Planted in Time (The Devereaux Story)/Chapter 1

It was a regular day in Smurf Village. Eska was helping Papa in his lab with a special experiment while Brainy was out. He had a small seedling in an orange pot setting on his desk.

"So," Eska asked him, "What are we doing?"

"I have right here the seedling of a Dancing Lily," Papa explained, "When grown it has to ability to hear any music you play and dance along with it!"

Eska thought about it, "Kinda like those hula dancers that run on solar power that I see around Brainy's house?"

"Somewhat," Papa answered, "Point is, this particular plant doesn't grow on water. It goes on as molecular systematic liquid called Dantrollium." He held up a beaker of green potion, "When I pour a drop on this," He poured a little drop on it, which causes it to grow and start to sway back and forth to the music Papa played from his MMP3 player.

"It dances, see?"

Eska wiggled with the plant, "I see what you mean! This is fun!" Eska spotted a beaker with purple bottle, "What about this? Will this make it sing?"

Before Eska could pour it on the plant, Papa stopped her, "Don't! That is Dydendrum! It causes the plant to wither up!"

"I should have noticed that the title DIEdendrum," Eska set the beaker down.

Papa set down the Dantrollium and headed to the door of his house, "I'm going to get some more Dancing Lily seeds from Smurfette. Can you keep an eye on the current one while I'm gone?"

"Sure, Papa!" Eska saluted, "You can count on me!"

While Papa was out, Eska stared at the plant and didn't take her eyes off it. The Dancing Lily just stood there not busting a muscle. Eska's eyelids became heavy, and she almost fell asleep.

"Yeesh," Eska sat up, "This thing can be boring when it's not dancing." Eska pulled out her MMP3 player and played some of her downloaded tunes. The plant wiggled back and forth as the music played. Eska watched it and wiggled with it some more. Over time, however, she began to get bored by the plant's wiggling. She looked at the green beaker and grabbed it.

"I wonder if another drop would make it have more dancing options," Eska began to tip the beaker to get one drop. But she jerked her wrist too hard and caused the whole container to pour onto the flower. Eska freaked and hid the bottle in the back of Papa's cabinet.

"Well," Eska tried to think on the bright side, "At least it will be a greater dancer now. Hehe!"

Later that day, Eska spotted something that caught her eye. Handy had recently invented a weird looking box he called a "Time Machine".

"Who wants to be the first one to try out my new machine?!" Handy called out to his listeners.

Immediately, Eska swiftly ran up to Handy and volunteered, "I do!" As soon as she said that, she climbed in, "I'm going to travel one year into the future!"

"You sure you don't want to travel furthur?" Handy asked her.

"Nah," Eska held her hand out, "Let er rip!"

With those words, Handy activated the time machine and watched as Eska disappeared in a flash. Eska herself was traveling along the time stream, excited about what the village would look like in the future. When she arrived, she found herself outside of the village gate. Her excited laughter waned, when she saw what had become of her home. It was completely destroyed!

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