by Tove Jansson
‘I suppose we’d better go into the drawing-room now,’ said Moominmamma.
They had no more than got their tails inside the door when the flood wave came crashing through the Moomin Valley and drenched everything in darkness. The house rocked slightly but didn’t lose its foothold. It was soundly built and a very good house. But after a while the drawing-room furniture began to float around. The family then moved upstairs and sat down to wait for the storm to blow over.
‘I haven’t seen such weather since my young days,’ said Moominpappa brightly and lit a candle.
Outside the night was in full uproar, cracking and banging things about and thumping heavy waves against the shutters.
Moominmamma absentmindedly seated herself in the rocking-chair and set it slowly rocking.
‘Is this the end of the world?’ Little My asked curiously.
‘That’s the very least,’ replied the Mymble’s daughter. ‘Try to be good now if you can find the time, because in a little while we’re all going to heaven.’
‘Heaven?’ asked Little My. ‘Do we have to? And how does one get down again?’
Something heavy crashed against the house, and the candle flickered.
‘Mamma,’ Moomintroll whispered.
‘Yes, dear,’ said Moominmamma.
‘I forgot the bark boat by the pool.’
‘It’ll be there tomorrow,’ replied Moominmamma. Suddenly she stopped rocking and exclaimed: ‘Dear me, how could I!’
‘What?’ said the Snork Maiden with a start.
‘The dinghy,’ said Moominmamma. ‘I’ve forgotten to make a dinghy. I had a definite feeling that I’d forgotten something important.’
‘Now it’s reached the damper,’ announced Moominpappa. He kept on running down to the drawing-room to measure the water-level. They looked towards the stairs and thought of all the things that should have been nicer dry.
‘Did anybody take the hammock in?’ asked Moominpappa suddenly.
No one had remembered the hammock.
‘Good,’ said Moominpappa. ‘It was a horrid colour.’
The swish and hiss of the water outside made them sleepy, and one after another they curled up on the floor and went to sleep. But before he blew the candle out Moominpappa set the alarm-clock at seven.
He was terribly curious about what had happened outside.
CHAPTER 2
About diving for breakfast
AT last daylight came back again.
It began as a narrow strip that wriggled along the horizon before daring to climb higher in the sky.
The weather was calm, and pleasant. But the waves, in excited confusion, were washing new shores that had never before met the sea. The volcano that had started all the fuss had calmed down. It sighed wearily now and then, and breathed a little ash towards the sky.
At seven sharp the alarm-clock shrilled.
The Moomin family awoke at once, and everybody hurried to the window to take a look. They lifted Little My up on the sill, and the Mymble’s daughter took a firm hold of her dress to keep her from falling.
The world was changed indeed.
Only a piece of the wood-shed roof remained over the swirling water. A few people, probably from the forest, sat huddled on it, shuddering with cold.
All the trees grew straight out of water, and the mountain ridges around the Moomin Valley were now clusters of rocky islands.
‘I liked it better in the old way,’ said Moominmamma. She screwed up her eyes against the morning sun that came rolling out of the whole chaos, red and big like an autumn moon.
‘And no morning coffee,’ said Moominpappa.
Moominmamma glanced towards the stairs that disappeared in troubled waters. She thought of her kitchen. Her thoughts moved on to the coffee tin on the chimneypiece and she wondered if she had remembered to screw the lid on. She sighed.
‘I’ll dive for it,’ suggested Moomintroll whose thoughts had moved exactly the same way.
‘You couldn’t hold your breath for so long, dear,’ replied Mamma anxiously.
Moominpappa gave them a strange look. ‘I’ve often thought,’ he said musingly, ‘that one ought to look at one’s abode sometimes from the ceiling instead of from the floor.’
‘Do you mean…?’ said Moomintroll delightedly.
Moominpappa nodded. He disappeared into his room and presently returned with an auger and a narrow saw.
Everybody gathered around him and watched interestedly while he worked. Moominpappa found sawing his own floor to pieces just a little dreadful, but at the same time highly satisfying.
