by Tove Jansson
I followed behind with Jeremiah’s little box and stood waiting while he hammered away. I made sure that the boat was properly tied up. But of course we couldn’t play our game of how tiny I was while she was there.
In the beginning she smiled at me, but in fact all she did was bare her teeth. I stared at her until she looked away and went on hammering. I followed them and stood waiting and every time she turned round she looked at me and I never looked back at her. We froze because the wind blew right in our faces and the sun never shone. I could see that she was freezing cold and that she was afraid of the water. But she came in the boat too and she never let him go out to the islands by himself.
She sat in the stern and gripped the gunnels with both hands and I could see from them how scared she was. She pressed her knees tightly together and craned her neck and gulped. She didn’t look at the waves but just stared at Jeremiah the whole time and he rowed zigzag as best he could against the wind and off they went together and got smaller and smaller.
I wasn’t allowed to go with them in the boat any longer. They pretended that it was too small. It was a stout flat-bottomed boat and I could well have sat in the bows. Jeremiah knew it but he was afraid of her. I waited until I saw them set off and then come back to the bays. Then I would hide in the shelter of a rock and watch them and wherever they came ashore I was there to meet them and tie up their boat.
I knew that nothing was fun any longer and couldn’t be, but I followed them all the same. I couldn’t stop following them, every day and all day until evening, and I had my own food with me. But we didn’t swap sandwiches any more. We kept ourselves to ourselves and we all sat at the same distance from each other and none of us said anything.
Then we would get up and walk along the shore. Once she stopped and stood still and waited for me without turning round. I stopped too because her back took on a dangerous shape. And then she turned round and said something to me. It was the first time she had opened her mouth. At first I didn’t understand. Then she said it again, over and over, very loud and in a shrill voice, go home! Go home, go home! Somebody had taught her to say go home but it sounded queer.
I looked down at my feet and waited until she went on, and then I followed again.
But in the morning she wasn’t there. So I put my present on the steps of the pilot’s hut and hid. I could stay in hiding as long as they liked. Then Jeremiah came out onto the steps and found the present and was surprised. He began to search for me and I was terribly tiny, so tiny that I could have fitted into his pocket.
But gradually everything changed. I grew and he found me much too quickly. He wasn’t at all surprised. At last the awful thing had happened: we were playing the game because we had started to play it and thought it was somehow too embarrassing to stop.
One morning Jeremiah came out onto the steps and found his present. He threw his arms into the air as usual and clutched his head. But then he didn’t take his hands away but held his head far too long. Then he came right up to the pine tree where I was hiding and stood in front of me and smiled and I could see he was baring his teeth just like she did and wasn’t at all friendly. It was so awful that I just ran away.
I was ashamed for both our sakes all day. At three o’clock the sun came out and I went back to the bays.
They were in the third bay. He sat hammering and she was looking on a little way away. She wasn’t cold any longer and had taken off her woolly cap and undone her hair – masses of it that fell all over the place while she was looking at him. Then she went closer and laughed and bent down to see what he was doing and her hair fell all over him and he got scared and straightened up and bumped her nose. I think it was her nose. She nearly fell over so Jeremiah took a firm hold of her and for an instant they looked like paper dolls. Then she began to speak very rapidly and Jeremiah held on to her and listened.
He was so far away from me that I had to shout so that he would hear me and I shouted for all I was worth. But he just walked away and she was left standing there staring at me and I stared back. I stared and stared at her until I had stared her into little pieces and I thought, you’re big and scraggy like a carthorse and nobody can hunt for you in the grass and you couldn’t hide anywhere because you can be seen the whole time and you can’t surprise anybody and make them feel good! You have completely spoilt our game for no reason at all because you can’t play games yourself! O alas and alack! No one wants your presents. He doesn’t want them. You’re nobody’s surprise, and you can’t understand because you’re not an artist! And so I went a little closer and humiliated her by saying the most terrible thing of all: amateur! You’re an amateur! You’re not a real artist!
She stepped backwards and screwed up her face. Then I daren’t look at her any longer because it’s an awful shame to see a grown-up person cry. So I looked at the ground and waited a long time. I heard her walk away. When I looked up she had gone.
Jeremiah was on the point hammering away. So I went back to the pilots’ hut and took back my present. It was a very beautiful skeleton of a bird, and quite white. Mummy gave me a box just the right size and I took the skeleton with me when I went back to town. It’s very unusual to come across the skeleton of a bird which is the right chalky-white colour.
Dressing Up
NOBODY ELSE BUT FANNY was allowed to light the fire in the sauna on Saturdays. It was the only job she really liked. She marched up and down in front of the house all day on her spindly legs, which were as white as her hair, carrying wood, very slowly and only two logs at a time. On Saturdays Fanny was the most important person in the whole place and therefore she sang to herself, monotonously and shrilly.
Then they pulled the sauna down. Only the stove and the bench and the doorposts were left standing in the rain. Summer was over and Mummy had gone back to town. Daddy was out fishing and I was walking around in the rain. It rained and rained. The field was brown and waterlogged and smelt rotten and the logs of the sauna walls were lying all over the place because the ants had eaten them from the inside and they weren’t worth saving.
