by Tove Jansson
A Tale of Horror
THE next-to-youngest whomper was crawling along beside the back garden fence. Every now and then he lay quite still, watching the enemy, before he continued. His baby brother came crawling behind him.
By the vegetable patch the whomper flattened himself against the ground and sidled to cover among the lettuces. That was his only chance. The place was teeming with enemy scouts, and some of them swarmed in the air.
‘I’m black all over,’ said his baby brother.
‘Shut up, if you value your life,’ the whomper whispered back. ‘What colour do you expect to become in a mangrove swamp? Blue?’
‘This is lettuce,’ said his baby brother.
‘And you’re going to be a grown-up in no time if you keep that up,’ the whomper said. ‘You’ll be like daddy and mummy, and serve you right. Then you’ll see and hear just ordinary things, I mean you’ll see and hear simply nothing, and that’s the end.’
‘Mphm,’ said his baby brother and started to eat a little earth.
‘That’s poisoned,’ the whomper said curtly. ‘And all the fruit in this country is poisoned too. And look, now they’ve spotted us, thanks to you.’
Two scouts came humming down towards them across the pea rows, but the whomper killed them swiftly. Panting from excitement and exertion he slid down in the ditch and sat there, still as a frog. He listened so hard that it made his ears wobble and his head nearly burst. The rest of the scouts were keeping very quiet, but they were advancing all the time, creeping silently towards him through the grass. The prairie grass. They were innumerable.
‘Listen,’ said his baby brother from the edge of the ditch. ‘I want to go home.’
‘You’ll never see home again,’ his brother said glumly. ‘Your bones will lie bleaching on the prairie, and daddy and mummy’ll weep till they drown, and there’ll be
nothing more left of you then, nothing at all, or just a little for the hyenas to howl over.’
The whomper’s baby brother opened his mouth, took a large breath and started to cry.
The whomper judged from the sound of it that this cry was going to last long. So he left his baby brother alone and crawled further along the ditch. He had lost every idea of the enemy’s whereabouts, he didn’t even know what the enemy looked like any more.
He felt tricked and thought: I wish baby brothers didn’t exist. They should be born big or not at all. They don’t know a thing about war. They should be kept in boxes until they understand.
The ditch was wet, and the whomper got up and began to wade along it. It was a large and very long ditch. He decided to discover the South Pole and continued his way, more and more exhausted each day, because his food and water were finished, and, for worse luck, a polar bear had bitten him in the leg.
Finally the ditch came to an end, disappearing in the earth, and the whomper was all alone at the South Pole.
He was standing on the marsh.
The marsh was grey and dark green, dotted with black gleaming pools. Lots of white cottongrass grew everywhere, like snow, and the air had a nice, musty smell.
The marsh is out of bounds, the whomper thought aloud. It’s out of bounds to smaller whompers, and grown-up ones don’t ever go there. But I’m the only one who knows why it’s dangerous. This is the place where the Ghost Wagon rolls by on its great and heavy wheels. You can hear its rumble from afar but no one’s ever seen the driver…
Oh no! the whomper interrupted himself. Suddenly he felt cold and afraid, from his stomach upwards. A moment ago the Ghost Wagon hadn’t existed. Nobody had ever heard of it. Then he thought it up, and there it was. Somewhere far away, waiting for the darkness to start rolling along.
I think, said the whomper, I rather think I’m a
whomper who has looked and searched for his home for ten years. And now this whomper gets a sudden feeling that his home is somewhere quite near.
He sniffed for the right direction and set off. While he walked he thought a bit about mud snakes and live fungi that came crawling after one – until they were there and started to grow in the moss.
Those things could swallow up a baby brother in a jiffy, he thought sadly. Perhaps they’ve even done it already. They’re everywhere. I fear the worst. But there is hope still, a relief expedition might save him.
He started to run.
Poor baby brother, the whomper thought. So small, and so silly. If the mud snakes have got him I’ll have no baby brother any more, and then I’ll be the youngest.
