Comet in Moominland

by Tove Jansson

  ‘Oh, well, he said, ‘I might as well go round the corner and try them on. But I very much doubt if they’ll be my shape.’ And he disappeared into the garden.

  ‘Now, what about you, my dear?’ said the old lady, turning to Moomintroll, who wriggled with embarrassment and asked shyly: ‘Have you got such a thing as a diamond tiara?’

  ‘A diamond tiara?’ the old lady asked in surprise. ‘What are you going to do with that?’

  ‘He wants to give it to the Snork Maiden, of course,’ squeaked Sniff, who was sitting on the floor drinking green lemonade through a straw. ‘He’s been quite dotty since he met that girl.’

  ‘It’s not dotty at all to give jewellery to a girl,’ said the old lady severely. ‘You are too young to understand, but as a matter of fact, a jewel is the only correct present for a lady.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sniff, and buried his nose in the lemonade.

  The old lady searched all her shelves, but there was no tiara.

  ‘Perhaps there’s one under the counter?’ suggested Moomintroll.

  The old lady had a look. ‘No,’ she said sadly, ‘not there either. Fancy not having a single tiara. But perhaps a little pair of Snork-mittens would do instead?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure…’ said Moomintroll, looking very worried.

  At that moment the door-bell tinkled and the Snork maiden herself came into the shop.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. ‘What a beautiful looking-glass you have out there in the garden! Since I lost my pocket one I’ve had to look at myself in puddles, and you look so funny in puddles.’

  The old lady winked at Moomintroll, took something from a shelf and passed it to him under the counter. Moomintroll glanced down: it was a little round looking-glass with a silver rim, and on the back was a red rose studded with rubies. He was very pleased and winked back at the old lady. The Snork maiden hadn’t noticed anything.

  ‘Have you any medals, ma’am?’ she asked.

  ‘Any what, my dear?’ said the old lady.

  ‘Medals,’ said the Snork maiden.’ Stars to hang on the chest. Gentlemen like such things.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said the old lady. ‘Medals.’ And she looked all over the place – on all the shelves and under the counter.

  ‘Haven’t you got any?’ asked the Snork maiden, and a tear began to trickle down her nose.

  The old lady looked most unhappy, but she suddenly had an idea and climbed up the ladder to the highest shelf, where there was a box of Christmas-tree decorations, and amongst these she found a big silver star.

  ‘Look!’ she cried, holding it up,’ here’s a medal for you!’

  ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ the Snork maiden burst out. Then she turned to Moomintroll and said shyly: ‘This is for you Moomintroll. Because you saved me from the poisonous bush.’

  Moomintroll was overwhelmed. He knelt down, and the Snork maiden pinned the star somewhere about his tummy (Moomintrolls’ noses cover up their chests, so you can’t very well pin medals there), where it shone with matchless splendour.

  ‘Now you should see how wonderful you look,’ said the Snork maiden. At this Moomintroll brought out the looking-glass that he had been holding behind his back. ‘I bought this for you,’ he said.’ Show me how you look in it!’

  While they were gazing at themselves in the glass and exclaiming ‘Oh’, and ‘Ah’, the door-bell tinkled again and Snufkin came in.

  ‘I think it would be better if the trousers got older here,’ he said. ‘They aren’t my shape yet.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the old lady. ‘What a pity! But perhaps you’d like a new hat?’

  However this idea only filled Snufkin with alarm, and he pulled his old green hat farther down over his ears and said: ‘Thank you, but I was just thinking how dangerous it is to load yourself up with belongings.’

  The Snork had been sitting all this time writing in his exercise book, and now he got to his feet and said: ‘One thing to remember when you are escaping from a comet is not to stand about too long in village stores. I suggest therefore that we continue our journey. Hurry up and finish your lemonade, Sniff.’

  Sniff tried to gulp the lot and of course most of it went on the floor.

  ‘He always does that,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘What does all that come to please?’ the Snork asked the old lady. She began to count up, and while she was doing so Moomintroll suddenly remembered that they hadn’t any money with them. None of them even had pockets except Snufkin, and his were always empty. Moomintroll nudged him, making desperate signs with his eyebrows, and the Snork and his sister looked at each other in horror. Not one of them had a single penny!

