.Smurfette and the Potion

"Papa Smurf! Papa Smurf!" Tough Smurf shouted. Smurfs came running from all the points of the village.

Papa came more slowly. He wouldn't get excited until he knew it was a real problem.

"What is it, Tough Smurf?" he asked.

"Smurfette! She disappeared! I just turned away from a moment, and Smurf! She was gone!" the younger Smurf cried.

"Was it a fox?" another Smurf asked. "Did a fox get her?"

"Oh, no," another wailed.

"Maybe a dog?" one added.

"A wolf?" another guessed.

"A duck?" from the back of the growing crowd.

"That doesn't make any smurfing sense," someone argued from the other side.

"Does so!" the first insisted

"You're just afraid of ducks."

"They're just not smurfy!"

"ENOUGH!" Papa Smurf cried out. "Tough Smurf, tell me what happened! Quick as a smurf!"

-----

Some time later, Papa Smurf led a search and rescue party of Smurfs through the forest.

"I think it was this smurfberry bush," Tough said, pointing. Three of his fellows peeled off to search through the branches.

"Or..." Tough went on. He pointed again, three more went to search that bush. Papa Smurf rolled his eyes. Looking up that way, he glimpsed an odd color. The underside of the leaves of a nearby tree were dappled in purple.

"That's odd," he muttered. "Leaves should be green this time of year."

Tough pointed through the trees towards another bush as Papa walked off to investigate this oddity. A team of Smurfs swerved from one bush to the new one.

Across the clearing, Papa found that sunlight was coloring the leaves by reflecting off of a low purple cloud. It wasn't very smurfy to look at. It seemed to cower along the ground.

As he watched, a mouse ran across the ground, skirting the edge of the mist. A hawk stooped out of the sky, talons extended to grasp the rodent.

"Look OUT!" Papa Smurf shouted. Warned, the mouse turned to dive into the cover of the haze. The hawk corrected its flight to catch up and they both disappeared from sight.

Papa watched carefully, hoping the mouse escaped. A breeze came through the trees, moving the clouds. Inside, the hawk stood on one foot and held the mouse in the other. It lifted the mammal up to its face...and kissed it.

The little man watching wasn't sure, but it looked like the mouse kissed back.

"That's just smurfin' insane," he muttered, shaking his head. Behind him, Tough started to point his hand. Seven Smurfs tossed smurfberries at him until he was buried under the pulps.