by Tove Jansson
With a steady paw Hodgkins took the helm and steered us safely between the trees.
What a matchless launching! Blossoms and leaves were raining over the deck, splendidly adorning The Oshun Oxtra for its final triumphant leap into the river.
With happily splashing paddles she swept out into the middle of the stream. The gilded knob high on the roof gleamed and shone in the sun.
‘Look out for sand banks,’ shouted Hodgkins. ‘I want to try one. To test the hinge-and-wheel construction.’
I looked out over the river, but all I saw was some sort of red tin bobbing on the waves some distance ahead.
‘Just a tin,’ I reported.
‘That reminds me,’ said the Joxter. ‘There might be some kind of a Muddler in it.’
‘You have forgotten your nephew!’ I said to Hodgkins.
‘Indeed, how could I?’ he replied.
Soon we saw the Muddler’s red face appearing over the rim of the tin. He flapped his arms and ears wildly and was obviously in danger of strangling himself in his scarf.
The Joxter and I leaned over the railing and took hold of the tin. It was still quite sticky with paint and rather heavy.
‘Mind the deck,’ said Hodgkins when we hoisted the tin aboard. ‘How do you feel, dear nephew?’
‘I’m going crazy!’ said the Muddler. ‘Think of it! Waves flooding into my packing.… Everything downside-up! I’ve lost my best window-catch and probably the pipe-cleaner, too. My nerves are all unsorted and so is my collection.’
And the Muddler began happily to arrange his collection anew. The Oshun Oxtra continued its journey, peacefully gliding and mildly splashing along down the river. I said to Hodgkins:
‘I hope we’ll see no more of Edward the Booble. Do you think he’s very angry with us by now?’
‘Rather,’ replied Hodgkins, lighting his pipe.
CHAPTER 3
Recapitulating my first heroic exploit, its staggering outcome, a few thoughts, and my first confrontation with the Niblings.
WE left the green and friendly woods behind us. Now everything became large and gloomy. Strange animals wandered bellowing and sneezing along the steep river banks. We were lucky to have Hodgkins at the helm, because the Joxter never took anything seriously, and the Muddler’s main interest always circled around his tin. We had put it on the foredeck, and it was slowly drying in the sunshine. (But we never quite succeeded in cleaning up the Muddler himself; he remained slightly pink.)
Most of the time I sat in the steering cabin, looking at the unknown country, tapping at the aneroid barometer, or taking a little exercise on the verandah that served as the captain’s bridge.
One evening we made our course into a deep and lonely bay.
‘I don’t like this place,’ remarked the Joxter. ‘It gives me Forebodings.’
‘I dunno,’ Hodgkins said. ‘Good anchorage. Nephew! Cast the anchor, will you?’
‘Aye, aye, sir. At once, sir,’ cried the Muddler, and promptly tossed our kettle overboard.
‘Did it have our supper in it?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid it did,’ said the Muddler dejectedly. ‘Excuse me! So easy to grab the wrong thing. I’ll make you some jelly instead… where’s my sugar?’
‘In the shoe-box,’ said Hodgkins, and let the anchor down himself. ‘What’s up, Joxter?’
‘I thought I heard something,’ the Joxter mumbled. He stood at the railing and looked at the shore with gleaming eyes. Dusk was falling over the mountains that stretched, row after row, to the horizon.
‘Hush!’ said the Joxter. ‘I heard it again.’
We all cocked our ears.
‘You must have been mistaken,’ I said. ‘Come along inside, I’m going to light the kerosene lamp.’
‘Here’s the jelly,’ said the Muddler, and jumped out of his tin with a dish in both hands.
Then we all heard it.
A howl and a wail, a hunting call far away in the mountains. The Muddler cried out and dropped his dish with a crash.
‘That’s the Groke,’ said Hodgkins.
‘Can she swim?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know,’ said Hodgkins. ‘Listen, she’s out for somebody.’
The Groke was hunting in the mountains. She howled horribly – sometimes the sound diminished, sometimes it was nearer again – then all was silent. That was the worst You could easily imagine her silent grey shadow racing along under the rising moon.
It became cold on deck.
‘Look,’ the Joxter said.
