#--; so 15 is like right on that cusp of she should already be engaged and its acceptable for her to not be engaged *yet*

[llimerrence]

okay, so if we say: Philip is roughly 10 that means that Caleb is roughly 17

And therefore Thomasin is roughly 15 at that time

[schtroumpf-a-lunettes]

Smurf Village Upturned, Chapter 15: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

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Waking up, again to an empty room as the morning light streamed in through the windows, again to no indication that breakfast was underway. Well, not today, today would be different. Baby was going to find the smurf he wanted to see.

It was true, Greedy was in his kitchen, just as Baby had expected, but what he hadn’t been expecting was to find Greedy sitting on the floor in silence. The older smurf didn’t even seem to notice Baby’s entrance, didn’t look up or react. The kitchen usually felt so lively with how busily Greedy would be bustling about the room, but today, there was none of that usual commotion, and its absence was unnerving.

“Greedy,” Baby said, announcing his approach, “I’m hungry!”

He waited.

“I’m hungry,” he said again. Why wouldn’t Greedy move?!

“I want food!” he whined loudly. Real food!

Finally, Greedy seemed to notice he was there, shifted his gaze as he turned towards the source of the noise, but if he was going to reply, the process was rather delayed. He’d need to be louder, Baby decided, to really get it through to him, to break whatever spell he seemed to be under.

“Greedy, I’m hungry!” he yelled. He did not recall ever having shouted at Greedy before, but he needed something to eat and he was frustrated – on the cusp of a rather age-appropriate temper tantrum.

Baby’s words finally seemed to register as the lost look in Greedy’s eyes faded somewhat. “Something to eat…” Greedy’s gaze shifted away from Baby, and then, not getting up from where he sat, he reached over to a nearby box, and gave it a shove over to the smurfling. “Here, how about have some of this.”

“Cookies – for breakfast?!” Baby shook his head unhappily. He never thought the adults would actually allow him to have a breakfast like that! Normally he’d be pleased, but he was sick of just eating treats! That was why he’d come to Greedy directly in the first place instead of just sneaking some more goodies while waiting for some actual food. He could tell that if he just ate more cookies or more cupcakes, he wouldn’t feel so good.

Greedy didn’t seem to be listening anymore, having fallen back into his rather despondent state. Well then, Baby knew it was useless to stay here. He wasn’t going to get food here, so he would have to find it somewhere else!

Even just a bunch of smurfberries on their own would be good, Baby thought to himself as he walked through the village. He didn’t really know anything about the food storage shed in the village, let alone where it was or how to get inside. He did know, however, that it was routine for smurfs to go off into the forest and then they would come back with baskets and baskets full of smurfberries! That was easy. He’d just have to go into the forest and get some smurfberries – problem solved.

Baby walked to the end of the village, and when he reached it, he kept on going, walking straight out of the village altogether. No one noticed him leave.

He wouldn’t be too long. He just needed to get some food, and then he could go back to the village again. Simple.

He walked on, looking around carefully for any signs of smurfberry bushes. After a while… Yes! There they were – smurfberry bushes. He hurried over, shoving some into his mouth right away. Then he sat, picking them off the bush casually into a pile.

Before long, there were two goblins watching him nearby.

“Heh… Well, look what we have here,” the taller one smirked, and went to sneak up on the smurfling before his companion stopped him in his tracks with a hiss.

“What are you doing?! That’s a smurf! You know… A smurf!”

“So?” the taller one was unimpressed. “It’s all on its own! And it looks like it’s just a little kiddie one!” he rubbed his hands together, but still the other goblin shook his head.

“Yeah, but if the adult ones find out? There’s no telling…”

“Ah, well, I’m sure they’d pay us handsomely to get their precious little one back, don’t you think? And we were planning on moving on from here soon anyway, weren’t we? So we’ll just get our payment and move far away before they can try anything funny.”

The other goblin pursed their lips together, unconvinced. The taller one took this as permission to step forward in preparation to abduct the little smurfling. They could work out the details later. This was going to be a cinch – he was so much bigger and stronger than the little blue child.

All he would have to do is approach from behind, and – yes, that was it. He was in grabbing distance now. Close enough to touch. The goblin reached out a big, hairy hand to snatch Baby Smurf…

But Baby Smurf had managed to notice their presence in time, and Baby Smurf did not wish to be kidnapped. With a simple flick of his own wrist, the goblins were abruptly sent flying backwards, hurtling through the air and out of sight.

Out of sight, out of mind…

***

“Dabbler, did you… do this?” Brainy asked in wonder, adjusting his glasses meaningfully. Clumsy also looked at Dabbler curiously, from next to Brainy.

“Do what?” Dabbler asked, before realisation struck. “Oh… your glasses – they’re fully repaired! Did I…?” he fell into silence for a few moments. “I-I guess I did…?”

If Dabbler was being honest, he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t really remember anything that had happened, or that he’d done, since… since…

The past few days had all just blended together meaninglessly for him. Days? How much time had passed?

“Ah… But didn’t Clumsy mention you’d been seeing some strange things through those glasses lately?” Dabbler remembered, his tone quickly becoming guarded.

“Oh… No, not anymore. The spell broke completely, when…” Brainy went quiet. He didn’t need to continue.

