Moominland Midwinter (8 page)

Moomintroll went home.

Before he went to bed he cautiously pulled Moomin-mamma's ear and told her: 'It wasn't a very funny party.'

'Really, dear me,' mumbled Moominmamma in her sleep. 'Perhaps next time...'

But under the sink sat the beast with the bushy eyebrows, grumbling to himself.

'Radamsah!' he said crossly. 'Radamsah!' and shrugged his shoulders violently. Probably no one in the whole valley would have understood what he was saying.

*

Too-ticky was sitting under the ice with her fishing-rod. She liked the sea's habit of sinking a bit now and then. At those times she could easily climb down through a hole by the landing-stage and seat herself on a boulder to fish. Then one had a nice green ceiling of ice overhead, and the sea at one's feet.

A black floor and a green ceiling, both stretching away into the darkness.

Beside Too-ticky lay four small fish. One more, and she'd have her soup.

Suddenly she heard impatient steps coming nearer on the landing-stage. Up there Moomintroll rapped at the bathing-house door. He waited a moment and knocked again.

'Ho!' shouted Too-ticky. 'I'm under the ice!'

The echo raised its head somewhere to the left of her and shouted: 'Ho!' It went sliding back and forth several times and cried: 'Under the ice!'

After a while Moomintroll's snout cautiously appeared in the opening. His ears were decorated with limp gold ribbons.

He looked at the steaming, black water and at Too-ticky's four fish.

He shivered, and said: 'Well, he didn't come.'

'Who didn't?' asked Too-ticky.

'The sun!' cried Moomintroll.

'The sun,' repeated the echo. 'Sun, sun, sun...' farther and farther off, weaker and weaker.

Too-ticky hauled on her line.

'Don't be in such a hurry,' she said. 'He's been coming on this day every year, so probably he'll do it now again. Pull up your snout so I can come out of here.'

Too-ticky clambered up to the surface and sat down on the bathing-house steps. She sniffed lightly and listened. Then she said: 'Soon now. Sit down and wait.'

Little My came skating over the ice and sat down beside them. She had tied tin lids under her shoes for better speed.

'So here we're waiting for something wonderful again,' she said. 'Not that I wouldn't like a little daylight.'

Two old crows came flapping from the wood and alighted on the roof of the bathing-house. The minutes passed.

All at once the fluff on Moomintroll's back bristled, and in great excitement he saw a red light gathering on the dusky sky just over the horizon. It thickened to a narrow, red sliver of fire that threw long, red rays of light along the ice.

'There he is!' cried Moomintroll.

He lifted Little My in his arms and kissed her smack on the nose.

'Golly, what a fuss,' said Little My. 'What's all this to make such a noise about?'

'Of course!' cried Moomintroll. 'Spring! Warmth! Everybody'll wake up! How splendid.'

He took the four fish and threw them high in the air. He stood on his head. He had never felt so happy in his life.

And then the ice became dark again.

The crows took off and went slowly flapping over the shore. Too-ticky gathered up her fishes, and the little red strip had hidden itself under the horizon.

'Did he change his mind?' Moomintroll asked, horrified.

'No wonder after taking a peep at you,' said Little My, and skated off on her tin lids.

'He'll return tomorrow,' replied Too-ticky. 'And then he'll be a tiny bit bigger, about like a piece of cheese rind. Take it easy.'

And Too-ticky crept back under the ice to fill her soup-kettle with sea-water.

Of course she was right. It can't be done in a trice for a sun to appear in the sky. But you won't be less disappointed just because other people are right and you are not.

Moomintroll sat staring down at the ice, and suddenly he felt that he was becoming angry. It started down in his tummy like all strong feelings. He felt that somebody had pulled his leg.

And he felt a fool for having made such a noise, and tied gold ribbons about his ears. That made him angrier still.

Finally he felt that he had to do something really terrible, and forbidden, to be able to calm down again. And
at once.

He started to his feet, ran over the landing-stage and into the bathing-house. He went straight to the cupboard and threw the door wide open.

