Comet in Moominland

by Tove Jansson

  ‘What box?’ asked the silk-monkey, whose memory was exceedingly short. ‘Come on! I think it’s beginning to get boring here.’ And in a twinkling she was out of the cave, back along the ledge, and down on the sand again.

  Sniff followed slowly. Several times he turned round and looked back at the cave proudly. He was so full of it that he quite forgot to be afraid on the dangerous ledge, and he was still deep in thought as he trudged along the beach to the place where they had left Moomintroll, pearl-fishing.

  There was already a row of shining pearls, and out in the breakers Moomintroll was bobbing up and down like a cork, while the silk-monkey sat on the sand busily scratching herself.

  ‘I am the treasurer,’ she said importantly. ‘Now I’ve counted these pearls five times, and each time it comes to a different answer. Isn’t that extraordinary?’

  Moomintroll waded out of the water with his arms full of oysters; he even had several on his tail. ‘Phew!’ he said, shaking the sea-weed out of his eyes. ‘That’ll do for today. Where’s that box?’

  ‘There weren’t so very many good boxes on this beach,’ said Sniff. ‘But I’ve made a great discovery.’

  ‘What was that?’ asked Moomintroll, for a discovery (next to Mysterious Paths, Bathing and Secrets) was what he liked most of all. Sniff paused and then said dramatically:

  ‘A cave!’

  ‘A real cave?’ asked Moomintroll, ‘with a hole to creep in through, and rocky walls, and a sandy floor?’

  ‘Everything!’ answered Sniff proudly. ‘A real cave that I found myself.’ He winked at the silk-monkey, but she was counting the pearls for the eighth time, and wasn’t bothering herself about the cave any more.

  ‘That’s splendid!’ said Moomintroll. ‘Wonderful news. A cave is much better than a box. We’ll take the pearls there at once.’

  ‘That’s just what I had thought of doing myself,’ said Sniff.

  So they carried the pearls to the cave and arranged them neatly on the floor, and then lay down on their backs looking up at the sky through the gap in the roof.

  ‘Do you know something?’ said Moomintroll. ‘If you fly hundreds and hundreds of miles up into the sky you come to where it isn’t blue any more. It’s quite black. In the day time too.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Sniff.

  ‘It just is,’ answered Moomintroll. ‘And up there in the dark are great sky-monsters, such as scorpions, bears and rams.’

  ‘Are they dangerous?’ asked Sniff.

  ‘Not to us,’ replied Moomintroll. ‘They only snap up a few stars now and again.’

  Sniff pondered this deeply and after a while they stopped talking and just lay watching the sunlight, which poured through the roof, creep over the sand and shine on Moomintroll’s pearls.

  It was late in the evening when Moomintroll and Sniff got back to the blue house in the valley. The river flowed with hardly a ripple under the bridge, which showed up

  vividly in its new coat of paint, and Moominmamma was arranging shells round the flower-beds.

  ‘We’ve had supper,’ she said. ‘You’d better see what you can find in the larder, my dears.’

  Moomintroll was hopping with excitement. ‘We’ve been at least a hundred miles from here!’ he said. ‘We followed a Mysterious Path, and I found something terribly valuable that begins with Ρ and ends with L, but I can’t tell you what it is because I’m bound by a swear.’

  ‘And I found something that begins with C and ends with E!’ squeaked Sniff. ‘And somewhere in the middle there’s an A and a V – but I won’t say any more.’

  ‘Well!’ said Moominmamma. ‘Fancy that! Two big discoveries in one day! Now run and get your supper, dears. The soup is keeping hot on the stove. And don’t clatter about too much because pappa is writing.’

  And she went on laying out shells, one blue, two white and a red, in turns, and it looked very fine indeed. She whistled quietly to herself and thought there was rain in the air. A wind was getting up, and now and again a strong gust shook the trees turning their leaves inside out, and Moominmamma noticed an army of clouds massing on the horizon and beginning to march up the sky. ‘I do hope there isn’t going to be another flood,’ she thought, picking up some shells that were left over, and going into the house as the first drops of rain began to fall.

