Tales From Moominvalley (3 page)

to
me
, Teety-woo. And Teety-woo may think this or think that about it, as the case may be - if you see what I mean?'

'Certainly, I see,' said Snufkin. 'That's good for you.'

Teety-woo nodded and started to rummage in the bushes.

'Know what,' Snufkin said, 'I'm on my way to Moomintroll still. As a matter of fact I really want to see him.'

'Oh?' said Teety-woo, 'Moomintroll? Yes.'

'Perhaps you'd like to hear some tunes before I have to start,' Snufkin continued, 'Or maybe a few stories?'

The creep stuck out its head and said:

'Stories? Oh, yes. Later tonight, perhaps. Just at the moment I'm in quite a hurry - I'm sure you don't mind...'

The light brown tail vanished in the heather, and after a while Teety-woo's ears came to view a bit further away, and he called out:

'Cheerio, and give my greetings to Moomintroll! I'll have to live as fast as I can, because I've lost a lot of time already!'

Then he was gone.

Snufkin scratched his head.

So, he said to himself. Yes. I see.

He stretched out on his back and looked up into the spring sky. It was a clear dark blue straight above him and sea green over the tree tops. Somewhere under his hat the tune began to move, one part expectation, and two parts spring sadness, and for the rest just a colossal delight at being alone.

A Tale of Horror

T
HE
next-to-youngest whomper was crawling along beside the back garden fence. Every now and then he lay quite still, watching the enemy, before he continued. His baby brother came crawling behind him.

By the vegetable patch the whomper flattened himself against the ground and sidled to cover among the lettuces. That was his only chance. The place was teeming with enemy scouts, and some of them swarmed in the air.

'I'm black all over,' said his baby brother.

'Shut up, if you value your life,' the whomper whispered back. 'What colour do you expect to become in a mangrove swamp? Blue?'

'This is lettuce,' said his baby brother.

'And you're going to be a grown-up in no time if you keep that up,' the whomper said. 'You'll be like daddy and mummy, and serve you right. Then you'll see and hear just ordinary things, I mean you'll see and hear simply nothing, and that's the end.'

'Mphm,' said his baby brother and started to eat a little earth.

'That's poisoned,' the whomper said curtly. 'And all the fruit in this country is poisoned too. And look, now they've spotted us, thanks to you.'

Two scouts came humming down towards them across the pea rows, but the whomper killed them swiftly. Panting from excitement and exertion he slid down in the ditch and sat there, still as a frog. He listened so hard that it made his ears wobble and his head nearly burst. The rest of the scouts were keeping very quiet, but they were advancing all the time, creeping silently towards him through the grass. The prairie grass. They were innumerable.

'Listen,' said his baby brother from the edge of the ditch. 'I want to go home.'

'You'll never see home again,' his brother said glumly. 'Your bones will lie bleaching on the prairie, and daddy and mummy'll weep till they drown, and there'll be

nothing more left of you then, nothing at all, or just a little for the hyenas to howl over.'

The whomper's baby brother opened his mouth, took a large breath and started to cry.

The whomper judged from the sound of it that this cry was going to last long. So he left his baby brother alone and crawled further along the ditch. He had lost every idea of the enemy's whereabouts, he didn't even know what the enemy looked like any more.

He felt tricked and thought: I wish baby brothers didn't exist. They should be born big or not at all. They don't know a thing about war. They should be kept in boxes until they understand.

The ditch was wet, and the whomper got up and began to wade along it. It was a large and very long ditch. He decided to discover the South Pole and continued his way, more and more exhausted each day, because his food and water were finished, and, for worse luck, a polar bear had bitten him in the leg.

Finally the ditch came to an end, disappearing in the earth, and the whomper was all alone at the South Pole.

He was standing on the marsh.

The marsh was grey and dark green, dotted with black gleaming pools. Lots of white cottongrass grew everywhere, like snow, and the air had a nice, musty smell.

The marsh is out of bounds, the whomper thought aloud. It's out of bounds to smaller whompers, and grown-up ones don't ever go there. But I'm the only one who knows why it's dangerous. This is the place where the Ghost Wagon rolls by on its great and heavy wheels. You can hear its rumble from afar but no one's ever seen the driver...

Oh no! the whomper interrupted himself. Suddenly he felt cold and afraid, from his stomach upwards. A moment ago the Ghost Wagon hadn't existed. Nobody had ever heard of it. Then he thought it up, and there it was. Somewhere far away, waiting for the darkness to start rolling along.

I think, said the whomper, I rather think I'm a

whomper who has looked and searched for his home for ten years. And now this whomper gets a sudden feeling that his home is somewhere quite near.

He sniffed for the right direction and set off. While he walked he thought a bit about mud snakes and live fungi that came crawling after one - until they were there and started to grow in the moss.

Those things could swallow up a baby brother in a jiffy, he thought sadly. Perhaps they've even done it already. They're everywhere. I fear the worst. But there is hope still, a relief expedition might save him.

He started to run.

Poor baby brother, the whomper thought. So small, and so silly. If the mud snakes have got him I'll have no baby brother any more, and then I'll be the youngest.

He sobbed and ran, his hair was damp from fright, he came darting over the yard, past the wood-shed, up the front steps, calling at the top of his voice:

'Mummy! Daddy! Baby brother's been eaten up!'

The whomper's mother was big and worried. She was always worried. Now she jumped to her feet and spilled peas from her pinafore all over the floor and cried:

'What? What! What are you saying? Where's baby brother? Haven't you looked after him?'

'Oh,' said the whomper a little calmer, 'he fell in a mud hole in the marsh. And almost at once a mud snake came out and wound itself around his fat little stomach and bit his nose off. Yes. I'm quite beside myself, but then what can one do? There's so many more mud snakes than baby brothers.'

'Snake?' cried his mother.

But his father said: 'Take it easy. He's telling fibs again. Mark my words.' And the whomper's father quickly looked out of the window so as not to be worried, and saw that baby brother was sitting in the yard, busy eating sand.

'How many times have I told you not to tell stories,' the whomper's daddy said, and his mummy cried a little and asked: 'Should he have a smacking?'

'Probably,' the whomper's daddy said, 'but I don't feel up to it at the moment. If he'll just admit that lying is nasty.'

'I've never lied,' said the whomper.

'You told us that your baby brother was swallowed up, and he isn't swallowed up,' his father explained.

'That's splendid, isn't it?' said the whomper. 'Aren't you happy?
I'm
terribly glad and relieved. Those mud snakes can swallow anybody up in a jiffy, you know. There's not even a bit left over, nothing but desolation and night and the distant laugh of the hyenas.'

'Please,' said his mother.
'Please.'

'So all's well that ends well,' the whomper concluded happily. 'Do we have dessert tonight?'

At this the whomper's daddy suddenly became enraged and said: 'Not for you, my boy. You'll get no dinner at all until you understand that one mustn't lie.'

'Of course one mustn't,' said the whomper surpris-edly. 'It's a bad thing to do.'

'You see how it is,' said his mummy. 'Now let him have his dinner, he doesn't understand this at all.'

'No,' said his daddy. 'If I've said no dinner, then it is no dinner.'

Because this poor daddy had got the idea that the whomper would never trust him any more if he took a word back.