Somebody came careering down to the water and began darting to and fro along the bank.
‘Groke’s victim,’ said Hodgkins. ‘He’ll be eaten alive.’
‘Not before the eyes of a Moomin!’ I cried. ‘I’m going to save him!’
‘No dinghy,’ said Hodgkins. ‘Takes too long to weigh anchor. Motor’s tricky. Too late.’
But I had made my decision. I jumped on the railing and cried: ‘The unknown hero doesn’t ask for wreaths on his grave. But I’d appreciate a granite monument with two weeping Hemulens!’ And so I dived head-first into the black water and came up under the Muddler’s kettle with a clonk. With great presence of mind I hastily scooped out the Irish stew and then set my course straight as a torpedo to the shore, pushing the kettle along before me with my snout.
‘Courage!’ I cried. ‘The Moomins are coming! There’s something rotten in a country that allows its Grokes to eat the citizens!’
Pebbles and stones came rattling down the mountain side. The Groke’s hunting song had ceased, and I could already hear her puffing and panting as she came galloping nearer and nearer
‘The kettle!’ I shouted to the victim.
He took the jump, and the kettle sank to its handles.
Somebody reached for my tail in the darkness… Ho! Glorious feat! Lonely deed! I started on the heroic journey back to The Oshun Oxtra, where my friends stood waiting breathless with excitement.
The rescued person was extremely heavy.
I swam with all my might, using a rotating tail stroke and rhythmic stomach movements. Like a Moomin wind I swept along, was hauled aboard, tumbled down on the deck and the kettle was emptied, while the Groke stood howling out her disappointment on the shore. (She couldn’t swim.) Hodgkins lit the kerosene lamp to see whom I had rescued.
I think it was one of the worst moments of my stormy youth. Because on the wet deck before me, in a bonnet decorated with feathers and cherries, sat the Hemulen.
I had saved the life of the Hemulen.
In my first fright I raised my tail in the 45-degree angle I had been taught, but the next moment I remembered that I was a free Moomin and said nonchalantly: ‘Really! Quite a surprise! I’d never have believed it!’
‘Believed what?’ asked the Hemulen, and shook some Irish stew out of her umbrella.
‘That I’d rescue you. I mean, that your life was to be saved by me,’ I said. ‘I mean, did you get my letter?’
‘I’ve never seen you before, young man,’ said the Hemulen. ‘And I haven’t had any letter from you. You prob ably forgot to put a stamp on it. Or to write the address on the cover. Or to put it in the post box. You probably cannot write at all.’
‘Do you two know each other?’ Hodgkins carefully asked.
‘No,’ said the Hemulen. ‘I’m the Hemulen’s aunt, and I know only grown-up and sensible people. Who’s been slopping jelly all over the deck? Bring me a rag, you there; I’ll have to clean it up.’
Hodgkins rushed forward with the Joxter’s pyjamas, and the Hemulen Aunt proceeded to scrub the deck with them.
We watched her in silence.
‘Didn’t I tell you of my forebodings?’ the Joxter finally mumbled.
At this the Hemulen Aunt turned round and said:
‘Shut up, you, please. You’re much too small to smoke. You ought to drink milk, that’s healthy, and it would save you from shaky paws, a yellow nose, and a bald tail. That’s what smokers get. You’re lucky t
o have me aboard. We’re going to keep things in order from now on!’
‘Must take a peek at the glass,’ Hodgkins mumbled. He slunk unto the steering cabin and locked the door behind him.
But the glass had fallen forty notches, and it didn’t dare go up again until the Niblings had left.
I’ll tell you presently.
*
‘Well, that’s how far I’ve come,’ said Moominpappa in his ordinary voice, and looked up from his manuscript.
‘It will be a best-seller!’ said Moomintroll, and looked proudly at his friends, Sniff and Snufkin. ‘Do you think we’re going to be rich?’
‘Millionaires!’ Moominpappa answered earnestly.
‘Then we ought to share the money,’ Sniff said. ‘Be cause you’ve made my father, the Muddler, the hero.’
‘I thought the Joxter’s the hero,’ Snufkin said. ‘What a father! In every inch myself!’