*
A few minutes later Moominmamma for the first time saw her kitchen from the ceiling. Enchanted, she looked down to a dimly lit, light-green aquarium. She could glimpse the stove, sink and slop-pail down on the bottom. But all the chairs and the table were floating around near the ceiling.
‘Dear me, how funny,’ said Moominmamma and burst out laughing.
She laughed so hard that she had to take to the rocking-chair again. It felt very refreshing to see one’s kitchen like that.
‘A good thing I emptied the slops,’ she said and dried her eyes. ‘And forgot to bring in fire-wood!’
‘I’ll dive now, Mamma,’ said Moomintroll.
‘Tell him not to, please, please,’ said the Snork Maiden anxiously.
‘Well, why should I?’ replied his mother. ‘If he thinks it’s thrilling.’
Moomintroll stood quite still for a moment and took a few calm breaths. Then he plunged down into the kitchen.
He swam straight to the pantry and managed to open the door. Inside the water was white with milk, with a few specks of loganberry jam thrown in. A couple of loaves of bread passed him slowly, followed by a school of macaroni. Moomintroll snatched the butter dish, caught one of the wheaten loaves and swerved back by the chimney-piece for the Moominmamma’s coffee tin. Then he rose to the ceiling and took a long breath.
‘There, I had screwed the lid on!’ said his mother delightedly ‘This is quite a picnic. Do you think you can find the coffee pot and some cups, too?’
They had never had a more exciting breakfast.
They picked a chair that no one had ever liked and
chopped it up. Unfortunately the sugar had melted, but Moomintroll found a tin of treacle instead. His father spooned marmalade straight from the pot, and Little My busied herself with the auger, boring her way through the loaf without anybody saying a word.
Time and again Moomintroll dived for new things, and then he splashed water around the whole room.
‘I’m not washing any dishes today,’ Moominmamma said hilariously. ‘Who knows, perhaps I’ll never wash dishes any more? But please, can’t we try to save the drawing-room suite before it spoils?’
*
Outside the sun had warmed, and the heavy sea had subsided.
The people on the wood-shed roof chirped up and began to feel provoked at the disorder around them.
‘In my mother’s time these things never happened,’ exclaimed a disgusted mousewife, combing her tail with great vehemence. ‘They simply weren’t allowed! But the times are changing and young people do what they please nowadays.’
A serious little beast eagerly moved closer to the others and said: ‘I don’t think any young people could have made the great flood-wave. We’re too small in this valley to make waves in anything else than pools or pails. Or in teacups.’
‘Is the young man poking fun at somebody?’ asked the mousewife, raising her eyebrows.
‘Certainly not,’ replied the serious little beast. ‘But I’ve pondered and pondered all the night. Where do such waves come from when there’s been no gale? It’s very interesting, don’t you see, and I think that either…’
‘And what’s the young man’s name, may I ask?’ the mousewife interrupted him.
‘Whomper,’ replied the small beast without vexation. ‘If we could only understand how it all came about, then the big wave would ap
pear perfectly natural.’
‘Natural, indeed!’ squeaked a fat little Misabel at his side. ‘Whomper doesn’t understand! Everything’s gone wrong for me, simply everything! The day before yesterday someone had put a cone in my shoe to taunt me with my big feet, and yesterday a Hemulen laughed very meaningly as he passed my window. And then this!’
‘Did the big flood come just to vex Misabel?’ asked a little squeak, impressed.
‘I’ve never said that,’ answered Misabel on the verge of tears. ‘Whoever would think of me or do anything for my sake? Least of all a flood wave.’
‘Perhaps the cone had simply fallen down from a pine?’ suggested Whomper helpfully. ‘If it was a pine cone. Else it must have been a spruce cone. If your shoe would be big enough to hold a spruce cone?’
‘I know my feet are large,’ Misable mumbled bitterly.
‘I’m only trying to explain,’ said Whomper.
‘This is a matter of feeling,’ said Misabel. ‘And such things can never be explained.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Whomper dejectedly.
The mousewife meanwhile had finished doing up her tail and now aimed her interest at the Moominhouse.
