Comet in Moominland (13 page)

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 when 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.

O
N
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.