The Exploits of Moominpappa (Moominpappa's Memoirs) (8 page)

'No,' said the Joxter. 'You're rather red in the face.'

'Well, what did it say?' Hodgkins asked.

'It's gone again, then,' I said a little crossly. 'Twenty-five.'

Hodgkins didn't turn pale. He said at once in a steady voice:

'Joxter! Furl the sail. Moomin! Make fast all stays, sheets, hawsers, hatches, handles, bundles and everything you can lay your hands on! The Muddler and the Nibling are to keep in their tin and put the lid on. We're in for a gale.'

'Aye, aye, sir!' we all shouted, and with a calm and manly glance at the now pale-purple sea under the yellow sky, we went to our important duties.

The gale was over us in an instant, so suddenly that
The Oshun Oxtra
dived on her nose and nearly stood on her head for a while.

I hadn't had time to take down the sun-tent, and it was torn away like a leaf and flapped out to sea. (It was a nice sun-tent. I hope somebody found it and enjoyed it.)

'Start the engine!' Hodgkins shouted through the gale. But the hatch was deep under the clouds, and I suppose the cogwheels wouldn't have fitted in anyway just then. The engine had been freakish lately.

The Muddler's tin had jammed and stuck under the railing, and every time
The Oshun Oxtra
took a dive or was lifted high on a wave-crest all his buttons, suspenders, tin-openers, and glass pearls made a terrible clatter inside. The Muddler cried that he was feeling sick, but there wasn't anything we could do about it. We could only cling to the holds we had and stare out over the darkening ocean.

The sun was gone. The horizon was gone. We were in the midst of a black and frightening turmoil with flecks of white foam flying past us everywhere like hissing ghosts.

Hodgkins clung steadily to the helm, and the Joxter and I clung to each other. The Joxter tried to shout something, but I could hear nothing but the roar of the wind. He pointed ahead.

I looked and saw a large, inflated balloon carrying us forwards with great speed. But it wasn't our sail - it was one of our clouds.

'That's the end of it,' I thought dizzily.

Then the second cloud moved. It flattened out, and in a second the gale had blown into it and stretched it to a big sail.

But it didn't burst. It stretched like another rubber balloon, and
The Oshun Oxtra
plunged forward shaking and creaking in every seam. Now we were rushing along as fast as the gale itself.

Then the third cloud took to the air, and it lifted the houseboat almost clear of the water. Like an albatross, like the Flying Dutchman, like a Moomin ghost ship we sailed on.

It all resembled a dream or a huge merry-go-round. My fright passed, and I intoned a song of victory about invincible Moomins.

When the darkness finally began to change to a morning grey I was aware that I was cold and that the Joxter had grabbed my tail in a smarting grip.

The wild roar of the hurricane had toned down to an even whistling, and the movements of
The Oshun Oxtra
told me that she was in the water once more. Two of the clouds had furled themselves again, and I could hear the buttons rattling about inside the Muddler's tin.

Another day was dawning.

I carefully moved one leg and then the other one. Both were safe and sound. Then I politely asked the Joxter to let go of my tail.

'Oh, was it yours,' he said. 'I thought it was the backstay all the time.'

A pale light was spreading over the sea and exposed the sad state of
The Oshun Oxtra.
The mast was broken. The paddles gone. My beautiful house was badly demolished, most of all the fretwork on the verandah. Worst of all, the gilt knob had disappeared from the roof top.

Torn stays swayed sadly in the wind, and the railings were smashed in several places. But between them our three clouds rested, white and round, exactly as before.

'Dear crew,' said Hodgkins solemnly. 'We have ridden out the hurricane. Let my nephew out, please!'

We took off the lid and the Muddler appeared, pitifully green in the face.

'Button of all buttons,' he said wearily. 'What have I done to be so sick? Oh, what life, what troubles, what worries!
Look
at my collection!'

The Nibling came out also, sniffed against the wind and snorted. Then he said: 'I'm hungry!'

'Excuse me!' exclaimed the Muddler. 'Just to
think
of food makes me...'

'Quite, quite,' said Hodgkins kindly. 'Perhaps Moomin will go and warm the pea-soup. I'll have to think....
The Oshun Oxtra
nearly flew tonight. I've an idea. You know. The flying houseboat...'

And Hodgkins became absorbed in calculations. I made my way carefully over the deck.

It was covered with sea-weed, Nibling smear, oysters, and a few faint sea spooks. And in that moment the sun rose.

Oh, delight! I stopped outside the galley door and gave the warmth time to surge through me. I remembered the sunshine on my first day of freedom after the night of my escape. I loved the sun!

I forgot all about the pea-soup and closed my eyes where I stood. The lovely feeling penetrated out to the tip of my tail, and I thought it was worth a hurricane to have the sunshine afterwards.

But when I opened my eyes again I discovered some thing on starboard. Land!

Land ahead also! Soft contours of strange mountains!

I stood on my head for joy and shouted:

'We'rethere! Land! Hodgkins!'

Suddenly we all became busy.

The Muddler's sickness ceased at once, and he began putting his tin in order. The Joxter repaired the auxiliary engine. The Nibling chewed at his own tail out of pure nervousness, and Hodgkins put me to polishing all the brass-work.