‘They’re rescuing their furniture,’ she said, craning her neck. (I see the sofa’s rather threadbare.) ‘And they’ve had breakfast! Great goodness, some people do know how to keep their heads above water. The Snork Maiden is doing her hair.’ (While we drown.) ‘Indeed. Now they’re lifting the sofa out on the roof to dry. Now they’re hoisting the flag. By the tail of my tail, some people are very free and easy.’
Moominmamma leaned over the balcony rail and shouted a greeting.
‘Good morning!’ Whomper cried back eagerly. ‘May we pay you a visit? Or is it too early? Shall we come in the afternoon instead?’
‘Please come,’ said Moominmamma. ‘I like morning calls.’
Whomper waited a while for a suitable tree to come floating nearer with its roots in the air. He caught hold of it with his tail and asked: ‘Anybody else coming?’
‘Thanks, no,’ replied the mousewife. ‘That’s not to my taste. Looks like a messy household.’
‘Nobody’s invited me,’ said Misabel sullenly.
She saw Whomper put off. The tree trunk glided away. Suddenly Misabel felt very deserted and took a desperate jump. She managed to cling to the branches, and Whomper helped her aboard without comment.
Slowly they sailed on and landed at the veranda roof. They climbed in through the nearest window.
‘Glad to meet you,’ said Moominpappa. ‘May I introduce: My wife; my son; the Snork Maiden; the Mymble’s daughter; Little My.’
‘Misabel,’ said Misabel.
‘Whomper,’ said Whomper.
‘You’re cracked!’ said Little My.
‘This is an introduction,’ explained the Mymble’s daughter. ‘You’d better keep quiet now, because this is a real visit.’
‘It’s a bit untidy here today,’ said Moominmamma apologetically. ‘And I’m afraid the drawing-room’s under water.’
‘Oh, don’t mention it,’ replied Misabel. ‘What a splendid view you’ve got. And what wonderful weather we’re having.’
‘Think so?’ asked Whomper with some surprise.
Misabel blushed deeply. ‘I didn’t mean to tell a fib,’ she said. ‘It just sounded so nice.’
There was a pause.
‘We’re a bit crowded as it is,’ continued Moominmamma shyly. ‘Still, I think it’s nice for a change. Do you
know, I’ve been looking at my kitchen in quite a new way recently… especially when the chairs are upside-down. And how warm the water’s become all of a sudden. We like swimming very much in our family.’
‘You do, do you,’ replied Misabel politely.
There was a pause again.
A faint trickling sound was heard.
‘My!’ said the Mymble’s daughter sternly.
‘It wasn’t me,’ said Little My. ‘It’s the sea coming in through our window.’
She was right. The water was rising again. A ripple rolled over the window-sill. And then another.
Suddenly quite a breaker drenched the carpet.
The Mymble’s daughter quickly pocketed her little sister and exclaimed: ‘What great luck that we like swimming so much in our family!’
CHAPTER 3
About learning to live in a haunted house
MOOMINMAMMA was sitting on the roof with her handbag, work-basket, coffee-pot, and the family photograph-album in her lap. Now and again she had to move a little higher away from the rising sea, as she didn’t like to trail her tail in the water. Especially not when there were callers.
‘We simply can’t take the whole drawing-room suite,’ said Moominpappa.
‘Dearest,’ replied Moominmamma. ‘What’s the use of tables without chairs and chairs without tables? And of beds if there’s no linen cupboard?’
‘You’re right,’ Moominpappa admitted.
‘And a mirror-door’s very useful,’ said Moominmamma blandly, ‘You know yourself how nice it is to take a look in the glass in the morning. And,’ she continued after a while, ‘the couch is so nice for a quiet spell of thinking in the afternoon.’
‘No, not the couch,’ Moominpappa said determinedly.
‘As you think best, dear,’ she replied.
Uprooted bushes and trees came floating along. Carts and kneading troughs, prams, fish-chests, landing-stages and fences sailed on, empty or thronged with house-wrecked people. They were all too small, however, as rafts for a drawing-room suite.
