by Tove Jansson
ceiling, all their belongings on shelves in Mr Propertius’s room. Paper doors and a special rain. What can they have looked like?’
Misabel thought of the beautiful curls and sighed.
But behind Misabel and the Snork Maiden, behind the dusty rubbish by the paper palm, gleamed a pair of observant and sharp little eyes. The eyes looked at them with some disdain and then wandered over the drawing-room suite to rest at last upon Moominmamma who was now bringing in a large dish of porridge. The eyes blackened still more and the snout between them wrinkled with a noiseless snort.
‘Dinner please everybody!’ cried Moominmamma. She filled a plate with porridge and set it on the floor by the palm.
The Moomins came running and sat down to dinner, ‘Mother,’ began Moomintroll and reached for the sugar, ‘don’t you think…’ and then he stopped short and dropped the sugar bowl with a thump back on the table. ‘Look!’ he whispered. ‘Look!’
They turned around and looked.
A shadow detached itself from the dark corner. A grey and wrinkly shape came shuffling out, blinked in the sun, shook its whiskers and gave the company a hostile look.
‘I’m Emma,’ said the old stage rat solemnly, ‘and I’d like to tell you that I hate porridge. This is the third day you’re eating porridge.’
‘We’re having gruel tomorrow,’ Moominmamma replied shyly.
‘I loathe gruel,’ answered Emma.
‘Won’t Emma take a chair, please,’ said Moominpappa. ‘We thought this house was deserted, and that’s why we…’
‘House, indeed,’ Emma interrupted with a snort. This is no house? She limped up to the table but didn’t sit down.
‘Is she angry at me?’ whispered Misabel.
‘What have you done?’ asked the Mymble’s daughter.
‘Nothing,’ Misabel mumbled to her plate. ‘I just feel as if I had done something. I always feel as if someone were angry with me. If I were the wonderful-est Misabel in the world everything would be different…’
‘Well, but as you aren’t,’ replied the Mymble’s daughter and continued her meal.
‘Was Emma’s family saved?’ asked Moominmamma sympathetically.
Emma didn’t answer. She was looking at the cheese…. She reached for the cheese and put it in her pocket. Her gaze roved on and fastened on a small piece of pancake.
‘That’s ours!’ cried Little My, and landed on the pancake with a flying jump.
‘That wasn’t nice manners,’ said Mymble’s daughter reproachfully. She lifted her sister aside, brushed some dust off the pancake and hid it under the tablecloth.
‘Whomper dear,’ Moominmamma hastened to say. ‘Run along, and look if we have something nice for Emma in the pantry!’
Whomper hurried off.
‘Pantry!’ exclaimed Emma. ‘The pantry, indeed! You seem to believe that the prompter’s box is a pantry! And the stage a drawing-room, with the drops for pictures! And the curtain’s just curtains and the properties a person!’ She had become quite red in the face, and her snout was wrinkled up to her forehead. ‘Really, thank goodness,’ she cried, ‘thank goodness that my beloved husband, Stage Manager Fillyjonk (mayherestinpeace) can’t see you all! You don’t know a thing about the theatre, that’s clear, less than nothing, not even the shadow of a thing!’
‘There was a herring, but it’s rather an old one,’ said Whomper, returning.
Emma fiercely struck the fish from his hand and shuffled stiffly back to her corner. For a long time she kept rattling a number of things and finally pulled out a large broom and began to sweep the floor.
‘What’s a theatre?’ Moominmamma whispered uneasily.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Moominpappa. ‘Looks as if one ought to know it.’
*
In the evening a strong scent of rowan-tree flowers crept into the drawing-room. Birds came fluttering in to hunt for
spiders in the ceiling, and Little My met a big and dangerous ant on the rug. They had landed in a forest without anybody noticing.
The general excitement was great. All forgot to be afraid of Emma and gathered talking and gesticulating by the water.
They made fast the house to a big rowan tree. Moominpappa fastened the hawser to his walking-stick and pushed the stick through the pantry roof.