He sobbed and ran, his hair was damp from fright, he came darting over the yard, past the wood-shed, up the front steps, calling at the top of his voice:
‘Mummy! Daddy! Baby brother’s been eaten up!’
The whomper’s mother was big and worried. She was always worried. Now she jumped to her feet and spilled peas from her pinafore all over the floor and cried:
‘What? What! What are you saying? Where’s baby brother? Haven’t you looked after him?’
‘Oh,’ said the whomper a little calmer, ‘he fell in a mud hole in the marsh. And almost at once a mud snake came out and wound itself around his fat little stomach and bit his nose off. Yes. I’m quite beside myself, but then what can one do? There’s so many more mud snakes than baby brothers.’
‘Snake?’ cried his mother.
But his father said: ‘Take it easy. He’s telling fibs again. Mark my words.’ And the whomper’s father quickly looked out of the window so as not to be worried, and saw that baby brother was sitting in the yard, busy eating sand.
‘How many times have I told you not to tell stories,’ the whomper’s daddy said, and his mummy cried a little and asked: ‘Should he have a smacking?’
‘Probably,’ the whomper’s daddy said, ‘but I don’t feel up to it at the moment. If he’ll just admit that lying is nasty.’
‘I’ve never lied,’ said the whomper.
‘You told us that your baby brother was swallowed up, and he isn’t swallowed up,’ his father explained.
‘That’s splendid, isn’t it?’ said the whomper. ‘Aren’t you happy? I’m terribly glad and relieved. Those mud snakes can swallow anybody up in a jiffy, you know. There’s not even a bit left over, nothing but desolation and night and the distant laugh of the hyenas.’
‘Please,’ said his mother. ‘Please.’
‘So all’s well that ends well,’ the whomper concluded happily. ‘Do we have dessert tonight?’
At this the whomper’s daddy suddenly became enraged and said: ‘Not for you, my boy. You’ll get no dinner at all until you understand that one mustn’t lie.’
‘Of course one mustn’t,’ said the whomper surpris-edly. ‘It’s a bad thing to do.’
‘You see how it is,’ said his mummy. ‘Now let him have his dinner, he doesn’t understand this at all.’
‘No,’ said his daddy. ‘If I’ve said no dinner, then it is no dinner.’
Because this poor daddy had got the idea that the whomper would never trust him any more if he took a word back.
*
So the whomper had to go to bed at sundown, and he felt very embittered towards his daddy and mummy. Naturally they had behaved badly many times before, but had never been quite as silly as this. The whomper decided to go away. Not to punish them, only because he suddenly felt so utterly tired of them and their inability to understand what was important or dangerous.
They simply drew a line straight through all things and declared that on one side of it everything was believable and useful, and on the other side everything was simply thought up and useless.
I’d like to see them eye to eye with an Aitchumb, the whomper mumbled to himself when he padded downstairs and slunk out in the garden. Believe me, they’d be amazed! Or a mud snake, indeed. I could send them one in a box some day. With a glass lid, because I wouldn’t want them swallowed up, not really.
The whomper went back to the forbidden marsh, because he had to show to himself that he was independent. T
he marsh had turned blue, nearly black, and the sky was green. There was a bright yellow streak of sundown by the horizon, that made the marsh look terribly large and gloomy.
Of course I’m not lying, said the whomper and went plodding along. It’s all real. The enemy and the Aitchumb and the mud snakes and the Ghost Wagon. They’re quite as real as our neighbours and the gardener and the hens and my scooter.
And then the whomper stood quite still in his tracks and listened.
Somewhere in the distance the Ghost Wagon started rolling, it whisked red sparks over the heather, it creaked and cracked and gathered speed.
You shouldn’t have taken any notice of it from the first, the whomper told himself. Now it’s coming. Run!