But after a while Moominpappa pushed his hat back and looked sharply out over the sea. Something strange was on its way, carried by the inward current. Moominpappa had the sun straight in his eyes and couldn’t tell if it was anything dangerous, but anyway it looked like a big thing, big enough to hold ten drawing-rooms and an even larger family than his.
Far out the thing had looked just like a large tin, ready to sink. Now it resembled a sea-shell raised on edge.
Moominpappa turned to his family and remarked ‘I think we’ll manage.’
‘Of course we’ll manage,’ replied Moominmamma. ‘We’re only waiting for our new home. Only bad people fare badly.’
‘Not always,’ said Whomper. ‘I know villains who have never even fallen in the water.’
‘What a poor life,’ said Moominmamma, wonderingly.
Now the strange thing had drifted closer. It was quite clearly a kind of house. Two golden faces were painted on its roof; one was crying and the other one laughing at the Moomins. Beneath the grinning faces gaped a kind of large rounded cave filled with darkness and cobwebs. Obviously the great wave had carried away one of the walls of the house. On either side of the yawning gap drooped velvet curtains sadly trailing in the water.
Moominpappa wonderingly stared in among the shadows.
‘Anybody home?’ he shouted cautiously.
No answer. They could hear an open door banging with the roll of the sea, and curls of dust scurried to and fro over the empty floor.
‘I hope they were saved,’ said Moominmamma worriedly. ‘Poor family. I wonder what they looked like. It’s really quite terrible to take their home away from them like this…’
‘Dearest,’ said Moominpappa. ‘The water’s rising.’
‘I know, I know,’ answered Moominmamma. ‘I suppose we’d better move over then.’
She climbed over to her new home and looked around her. These people had been just a little untidy, she could see. But then, who isn’t. They had saved a lot of old disused things. Pity that the wall had fallen out, but now in summertime it wasn’t so very important.
‘Where’ll we put the drawing-room table?’ asked Moomintroll.
‘Here, in the middle of the floor,’ replied his mother. She felt very much more at ease when the beautiful drawing-room chairs with their dark-red plush and dangling tassels were assembled around her. The strange room became cosy at once, and Moominmamma h
appily seated herself in the rocking-chair and started to dream of curtains and sky-blue wallpaper.
‘Now there’s only the flag-pole left above water,’ said Moominpappa sadly. Moominmamma patted his paw. ‘It was such a nice house,’ she replied. ‘Far better than this one. But after a while you’ll see that everything feels just as usual.’
(Dear reader, Moominmamma was totally wrong. Nothing was going to be quite as usual, because the house wasn’t an ordinary house at all, nor had any ordinary family lived there. I won’t tell you more now.)
‘Shall I rescue the flag?’ asked Whomper.
‘No; leave it,’ said Moominpappa. ‘It looks so proud.’
Slowly they drifted further up the Moomin Valley. When they arrived at the first pass to the Lonely Mountains they could still see the flag waving a merry farewell over the water.
*
Moominmamma had laid the table for supper in her new home.
The table looked a little lonely in the large and unfamiliar room. The chairs, the looking-glass cabinet, and the linen cupboard kept watch around it, but behind them lurked an expanse of darkness, silence and dust. The ceiling, from which the drawing-room lamp should have hung securely with its fringe of red tassels, the ceiling was the strangest of all. It was lost in mysterious, moving and fluttering shadows, while something large and vague kept slowly rocking to and fro with the house’s movements in the water.
‘There’s a lot of things one can’t understand,’ Moominmamma said to herself. ‘But why should everything be exactly as one is used to having it?’
She counted the teacups on the table, and then she saw that they had forgotten to bring the marmalade over to their new home.
‘What a shame,’ said Moominmamma. ‘As if I hadn’t known that Moomintroll loves marmalade with his tea. How could I forget.’
‘Perhaps those people who lived here before also forgot to take their marmalade with them?’ Whomper suggested helpfully. ‘Perhaps it was difficult to pack? Or if there was so little left in the pot it didn’t matter?’