  In the kitchen she found Moomintroll and Sniff curled up together in a corner, tired out by their adventures. She spread a blanket over them and sat down by the window to darn Moominpappa’s socks.

  The rain was pattering on the roof, and rustling outside, while far away it dripped into Sniff’s cave. And deep in the forest the silk-monkey crept farther down into her hollow tree and folded her tail round her neck to keep warm.

  Late that night when everybody had gone to bed Moominpappa heard a plaintive noise. He sat up and listened. The rain gushed down the drain-pipes, and somewhere a shutter banged in the wind. Then came the pitiful sound again. He put on his dressing-gown and went to have a look round the house.

  He looked into the sky-blue room, into the sun-yellow one and into the spotted one, and everywhere it was silent. At last he drew the heavy bolt of the door and looked out in the rain. His torch lit up a strip of the path and raindrops glittered like diamonds in the light.

  ‘What in the world have we here?’ exclaimed Moominpappa, for on the steps sat something wet and miserable, with shiny black eyes.

  ‘I am the Muskrat,’ said the wretched creature faintly. ‘A philosopher, you know. I should just like to point out that your bridge-building activities have completely ruined my house in the river bank, and although ultimately it doesn’t matter what happens, I must say even a philosopher does not care for being soaked to the skin.’

  ‘I am most extremely sorry,’ said Moominpappa.’ I had no idea that you lived under the bridge. Please do come in. I’m sure my wife can make a bed up for you.’

  ‘I’m not a great one for beds,’ said the Muskrat, ‘they are unnecessary furniture really. It was only a hole I lived in, but I was happy there. Of course it’s all the same to a philosopher whether he is happy or not, but it was a good hole…’ After these words, which were not intended to be ungracious, he managed to gather enough energy and enthusiasm to go into the house, where he shook the water off him and said: ‘What an extraordinary house this is!’

  ‘It’s a Moominhouse,’ said Moominpappa, who realized that he was talking to an extraordinary person. ‘I built it myself in another place, but it floated here in a great flood we had some months ago. I hope you will be happy here. I find it a very good place to work in.’

  ‘I can work anywhere,’ said the Muskrat. ‘It’s all a matter of thinking. I sit and think about how unnecessary everything is.’

  ‘Really?’ said Moominpappa, much impressed. ‘Perhaps I might offer you a glass of wine? Against the cold?’

  ‘Wine, I am bound to say, is unnecessary,’ replied the Muskrat, ‘but a small drop nevertheless would not be unwelcome.’

  So Moominpappa stole into the kitchen and opened the wine-cupboard in the dark. He was stretching up for a bottle of palm-tree wine on the top shelf, stretching and stretching, when all at once there was a terrible crash: he had knocked over a vegetable-dish. In a moment the house came to life. People shouted and banged doors, and Moominmamma came running downstairs with a candle in her paw.

  ‘Oh! It’s you’ she said. ‘I thought someone must have broken in.’

  ‘I wanted to get the palm-tree wine down,’ said Moominpappa, ‘and some silly fool had put that stupid vegetable dish right on the edge of the shelf.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Moominmamma. ‘It’s really a good thing it’s broken – it was so ugly. Climb up on a stool dear – it will be easier.’

  So Moominpappa climbed up on a stool and got down the bottle and three glasses.

  ‘Who is the third one for?’ asked Moominmamma.

  ‘The Muskrat,’ answered Moominpappa. ‘A great man. He’s coming to live here –
with your approval, my dear.’ And he called the Muskrat in and introduced him to Moominmamma.

  Then they sat on the veranda and drank each other’s health, and Moomintroll and Sniff were allowed down too although it was the middle of the night. It was still raining, and the wind had got trapped in the chimney and was howling eerily.

  ‘I have lived on this river the whole of my life,’ said the Muskrat, ‘and never have I seen such weather. Not that it makes any difference to me of course, except for giving me something new to think about. It would be much better if it rained in the hot, dried-up valley on the other side of the mountains. We don’t need rain here with the heavy dew we get every morning.’

  ‘How do you know what it’s like on the other side of the mountains if you’ve lived here all your life, Uncle Muskrat?’ asked Sniff.

