone to smurf!"

"No, thank you, Greedy," Trader said. "I don't have the time, and neither does he!"

Sculptor ignored Trader and asked for a second serving, which Greedy gave him. All Trader could do is sit and sulk as he waited for Sculptor to finish.

"Aaaah, that was a good meal," Sculptor said as he got up from the table after the meal and stretched his arms. "Now it's time to smurf it off with a nice little nap!"

"A nap?" Trader said as he and Sculptor left the dining commons. "Are you kidding? We need to start smurfing this now!"

Finally, with a bit more cajoling from Trader, Sculptor decided it was time to give his friend what he wanted. "So when will this be ready?" Trader asked as Sculptor sat at his desk ready to start his work.

"I do not know," Sculptor answered. "Smurf back here tomorrow."

After Trader left Sculptor's studio, he went walking around the village thinking. "Now what I need is a metal that is very valuable and that can be used for smurfing the currency," he pondered. He remembered what he saw during Oliver's walk through the marketplace. "Humans have the most beautiful things in gold...of gold? Where will I smurf such stuff around here?" Then it came to him. "Miner Smurf! I bet he knows where I can smurf it!"

Trader headed off into the mines where he could hear his fellow Smurf busy at work, singing the Smurf song. He went inside the mine to talk to him.

"Ah, Trader Smurf, what can I smurf you for?" he politely greeted.

"How's it going smurfing in the mines, Miner?" Trader asked.

"Just look at this beautiful vein of flint that I have smurfed," Miner said, holding up a piece. "Mason Smurf will be so happy."

"That's good," Trader said. "And what about gold? Have you smurfed any of that in your mines?"

"Gold? That worthless yellow smurf?" Miner said, sounding rather disgusted. "Take a smurf of the pile behind you." Trader looked and saw a big pile of gold rocks. "I smurfed a lot of that in the mines, and I just don't know what to smurf with it."

Trader looked excited, as if this was an unexpected miracle. "So you don't mind if I smurf myself to this pile?" he asked Miner.

"Oh no," Miner said, sounding pleased. "Smurf as much as you need. In fact, smurf the whole pile. You'd be smurfing me a great favor by removing it."

"Great," Trader said. "Just let me smurf a wheelbarrow."

Miner handed him a wheelbarrow and a shovel. "Mind if I ask what you intend to be smurfing with all that gold, Trader?"

"It's a surprise, Miner," Trader answered as he started to load the gold onto the wheelbarrow. He could see that he will need to make more trips in order to get all the gold out of the mines, but at least he got the metal. Now he needed to make one more visit.

He headed over to Handy's workshop with the wheelbarrow full of gold and explained to his fellow Smurf what he needed. "Are you able to smurf this gold into a mold that I will have finished by tomorrow?" Trader asked.

"Of course I am able, Trader," Handy said, sounding disinterested. "With me, anything is possible."

"And please don't ask me what I'm going to smurf with this," Trader said. "As I smurfed the others, IT'S A SURPRISE!"

Handy looked like he just got kicked in the tail. "But I wasn't going to ask you!" - "All through the night, I just couldn't sleep, Empath," Trader said as his current self stepped into the memory. "I kept smurfing how the village would be with everybody so happy that they could experience trading like I do, except that now it would be with money. I didn't think that anything awful would ever smurf from this."

And as Empath continued to watch, on the next day Trader went to Sculptor's studio and got what he wanted: the completed mold. Sculptor was happy to see that Trader was satisfied with the result. He then took the mold to Handy's workshop, where he started work on melting the gold and pouring it into the mold.

"Steady as it smurfs, Handy," Trader warned. "This is the first coin we're smurfing."

And after a while, when the gold was hardened, Handy pried the coin loose from the mold. "Bingo! Smurf off the press!"

Trader picked up the coin and examined it. It was so beautiful and perfect, he felt like he had to put it into his collection immediately. "Now we need to smurf hundreds more of these," he told Handy.

And so over the course of the day, Handy and Trader went to work with making the gold coins, with Handy pouring the gold into the mold, and Trader inspecting each finished coin. Trader wanted everything to be so perfect, he refused to let any of the gold go to waste, even when Handy found a defect coin that he was going to chuck into the scrap pile.

Finally, near the end of the day, Trader had bags full of a few thousand coins all ready to be carted out in a wheelbarrow. "Thanks a million, Handy," Trader said as he was ready to leave Handy's workshop. "You sure there isn't a coin smurfing around in a corner somewhere?"

"No, Trader, I made sure that every single coin is in there," Handy said, sounding as if he wanted to be rid of Trader. "I hope you know what you're smurfing with all this!"

"I already told you, Handy..." Trader began to say.

"'It's a surprise!'" Handy finished. "I just hope it's worth the effort!" He watched as Trader carted out the bags of coins from the workshop, and then he went back inside to do some work of his own, seeing that Lazy needed his alarm clock to be fixed.

During the night, Empath watched Trader do some preparation work for what he was about to show his fellow Smurfs when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Nosey and Chatty.

"Hello," Nosey said. "We were just wondering about the gold coins you and Handy were smurfing today."

