Moominsummer Madness (10 page)

*

Their Midsummer bonfire was burning brightly. With merry cracklings it consumed the stack of useless notices: 'No Singing on the Premises', 'Do not Touch the Flowers', and 'Sitting in the Grass Allowed on Special Request Only'.... Showers of sparks spurted up against the pale night sky, and a dense smoke billowed out over the meadows and remained floating in the air like woolly white curtains.

The Fillyjonk was singing. She danced on thin legs around the bonfire and poked at the embers with a stick.

'Never more my uncle,' she sang. 'And never more my aunt. I'll never ask them any more! I don't, I won't, I shan't!'

Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden were sitting side by side and looking contentedly into the fire.

'What do you suppose my mamma is doing now?' asked Moomintroll.

'Celebrating, of course,' said the Snork Maiden.

The pile of notices collapsed in a shower of sparks. The Fillyjonk cheered.

'I'll be feeling sleepy soon,' said Moomintroll. 'Did you say nine kinds of flowers?'

'Yes, nine kinds,' said the Snork Maiden. 'And you must promise not to speak a word until morning.'

Moomintroll nodded solemnly. He then performed a lot of gestures that meant: 'Good night, see you again tomorrow,' and shuffled off through the dewy grass.

'I want to gather flowers, too,' said the Fillyjonk. She came scuttling, sooty and happy, out of the smoke. 'I like magic tricks! Do you know any other ones?'

'I know a very creepy Midsummer magic,' whispered the Snork Maiden. 'But it's unspeakably horrible.'

'I dare anything tonight,' said the Fillyjonk with a reckless tinkle.

The Snork Maiden looked around her. Then she leaned forward and whispered in the Fillyjonk's outstretched ear: 'First you must turn seven times around yourself, mumbling a little and stamping your feet. Then you go backwards to a well, and turn around, and look down in it. And then, down in the water, you'll see the person you're going to marry!'

'And how do you get him up from there?' asked the Fillyjonk excitedly.

'Oh no, no, it's his
face
you see,' explained the Snork Maiden. 'His ghost! But first we must gather the nine kinds of flowers. One, two, three, and now if you say a word you'll never marry!'

*

While the fire slowly died down to a glow and the morning breeze lazily drifted over the grass, the Snork Maiden and the Fillyjonk gathered their secret nosegays. Time and again they caught each other's eye and laughed, because that wasn't forbidden.

Then they came to the well.

The Fillyjonk waggled her ears.

The Snork Maiden nodded, a little pale.

They began to growl in a low voice, to stamp their feet and turn around. Five times, six times. The seventh turn took some time, because now they felt quite frightened. But once you have started a Midsummer Magic you have to go through with it, otherwise anything may happen.

With fastly beating hearts they walked backwards to the well, and stopped.

The Snork Maiden took a firm hold of the Fillyjonk's paw.

The streak of sunlight on the eastern sky was broadening, and the smoke of the bonfire was turning pink.

Together, at the same time, they turned and looked down the well.

They saw their own reflections, they saw the rim of the well and the reddening sky.

They waited, trembling. Long.

And suddenly - well, this is almost too terrible - suddenly

they saw a large head appear beside their own reflections.

The head of a Hemulen!

An angry and very ugly Hemulen in a policeman's cap.

At the moment Moomintroll pulled his ninth flower from the ground he heard a terrible shouting. As he turned he saw a big Hemulen who was holding the Snork Maiden with one paw and the Fillyjonk with the other and shaking them, roughly.

'Come along, all three of you!' cried the Hemulen. 'You grokely pyromaniacs! Deny it if you can that you've pulled down all the notices and burned them! Deny it if you can!'

But of course they couldn't. They had promised not to utter a word.

CHAPTER 8
About how to write a play

JUST
fancy if Moominmamma had known that Moomintroll was in jail when she awoke on Midsummer Day! And if anybody had been able to tell the Mymble's daughter that her little sister was asleep in Snufkin's spruce-twig hut, snugly curled up in angora wool!

Now they were ignorant, but full of hope. Hadn't they been mixed up before in stranger events than any other family they knew of, and hadn't everything turned out for the best every time?

'Little My is used to taking care of herself,' said the Mymble's daughter. 'I'm more worried about the people that happen to cross her path.'

Moominmamma looked out. It was raining.