There hung the bath-gowns. There lay the rubber Hemulen that wasn't quite air-tight. Just as they had been last summer. But on the floor a grey little thing was sitting and staring at him, very hairy and grey and snouty.

Then it came to life and whizzed past him like a draught, and disappeared. He saw its tail slide out through the chink at the bathing-house door like a piece of black string. The tuft caught for a fleeting moment but was pulled free, and then the beast was gone.

Too-ticky came in with the kettle between her paws and said: 'So you couldn't keep from opening the door?'

'There was only a sort of old rat,' Moomintroll replied surlily.

'That was no rat,' said Too-ticky. 'It was a troll. A

troll of the kind you were yourself before you became a Moomin. That was how you looked a thousand years ago.'

Moomintroll found no reply. He went home and sat down in the drawing-room to think.

After a while Little My dropped in to borrow some candles and sugar. 'I hear terrible things about you,' she said happily. 'They say you've been letting your own forefather out of the cupboard. You resemble each other, I hear.'

'Shut up, please,' said Moomintroll.

He went up to the attic and found the family album.

Page after page of dignified Moomins, most often reproduced standing in front of porcelain stoves, or on fretworked verandahs. Not a single one of them resembled the cupboard troll.

'Must be a mistake,' Moomintroll thought. 'He can't be any relation of mine.'

He went down and looked at his sleeping Daddy. Only

the snout bore some resemblance to the troll's. But possibly, a thousand years ago...?

The cut-glass chandelier started jingling. It was slowly swaying back and forth, and something was moving about inside the gauze. Something small and hairy. A long, black tail was hanging straight down among the prisms.

'There he is,' Moomintroll murmured. 'My ancestor has set himself up in the chandelier.'

But now this didn't seem so very bad. Moomintroll was getting accustomed to the bewitched time of winter.

'How are you?' he asked softly. The troll looked at him through the gauze and wiggled its ears.

'Be careful with the chandelier,' Moomintroll continued. 'It's a family piece.'

The troll tilted its head and looked intently at him, obviously trying to listen.

'Now he's going to speak,' thought Moomintroll. All at once he felt terribly afraid that his ancestor might try to tell him something. What if he spoke some foreign language, like the little beast with the eyebrows? If he became angry and said 'radamsah' or something? And then they'd perhaps never be friends afterwards.

'Hush!' whispered Moomintroll. 'Don't say anything,'

Perhaps they were related after all. And relatives who have come on a visit may stay for any length of time. If it's an ancestor he may stay for ever. Who can tell? If one weren't careful he might misunderstand one and be angry. And then the family would have to live with an angry ancestor all their lives.

'Hush!' repeated Moomintroll. 'Hush!'

The ancestor slightly the prisms slightly but said nothing.

'I'll show him about the house,' Moomintroll thought. 'That's what Mother'd have done if a relative had come on a visit.'

He took the lamp and held it before a beautiful hand-painted picture called 'Fillyjonk at window'. The troll looked at it and shrugged his shoulders.

Moomintroll went on to the plush sofa. He showed the troll all the chairs, one by one, the drawing-room mirror and the meerschaum tram, everything of beauty and value that the Moomin family possessed.

The troll looked attentively at it all but it was clear that it didn't understand the use of the things. Finally Moomintroll sighed and placed the lamp on the mantelpiece. But this caught the troll's interest very strongly.

It dropped down from the chandelier and went scuttling round the porcelain stove like a little grey bundle of rags. It stuck its head inside the shutters and sniffed at the ashes. It showed great curiosity in the embroidered cord that hung from the damper, and nosed for a long time in the cranny between stove and wall.

'It must be true then,' Moomintroll thought agitatedly. 'We are related. Because Mother's always told me that our forebears lived behind stoves...'

At that moment the alarm clock went off. Moomintroll used to have it ring at dusk because that was the time when he longed most for company.

The troll stiffened visibly, and then it whizzed inside the stove in a cloud of ashes. A moment later it started. rattling the damper in no very friendly way.

Moomintroll shut off the alarm clock and listened with a thumping heart. But nothing else was to be heard.

A few specks of soot came falling down the chimney, and the damper cord was swaying.