When Saturday came round again Fanny carried wood down to the sauna and filled the stove. She stood and stared at the bench and the empty doorway and muttered to herself. Her wrinkled face was quite expressionless and her eyes too. I could see the rain running down her wrinkles in little rivulets. She removed some faded leaves from the bench, muttering to herself the whole time. Then she stood and waited until the next leaf floated down and removed that too. Finally she sat on the bench next to the cat. They looked as though they were at the theatre.
I went into the kitchen and lay down on the woodbox and listened to the rain until I fell asleep. When I woke up it had stopped raining. I took the big red tablecloth and went down to the sauna. Daddy was still out fishing. Fanny was still sitting on the bench but the cat had disappeared.
I climbed on to a bucket and threw the tablecloth over the door-frame so that it hung almost to the ground. It looked much redder out of doors.
That’s the curtain, I said.
Fanny cackled but said nothing.
I went into the house to fetch the gong and hung it on a nail beside the curtain. Then I carried out all the lanterns and lamps and candlesticks and put them round the stage. Fanny followed everything I did very closely. It was dripping everywhere but it wasn’t actually raining. The clouds were so heavy that it was almost dusk.
When everything was ready I dressed up as Princess Florinna. I put on Mummy’s bright pink petticoat and the cat’s Sunday bow and tied a green scarf round my tummy.
When I got back Fanny had picked lots of apples and arranged them in a circle round the theatre – they were so yellow that the ground around them looked almost black. An even darker cloud appeared so I lit the lights. It was difficult to get the lamps to burn, but I managed it in the end. But the lanterns wouldn’t work at all.
The cat jumped up beside Fanny and I gave them each a programme and put one in the place reserved for Daddy.
Then I went behind the curtain and struck the gong. I pulled back the curtain and entered the stage. I started by bowing to Fanny and then to the cat and they gazed at me very intently.
I cried: Oh! come sweet blue-bird mine on speedy wing, oh come and make my heart once more to sing! I wrung my hands and ran up and down because I was shut up in a tower and waiting for Prince Amundus.
Then I was Holofernes and pushed out my tummy and bellowed: Says she so, the waspish creature? Devil take me, I’ll soon teach her!
It began to rain again. Out by Red Rock Daddy was on his way home again. There was a narrow yellow streak in the sky behind Sandy Island. The rain put all the candles out but the lamps went on burning. Suddenly I was the wicked queen and shouted: What see I here? You now my eyes appall, Oh wretched creature vanish from my ball! Aside. At sight of her with wrath my blood doth flame.
I was Florinna and answered timidly: My Queen, oh hear me, I am not to blame!
It rained harder and harder. The cat began to wash herself. So I went straight into the scene where Amundus is put under a spell. Circe, black and menacing, crept behind the stove and said: Arigida rigida igida gida! Miraho! Iraho! Aho! Amundus! Mundus! Undus! Ndus! Dus! Us! S! She flung open the door of the stove with a hiss.
Then Fanny stood up and started to stamp, shouting Oh! Oh! Oh!
Amundus said: Unhand me wicked queen as black as night!
And the Queen said: Florinna now you would abandon quite?
Oh! Oh! Oh! screamed Fanny.
Owls fly and little pixies trip over the stage. I was Florinna again. But before I could say a single word, Fanny got off the bench and came on to the stage and started clapping her hands together and crying Oh! Oh! Oh!
Clear off! I said angrily. It’s not finished. You’re not supposed to clap yet!
But Fanny didn’t take any notice of me. She crouched down in front of the stove and got some birch-bark to light. All the smoke came out of the top of the stove as there wasn’t any chimney left and the stove was wet anyway. She went on stamping round and started to sing her Great Rain Song.
You silly ass! I shouted. You’re the audience!
Daddy came across the field. He stopped and said: what on earth are you doing? He looked very surprised.
I’m acting! I shouted. It was for you as well! And now Fanny has ruined the whole thing!
The rain was pouring down now and all the lamps had gone out. I started to cry as hard as I could.
Never mind, Daddy said. Calm down now. He didn’t really know what to say. After a while he said: I’ve caught a four-pounder.
Oh! Oh! Oh! cried Fanny.
I went on ahead to the house, crying all the way, but now it was mostly to make an impression. Daddy followed and lit a candle because all the lamps were in the theatre. He showed me the pike he had caught.
It’s a lovely one, I said, because one must always say something when someone catches a fish. And then it was too late to cry any more. I put on my ordinary clothes again and we had a cup of tea together.
All the time we could hear Fanny beating the gong and singing her rain song. The whole field was full of smoke. Soon the cat got tired of it all and came in too.
That’s Circe, I said casually. She was turned into a cat.
What did you say? Daddy asked.
Oh nothing, I said, because it didn’t seem important any longer.
Next day Fanny was in very good spirits. The sauna door had fallen over and the curtain lay in the grass. We spread it out on the veranda table to dry and left it here until the following summer.
Pets and Females
DADDY LOVES ALL ANIMALS because they don’t contradict him. He likes ones that are furry best. And they love him, too, because they know that they can do just as they like.