'I hope they won't get colds,' she thought and carefully sat up in bed. It was necessary to move with care, because since they had run aground the floor was sloping so strongly that Moominpappa had thought it best to nail all the furniture to the floor. The meals were a bother, because the plates kept sliding off the table, and nearly always cracked if you tried to nail them down. Most of the time the Moomins felt like mountaineers. As they had to walk continually with one leg a little higher up than the other, Moominpappa had begun to worry about their legs growing uneven. But Whomper was of the opinion that everything would even out if they took care to walk in both directions.

Emma was sweeping as usual.

She clambered laboriously up the floor, pushing the broom before her. When she was half-way all the dust went rolling back, and she had to start all over again.

'Wouldn't it be more practical to sweep the other way?' Moominmamma suggested helpfully.

'Nobody's going to teach me how to sweep floors,' replied Emma. 'I've done this floor in this direction ever since I married Mr Fillyjonk, and I'm going to do it this way till I die.'

'Where's Mr Fillyjonk?' asked Moominmamma.

'He's dead,' answered Emma with dignity. 'The Iron Curtain came down on his head one day, and they both cracked.'

'Oh, poor, poor Emma!' cried Moominmamma.

Emma dug a yellowed portrait from her pocket.

'This is Mr Fillyjonk as a young man,' she said.

Moominmamma looked at the photograph. Mr. Fillyjonk, the stage manager, was sitting in front of a picture with palms. He had impressive whiskers. At his side stood a young person of worried appearance with a small cap on her head.

'What a stylish gentleman,' said Moorninmanrima. 'I've seen that picture he has behind him.'

'Back-drop for
Cleopatra,'
said Emma coldly.

'Is the young lady's name Cleopatra?' asked Moominmamma.

Emma clasped her forehead with her free paw. '
Cleopatra
is the title of a play,' she said snappily. 'And the young lady by Mr Fillyjonk's side is his affected niece. A most disagreeable niece! She keeps sending us invitation cards for Midsummer every year, but I'm very careful not to reply. She just wants to get into the theatre, I'm sure.'

'And why won't you open to her?' Moominmamma asked reproachfully.

Emma put her broom aside.

'I've had about enough,' she declared. 'You know nothing about the theatre, not the least bit. Less than nothing, and that's that.'

'But if Emma would only be so kind as to explain a little to me,' said Moominmamma shyly.

Emma hesitated, and then she resolved to be kind.

She seated herself on Moominmamma's bedside and began: 'A theatre, that's no drawing-room, nor is it a house on a raft. A theatre is the most important sort of house in the world, because that's where people are shown what they could be if they wanted, and what they'd like to be if they dared to and what they really are.'

'A reformatory,' said Moominmamma, astonished.

Emma patiently shook her head. She took a scrap of paper, and then with a trembling paw drew a picture of a theatre for Moominmamma. She explained every detail and wrote down the explanations so that Moominmamma wouldn't forget them. (You'll find the picture here somewhere.)

While Emma sat drawing all the others flocked around her.

'I'll tell you about when we performed
Cleopatra,'
Emma was saying. 'The house was full (I'll explain that if you wait), and the audience dead silent, because it was the First Night. I had turned on the footlights and floats (perhaps you'll understand), at sundown as usual, and the moment before the curtain rose I thumped the floor thrice with my broom-handle. Like this!'

'Why?'asked the Mymble's daughter.

'For effect,' replied Emma, her small eyes gleaming. 'Fate knocking, don't you see. Well, then the curtain rises. There's a red spot on Cleopatra...'

'She wasn't ill, was she?' asked Moominmamma.

'That means a red light, a spot-light,' said Emma with hard-won composure. 'All the people in the house catch their breath...'

'Was Mr Propertius there?' Whomper asked.

'Properties are not a person, as you seem to believe,' explained Emma quietly. 'They are all the things you need for acting.... Well, our leading lady was really lovely, a dark-haired beauty...

'Leading lady?' Misabel interrupted her.

'Yes, the most important of all the actresses. She who has the nicest part and always gets what she wants. But goodness gracious what.'

'I want to be a leading lady,' said Misabel. 'But I'd want sad parts. With lots of shouting and crying and crying.'

'In a tragedy then, a real drama,' said Emma. 'And you'd have to die in the final act.'

'Yes,' cried Misabel, her cheeks glowing. 'Oh, to be someone really different! Nobody would say "Look, there's old Misabel" any more. They'd say "Look at that pale lady in red velvet... the great actress, you know.... She must have suffered much."'

'Are you going to play for us?' asked Whomper.

'I? Play? For you?' whispered Misabel with tears starting to her eyes.