  ‘That’ll be 1¾d. for the exercise book, and 3d. for the lemonade,’ said the old lady. ‘The star is 5d. and the looking-glass IId. because it has real rubies on the back. That will be I/8¾d. altogether.’

  Nobody said anything. The Snork maiden picked up the looking-glass and laid it on the counter with a sigh. Moomintroll started unpinning his medal, the Snork wondered if exercise books cost more or less after you had written in them, and Sniff just thought about his lemonade, which was mostly on the floor anyway.

  The old lady gave a little cough.

  ‘Well now, my children,’ she said. ‘There are the old trousers that Snufkin didn’t want; they are worth exactly 1/8d., so you see one cancels out the other, and you don’t really owe me anything at all.’

  ‘Is that really so?’ asked Moomintroll doubtfully.

  ‘It’s as clear as day, little Moomintroll,’ said the old lady. ‘I’ll keep the trousers.’

  The Snork tried to count it up in his head, but he couldn’t, so he wrote it in the exercise book like this:

  s. d.

  Exercise book

  1¾

  Lemonade

  3

  Medal

  5

  Looking-glass (with rubies)

  11

  Total

  1 8¾

  Trousers

  1 8

  1/8d. = 1/8d.

  3/4d. left over.

  ‘It’s quite right,’ he said in surprise.

  ‘But there’s 3/4d. over,’ said Sniff. ‘Don’t we get that?’

  ‘Don’t be mean,’ said Snufkin. ‘We’ll call it even.’

  So they thanked the old lady and were just leaving when the Snork maiden remembered something. ‘Can you tell us where the dancing is tonight please?’ she asked.

  ‘Well,’ said the old lady, ‘you just follow the path until you come to it – and nothing begins until the moon gets up.’

  They had left the Village Stores some way behind when Moomintroll stopped and put his hand to his head. ‘The comet!’ he exclaimed. ‘We must warn the old lady about it, mustn’t we? Perhaps she would like to come with us and hide in the cave. Sniff, will you run back and ask her?’

  Sniff trotted off, and they sat down by the side of the path to wait.

  ‘Can you dance the samba?’ the Snork maiden asked Moomintroll.

  ‘Well, a bit,’ he answered, ‘but I like the waltz best.’

  ‘We’ve hardly got time for this dance tonight,’ said the Snork. ‘Look at the sky.’

  They looked.

  ‘It’s got bigger,’ said Snufkin. ‘Yesterday it was a mere pin-head. Now it’s the size of an egg.’

  ‘But I’m sure you can do the tango,’ went on the Snork maiden. ‘One short step to the side and two long steps backwards.’

  ‘It sounds easy,’ said Moomintroll.

  ‘Sister,’ said the Snork, ‘you haven’t a serious thought in your head. Can’t you ever keep to the point?’

  ‘We began talking about dancing,’ said the Snork maiden, ‘and then suddenly you started talking about the comet. I’m still talking about dancing.’

  Then they both slowly began to change colour. But luckily Sniff ran up just then. ‘She doesn’t want to come with us,’ he said. ‘She is going to creep into the cellar w
hen it comes. But she is very grateful and sent us a lollipop each.’

  ‘You didn’t ask for them by any chance?’ asked Moomintroll suspiciously.

  ‘Wretched wretch!’ exclaimed Sniff indignantly. ‘What an idea! She thought we ought to have them as she owed us 3/4d. And after all that’s quite true.’

  So they went on, sucking their lollipops, while the sun sank behind the trees, shrouded in a grey mist.

  The moon came up, looking rather green and pale, and the comet shone stronger than ever. It was now nearly as big as the sun and lit up the whole wood with its strange red light.

  They found the dance floor in a little clearing, round which thousands of glow-worms had kindly festooned themselves. Nearby sat a giant grass-hopper with a large mug of beer in his hand, and a fiddle on the grass beside him.

  ‘Phew!’ he said. ‘It’s pretty warm to be playing all the time.’