The grass tufts gave and slithered under his paws, black water holes looked at him like large eyes out of the sedge, and he could feel the mud squashing between his toes.
You mustn’t think about the mud snakes, the whomper said, and so he thought of them, strong and clear, and they came creeping out of their holes at once, licking their moustaches.
I wish I were like my fat baby brother, the whomper cried in desperation. He thinks only with his tummy and stuffs himself with sand and earth. He even tried to eat his balloon once. We’d have lost him if he’d succeeded.
This thought enchanted the whomper and made him stop his running. A fat baby brother rising straight up in
the air. His legs would be sticking helplessly out and the string dangling from his mouth…
Oh, no!
Far out on the marsh a light shone. It wasn’t the Ghost Wagon, it was just a small square window with a steady light burning.
Now go there, the whomper told himself. Just walk, don’t run, because running makes you scared. And don’t think, just walk along.
*
It was a circular house, so it probably belonged to some mymble or other. The whomper knocked at the door. He knocked several times, and as no one came to answer he opened it and went inside.
Inside was warm and nice. A lamp stood on the window-sill and made the night coal-black. A clock was ticking away somewhere, and atop a large wardrobe a very small mymble was lying on her stomach, looking down at him.
‘Hello,’ said the whomper. ‘I’ve saved myself at the last minute. From mud snakes and live fungi! You’ve no idea!’
The small mymble regarded him silently and critically. Then she said:
‘I’m My. I’ve seen you before. You were tending a fat little whomper and mumbling to yourself all the time and waving your paws about. Ha ha.’
‘Never you mind,’ said the whomper. ‘Why are you sitting on that wardrobe? That’s silly.’
‘To some people,’ drawled little My. ‘To some people it may look silly. For me it’s my only hope of escape from a horrible fate.’
She leaned down over the edge of the wardrobe and whispered:
‘The live fungi are already in the parlour.’
‘Eh,’ said the whomper.
‘From up here I can see that they’re sitting just behind
the door,’ little My continued. They’re waiting. You’d better make that doormat into a roll and push it against the crack. Otherwise they’ll flatten out and start to crawl in here under the door.’
‘But that can’t be true,’ said the whomper, feeling a lump in his throat. Those fungi didn’t even exist this morning. I’ve invented them.’
‘You did, did you?’ little My said haughtily. ‘The sticky kind? The kind that grows into a sort of thick blanket and fastens itself on people?’
‘I don’t know,’ whispered the whomper. He trembled a little. ‘I don’t know…’
‘My granny is quite grown over with them,’ little My said. ‘She’s in the parlour. Or what’s left of her. She’s just a large green lump, only her whiskers keep sprouting out at one end. You’d better push the carpet against that other door. It might help, but I’m not sure.’
The whomper’s heart was thumping hard and his paws felt so stiff that he had a hard job in rolling up the carpets. Somewhere in the house the clock went on slowly ticking.
That’s the sound the fungi make when they grow,’ little My explained. They grow and grow until they burst the doors, and then they’re free to crawl over you.’
‘Let me up on the wardrobe!’ the whomper cried.
‘Sorry, no room here,’ said little My.
There was a knock on the outer door.
‘That’s funny,’ said little My and sighed, ‘funny that they care to knock on doors when they can come in as they please…’
The whomper rushed to the wardrobe and tried to climb it. The knock was repeated.
‘My! Someone’s at the door!’ a voice called from an inner room.
‘I hear, I hear, I hear,’ little My called back. ‘That was Granny,’ she explained to the whomper. ‘It’s strange that she’s still able to speak.’
The whomper stared at the parlour door. It opened slowly, a black little crack. He gave a cry and rolled in under the sofa.
‘My,’ Granny said, ‘haven’t I told you to go and answer the door? And why have you rolled up the carpet? And why don’t people ever let me sleep?’
She was a terribly old and cross granny in a large white nightgown. She went to the outer door and opened it and said: ‘Good evening.’