‘Don’t you damage the prompter’s box!’ Emma shouted at him. ‘Is this a theatre or a landing-stage?’
‘I suppose it’s a theatre if Emma says so,’ Moominpappa replied humbly. ‘But none of us quite knows what that means.’
Emma stared at him without replying. She shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, gave a strong snort and continued to sweep the floor.
Moominpappa was looking up into the top of the large tree. Swarms of bumblebees were humming around the white flowers. The bole was nicely curved, forming a kind of rounded fork, exactly suited to sleep in if you were small enough.
‘I’ll sleep in this tree tonight,’ said Moomintroll suddenly.
‘I, too,’ said the Snork Maiden at once.
‘And me!’ shouted Little My.
‘We’re sleeping at home,’ said the Mymble’s daughter. ‘There might be ants in the tree, and if they bite you you’ll swell up and grow bigger than an orange. ‘
‘But I want to grow up. I wanttogrowupiwanttogrowup!’ cried Little My.
‘You’d better be good now,’ said her sister. ‘Or else the Groke takes you.’
Moomintroll was still looking up at the green ceiling of leaves. It was a little like home in the Moomin Valley. He began whistling to himself while he planned the rope ladder he intended to make.
Emma came running. ‘Stop whistling at once!’ she cried.
‘Why?’ asked Moomintroll.
‘It’s disaster to whistle on the stage,’ Emma replied in a lowered voice. ‘Not even that do you know.’ Mumbling and shaking her broom she limped off into the shadows. The Moomins looked after her a little uneasily. Then they forgot it all.
*
At bedtime Moomintroll was hoisting up bedclothes into the tree. Moominmamma was packing a small breakfast basket for Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden, It would be fun to have it when they awakened the next morning.
Misabel looked on.
‘How nice to be able to sleep in a tree,’ she said.
‘Why don’t you if you think you’d like it?’ Moominmamma asked.
‘Nobody’s asked me to,’ Misabel said sullenly.
‘Dear me, take your pillow and climb up to the others, Misabel dear,’ said Moominmamma.
‘No thanks, it’s no fun now,’ replied Misabel and went away. She sat down in a corner and cried.
‘Why is it always like this?’ she thought. ‘What makes everything so sad and difficult?’
*
Moominmamma lay awake for a long time that night.
She listened to the water lapping beneath the floor and felt a bit uneasy. She could hear Emma shuffling along the walls, muttering to herself. Unknown animals were shrieking in the forest.
‘Moominpappa,’ she whispered.
‘Mm,’ replied Moominpappa.
‘I feel a bit anxious about something.’
‘Don’t bother, everything’s all right,’ mumbled Moominpappa and slept on.
Moominmamma lay looking into the forest for a while. But little by little she drowsed off, and night fell over the drawing-room.
*
An hour passed.
Then a grey shadow crept over the floor and stopped at the pantry. It was Emma. Mustering all her aged strength and anger she managed to pull Moominpappa’s stick out of the hole in the pantry roof. She threw stick and hawser far away out in the water.
‘Spoiling the prompter’s box!’ she muttered to herself, emptied a bowl of sugar from the supper table into her pocket and returned to her corner.
Freed from its moorings the house started off with the current. For a while the twinkling arch of red and blue lamps glittered among the trees.
CHAPTER 5
About the consequences of whistling on the stage
THE Snork Maiden awoke shivering with cold. Her fringe felt quite damp. Large curtains of fog were drifting in between the trees and shutting them off behind pale grey walls. The tree trunks were damp and black as coal, but the moss and lichens on them had become light and formed delicate rose-patterns everywhere.
The Snork Maiden buried her head in the pillow and tried to continue her nice dream. She had dreamt that her snout was very small and wonderful, but now she couldn’t catch the dream again.
And suddenly she felt that there was something amiss.
With a start she looked around her.
Trees and fog and water. But no house. The house was gone, and they were all alone. For a moment the Snork Maiden was dumbfounded.