  ‘An otter who swam down here once told me,’ answered the Muskrat. ‘I never make unnecessary journeys myself.’

  ‘I love making journeys!’ cried Moomintroll. ‘There are hardly any unnecessary things, I think. Only eating porridge, and washing…’

  Hush, child,’ said Moominmamma. ‘The Muskrat is a wise man who knows about everything, and why it is unnecessary. I only hope, as I said, that there isn’t going to be another flood.’

  ‘Who knows?’ said the Muskrat. ‘There has certainly been something strange in the air lately. I have had vague forebodings and thought more than usual. It’s all the same to me what happens, but one thing is certain, that something is going to happen.’

  ‘Something awful?’ asked Sniff, pulling his nightshirt tighter around him.

  ‘One never knows,’ said the Muskrat.

  ‘Now we’ll all go to bed,’ said Moominmamma. ‘It’s not good for children to hear frightening stories at night.’

  So they all crept into their own corners and went to sleep. But in the morning the rain clouds were still marching over the sky, and the lonely wind howled through the blue-trees.

  *It was painted blue. Moominhouses usually are. Translator.

  CHAPTER 2

  Which is about stars with tails.

  NEXT day it was cloudy. The Muskrat went out in the garden and lay in the hammock to think, and Moominpappa wrote his memoirs in the sky-blue room. Moomintroll was hanging about at the kitchen door.

  ‘Mamma,’ he said, ‘do you think the Muskrat meant anything special when he mentioned those forebodings?’

  ‘I don’t think he meant so very much,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Don’t worry about it dear. Perhaps he’d just got a chill in all that rain, and felt a bit queer. Now run along with Sniff and collect some pears from the blue-trees.’

  Moomintroll went, but he was very thoughtful, and decided he would talk to the Muskrat about it later. He and Sniff carried the longest ladder they could find up the hill.

  ‘Are we going to my cave?’ asked Sniff.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Moomintroll. ‘Later. But first we have to collect some pears for mamma.’

  When they reached the biggest blue-tree they saw the silk-monkey sitting up in the branches waving to them.

  ‘Hullo!’ she screeched. ‘What awful weather! My house is sopping wet, and the whole forest is beastly. Are you coming to hunt for crabs?’

  ‘We haven’t time,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Mamma is going to make some jam. And besides we’ve got more important things to think about.’

  ‘Tell!’ said the silk-monkey.

  ‘I can’t tell you except that something is going to happen,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Something dreadful and unnecessary that nobody knows much about. But there has been a strange feeling in the air lately.’

  ‘Ha! ha!’ said the silk-monkey. ‘Very funny!’

  ‘Now shut up,’ said Moomintroll putting the ladder up against the blue-tree, ‘and try to be helpful for a change.’

  It was great fun to pick these pears because you could throw them down as hard as you liked and they bounced off the ground like rubber balls. Moomintroll and the other two picked and threw and shouted, and the pears hopped and bounced in all directions until the ground was covered with them. The silk-monkey laughed till she nearly fell off the tree.

  ‘That’s enough,’ gasped Moomintroll at last. ‘We can’t eat that much jam in a year. Now we’ll roll the whole lot down to the river – I’ll stop them at the bridge. You stay here and take care of this end, silk-monkey, and Sniff can keep an eye on the water transport.’

  ‘Roll the pears into the river!’ screamed Sniff excitedly, and he ran off to the river, while the silk-monkey rolled the pears one after another down the slope. In they plopped, swirled round in the current and bounced over the stones. Sniff ran here and there poking them with a long stick when they got caught up on their journey down to the bridge, where Moomintroll trapped them and stacked up a big pile on the bank.

  After a time Moominmamma came out of the house with a big gong. ‘Lunch time, children!’ she cried.

  ‘Well,’ said Moomintroll, as they came up the garden, ‘Haven’t we picked a lot?’

  ‘You certainly have!’ exclaimed Moominmamma. ‘I’ve never seen so many pears!’

  ‘Then can we take our lunch out?’ said Moomintroll. ‘To a secret place we have?’

