Comet in Moominland

by Tove Jansson

  ‘Good-afternoon, Uncle Muskrat!’ said Moomintroll. ‘Do you know that things have begun to happen?’

  ‘Nothing new in any case,’ said the Muskrat.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Completely new. There are people in the forest making secret signs everywhere – threats or warnings or something. When the silk-monkey and I came home a little while ago somebody had arranged mamma’s jam pears in a pattern that looked like a star with a tail.’

  The Muskrat looked at him with his shiny black eyes, twitched his moustache, but said nothing.

  ‘There is something going on,’ persisted Moomintroll. ‘The sea-gulls made the same star, and so did the paths of the ants in the wood. I believe it’s a secret society threatening the little animal Sniff with revenge.’

  The Muskrat shook his head. ‘I have every respect for your deductions,’ he said, ‘but you are wrong, completely and absolutely, and without any doubt.’

  ‘Oh! Well that’s a good thing,’ said Moomintroll.

  ‘Humph!’ rejoined the Muskrat gloomily. ‘Of course it’s all the same to me. But I must admit I feel a trifle gratified that my foreboding was correct.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Moomintroll. ‘That something unnecessary is going to happen?’

  The Muskrat brooded silently, his forehead creased with wrinkles. ‘Do you know what a star with a tail means?’ he asked at last.

  ‘No,’ said Moomintroll.

  ‘It’s a comet,’ said the Muskrat. ‘A glowing star that flashes through the empty black space beyond the sky trailing a fiery tail behind it.’

  ‘Well, strike me pink!’ exclaimed Moomintroll, and his eyes became black with terror. ‘Will it come here?’

  ‘I have not yet considered that point very deeply,’ answered the Muskrat. ‘Perhaps it will come – perhaps not. It’s all the same to a person who knows that everything is unnecessary.’

  Moomintroll looked up at the calm grey sky and thought how everydayish it was. ‘But all the same,’ he muttered, ‘I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.’

  ‘Now I think I shall go to sleep,’ said the Muskrat. ‘Run off and play my child. Play as long as you can.’

  Moomintroll hesitated. ‘Just one more thing,’ he said, ‘is there anybody who knows a little more about the habits of

  comets? Someone who knows if this one will hit the earth or not?’

  ‘Well, the Professors in the Observatory on the Lonely Mountains ought to know that,’ said the Muskrat. ‘If they know anything at all, that is. But now run away and leave me in peace.’

  Moomintroll went off deep in thought.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Sniff who was waiting round the corner. ‘Was it really a secret society?’

  ‘No,’ said Moomintroll.

  ‘And not one of those sky-monsters either?’ asked Sniff anxiously, ‘not a scorpion or a bear?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Moomintroll, ‘don’t worry about it any more.’

  ‘But why are you looking so serious?’ Sniff asked.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ said Moomintroll. ‘I’m thinking about you and me going on an expedition that will be the longest we’ve ever had. We are going to find the Observatory on the Lonely Mountains, and look at the stars through the biggest telescope in the world. And we had better go as soon as possible.’

  CHAPTER 3

  Which is about how to manage crocodiles.

  NEXT morning, before Moomintroll was even properly awake, he felt in his bones that it was going to be a special day. He sat up with a tremendous yawn, and then he remembered that this was the day he and Sniff were to start their great expedition. He ran to the window to look at the weather. It was still overcast, with the clouds hanging low over the hills, and not a leaf stirred in the garden. Moomintroll was so excited he had almost lost his fear of the comet.

  ‘We’ll find out where this nasty piece of work is, and then try to stop it coming here,’ he thought. ‘But I’d better keep this to myself, because if Sniff got to know he’d be so frightened that he wouldn’t be of the smallest use to anybody.’ Out loud he cried: ‘Up you get little animal! We’re starting now.’

  Moominmamma had got up very early to pack their rucksacks, and was bustling to and fro with woolly stockings and packets of sandwiches, while down by the bridge Moominpappa was getting their raft in order.

  ‘Mamma, dear,’ said Moomintroll, ‘we can’t possibly take all that with us. Everyone will laugh.’

