Moominsummer Madness (15 page)

'Catch the convicts!' now cried the big Hemulen. 'They've burned down all the notices in the Park and made the Park Keeper luminous!'

The audience had been slightly bewildered for a while, but now they understood that the play was going on. They put away their cups and sat down by the footlights to watch it.

'Catch them!' shouted the fuming Hemulen. The audience clapped.

'Wait a bit,' said Snufkin calmly. 'Seems to be a mistake somewhere. Because it was I who tore down those notices. Is the Keeper really luminous still?'

The Hemulen turned and riveted his eyes on him.

'Just fancy what a gain for this Park Keeper,' Snufkin continued unconcernedly while he sidled closer and closer to the footlights. 'No electricity bills! Perhaps he'll be able to light his pipe on himself and boil eggs on his head.'

The Hemulen didn't answer a word. He was coming slowly nearer and opening his huge paws to grasp Snufkin by the collar. Nearer and nearer he came, now he crouched to leap, and the next second...

The revolving stage set off at full speed. They could hear Emma laugh, not scornfully this time, but triumphantly.

All at once everything was happening so quickly that the spectators became slightly confused. That was mainly because they all were swept off their feet, pell-mell on the revolving floor. Only the twenty-four little woodies threw themselves at the Hemulen and clung tight to his tunic.

Snufkin took a flying leap over the footlights and landed in one of the empty boats. Moomintroll's boat tipped over from the surge, and the Snork Maiden, the Fillyjonk, and the little Hemulen started to swim towards the theatre.

'Bravo! Well done!
Da capo
!
^*
shouted the audience.

As soon as Moomintroll got his snout over the surface again he silently turned and swam towards Snufkin's boat. 'Hello!' he said and took hold of the gunwale. 'I'm awfully glad to see you.'

'Hello, hello!' replied Snufkin. 'Jump aboard now, and I'll show you how to make a getaway.'

Moomintroll clambered aboard, and Snufkin began pulling seawards with a cascade of foam around the stem.

'Good-bye, all my little children, and thanks for your help!' he cried. 'And remember to keep clean and tidy, and don't climb any roofs until the tar is dry!'

The Hemulen in the meantime finally managed to extricate himself from the revolving stage, the woodies and the cheering spectators who were throwing flowers at him. Violently scolding he clambered down in a boat and dashed off in pursuit of Snufkin.

But he was too late; Snufkin had disappeared into the darkness.

Everything became suddenly silent aboard the theatre.

'So you're here now,' remarked Emma quietly, fixing her gaze on the drenched Fillyjonk. 'But don't imagine that the stage's always a bed of roses.'

CHAPTER 13
About punishment and reward

SNUFKIN
continued to scull in silence for a long time. Moomintroll sat looking at the well-known and comforting outline of his old hat against the night sky and the puffs of pipe-smoke rising in the quiet air. 'Everything'll be all right now,' he thought.

The shouting and clapping behind them faded slowly away, and after a while the strokes of the oars and the dripping of water were the only sounds to be heard.

The dark streaks of the shores disappeared from sight.

Neither one of the two friends felt any great need of talking. As yet. They had time; summer lay before them, long and full of promises. At this moment their dramatic encounter, the night and the excitement of the flight were quite enough, something not to be disturbed.

The boat curved back to the near shore again.

Moomintroll realized that Snufkin was leading the pursuers astray. Far away in the darkness shrilled the Hemulen's police whistle, answered by others.

When the boat glided in among the reeds beneath shadowing trees the full moon was rising from the sea.

'Now listen carefully,' said Snufkin.

'Yes,' said Moomintroll, and the spirit of adventure speeded through his soul on mighty wings.

'You'll have to return to the others at once,' said Snufkin. 'Then come back to this place with all who want to go back again to the Moomin Valley. They must leave the furniture at the theatre. And you'll have to hurry away from there before the Hemulens begin keeping guard. I know them. Don't stop on the way, and don't be afraid. The June nights aren't dangerous.'

'Yes,' said Moomintroll obediently.

He waited a little, but as Snufkin didn't tell him anything more, he climbed ashore and started back along the creek.

