Smurfing In Paradise/Part 6

"This smurf can see that the Smurfs were not happy being at Smurf Paradise now, with Gargamel having found the village and waiting for them to return," Empath said, commenting on what he had seen in the memories up to this point.

"Gargamel wasn't entirely happy waiting for the Smurfs to return, either," Narrator said, once again telling his part. "Granted that the evil wizard never liked smurfberries, but that didn't stop him from smurfing through our smurfhouse looking for other things to eat in the meantime."

"This smurf is curious to find out what Gargamel found in the village that would interest him, Narrator," Empath said.

"Well, let's take a look," Narrator said. And as he spoke, Empath watched Gargamel reach into the attic of the Smurf Village storehouse, trying to find something to eat besides smurfberries. Azrael watched as the ground was littered with discarded sacks and barrels.

"Hmm, what's this?" Gargamel said as his hand now found another barrel which he opened up to reveal some sort of food. He dipped his finger in the barrel and took a taste. "Hazelnut pate...very delicious." He drank the entire contents of the barrel and then discarded it like the other sacks and barrels.

"Nothing else in this village is either satisfying or even tasty, Azrael," Gargamel said as he realized there was nothing left in the storehouse for him to grab. "We might as well go fishing until the main course comes along...which I can't wait to be dining on. At least we won't be hearing them singing their disgustingly happy song while we're camping out near their village."

Sometime after Gargamel left the village to go back out into the forest, Papa Smurf flew over it with Feathers, taking along Poet, Painter, and Hefty. They settled down inside the forest near the north end clearing and then hid themselves, making sure the evil wizard wouldn't find them.

"This is where we found Gargamel smurfing out, Papa Smurf," Painter said as he directed him and the two other Smurfs to the campsite.

"I sure hope he's smurfing tired of smurfing out under the open sky," Papa Smurf said.

But as they reached the campsite and hid themselves behind a rock to get a look, they could see that Gargamel was actually enjoying himself, as he was roasting a fish that he had caught over an open fire, with Azrael eagerly waiting for the fish to be done.

"Really, Azrael, this camping out in the wilderness certainly does wonders," the evil wizard said with a smile.

The four Smurfs quickly walked away from the campsite. "Gargamel's not going to leave that easily, my little Smurfs," Papa Smurf said. "We'll have to smurf of something to drive him out."

"Here's what I think we should do, Papa Smurf," Hefty said. "We can smurf all the Smurfs back here, smurf them with bows and arrows, and then smurf at him when..."

"No, Hefty Smurf!" Papa Smurf interrupted. "We can't smurf force to drive him out. Gargamel must decide for himself that smurfing away from here is the best choice. And I think I know of a way that we can help him decide." - A little later on, after Gargamel and Azrael had eaten their dinner, they were laying back near a tree, with the wizard popping a sack of fresh cherries into his mouth one by one, spitting out the pits as he was doing so. "Such delicious cherries," Gargamel said. "This place is like an earthly paradise."

"GARGAMEL! GARGAMEL!" a strangely familiar voice was booming out.

Gargamel quickly got to his feet, looking for whoever was calling his name. And then he saw the Smurfs flying over him on Feathers, with Papa Smurf using a megaphone to get his attention.

"Gargamel, listen!" Papa Smurf said through the megaphone. "You must return home immediately!"

"Home?" Gargamel said. "No way, Smurfs! I'm staying right here in the forest near your village, and I won't leave until you all return!"

"Gargamel, your house will burn down," Papa Smurf warned. "There are flames smurfing from the chimney."

"You're not going to fool me this time, Papa Smurf," Gargamel shouted. "I can see through this transparent trick. Besides, that old rotten dump of a hovel doesn't hold my interest anymore."

But as Gargamel turned his attention away from the Smurfs, he began to think. "But if I don't return home, all the magic books I have collected over the years will be lost. And not only that, but so will all the precious memories of my childhood...even the cradle that Mummy had put me to sleep in." His eyes started to water as he was thinking about his mother singing his favorite lullaby during times when he couldn't go to sleep.