“…Vanity’s mirror shattered too, yeah, but he’s got plenty more of those, so…” Dabbler trailed off, uncomfortably aware of how aimless and flimsy his words were. This conversation was pointless, and it was going nowhere. It was a strange act they were all currently engaged in, balancing their words so as to uphold a conversation that projected a precarious sense of “normality”. Merely standing around like this and just talking was a temporary reprieve from… the realities that waited to ambush Dabbler the moment he was alone again.

But no, even that was not entirely true, as their stilted dialogue and extended pauses could attest to. You could tell there was something off about all of them, and why wouldn’t there be? But right now, if just to hold a conversation, it felt necessary for them to somehow pretend, and to carefully dance around the fact that their beloved leader was dead. Until they could retreat once more to be on their own, or back into their houses.

“Yeah… if Brainy was still seein’ things through his glasses that he shouldn’t – you’d know,” Clumsy reassured Dabbler.

Well, he hadn’t known, before. He’d noticed that Brainy was different than usual, of course… Well, he supposed he knew what to look for now.

“So, how’d you do it, then? How did you fix my glasses?” Brainy prompted.

“Uhh…” Dabbler stood, racking his brains for any memory of the magical feat he’d supposedly pulled off, when all three smurfs turned towards a sudden commotion.

Without warning, Wild Smurf had stormed into the village chittering angrily, Baby Smurf by his side. The other smurfs looked on as he gestured animatedly at both Baby and in the direction of the forest, quite upset.

“In… in the forest?” Poet said distantly, “but…” he frowned.

Wild grumbled in exasperation, crossing his arms.

“He… wasn’t in the village?”

Wild nodded. His disapproving chitters couldn’t have been clearer in their condemnation of everyone’s utter failure to look out for Baby.

“Well!” huffed Miner, “who was supposed to be watching him?!”

“I’m way ahead of you,” murmured Harmony, retrieving and unfolding the little roster that had been done up for the village to default to, and cleared his throat. “Let’s see… Brainy Smurf?”

“I should have known!” Handy spoke up harshly, pointing at the named smurf. “You should have been watching him!”

“He could have gotten into serious danger,” Hefty chimed in unhappily, his voice sounding slightly hoarse. Those who noticed, however, didn’t find this fact too surprising. None of them were sounding very good at the moment.

“Now wait just a second!” Brainy looked over the schedule, “On the day I was supposed to take over, it wasn’t exactly possible. And if you hadn’t noticed, then my glasses were destroyed! I couldn’t watch over Baby Smurf – I couldn’t watch anything – I couldn’t see!”

“Mmm… those glasses, they look fine t’ me,” Farmer observed quietly.

Brainy threw up his arms in exasperation and went to protest some more, but Smurfette was already cutting in, just before Clumsy was also about to speak up.

“No… No, we can’t have expected Brainy to supervise Baby at all. Wasn’t that… Wasn’t that the same day… Wasn’t he missing that morning?” And he’d only just been put under supervision himself the night before, hadn’t he? “And then everyone was searching for him, and Clumsy and Vanity. In all that confusion, I think P… I don’t quite remember, but I think we were all supposed to be looking out for Baby, perhaps. I’m pretty sure at least some of us would have been told.” Given instruction of some sort.

Had she been told? Everything was a blur – there’d been a lot of confusion and alarm surrounding Brainy, Vanity and Clumsy’s abrupt disappearance, and things had only gotten worse on that day.

Back on that morning, everyone had been rushing about in a disordered mess. They’d all been so focused and caught up in it all… If there hadn’t been some other smurf specifically assigned to watch over Baby in Brainy’s place, it would have been easy to assume that it was already being taken care of, or for it to go unthought about altogether. Papa was usually the kind of smurf who would think of everything. Had he allocated a different smurf to look after Baby on that day, knowing that Brainy was unable? There was, perhaps, no longer any way of knowing for sure. And it no longer really mattered, now.

And then everything had gone to smurf… A lot had happened… a lot had happened. And clearly, regardless of whether or not Papa had taken measures to avoid it, Baby Smurf had slipped under everyone’s radar as a result anyway. That was the point of attention here.

Harmony cleared his throat awkwardly. “After Brainy, the main smurf responsible for Baby according to this schedule, starting today, was… Hefty Smurf.”

Several heads turned in Hefty’s direction wordlessly. Handy’s face lit up with shock.

“…M-Me? Ugh… I’m sorry.” Hefty’s head bowed low. “I just- I…”

“Now, now, sonny, the important thing is that Baby Smurf is safe and with us right now. We’ll all need to be a little more careful in future…” Nanny came over and gave Baby a little pat. “At the moment, I think all of you… need space. I’ll look after Baby. Don’t any of you worry.”

“And what about…” Smurfette looked pained. “Don’t you think we should… organise something like a… a funeral for Papa?”

“What’s a funeral?” Baby piped up curiously, picking up the new word amidst the conversation. But his question went unanswered, as Nanny voiced her agreement to Smurfette’s statement and the smurfs started tentatively discussing amongst themselves.

He could just go off to the side and play with his toys, then. That seemed to be what everyone wanted him to do, anyway. He’d just play alone with his toys… for now.