  ‘Oh, please!’ entreated Sniff. ‘With lots of food so that there’s enough for the silk-monkey. And could we have lemonade too?’

  ‘Yes, of course, dears,’ said Moominmamma, and she wrapped up all kinds of good things and put them in a basket, with an umbrella on top to be on the safe side.

  The weather was still dull and grey when they reached the cave. Moomintroll had been rather quiet on the way up, worrying about his pearls, and directly they had crept through the opening he shouted out in alarm: ‘Someone has been here!’

  ‘In my cave!’ screamed Sniff. ‘Wretched wretch!’

  The pearls, which they had left neatly arranged in rows, had been collected together in the middle of the floor in a pattern. ‘You might as well count them anyway,’ said Moomintroll to the silk-monkey, who had joined them in the wood, ‘you’re the treasurer.’

  She counted them four times and then once more for luck, but she always got a different answer. ‘How many were there before?’ asked Moomintroll.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said the silk-monkey, ‘but the answer was different every time I counted them then, too.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Well that must be right I suppose. But I wonder who could have been here?’

  They sat looking gloomily at the pattern of pearls.

  ‘It does look like something,’ said Sniff at last. ‘A star I think.’

  ‘With a tail,’ said the silk-monkey.

  Sniff looked suspiciously at her. ‘I suppose it wasn’t you who did it?’ he said, for he remembered very well how the silk-monkey had made her curly flourish, marking the mysterious path, on all the tree-trunks.

  ‘It could have been me,’ she said. ‘But this time it happens to have been someone else.’

  ‘It could have been anybody,’ said Moomintroll, ‘but never mind now. Let’s eat first.’

  So they unpacked pancakes, sandwiches, bananas and lemonade from their basket and divided it all into three equal parts. Then there was silence for some minutes while they all munched happily. When everything was finished they dug a hole in the sand and buried the paper and banana skins. And after that they dug another hole and buried the pearls. Then Moomintroll said:

  ‘Now I’ve eaten and thought and everything is a little clearer., This star with a tail must be either a warning or a threat. Perhaps somebody is angry with us for some reason –a secret society for instance.’

  ‘Do you think it’s somewhere near?’ asked Sniff, beginning to get anxious. ‘It might easily be angry with me, mightn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – you especially,’ said Moomintroll. ‘That’s very likely. Perhaps this is its cave you have discovered.’

  Sniff went very pale and said: ‘Perhaps we should go home?’ Nobody took any notice of this o
f course; they went out on to the ledge and looked at the sea instead. It was like a huge grey silk eiderdown with white flowers on it. The flowers were sea-gulls resting on the water with their heads pointing out to sea.

  Suddenly the silk-monkey began to laugh. ‘Look!’ she said, ‘those funny sea-gulls think they’re embroidery. They’ve just formed themselves into a big star!’

  ‘With a tail!’ exclaimed Moomintroll.

  Sniff began to tremble violently. Then he took to his heels and ran along the ledge, quite forgetting that he had once been afraid of falling, across the sand, and off towards Moomin Valley. On the way he stumbled over tufts of grass and roots, got entangled with branches, fell on his nose, splashed through a stream, and arrived in the valley at last quite dizzy and exhausted. He shot like an arrow into Moominhouse.

  ‘What is it now?’ asked Moominmamma, who sat stirring the jam. Sniff crept very close to her and hid his nose in her apron. ‘A secret society is after me,’ he whispered. ‘It’s coming to get me and…’

  ‘Not while I’m here,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Now, what about a nice saucepan to lick out?’

  ‘I daren’t,’ whimpered Sniff. ‘Not now. Perhaps never!’ A little later on he said: ‘Well, perhaps just the edge. While I’m waiting.’

  When Moomintroll arrived, his mother’s biggest jam pot was already full, and Sniff was just licking out the bottom of the saucepan.

  ‘H’m,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Strange goings on.’

  ‘What now?’ asked Sniff, looking up anxiously from the saucepan.

  ‘Nothing,’ answered Moomintroll, who didn’t want to frighten him still more. ‘I’m going to talk to the Muskrat for a bit.’

  The Muskrat was still lying in his hammock and thinking.