  ‘It’s cold in the Lonely Mountains,’ said Moominmamma stuffing in an umbrella and a frying-pan.’ Have you got a compass?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Moomintroll, ‘but couldn’t you at least leave out the plates – we can easily eat off rhubarb leaves.’

  ‘As you like, my beloved Moominchild,’ said his mother, unearthing the plates from the bottom of the rucksack. ‘Now I think everything is ready.’ And she went down to the bridge to see them off.

  The raft was all ready with hoisted sail, and the silk-monkey had come down to say goodbye, but she had refused to go with them because she was afraid of water.

  The Muskrat wasn’t there because he didn’t wish anything to disturb his contemplation of the uselessness of everything (and besides, he was rather annoyed with Moomintroll and Sniff, who had put a hairbrush in his bed).

  ‘Now don’t forget to keep on the right side of the river,’ said Moominpappa. ‘I shouldn’t mind going along too,’ he added rather wistfully, thinking of the adventurous journeys he had had in his youth with the little wandering Hattifatteners.

  Sniff and Moomintroll hugged everyone, the painter was cast off and the raft began to float down the river.

  ‘Don’t forget to give my regards to all the house-troll relatives!’ cried Moominmamma. ‘The shaggy ones, you know, with round heads. And put on your woolly trousers when it’s cold! The tummy powder is in the left-hand pocket of the rucksack!’

  But the raft had already floated round the nearest bend, and in front of them stretched the Unknown, wild and enticing.

  It was late evening. Their rust-red sail hung loosely, and the river lay silver-grey between its shadowy banks. Not a bird sang; even the scatter-brained chaffinches, which usually twitter from morning till night, were silent.

  ‘Not one adventure in a whole day,’ said Sniff, who was taking his turn at steering now the current was slower. ‘Just grey banks and grey banks and grey banks, and not even an adventure.’

  ‘I think it’s very adventurous to float down a winding river,’ said Moomintroll. ‘You never know what you’ll meet round the next corner. You always want adventures, Sniff, and when they come you’re so frightened you don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a lion,’ said Sniff reproachfully. ‘I like small adventures. Just the right size.’

  At that moment the raft floated slowly round a bend.

  ‘Here’s just the right sized adventure for you,’ said Moomintroll pointing. Right in front of them lay what looked like a heap of big grey logs on a sandbank – and the logs were arranged in the secret pattern – a star with a tail!

  ‘There it is again!’ screamed Sniff.

  Suddenly the logs began to move, and produced legs, and then the whole mass slid silently under the water.

  ‘Crocodiles!’ exclaimed Moomintroll, jumping to the rudder. ‘Let’s hope they don’t chase us!’

  The river seemed to be swarming with the monsters whose eyes shone pale green on its surface, and yet more of the fearful grey shadowy bodies were slithering down the muddy bank into the water.

  Sniff sat in the stern, stiff with fear, and only moved when a crocodile lifted its nose beside him, when he beat it wildly over the head with an oar.

  It was a terrible moment. Tails thrashed the water; giant mouths, bristling with needle-sharp teeth, snapped angrily, and the raft rocked up and down in the most alarming way.

  Moomintroll and Sniff clung tightly to the mast and screamed for help, while the raft, caught by a little
wind that had fortunately just got up, began to make headway

  down the river. The crocodiles followed in a long line, their cruel jaws a-gape.

  Sniff hid his face in his paws, while Moomintroll, who was so frightened he hardly knew what he was doing, got the woolly trousers out of the rucksack and threw them to their pursuers.

  This distracted the crocodiles’ attention at once. They tore at the woolly trousers and fought so furiously over them that by the time every bit was devoured Sniff and Moomintroll were miles away.

  ‘Well, strike me pink!’ exclaimed Moomintroll. ‘Are you satisfied with that adventure?’

  ‘You screamed too,’ said Sniff,

  ‘Did I?’ said Moomintroll. ‘I don’t remember. Anyway it was a good thing mamma put in those woolly trousers.’

  Darkness was closing in over the river, so after landing the raft they built a fire between the roots of a big tree, and fried pancakes for supper, which they ate, in their fingers, one by one as they came out of the frying-pan. Then they crept into their sleeping-bags and the night fell.

  CHAPTER 4

  This is about the meeting with Snufkin and a terrible experience with a giant lizard.