But it’s quite a different matter with Females.
If you make statues of them they become women but as long as they remain Females things are difficult. They can’t even pose properly and they talk much too much. Mummy isn’t a Female of course, and never has been one.
Once at twilight when Daddy was standing outside the house a bat flew straight into his arms. Daddy stood quite still and it crept inside his jacket and hung upside down and went to sleep. Daddy didn’t move. We carried his dinner outside to him and he ate it very carefully. No one was allowed to speak. Then we took his plate away and Daddy stayed where he was until it got dark. Then the bat flew around for a while and came back to him again. This time it only stopped for a moment – a kind of courtesy call.
The summer when Mummy made porridge or spaghetti for Pellura every day we didn’t catch any fish in the nets at all. Daddy went out on to the rock and called: Pellura, Pellura, and the gull came to him. Sometimes it brought its children along.
There was a Female who maintained that Pellura wasn’t a common gull at all but a herring-gull that ate up baby eiders and Daddy just hated that Female until she went away.
Pellura had flesh-pink legs and was actually a herring-gull and did eat baby eiders but after the Female had gone we still believed that he was a common gull.
He came when Daddy called, and you can never be taken in by a pet and you can never fool it either. It’s more difficult in town but we do our best. Last spring we had nineteen canaries. I must tell you, once and for all, that canaries are very virulent birds.
It starts with the mother bird and the father bird. They have babies. And before the babies get a single feather on their bodies they have to leave home and the father bird sings again and the mother bird lays new eggs. That’s how things go with canaries.
Daddy had a lot of trouble with them. They perched on the indoor aerial, singing and flapping their wings and splashing about and everything was calm and peaceful and all of a sudden they started being rotten to each other and attacked the smallest and ugliest of them and plucked him bald.
Then Daddy tapped them on the head with his modelling stick and said: you little devils, and they calmed down and just sang.
Daddy went up to his modelling stand and put on some more clay and then stepped backwards again. The rabbits lolloped forward, one on each side of him, and back again. They never changed sides. They loved him. But sometimes it became too much for them and they fought behind his back because they were jealous of each other. Then Daddy tapped them on the head with his modelling stick. Sometimes he tapped me on the head.
But he never taps Poppolino. After Mummy, Daddy loves Poppolino better than anything in the world. Poppolino is even allowed to jump through today’s newspaper because he’s Daddy’s friend. He lives in a big cage on Daddy’s bunk but as soon as he hangs upside down by his tail he’s allowed to come out.
They sit in front of the wireless together and Poppolino listens with one of the headphones and turns the knobs to find the crackling noises. Or else they go to the shop and buy herrings.
When Daddy goes to the shop he often has to tap Females on the head because they can never make up their minds and finger the food and talk politics in a silly way.
And he has to do the same thing every time we go to the cinema because they don’t take their hats off. Females are difficult.
The fact is that on the whole they are asocial and wouldn’t even obey orders during a war, but in any case they’re scared when Daddy taps them on the head, which is always a good thing.
Mummy is no Female and she always takes her hat off.
Mummy looks at Daddy and says: yes, perhaps you’re right, and when she’s alone she does things her own way.
Once Daddy wanted to take Poppolino to see a jungle film but they weren’t allowed in. Daddy is always having trouble with Poppolino. If it’s not Females it’s Poppolino.
On another occasion they went to Gambrini’s Restaurant together to have a nice evening out and were sent home before eleven o’clock. Poppolino hadn’t exactly behaved badly, just shown a little too much interest in a hat, which was the wrong colour anyway. Pets do complicate life.
Many times it happened that Poppolino ate up one of the canaries and each time Daddy was just as sad. But when he thought about it afterwards he realised that it was a good thing after all because there were far too many canaries anyway. Things even themselves out in nature. Anyway, they did their business all over Mummy’s drawings, and – even worse – in her hair!
I know that Daddy adores Mummy’s beautiful hair just as much as James Oliver Curwood adored Jeanette’s hair in Alaska. He put his nose in it in front of the fire and sang softly together with his faithful dogs. Or perhaps he was just whimpering. James Oliver Curwood, I mean, not Daddy.
Daddy always talks about Mummy’s hair when he’s having a party and he goes on to talk about the sort of hair he doesn’t like. There are Females who walk in the street with their hair hanging all over the place, even falling in their eyes. And they never wash it. Females of that kind have no natural dignity and know nothing about their role in society.
The saddest thing that can happen to a man is when his hair gets thin on top. It shows that his hat is too small and means that he is bourgeois and probably henpecked.
But to be bald is something quite different, that is if the skull is sculptural and preferably dolichocephalic like Cavvy’s.
But Daddy has most trouble with Females, particularly if they are posing for him. They often have ugly knees although the torso is good and more often than not they have very tiresome toes. Daddy doesn’t like modelling toes and wants Mummy to do it for him. But Mummy can’t be bothered with toes either.
Poppolino has very pretty toes and fingers. He puts his arms round Daddy’s neck and screams with affection. He comforts anyone who cries. When he gets loose in the street and climbs up the wall of a house the only way of getting him down again is to sit on the pavement and burst into tears.