‘Your old daddies are simply so much background!’ Moomintroll cried, and gave Sniff a kick under the table. ‘They can be glad they’re put in at all!’
‘Who’s put in?’ Moominmamma asked at the kitchen door. ‘And who’s put out?’
‘Daddy’s reading about his life,’ Moomintroll said.
‘Is it fun?’ asked Moominmamma.
‘Terribly.’
‘That’s good,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Only don’t read anything that could set the youngsters a bad example. Just say “dash, dash, dash” instead in such places. Do you want your pipe?’
‘Don’t let him smoke!’ shouted Sniff. ‘The Hemulen Aunt says all smokers get shaky paws, yellow nose and bald tail.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Moominmamma. ‘He’s smoked all his life, and he’s neither shaky, yellow or bald. All nice things are good for you.’
And she lit Moominpappa’s pipe for him and opened the window for the evening breeze. Then she returned whistling to the kitchen to brew some coffee.
‘How could you forget the Muddler at the launching!’ Sniff said reproachingly. ‘Did his button collection ever become sorted again?’
‘Oh, many times,’ answered Moominpappa. ‘He was always inventing new systems. He arranged them by colour, by size, by form, by material, and by how much he liked them.’
‘Great,’ said Sniff.
‘What worries me is that my father had his pyjamas full of jelly,’ Snufkin said. ‘Then what did he sleep in?’
‘Mine,’ said Moominpappa, and puffed out a large cloud of smoke.
Sniff yawned.
‘Who’ll come bat-hunting?’ he asked.
‘All right,’ Snufkin said.
‘’Bye, Father,’ said Moomintroll.
Moominpappa remained on the verandah. He sat thinking for a while, then he took out his memoir-pen and continued the story of his youth.
*
The next morning the Hemulen Aunt was devastatingly cheerful. At six o’clock we awoke to her trumpeting:
‘Good morning! Good morning!! Good morning, everybody!!! And what are our plans for today? What about a little sock-darning contest on deck in the sunshine? I’ve looked in your sea-chests, you know. Or a nice history quiz? Good, good, good! And what’s the fare today? Something healthy, I hope?’
(I think we liked her better when she was angry.)
‘Goffee,’ said the Muddler.
‘Porridge,’ said the Hemulen Aunt. ‘Coffee’s for the old and shaky.’
‘I knew a chap once who died of porridge,’ mumbled the Joxter. ‘It stuck in his throat and choked him.’
‘I wonder what your parents would say if they saw you take coffee first thing in the morning,’ said the Hemulen Aunt. ‘But I suppose you’re badly brought up. Or not brought up at all. Or born impossible to bring up.’
‘I’m born under special stars,’ I said. ‘I was found in a small shell padded with velvet’
‘My parents were lost in a spring-cleaning! Excuse me!’ said the Muddler.
‘When I last heard from my family it was at war with a park keeper,’ said the Joxter.
‘Hmph,’ said Hodgkins. (By which I suppose he meant that parents are best discussed either when you’re quite small or else old and shaky enough to be allowed coffee in the morning.)
The Hemulen Aunt looked at us over her glasses.
‘From now on I’m going to take care of you,’ she said.
‘You needn’t,’ we all shouted.
But she shook her head and said cheerfully: ‘It’s simply my Hemulic Duty. Now I’ll go and prepare a little multiplication contest for you all!’
When the Hemulen Aunt had vanished into her cabin we curled up under the sun tent on foredeck and tried to comfort each other. We left The Oshun Oxtra to take care of herself for a while.
‘By my tail!’ I said. ‘I’ll never save anybody in the dark again!’
‘Too late now,’ said the Joxter. ‘One of these days she’ll throw my pipe overboard and put me to work. I’m sure there are no limits to what she’ll do.’
‘Maybe we’ll meet the Groke again?’ the Muddler said hopefully. ‘Or just somebody else who’ll be so kind as to eat her? Excuse me! Was that rude of me?’
‘H’m,’ said Hodgkins.
We sat silent.
‘If only I’d be a great man,’ I said. ‘Great and famous. Then I needn’t take any notice of her.’
‘How does one get famous?’ the Joxter asked.
‘Oh, just by doing something that nobody else has been able to do.’