  ‘Who are you playing for?’ asked the Snork maiden looking at the empty dance floor.

  ‘Oh, the forest creatures from hereabouts,’ said the grass-hopper with a sweep of his arm, and took another drink. ‘But the silly little things aren’t satisfied. They say my music isn’t modern enough.’

  Then they realized that the place was swarming with all kinds of strange little people. Even the water-spooks who had come up out of the dried up marshes and forest pools were there, and groups of tree-spirits sat gossiping under the birch trees. (A tree-spirit is a beautiful little creature who lives in a tree-trunk, but at night she flies up to the top of the tree to swing in the branches – she isn’t usually found in trees that have needles instead of leaves.)

  The Snork maiden picked up her looking-glass to see if the flower behind her ear looked all right, and Moomintroll put his medal straight. It was a long time since they had been to a real ball.

  ‘I don’t want to offend the grass-hopper,’ whispered Snufkin, ‘but do you think I could play a little for them on my mouth-organ?’

  ‘Why don’t you play together?’ suggested the Snork. ‘Teach him that song “All small beasts should have bows in their tails”.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Snufkin. And he took the grass-hopper behind a bush (it wasn’t a poisonous one this time) to teach him the song.

  After a while a few notes were heard, and then some trills and twiddles. All the small creatures stopped chattering and went down to the clearing to listen. ‘That sounds modern,’ they said. ‘You can dance to that.’

  ‘Oh, mamma!’ exclaimed one very small creature, pointing at Moomintroll’s star, ‘there’s a general!’

  whereupon they all gathered round the travellers with cries of astonishment and admiration.

  ‘How nice and fluffy you are!’ they said to the Snork maiden. And the tree-spirits looked at themselves in the looking-glass with rubies on the back, and the water-spooks put their wet autographs in the Snork’s exercise book.

  Then there were sounds from behind the bush, and out came Snufkin and the grass-hopper playing with all their might.

  There was a dreadful muddle at first while they all tried to sort each other out, but at last everybody found the person he wanted to dance with, and they started off.

  The Snork maiden taught Moomintroll how to dance the samba (which isn’t at all easy if you have very short legs). The Snork danced with an elderly and respectable inhabitant of the marshes, who had sea-weed in her hair, and Sniff twirled round with the smallest of the small creatures. Even the midges danced, and every possible kind of creeping thing came out of the forest to have a look.

  And nobody gave a thought to the comet that was rushing towards them, lighting up the black night with its fierce glow.

  At about twelve o’clock a huge barrel of palm-wine was rolled out, and everybody got a little birch-bark mug to drink out of. Then the glow-worms rolled themselves together into a ball in the middle of the glade, and everybody sat round drinking wine and eating sandwiches (which had also been provided).

  ‘Now we should tell a story,’ said Sniff, turning to the smallest of the small creatures, ‘do you know one. Little Creep?’

  ‘Oh, no, really,’ whispered the Little Creep, who was terribly shy. ‘Oh, no, well, really, perhaps.’

  ‘Well, out with it then,’ said Sniff.

  ‘There was a wood-rat called Poot?’ said the Little Creep, looking shyly between her paws.

  ‘Well, what happened then?’ prompted Sniff.

  ‘The story’s finished now,’ said the Little Creep, and burrowed into the moss in confusion.

  They all roared with laughter, and those who had tails beat them on the ground in appreciation. Then Moomintroll asked Snufkin for a song.

  ‘We’ll take the Higgely-piggely song,’ he said.

  ‘But that’s so sad,’ protested the Snork maiden.

  ‘Well, let’s have it anyway,’ said Moomintroll, ‘because it’s such a good whistling song.’ So Snufkin played and everybody joined in with the refrain:

  Higgely-piggely,

  Path is so wiggely,

  Time is past four.

  Almost dead beat

  On tired little feet;

  No friendly door.

  The Snork maiden leant her head on Moomintroll’s shoulder. ‘It’s just what has happened to us,’ she sobbed. ‘Here we are almost dead-beat on tired little feet, and we shall never get home.’

  ‘Yes, we shall,’ said Moomintroll, ‘don’t cry. And when we get there Mamma will have dinner ready and she’ll take us in her arms, and think what fun it will be to tell them all about what has happened to us.’