  DAY after day the world was shrouded in greyness, but it never rained. Columns of cloud rolled endlessly across the sky, and below them the earth lay waiting, Moomintroll and Sniff floated farther and farther east on their raft. They weren’t used to being without sun, and became melancholy and quiet. Sometimes they had a game of poker or wrote a poem or caught a fish for the pot, but mostly they just sat watching the banks float by. Now and then Moomintroll contemplated the clouds and wondered whether he would see the comet if they divided. But they never did. Often he longed to tell Sniff about the great sky-monster that they were going out to look for, but it was too much of a risk. Sniff would only get in a panic.

  Three times they saw the Hattifatteners, the little white creatures who are for ever wandering restlessly from place to place in their aimless quest for nobody knows what. Once they were fording the river in a shallow place and twice passing by in their small light boats. They seemed more restless than usual, hopping along at a great speed, but as they can neither hear nor speak it wasn’t much use Sniff and Moomintroll even saying ‘hullo’ to them.

  The banks looked different now. Silver poplars, plumtrees and oaks had disappeared, and dark trees with heavy branches stood alone on the deserted sand, while in the distance greyish-yellow mountains climbed steeply towards the sky.

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Moomintroll. ‘Isn’t this river ever going to end?’

  ‘Shall we have a game of poker?’ suggested Sniff.

  Moomintroll shook his head.’ I don’t feel like it,’ he said.

  ‘Then I’ll tell your fortune,’ Sniff persisted. ‘Perhaps you’ve got one of those lucky stars shining on you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Moomintroll bitterly. ‘I’ve had just about enough of stars. With or without tails.’

  Sniff sighed deeply and sat for a long time disconsolately watching the strange landscape, with his nose between his paws. Suddenly his eye was caught by something out of the ordinary. It looked like a yellow ice cream cornet upside down, and was the first brightly coloured thing they had seen for a week. It was down by the edge of the water, and had what looked like a flag flying on top.

  As Moomintroll and Sniff got nearer they heard quite unmistakable sounds of music, and it was cheerful music too. They strained their ears excitedly, drifting slowly nearer. At last they could see it was a tent, and gave a shout of joy.

  The music stopped, and out of the tent came a snufkin with a mouth-organ in his hand. He had a feather in his old green hat and cried: ‘Ahoy! Ship ahoy!’

  Moomintroll caught hold of the rudder and the raft swung towards land.

  ‘Off with the painter!’ shouted Snufkin, hopping eagerly

  up and down. ‘Fancy that! What fun! Coming all this way just to see me!’

  ‘Well – we didn’t exactly,’ began Moomintroll, clambering ashore.

  ‘Never mind!’ answered Snufkin. ‘The main thing is that you’re here. You’ll stay the night, won’t you?’

  ‘We should love to,’ said Moomintroll. ‘We haven’t seen a soul since we left home, and that was ages ago. Why in the world do you live here in this desert?’

  ‘I’m a tramp, and I live all over the place,’ answered Snufkin. ‘I wander about and when I find a place that I like I put up my tent and play my mouth-organ.’

  ‘Do you like this place?’ asked Sniff in surprise, looking at the desolation all around them.

  ‘Certainly I do,’ said Snufkin. ‘Look at that black velvet tree with the beautiful grey colours beyond; look at the mountains that are deep purple-red in the distance! And sometimes a big blue buffalo comes to look at himself in the river.’

  ‘You aren’t by any chance – er – a painter?’ asked Moomintroll rather shyly.

  ‘Or perhaps a poet?’ suggested Sniff.

  ‘I am everything!’ said Snufkin, putting on the kettle. ‘And you are discoverers I can see. What are you thinking of discovering?’

  Moomintroll cleared his throat and felt very proud. ‘Oh, everything,’ he said. ‘Stars for example!’

  Snufkin was deeply impressed.

  ‘Stars!’ he exclaimed. ‘Then I must come with you. Stars are my favourite things. I always lie and look at them before I go to sleep and wonder who is on them and how one could get there. The sky looks so friendly with all those little eyes twinkling in it.’

  ‘The star we’re looking for isn’t so very friendly,’ said Moomintroll.’ Quite the contrary in fact.’