Then she leaned down and gave Moomintroll a slight shake.
‘Protect me,’ she whispered, ‘protect me, dear!’
‘Is that some new game?’ Moomintroll asked sleepily.
‘No, it’s real,’ said the Snork Maiden and looked at him, her eyes black with alarm.
They could hear the fog drearily dripping around them, blip, blip in the black water. All the flower petals had fallen off during the night. It was a cold morning.
They sat side by side for a long time without moving. The Snork Maiden cried silently in her pillow.
At last Moomintroll rose and mechanically lifted down the breakfast basket from its branch.
It was filled with neat little sandwich-packs in tissue paper, two of each kind. He laid them out in a row but didn’t feel a bit hungry.
Suddenly Moomintroll noticed that his mother had written something on the sandwich wrappers. There was a legend on each pack, like ‘Cheese’ or ‘Just butter’ or ‘Dear sausage’ or ‘Good morning!’ On the last package she had written ‘This Is From Pappa’. It contained the tin of lobster that Moominpappa had saved ever since spring.
And all of a sudden Moomintroll had a feeling that the situation wasn’t so very perilous.
‘Now don’t you cry, dear, and try to eat your sandwiches,’ he said. ‘We’ll climb further through the forest. And please comb your fringe a little, because I like to see you beautiful!’
*
Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden spent the whole day climbing from tree to tree. Evening had already come when they saw the first green moss gleam greenly through the water, slowly slanting upwards and forming a solid shore.
Oh, how good to tread on firm ground again and burrow your paws in soft honest moss! The forest was spruce. All around them cuckoos were cuckooing in the silent and windless evening, and swarms of midges were dancing beneath the dense spruces. (Happily midges cannot bite through Moomin fur.)
Moomintroll stretched himself out in the moss. He felt dizzy from looking down in the swirling, restless water so long.
‘I’m making believe that you’ve kidnapped me,’ whispered the Snork Maiden.
‘So I have,’ replied Moomintroll kindly. ‘You howled terribly, but I kidnapped you all right.’
The sun had set, but now in June there was of course no darkness at night to speak of. The night was pale and dreamy and full of magic.
Deep beneath the spruces a spark lighted up and kindled a small fire. It was a miniature bonfire of spruce needles and twigs, and they could clearly see a lot of tiny forest-people trying to roll a whole cone into the fire.
‘They’ve a Midsummer fire,’ exclaimed the Snork Maiden.
‘Yes,’ said Moomintroll with a sigh. ‘We’ve forgotten that it’s Midsummer Eve.’
A wave of homesickness passed through them. They arose from the moss and wandered deeper in the forest.
At this time of the year Moominpappa’s palm wine used to ripen back home in the Moomin Valley. Down by the shore the big Midsummer bonfire was lighted, and all the people from the valley and the woods gathered to admire it. Other fires were burning further along the shore and out on the islands, but the Moomin Valley fire used to be the biggest. When the flames rose at their highest Moomintroll used to wade out in the warm water and lie on his back floating on the swell and looking at the fire.
‘It was reflected in the sea,’ said Moomintroll.
‘Yes,’ said the Snork Maiden. ‘And when it had burned down we went off to pick nine kinds of flowers and put them under our pillow and then our dreams came true. But you weren’t allowed to say a word while you picked them, nor afterwards until morning.’
‘Did your dreams come true?’ asked Moomintroll.
‘Of course,’ said the Snork Maiden. ‘And always nice things.’
They had reached a glade in the forest. A fine mist filled it like milk in a bowl.
Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden stopped anxiously at the edge of the wood. Through the mist they could dimly see a small house with fresh leaf garlands around its chimney and gateposts.
In the mist, or in the house, a small bell was tinkling. Then all became silent – then the jingle came again. But there was no smoke from the chimney, and the window was dark.
*
While all this happened, the morning aboard the floating house had been a most miserable one. Moominmamma declined to eat. She sat in the rocking-chair, repeating over and over: ‘Poor little children, my poor dear little Moomin child! All alone in a tree! He’ll never find his way home
again. Just think when night comes and the owls begin to screech!’