"We have warned you, Gargamel," Papa Smurf continued. "If you want to save your house, then you must hurry."

"Drat! I must go and save my house, Azrael!" Gargamel said, realizing that he had no choice but to do so. And then he saw his sack of cherries and thought of something. "However, I must leave a trail so that I can return to this place after I'm done saving my house. After all, what good is a camping spot near the village if I can't make my way back to it?"

And as Gargamel took his sack of cherries with him and dropped them one by one while heading for his hovel, Papa Smurf now directed Feathers to take them there before Gargamel reaches it. "What are we doing now, Papa Smurf?" Poet said.

"We need to smurf a little fire just to get Gargamel's attention," Papa Smurf said.

Soon Gargamel was reaching the edge of the forest. "It's a good thing we're getting close to home, Azrael...I'm almost out of cherries!" And then he saw smoke coming from his hovel. "Egads! This is terrible! Papa Smurf was right about this!"

Gargamel dropped the last of the cherries in his sack and raced toward the hovel to see where the fire was coming from. He noticed as he got closer that the fire wasn't coming from anywhere inside his hovel. And when he reached the back, he saw what was really set on fire. "My bundles of sticks!"

"Sorry, Gargamel, you'll have to smurf more firewood," Papa Smurf said as Gargamel saw him fly off on Feathers with three other Smurfs now laughing at him.

"Curses, you vile despicable Smurfs...you've tricked me again!" Gargamel ranted. And then he snickered, realizing that he still had his trail of cherries. "Ah, but they are in for a bigger surprise when they find out that I can return to the camping spot near their village."

Azrael followed Gargamel as he headed back into the forest, following the trail he had left. But then he saw something else appear in the trail.

"It's that bear, Azrael," Gargamel said. "Quick! Let's hide ourselves!"

He and his cat hid behind a bush and watched as the bear sniffed the ground, noticing the cherries that were laid on it. The bear then scooped up the cherries, tossed a handful of them into his mouth, and spat the pits and stems out of his mouth.

"MY CHERRIES!" Gargamel shouted. "He's eating up my trail!" He became so angry that he came out of his hiding spot to confront the bear. "You miserable beast! I'll turn you into a bedspread!"

Azrael watched fearfully from the cover of the bush as Gargamel got into a struggle with the bear, cringing as his master got mauled. A little later, the bear ran away, leaving Gargamel with great injury.

"That stupid bear," he muttered. "I think I showed him a lesson." - Back in the Smurf Village, with Gargamel and Azrael safely gone, Poet had inspected the storehouse. "Gargamel has smurfed all our supplies of grain, Papa Smurf," he reported.

"Then we'll need to smurf up on new supplies before winter smurfs," Papa Smurf said. "Painter, it's time that we smurfed the other Smurfs that they can smurf straight home now. This vacation is over."

"Avec plaisir, Papa Smurf," Painter said as he took off on Feathers to return to Smurf Paradise.

And later on, Empath watched as the Smurfs returned to the Smurf Village, all singing the Smurf song, most of them happy to see that their vacation has come to an end, and some of them wishing they could have stayed longer.

Duncan noticed that Tapper was rather chipper throughout the whole thing. "We've barely smurfed for more than a few days, and yet you smurf as if you've been there for longer. How can you smurf like that, laddie?"

"I just smurf my faith in the Almighty, and he smurfs me rest, Duncan," Tapper answered. "Besides, I just feel it in my spirit that His hand was in all this, that He smurfed us all away from the village just to keep us safe from harm."

Duncan snorted at the thought. "I only wish I could smurf some of your faith there, Tapper." - "Tapper is truly strange when it smurfs to moments like this, Empath," Handy said. "Even when he gets captured by Gargamel, he doesn't smurf any fear of him or what's going to happen."

"If Tapper knows this Almighty of his is going to protect him no matter what, then why should he fear anything?" Empath said.