  ‘What did you say?’ said Sniff.

  Moomintroll went a bit red. ‘I mean – stars in general,’ he said, ‘big and small, friendly and unfriendly and so on.’

  ‘Can they be unfriendly?’ asked Snufkin.

  ‘Yes – ones with tails,’ answered Moomintroll. ‘Comets.’

  At last it dawned on Sniff. ‘You’re hiding something from me!’ he said accusingly. ‘That pattern we saw everywhere, and you said it didn’t mean anything!’

  ‘You’re too small to be told everything,’ answered Moomintroll.

  ‘Too small!’ screamed Sniff.’ I must say it’s a fine thing to take me on an expedition of discovery and not tell me what I’m supposed to be discovering!’

  ‘Don’t take it too hard,’ said Snufkin. ‘Sit down Moomintroll, and tell us what it’s all about.’

  Moomintroll took the cup of coffee that Snufkin had given him, sat down, and proceeded to tell them everything that the Muskrat had said.

  ‘And then I asked pappa if comets were dangerous,’ he went on, ‘and pappa said that they were. That they rushed

  about like mad things in the black empty space beyond the sky trailing a flaming tail behind them. All the other stars keep to their courses, and go along just like trains on their rails, but comets can go absolutely anywhere; they pop up here and there wherever you least expect them.’

  ‘Like me,’ said Snufkin, laughing. ‘They must be sky-tramps!’

  Moomintroll looked disapprovingly at him. ‘It’s nothing to laugh at,’ he said. ‘It would be a terrible thing if a comet hit the earth.’

  ‘What would happen then?’ whispered Sniff.

  ‘Everything would explode,’ said Moomintroll, gloomily.

  There was a long silence.

  Then Snufkin said slowly: ‘It would be awful if the earth exploded. It’s so beautiful.’

  ‘And what about us?’ said Sniff.

  But Moomintroll felt much braver now he had shared the secret with the others. He drew himself up and said:’ That’s why we are going to look for the Observatory on the Lonely Mountains. They’ve got the biggest telescope in the world there, and we shall be able to find out if the comet is going to hit the earth or not.’

  ‘What about taking my flag with us?’ suggested Snufkin. ‘We could put it at the masthead of your raft.’

>   They looked at his flag. ‘The blue on top is the sky,’ he went on, ‘and the blue underneath is the sea. The line in between them is a road, the dot on the left is me at the moment, and the dot on the right is me in the future. Do you approve?’

  ‘You could hardly get any more on a flag,’ said Moomintroll. ‘We approve!’

  ‘But I’m not on it,’ said Sniff.

  ‘The dot on the left can be all of us, seen from a great height,’ Snufkin said consolingly. ‘And now I think we’ll explore a bit before supper.’

  So they set off, climbing cautiously between the rocks and prickly undergrowth.

  ‘I just want to show you a cleft with garnets in it,’ said Snufkin. ‘It’s not as beautiful as it can be of course in this dull light, but when the sun shines you ought to see it glittering.’

  ‘Are they real garnets?’ asked Sniff.

  ‘That I don’t know,’ Snufkin answered, ‘but anyway they’re beautiful.’

  He led them up through a wild ravine, silent and deserted

  in the dim evening light, and they talked in whispers. Suddenly Snufkin paused. ‘Here,’ he said softly.

  They bent down and looked. At the bottom of deep narrow cleft myriads of garnets glowed dimly in the darkness and Moomintroll thought of the black space beyond the sky with thousands of comets glittering in it.

  ‘Oh!’ whispered Sniff. ‘Wonderful! Are they yours?’

  ‘As long as I live here,’ said Snufkin carelessly. ‘I’m monarch of all I survey. I own the whole earth.’

  ‘Do you think I could have some?’ asked Sniff wistfully, ‘I might be able to buy a yacht with them, or a pair of roller-skates,’ and when Snufkin laughed and told him to take what he liked, he immediately jumped into the cleft and began to climb down. He scraped his nose, and almost lost his footing, but the thought of the garnets gave him courage, and at last, with a deep sigh and paws that trembled a little, he began to collect the shining stones. The pile grew larger and larger as he ran, trembling with excitement, farther and farther along the cleft.