‘They won’t do that until August,’ Whomper comforted her.
‘Well, anyway,’ said Moominmamma, weeping still. ‘There’s always something or other screeching.’
Moominpappa stared sadly at the hole in the pantry roof. ‘It’s all my fault,’ he said.
‘You mustn’t say that,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Your stick must have been old and rotten and whoever could know that? And I’m quite sure they’ll find their way back again soon. I really am!’
‘If they aren’t eaten up,’ said Little My. ‘If the ants haven’t bitten them so they’re bigger than oranges already.’
‘Run along and play now, or you’ll get no dessert,’ said the Mymble’s daughter.
Misabel changed into a black dress. She sat down in a corner and had a good cry all by herself.
‘Are you really taking it so hard?’ asked Whomper sympathetically.
‘No, just a little less,’ replied Misabel. ‘But I’m taking the chance to have a cry over a lot of things now when there’s a good reason.’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Whomper without quite understanding.
He tried to figure out the cause of the accident. He examined the hole in the pantry roof and all of the drawing-room floor. The only thing he found was a trap-door under the carpet. It opened straight down on the black, lapping water under the house. Whomper was very interested.
‘Perhaps that’s a kind of dust-chute,’ he said. ‘Or a
swimming-pool. If it isn’t for throwing one’s enemies in?’
But nobody else took any interest in his trap-door. Only Little My laid herself on her stomach to look down into the water. ‘I suppose it’s for enemies,’ she said. ‘A splendid trap-door for big and small villains!’
She lay there all day looking for villains, but she unfortunately didn’t find any.
*
No one reproached Whomper afterwards.
It happened just before dinner.
Emma hadn’t turned up at all during the day and didn’t even show herself at dinner-time.
‘Perhaps she’s ill,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Not she!’ said the Mymble’s daughter. ‘She’s only pinched enough sugar now so she can live on it.’
‘Dear, run along and look to see if she’s all right,’ Moominmamma said tiredly.
The Mymble’s daughter went over to Emma’s corner and asked: ‘Moominmamma’s compliments, and have you got a stomach-ache from all the sugar?’
Emma
’s whiskers bristled. But before she found a suitable reply the whole house rattled with a tremendous shock and leaned dangerously over.
Whomper came scuttling along the floor in an avalanche of dinner china and most of the pictures fluttered down from the ceiling, burying the drawing-room.
‘We’ve run aground!’ cried Moominpappa, half stifled beneath the velvet curtains.
‘My!’ shouted the Mymble’s daughter. ‘Where’s my sister?’
But Little My couldn’t have told her even if she had wanted to do it, for once. She had rolled straight through the trap-door, down in to the black water.
Suddenly a horrible chuckle filled the drawing-room. It was Emma’s bitter laugh.
‘Ha, ha!’ she laughed. ‘There you are now! That’ll teach you not to whistle on the stage!’
CHAPTER 6
About revenge on Park Keepers
IF Little My had been only slightly bigger, who knows if she wouldn’t have drowned. Now she bobbed light as a bubble through the whirls of water and, snorting and spitting, popped her head above surface again. She floated like a cork, and was swiftly carried away by the current.
‘This is fun,’ said Little My to herself. ‘My sister’s going to wonder.’ She looked around her and discovered Moominmamma’s cake-tin and work-basket afloat quite near. After some hesitation (because she knew there were still a few cakes left) she chose the work-basket and clambered aboard it.
She had a nice long time examining everything in it and cutting up a couple of skeins. Then she curled up in the angora wool and went to sleep.
The work-basket sailed on. The house had gone aground in the middle of an inlet, and now the basket drifted shorewards, where, in among the reeds, it finally stopped in the mud. This didn’t wake Little My who had always been a sound sleeper. She didn’t awake at first even when a fishing-hook came flying and caught in the work-basket. There was a jerk when the line tightened and was slowly pulled home.