Tales From Moominvalley (2 page)

Snufkin stood listening in the damp moss. I must have the brook in my tune also, he thought. In the refrain, I think.

A small stone suddenly came loose near the waterfall and raised the pitch of the brook a whole octave.

Not bad, Snufkin said admiringly. That's the way to do it. A sudden change, just in passing. I'll have to find that brook a tune of its own.

He took out his old saucepan and filled it from the waterfall. Then he went in under the firs to look for firewood. The ground was still wet from the spring thaw and the rains, and Snufkin had to crawl far under a brambly windfall to find any dry sticks. When he reached out someone gave a sudden shout and flashed past him and off among the firs, still crying and squeaking all the way.

Oh yes, Snufkin said. Creeps and woodies everywhere. Funny how nervous they always seem to be. The smaller the jumpier.

He found a dried stump and some sticks and built himself a good camp-fire by the brook. Snufkin was used to cooking his own dinner. He never cooked a dinner for other people if he could avoid it, nor did he care much for other people's dinners. So many people insisted on talking when they had a meal.

Also they had a great liking for chairs and tables, and some of them used napkins. He even had heard of a hemulen who changed his clothes every time he was about to eat, but that was probably slander.

A little distractedly Snufkin ate his meagre soup while he rested his eyes on the green moss by the birches.

The tune was quite near at hand, easy to catch by the tail. But there was time enough to wait, it was hedged in and couldn't get away. No, better to wash the dishes first, then light a pipe - and afterwards, when the campfire was burning down and the night creatures started calling for each other, then he'd have it.

Snufkin was washing his saucepan in the brook when he caught sight of the creep. It was sitting on the far side below a tree root, looking at him. Its eyes were scared but very interested, following Snufkin's every movement.

Two shy eyes under a mop of hair. Just the look people have who are never noticed.

Snufkin pretended that he hadn't seen the creep. He raked up his fire and cut himself some fir twigs to sit on. He took out his pipe and lit it. He puffed a few clouds of smoke towards the night sky and waited for the spring tune.

It didn't come. Instead he felt the creep's eyes upon him. They watched everything he did, admiringly, and he began to feel uneasy once more. He clapped his paws together and shouted: 'Shoo! Be off!'

At this the creep slunk out from under the tree root - it was still on the other side of the brook - and said, very shyly: 'I hope I haven't scared you? I know who you are. You're Snufkin.'

And then the creep stepped straight into the water and started to wade across. The brook was rather too broad for it, and the water was ice-cold. A couple of times the creep lost its foothold and tumbled over, but Snufkin was feeling so uneasy that he simply didn't think of giving it a hand.

Finally a rather thin and miserable creep crawled ashore and said with chattering teeth: 'Hello, I'm so happy to meet you.'

'Hullo,' Snufkin answered equally coldly.

'May I warm myself by your fire?' the creep continued, its wet little face shining with happiness. 'Just think of it, then I'll be the creep who has sat by Snuf-kin's camp-fire. I'll never forget that.'

The creep edged closer, laid one paw on Snufkin's knapsack and solemnly whispered:

'Is this where you keep the mouth organ? Do you have it here?'

'Yes,' Snufkin said, rather crossly. His tune was lost, loneliness was gone, all was different. He clenched his teeth around the pipe-stem and stared in among the birches without really seeing them.

'Now, don't mind me,' the creep said innocently. 'In case you'd like to play, I mean. You'd never guess how I long for a little music. I've never heard any. But I've heard about you. The hedgehog, and Toffle, and my mother, they've all told me... Toffle has even seen you, once! Yes, you can't imagine... nothing much ever happens here... But we dream lots and lots...'

'Well, what's your name?' Snufkin asked. The evening was spoiled anyway, so he thought it easier to talk.

'I'm so small that I haven't got a name,' the creep said eagerly. 'As a matter of fact, nobody's even asked me about it before. And then I meet you, whom I've heard so much about and always longed to see, and the first thing you ask me is what my name is! Do you think... perhaps you might... I mean, would it be a lot of trouble for you to think up a name for me, a name that would be only mine and no one else could have it? Now, tonight?'

Snufkin mumbled something and pulled his hat over his eyes. Someone flew across the brook on long pointed wings and gave a long, sad cry among the trees: Yo-yooo, yo-ooo, tee-woo...

'You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much,' Snufkin suddenly said, I know.'