"That's why we like Tapper, Empath...he smurfs courage in the most dire of smurfumstances, and he doesn't even have to be like my brother Hefty," Handy said. "All he has is that strange book and his faith. Anyway, sometime after we returned from Smurf Paradise, I finally found the solution to fixing my cherry desmurfer."

And Empath watched as Dimwitty was in Handy's workshop, watching the village builder making the last of his adjustments to his machine. "There...the cherry desmurfer is finally ready," Handy said, closing up the machine. "We can now smurf cherries without the pits and without them smurfing into mush."

"It's too bad the season for cherries is over, though," Dimwitty said. "However, if you can smurf a machine that would smurf nuts from their shells, then you'd really have something to smurf about."

"Nuts from shells?" Handy said, as he now began to ponder on such a machine.

Meanwhile, from the door of Greedy's kitchen, Papa Smurf could see rain and leaves falling outside. "It will be autumn soon, my little Smurfs," Papa Smurf said to the Smurfs gathered inside the kitchen. "It looks like Smurf Paradise is officially over, and Gargamel has smurfed our vacation."

"I'm just glad that it ended, Papa Smurf," Nabby said as he was eating some of Greedy's baked goodies. "Too much of a smurfy thing is just not smurfy."

"Besides, we can always smurf back to it next year," Greedy said as he was preparing a meal. - "Unfortunately, by the time we smurfed back to that spot the following year, Empath, it was all gone," Handy said. "Tracker discovered that everything in Smurf Paradise was smurfed by the beavers to make homes for themselves for the winter."

"That is really sad, Handy," Empath said as Handy's story came to a close. "This smurf would very much have wanted to go to this place that you have built and the other Smurfs have enjoyed."

"I know, Empath, but I think it was all for the best," Handy said.

"Tracker said that he liked the place better when it smurfed back to the way it used to be," Smurfette said.

"It's just unfortunate that such a place is only a seasonal attraction," Empath said. "It would be nice if we could have a private resort like that where we could go to every day of year, regardless of the weather."

Handy was deep in thought. "Every day of the year...you know, Homnibus has this thing in his hovel that Papa Smurf had smurfed into during one of his visits called the Imaginarium. It allowed him to smurf the things that only he could imagine."

"Really? This smurf wonders what such a place would be like," Empath said, curious.

"I don't know, but Papa Smurf says that Homnibus uses it for private meditations," Handy said. "You know, like Tapper smurfs his private moments when he smurfs his prayer and worship thing to his Almighty."

"Papa Smurf said he smurfed it one time to see what it would be like for the other Smurfs to take care of matters like Bigmouth smurfing near our smurfberry patches if he wasn't around," Smurfette added.

"But...to be able to smurf a place of our own where we could smurf away from the village without ever leaving it," Handy said. "Now that would truly be something to smurf."

"You think you might be able to build a 'private resort' like that right here in our own village, Handy?" Empath asked.

"I honestly don't know, Empath," Handy said. "I think it's something that would require some help from Papa Smurf and from Homnibus. But if I could, we would have a Smurf Paradise that we could smurf anything we want to."

"Just imagine it, Empath," Smurfette said. "We would be able to smurf a nice sunny beach right in the middle of winter."

"Or a nice cold snowy mountain to do skiing on in the middle of summer, Smurfette, if you enjoy skiing," Empath said.

"It sounds like something I should start talking to Papa Smurf about," Handy said. "In the meantime, I would like to smurf my motor boat back out onto the water. Would either of you care to do some watersmurfing?"

"Oh, that would be just smurfy, Handy," Smurfette said.

"This smurf would be honored to accept such an invitation," Empath said, seconding the emotion.

"Great," Handy said. "Let's get her smurfing again."

As Empath and Smurfette watched Handy get the motor on his boat started, Empath said to Smurfette, "Being anywhere with you is truly paradise."

Smurfette smiled back at Empath, agreeing with what he said as they now rode along the river with Handy.

THE END