"So what do you plan to smurf with them?" Chatty asked.

"YOU'LL SMURF WHAT IT IS TOMORROW!" Trader shouted, shooing the two inquisitive Smurfs away. "IT'S A SURPRISE!" - Empath watched as the following day, Harmony had summoned everyone in the village to gather around for an announcement.

"My fellow Smurfs, tonight there will be a conference being smurfed at the Smurf Theater," he stated, reading from the sheet handed to him. "The theme will be 'It's A Surprise'. Make sure you smurf the whole village to attend this event. Admission is free."

"Free admission?" one Smurf asked. "What's a 'free admission'?"

"Will there be smurf at this conference?" another Smurf asked.

"A surprise?" Jokey asked. "What could be more smurfy than my surprises?"

"And who's smurfing this conference?" a fourth Smurf asked.

"I'm sorry, my fellow Smurfs," Harmony said. "That is all the information I have to smurf you." He then walked away.

By evening, Empath saw that pretty much the entire village, with the exception of Papa Smurf, was gathered around the Smurf Theater, curious to know what this conference was all about. All they knew about was that it was a surprise.

Then finally Trader came onto the stage, standing behind a table. "I wonder what he's smurfing up to," Smurfette said to herself.

"May I have your attention, please," Trader said in a loud enough voice for every Smurf to hear. Soon all the talking from the audience had quieted down. "First of all, my fellow Smurfs, I would like to thank you all for smurfing here tonight. The reason I have smurfed you here is that I have something important to show you, something that will change Smurf society forever..." He then showed them a gold coin. "MONEY!"

"Hey, your money is all gold!" one Smurf said as he stood up from among the audience.

"Of course it's gold," Trader said. "But it's not gold that smurfs in the form of metal! It's gold that smurfs in the form of currency! Do any of you Smurfs get what I'm smurfing?"

"NO!" they all said together.

"Then let me explain," Trader said. "On the day that I went to Homnibus to smurf the remedy for Papa Smurf, I smurfed with his servant Oliver into the local human village. There I smurfed that everything that humans do is with money...that is, with coins!" He then poured a small pile of gold coins from a bag onto the table. "And with coins like these, I assure you that you'll smurf hundreds of these. That's the surprise!"

"But what do we smurf with these coins?" another Smurf asked.

"You use them to smurf the things that you need and want," Trader answered. "All of us have things that we need and want, and to smurf what we want, we must smurf something of equal value. As with humans, Farmer Smurf smurfs the fields with wheat and grows it, Miller Smurf harvests the wheat and smurfs it into flour, and Greedy and Biscotti Smurf smurf the flour into wheat so they can smurf a crust. Do any of you get what I'm smurfing now?"

"I'm not sure I understand any of it, Trader," a third Smurf said. "But if the others are willing to agree to smurfing this, I'll agree to it as well."

"Me too," the Smurf sitting next to him said. And several other Smurfs were starting to voice their agreement.

"Just one minute, Trader," Brainy said, standing up to address him. "You can't smurf any of this into practice until you have the advice and permission of Papa Smurf. Only he can smurf the decision of whether we should smurf money or not."

"Look, Brainy," Hefty said. "Papa Smurf is very sick, and for once we're smurfing by without him. Why not let us smurf this money system a try?"

"Absosmurfly not," Brainy said. "For as Papa Smurf once said, one voice cannot..."

At that, Brainy found himself flung to the village limits. "It's hard to smurf up for your principles when you have to smurf up with this," he groaned.

"So what are you smurfing, Finance Smurf?" one of the Smurfs asked. "That we can smurf like this right now?"

"Finance Smurf?" Trader said as he pondered on what he was now called. "Hey, why not?" He decided that he was going to go by this name now. "So how about it, my fellow Smurfs? Are you all willing to give this new money system a smurf?"

All the gathered Smurfs started saying "YEA!" one by one. All except for Brainy, who was the only one who said, "Nay," before he was silenced again.

"Good," Trader said, pleased that the entire village is approving the idea. "Then follow me and I will smurf you your share of the coins."

They all followed Trader as he led them to a table near the stage where there was a book and bags of coins. The Smurfs lined up as Trader gave them each a bag.

"Just smurf your name in the register there, which will be your receipt," he directed them after they have received their bag.

"How much will each of us receive?" one of the Smurfs asked.

"You will receive 100 coins with each bag," Trader answered. "Of course, I am a double-portion Smurf!"

"You? Double portion?" another Smurf said.

"Why you, of all Smurfs, should receive double, Finance Smurf?" a third Smurf asked.

"Why?" Trader answered. "Because I have been fair. I am the one who smurfed all the gold coins, and it was I who smurfed this whole system into place. You think I shouldn't be smurfed double for that?"

The Smurfs who asked him about it pondered. "Well, when you smurf it that way..."

"He's right, after all!"

And so the Smurfs left the conference with their bags of money, asking each other what they intend to do with it. Meanwhile, Trader headed home with his bags of money and the register in hand, pleased with the result.

"And so 'Operation: Money' has been smurfed into motion," he said to himself. "Let's just hope that it smurfs."

Smurf to Part 3