The foreign shore came nearer. There seemed to be a high mountain on it with a tower on top.

'What on earth's that?' asked the Joxter.

'Look, it's moving,' I said.

But we were too busy to worry about it.

Only when
The Oshun Oxtra
glided into harbour we gathered at the railing, after having combed our hair and brushed our teeth and tails.

And then we heard a thundering voice high above our heads:

'Ha!' it roared. 'The Groke take me if this isn't Hodg kins and his dash-dashed crew! Now I've got you!'

It was Edward the Booble. You can't imagine how angry he was.

*

'That's how life was when I was young!' said Moomin-pappa and closed his book.

'Read more, please!' Moomintroll cried. 'What happened then? What did the Booble do to you?'

'Next time, my boy,' Moominpappa said with an air of mystery. 'That was thrilling, eh? But you see, it's a trick all good authors use, to close a chapter at the ghastliest moment.'

This time Moominpappa had seated himself on the sandy beach with his son, Snufkin, and Sniff at his feet.

While he read to them about the terrible gale they gazed out over the sea and imagined
The Oshun Oxtra
careering along like a ghost ship, manned by their brave fathers, through the pale purple foam of the hurricane.

'How sick he must have been in his tin,' mumbled Sniff.

'It's cold here,' said Moominpappa. 'Shall we take a walk?'

They wandered off over the dry sea-weed to the point.

'Can you imitate a Nibling?' asked Snufkin.

Moominpappa tried. 'No-o,' he said. 'It didn't come right. It should sound as if from a tin tube.'

'It wasn't so far off,' said Moomintroll. 'Father, didn't you go away with the Hattifatteners later on?'

'Well,' answered Moominpappa embarrassedly, 'perhaps I did. But that was very much later. I suppose it won't come into the book at all.'

'Why not?' cried Sniff. 'Did you lead a wicked life with them?'

'Shut up,' said Moomintroll.

'Dash, dash, dash,' said Moominpappa. 'But it wasn't too wicked. Look, there's something floating in the water. Run along and see what it is!'

They ran.

'What can it be?' asked Snufkin.

It was a heavy and onion-shaped thing. It seemed to have floated around for a very long time, because it was covered with weeds and clams. The wood was cracked, and in a few places there were remains of gold paint. Moominpappa lifted the wooden onion in both paws and examined it carefully. His eyes grew larger and larger, and finally he covered them with one paw and sighed.

'Children,' he said solemnly and a little shakily, 'what you behold here is the knob from the roof of the boat-house of
The Oshun Oxtra!'

'Oh,' said Moomintroll with great veneration.

'And now,' continued Moominpappa, overcome by his memories, 'now I'm going to start on a new chapter and contemplate this unique discovery in solitude. Run along and play in the cave!'

Moominpappa walked on with a springy step. He carried the knob under one arm and his Memoirs under the other.

'I've really been a strapping Moomin in my day!' he said to himself.

'And still going strong,' he added, and stamped his feet with a happy smile.

CHAPTER 5

In which (besides giving a little specimen of my intellectual powers), I describe the Mymble family and the Surprise Party which brought me some bewitching tokens of honour from the hand of the Autocrat.

P
ERHAPS
you've noticed the peculiar way my mind works? There's simply a sudden click! - and the situation is saved. Like this one, for instance.

Here's the Booble, grumbling, bumbling and shouting at us, and here are we, looking rather foolish, and then I say (quite calmly): 'Hullo, uncle! Glad to see you again!' And of course this doesn't stop him shouting, but I don't mind at all. I just ask him whether his feet are sore still.

'You have the nerve to ask me that!' roars Edward the Booble. 'You water-flea! You nightmare!
Yes,
my feet are sore!
Yes,
my behind is sore
tool'

'Well, in that case,' I answer in a perfectly controlled voice, 'in that case the present we've brought you will suit you all the better. Three genuine eider-down Booble sleeping-bags!'

(Rather smart, wasn't it?)

'Sleeping-bags? Eider-down?' Edward the Booble said suspiciously and carefully felt our clouds with one foot. 'You're deceiving me again, aren't you, you dish-rags? I suppose they're stuffed with rocks...'

He hauled the clouds up on the wharf and sniffed at them.

'Sit down, Edward, please!' cried Hodgkins. 'Nice and soft!'

'I've heard that before,' grumbled the Booble. 'Nice, smooth sand bottom, you said. And what was it? The hardest, knobbliest, stoniest, pestilentiallest...'

And Edward the Booble carefully sank down on the clouds.

'Well?' we cried expectantly.

'Hrrumph,' said the Booble sourly. 'There seem indeed to be a few soft spots. I'll sit here and think for a while until I've decided what to do with you.'

But we didn't care to wait. With great speed we made fast the hawser and stole past behind the Booble. And then we ran.

'You did rather well,' said the Joxter.

'Just an idea,' I said modestly.

'I know,' said Hodgkins. 'Empty place, this.'

Round green hills rose everywhere around us, with single big trees laden with bunches of green and yellow berries. We could see a few small straw huts huddling in the valleys between low stone walls stretching over the hillsides.