‘Good evening,’ said the whomper’s daddy. ‘I’m terribly sorry to disturb you at this hour. But I wonder if you’ve seen my boy, the next-to-youngest one…’
‘He’s under the sofa,’ little My said.
‘You can come out,’ said the whomper’s daddy. ‘No one’s angry.’
‘Oh, under the sofa. Well,’ Granny said, a little tiredly. ‘Of course it’s nice to have one’s grandchildren visiting, and naturally little My can always ask her little playmates to come here! But I wish they’d play in the daytime and not at nights.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ the daddy said quickly. ‘He’ll come in the morning next time.’
The whomper crawled out from under the sofa. He didn’t look at My, nor at her granny either. He walked straight for the door and out on the steps and into the dark.
His daddy walked beside him, saying nothing. The whomper felt so hurt that he was very near to tears.
‘Daddy,’ he said. ‘That girl… you’d never believe… I’m not going back there, not in a thousand years,’ the whomper continued savagely. ‘She tricked me! She told such stories! She makes people sick with her lies!’
‘I understand,’ said his daddy comfortingly. ‘Such things can be very unpleasant.’
And they went home and ate all the dessert that was left over.
The Fillyjonk who believed in Disasters
ONCE upon a time there was a fillyjonk who was washing her large carpet in the sea. She rubbed it with soap and a brush up to the first blue stripe, and then she waited for a seventh wave to come and wash the soap away.
Then she soaped and rubbed further, to the next blue stripe, and the sun was warming her back, and she stood with her thin legs in the clear water, rubbing and rubbing.
It was a mild and motionless summer day, exactly right for washing carpets. Slow and sleepy swells came rolling in to help her with the rinsing, and around her red cap a few bumble-bees were humming: they took her for a flower!
Don’t you pretend, the fillyjonk thought grimly. I know how things are. Everything’s always peaceful like this just before a disaster.
She reached the last blue stripe, let the seventh wave rinse it for a moment, and then pulled the whole of the carpet out of the water.
The smooth rock shone redly under the rippling water, reflections of light danced over the fillyjonk’s toes and gilded all ten of them.
She stood and mused. A new cap, orange-red perhaps? Or one could embroider reflections of light around the edge of the old one? In gold? But of course it wouldn’t look the same because they wouldn’t move. And besides, what does one need a new cap for when danger breaks loose? One might j
ust as well perish in the old one…
The fillyjonk pulled her carpet ashore and slapped it down on the rock and sullenly stalked over it to stamp the water from it.
The weather was far too fine, quite unnatural.
Something or other had to happen. She knew it. Somewhere below the horizon something black and terrible was lurking – working larger, drawing nearer – faster and faster…
One doesn’t even know what it is, the fillyjonk whispered to herself.
Her heart began to thump and her back felt cold, and she whirled around as if she had an enemy behind her. But the sea was glittering as before, the reflections danced over the floor in playful twists, and the faint summer wind comfortingly stroked her snout.
But it is far from easy to comfort a fillyjonk who is stricken with panic and doesn’t know why. With shaking paws she spread her carpet to dry, scrambled together her soap and brush and went rushing homewards to put the tea-kettle on the fire. Gaffsie had promised to drop in at five o’clock.
*
The fillyjonk lived in a large and not very pretty house. Someone, who had wanted to get rid of old paint, had painted it dark green on the outside and brown all over the inside. The fillyjonk had rented it unfurnished from a hemulen who had assured her that her grandmother used to live there in the summer, when she was a young girl. And as the fillyjonk was very attached to her kindred and relatives she at once decided that she would honour her grandmother’s memory by living in the same house.
The first evening she had sat on her doorstep and wondered about her grandmother who must have been very unlike herself in her youth. How curious that a genuine fillyjonk with a true sense of nature’s beauty should have wanted to live on this glum and sandy shore! No garden to grow jam plums in! Not the smallest leafy tree or even bush to start an arbour with. Not even a nice view!