Snufkin seated himself in the stern and carefully knocked the ashes from his pipe-bowl. Then he peered out between the reeds. The Hemulen was sculling steadily seawards. He was clearly visible in the moon-path.

Snufkin laughed quietly and began to fill his pipe.

*

The water was going out again at last. Newly washed shores and valleys were slowly creeping up in the sunshine again. The trees were the first to rise over the water. They waved their dazed tops in the air and stretched their branches carefully to feel if they were safe and sound after the disaster. Those that had broken off hurriedly put out new sprouts. The birds found their old sleeping-places

again, and higher up on the slopes, where the water had already disappeared, people began spreading out sheets and clothes to dry on the ground.

As soon as the water began falling everybody started for home. People rowed or sailed, night and day, and when the water disappeared they continued afoot to the places where they had lived before.

Possibly some of them had found new and much nicer places during the time the valley was turned into a lake, but still they liked the old places better.

*

As Moominmamma sat beside her son in the stern of Snufkin's boat with her handbag in her lap, she didn't give a thought to the drawing-room suite she had been compelled to leave behind her. She thought about her garden, and wondered if the sea had raked the gravel paths as neatly as she used to do herself.

Now Moominmamma began to recognize her surroundings. They were rowing through the pass to the Lonely Mountains, and she knew that behind the next turn she would catch sight of the big rock at the entrance to the Moomin Valley.

'We're coming home, home, home!' Little My was singing in her sister's lap.

The Snork Maiden in the prow was looking down at the underwater-scape. At present there was a meadow beneath the boat, and some of the tallest flowers brushed lightly against the keel. Yellow, red and blue, they looked up through the clear water and craned their necks towards the sun.

Moominpappa was sculling with long, even strokes.

'Do you think the verandah will be above water?' he asked.

'Time to look when we're there,' said Snufkin, looking back over his shoulder.

'Dear me,' said Moominpappa. 'We've left the Hem-ulens far behind us.'

'Don't be too sure,' replied Snufkin.

In the middle of the boat there was a bathing-gown covering a strange little hump. The hump moved. Moomintroll poked lightly at it.

'Won't you come out in the sun for a moment?' he asked.

'No, thanks, I'm really quite all right,' a mild voice replied beneath the bathing-gown.

'She gets no air at all, poor little creature,' Moominmamma said worriedly. 'She's been sitting like that for three whole days.'

'Small Hemulens always are shy,' Moomintroll explained in a whisper. 'I believe she's crocheting. It makes her feel safer.'

But the little Hemulen was not crocheting. She was laboriously writing in an exercise book in black waxcloth covers. 'Strictly forbidden,' she wrote. 'Strictly forbidden, strictly forbidden, strictly forbidden.' Five thousand times. It made her comforted and content to fill one page after another.

'How nice it feels to be good,' she thought quietly.

Moominmamma squeezed Moomintroll's paw. 'What are you thinking about?' she asked.

'I'm thinking of Snufkin's children,' replied Moomintroll. 'Are they really going to be actors, all of them?'

'Some of them,' said his mother. 'The Fillyjonk will adopt the untalented ones. She can't manage without relatives.'

'They'll miss Snufkin,' said Moomintroll sadly.

'Perhaps at first,' said Moominmamma. 'But he intends calling on them every year and he'll write them birthday letters. With pictures.'

Moomintroll nodded. 'That's good,' he said. 'And Whomper and Misabel.... Did you notice how happy Misabel looked when she first realized that she could stay on at the theatre!'

Moominmamma laughed. 'Yes, Misabel was happy. She'll act in tragedies all her life and have a new face each time. And Whomper's the new stage manager and every bit as happy. Isn't it fun when one's friends get exactly what suits them?'

'Yes,' said Moomintroll. 'Great fun.'

At that moment the boat ran aground and stopped.

'We're stuck in the grass,' said Moominpappa, peering over the gunwhale. 'We'll have to wade.'

Everybody climbed out from the boat.

The little Hemulen was hiding something obviously very precious under her dress, but nobody asked what it was.