Comet in Moominland (5 page)

'What is it now?' asked Moominmamma, who sat stirring the jam. Sniff crept very close to her and hid his nose in her apron. 'A secret society is after me,' he whispered. 'It's coming to get me and...'

'Not while I'm here,' said Moominmamma. 'Now, what about a nice saucepan to lick out?'

'I daren't,' whimpered Sniff. 'Not now. Perhaps never!' A little later on he said: 'Well, perhaps just the edge. While I'm waiting.'

When Moomintroll arrived, his mother's biggest jam pot was already full, and Sniff was just licking out the bottom of the saucepan.

'H'm,' said Moomintroll. 'Strange goings on.'

'What now?' asked Sniff, looking up anxiously from the saucepan.

'Nothing,' answered Moomintroll, who didn't want to frighten him still more. 'I'm going to talk to the Muskrat for a bit.'

The Muskrat was still lying in his hammock and thinking.

'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.

N
EXT
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.