‘For instance?’ asked the Joxter.
‘Inventing a flying houseboat,’ said Hodgkins with shining eyes.
‘I believe it’s a bore to be famous,’ said the Joxter. ‘Perhaps it’s fun at first, but then I suppose you get used to it, and soon you’re sick of it. Like on a merry-go-round.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you know?’ said Hodgkins. ‘Very interesting invention. I’ll show you the principle of the thing.’
He produced a pencil and some paper.
(Hodgkins knew all about motors and engines! He liked them, too. I’ve always felt a little awed by them. A water-wheel is all right, but there I draw the line. Even a zipper is a bit suspicious. The Joxter’s grandfather once had a pair of trousers with a zipper, and one day the zipper stuck, for ever.) I was about to express some such thoughts to my friends when a curious sound made us turn round.
It was a low, half-muffled howl, like somebody bellowing through a tin tube. Its tone was definitely menacing.
Hodgkins looked over the railing and uttered the single ominous word: ‘Niblings!’
Here a short explanation may be necessary, even if these are well-known facts to all sensible people.
While we were having a rest in the shade under the sun tent The Oshun Oxtra had slowly drifted down to the river mouth where the Niblings lived. The Nibling is a social animal and detests being alone. He lives under river beds, digging tunnels with his teeth and forming rather happy colonies. He’s almost as good at building things as I am. He’s rather good-natured, except that he cannot keep himself from chewing and gnawing at things, particularly strange and unknown things.
And the Nibling has one bad habit: he’s fond of chewing
off noses if they’re too long (for his taste). So we felt a little nervous, for obvious reasons.
‘Keep in the tin!’ shouted Hodgkins to the Muddler.
The Oshun Oxtra stopped and lay quite still in a great swarm of Niblings. They looked us over in silence, treading water and fanning their whiskers.
‘Please make way for us,’ Hodgkins said.
But the Niblings only drew closer around the houseboat, and then a couple of them started to climb the side. They had suckers on their feet.
When the first Nibling poked its head over the railing the Hemulen Aunt appeared on deck again.
‘What’s all this?’ she asked. ‘Who’re those fellows? I can’t have them coming aboard to disturb our multiplication contest.’
/> ‘Don’t frighten them! They’ll be angry,’ Hodgkins said.
‘I’m angry,’ said the Hemulen Aunt. ‘Away, away! Be off with you!’ And she knocked the nearest Nibling over its head with her umbrella handle.
At once all the Niblings turned to look at the Hemulen Aunt. It was obvious that they contemplated her nose. When they had contemplated it long enough they emitted once more their curious muffled tin-tube bellow. And then everything happened very quickly.
Thousands of Niblings came swarming aboard. We saw the Hemulen Aunt lose her balance, and in a few seconds, wildly waving her umbrella, she was carried away on a living carpet of hairy Nibling backs. With a loud scream she tipped over the railing and disappeared. A moment later there wasn’t a single Nibling to be seen.
All was silent, and The Oshun Oxtra continued on its course.
‘Well,’ said the Joxter. ‘Why didn’t you rescue her?’
My chivalry prompted me to rush to her aid, but my bad and natural instincts told me it wouldn’t be of any use.
‘It’s too late now,’ I mumbled. And so it was.
‘Mphm,’ said Hodgkins a little uncertainly.
‘And that’s that,’ said the Joxter.
‘A sorry end,’ I said.
‘Excuse me, was that my fault?’ asked the Muddler. ‘I said, didn’t I, that I hoped somebody would be so kind as to eat her?’
Well – what would you have done?
I had saved her life once, and a Groke really is something very much worse than a Nibling. Niblings aren’t so bad, in fact.… Perhaps she would enjoy the change? Perhaps she would even look nicer with a small nose?
The sun shone peacefully, and we started to scrub the deck. It was quite sticky from the Niblings’ suckered feet. Then we brewed enormous quantities of good, black, strong coffee.
The Oshun Oxtra seemed to be surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of small, flat islands.
‘There’s no end of them,’ I said. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Anywhere… Nowhere… said the Joxter, and filled his pipe. ‘What about it? We’re all right, aren’t we?’