  ‘And I shall have a pearl ankle-ring,’ said the Snork maiden, drying her tears. ‘And what about a pearl tie-pin for you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Moomintroll, ‘that would be nice, but then I hardly ever wear a tie.’ The Snork maiden couldn’t think of an answer to this, so they stopped talking, and listened to Snufkin who was still playing his mouth-organ. He played one song after another, until gradually all the little animals and water-spooks faded back into the wood. The tree spirits crept into their trees, and the Snork maiden went to sleep with her looking-glass in her paw.

  At last the songs were ended and it was quite still in the glade. The glow-worms went out one by one, and very slowly the night crept towards morning.

  CHAPTER 9

  Which is about a fantastic crossing of the dried-up sea and how the Snork Maiden rescues Moomintroll from a giant octopus.

  ON the fifth of October the birds stopped singing. The sun was so pale that you could hardly see it at all, and over the wood the comet hung like a cartwheel, surrounded by a ring of fire.

  Snufkin didn’t play his mouth-organ that day. He was very quiet and thought to himself, ‘I haven’t felt so depressed for a long time. I usually feel sad, in a way, when a good party is over, but this is something different. It’s horrible when the sun has gone and the forest is silent.’

  The others hadn’t much to say either. Sniff had a headache and was grumbling to himself. Their feet were tired after so much dancing, and progress was a bit slow.

  Gradually the trees thinned out, and by and by a landscape of deserted sand-dunes lay before them: nothing but soft sandy hillocks with here and there tufts of blue-grey sea-oats.

  ‘I can’t smell the sea,’ said Moomintroll, sniffing. ‘Phew! It’s hot.’

  ‘Perhaps this is a desert,’ said Sniff.

  On and on they went, up one hill and down another, and it was heavy going on the soft sand.

  ‘Look!’ said the Snork suddenly. ‘The Hattifatteners are on the move again.’ And sure enough there in the distance was a wavering line of little figures.

  ‘They’re going east,’ said the Snork.’ Perhaps we’d better follow them, because they always know where danger lies and try to get away from it.’

  ‘But we must go this way,’ said Moomintroll. ‘The Valley is to the west.’

  ‘I’m so thirsty,’ wailed Sniff.

  But nobody answered.
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br />   Tired and discouraged they struggled on. The sand-dunes gradually got flatter and flatter, and then stopped at a line of sea-weed glistening in the red light. Beyond this was a pebbly beach – and then… They stood in a row and stared!

  ‘Well, strike me pink!’ said Moomintroll.

  Where the sea should have been, with soft blue waves and friendly sails, there gaped a yawning abyss.

  Hot steam rose from the depths of great cracks that seemed to go down to the very heart of the earth, and below them the cliff went down… down…

  ‘Moomintroll!’ gasped the Snork maiden. ‘The whole sea has dried up.’

  ‘What will the fishes say to that?’ exclaimed Sniff.

  The Snork took out his exercise book, and added something to the list headed: ‘Risks encountered during Approach of Comet,’ but Snufkin sat down with his head in his hands and wailed: ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear, the beautiful sea

  quite gone. No more sailing, no more swimming, no more fishing. No great storms, no transparent ice and no gleaming black water reflecting the stars. Finished, lost, gone!’ And he put his head on his knees and cried as if his heart would break.

  ‘But Snuff,’ said Moomintroll reproachfully, ‘you have always been so happy-go-lucky. It’s dreadful to see you despairing like this.’

  ‘I know,’ said Snufkin. ‘But I’ve always loved the sea more than anything else. This is so sad.’

  ‘Especially for the fish,’ squeaked Sniff.

  ‘What seems to be most important,’ said the Snork, ‘is how we are going to get across this huge gap, because we haven’t got time to go round it.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Moomintroll agreed anxiously.

  ‘Let’s hold a meeting,’ said the Snork. ‘I will take the chair. Now, what alternatives have we for crossing a dried-up sea?’

  ‘Flying,’ said Sniff.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said the Snork. ‘Proposal rejected.