'I know you know everything,' the little creep prattled on, edging closer still. 'I know you've seen everything. You're right in everything you say, and I'll always try to become as free as you are... So now you're on your way to Moominvalley to have a rest and meet your friends... The hedgehog told me that Moomintroll started waiting for you as soon as he wakes from winter sleep... Isn't it a nice thing to know that someone's longing for you and waiting and waiting to see you again?'

'I'm coming when it suits me,' Snufkin cried violently. 'Perhaps I shan't come at all. Perhaps I will go somewhere else.'

'Oh. Then he'll be sad,' said the creep.

Its fur was beginning to dry and becoming light brown and soft. It picked at the knapsack once again and asked cautiously:

'Would you perhaps... You who have travelled so much...?'

'No,' Snufkin said. And he thought angrily: Why can't they ever let my wanderings alone?! Can't they understand that I'll talk it all to pieces if I have to tell about it. Then it's gone, and when I try to remember what it really was like, I remember only my own story.

There was a long silence, and the night bird cried again.

The creep arose and said in a small voice:

'Well, I must be off, I think. Cheerio.'

'Cheerio,' Snufkin said, fidgeting a little. 'Listen. Er. That name you asked for. What about Teety-woo, for instance. Teety-woo, don't you see, a light beginning, sort of, and a little sadness to round it off.'

The little creep stared at him with yellow eyes in the firelight. It thought its name over, tasted it, listened to it, crawled inside it, and finally turned its snout to the sky and softly howled its new name, so sadly and ecstatically that Snufkin felt a shiver along his back.

Then a brown tail disappeared in the brambles, and all was silent.

'Golly,' Snufkin said and kicked at an ember. He rapped out his pipe. Then he rose and shouted: 'Hullo. Come back.'

But the wood was silent. Oh, well, Snufkin thought.

You can't always be friendly. It's impossible, there isn't the time. And at least this creep has got a name.

He sat down again and listened to the brook and the silence, and waited for his tune to come back. But it didn't come. He knew at once that it had moved too far away to be caught. Perhaps he'd never catch it. The only thing he seemed to hear was the eager and shy voice of the creep, talking and talking and talking.

Why don't they keep at home with their mothers, Snufkin said crossly and threw himself on his back on to the fir twigs. After a while he sat up and shouted once more. He listened for a long time, then he pulled his hat over his snout and went to sleep.

*

The next morning Snufkin continued his march. He was tired and cross and trudged northwards without looking right or left. And not even the faintest beginning of a tune moved under his hat.

He simply could not think of anything but the creep. He remembered every single word it had said and every word he had said himself, and he chewed them over and over until he felt sick and had to sit down and rest.

What's come over me, Snufkin thought, angry and bewildered. I've never felt like this before. I must be ill.

He rose and continued his way, and it started all over again, everything the creep had told him and all he had said in reply.

Finally he had to stop. In the afternoon he turned about and started back.

After a while he felt better. He went faster and faster, he bubbled as he ran. Little tunes flitted about his ears but he hadn't the time to catch them. Towards evening he was back in the birch wood and started to call.

'Teety-woo!' he cried. 'Teety-woo!' And the night birds awoke and answered him, tee-woo, tee-woo, but he heard nothing from the creep.

Snufkin walked back and forth, looking and calling and listening, until dusk had fallen. The new moon rose in a clearing, and Snufkin stood looking at it and feeling quite at a loss.

I ought to make a wish, he thought. It's a new moon.

He was about to wish for the usual thing: a new tune, or, as he sometimes did: a new road. But now he hastily corrected himself and said aloud: 'To find Teety-woo.'

Then he turned around three times and crossed the clearing, went into the wood and up a hill. Something rustled in the bushes, something light brown and furry.

'Teety-woo!' Snufkin called softly. 'I've come back for a chat.'

'Oh. Hello,' Teety-woo replied and stuck out his head from the bushes. 'That's splendid, because I've got something to show you. Look! A name plate! With my own name on it, to hang on my door when I get a house of my own.'

The creep showed him a piece of bark with an owner's mark on it, and continued importantly:

'Neat, isn't it? Everybody thinks so.'

'Very!' Snufkin said. 'So you'll have a house of your own?'

'Indeed!' the creep said excitedly, 'I've moved away from home and begun living! It's so exciting! You see, before I had a name I just used to hop around, and perhaps feel this or that about this or that, and everything was simply happening around me, sometimes nice things and sometimes not nice, but nothing was real, don't you see?'

Snufkin started to reply, but the creep continued: 'Now I'm a person, and everything that happens
means
something. Because it doesn't only happen, it happens