The Exploits of Moominpappa Read online

  My memories overcome me!

  What made me defy the cold and the dark (that all Moomins loathe) to struggle down to the beach at the exact moment when the sea carried Moomintroll’s mother to our island?

  Clinging to a spar she came shooting with the surf, was carried into the cove and sucked out again with the backwash.

  I rushed out in the water and shouted at the top of my voice: ‘I’m here!’

  She came back. She had lost hold of her spar and floated helplessly on her back with her legs in the air.

  I did not bat an eyelid before the black wall of seething water. I caught the shipwrecked beauty in my arms, and the next second I was swept off my feet in the boiling surf.

  With supermoominal strength I fought for a foothold – I managed to crawl ashore while the waves hungrily grabbed for my tail – and at last I laid my sweet burden on the beach, safe from the wild and cruel sea!

  Oh, this was not in the least like rescuing the Hemulen Aunt! This was a Moomin, like myself, but still more beautiful, a little Moomin woman that I had saved!

  Suddenly she sat up and cried:

  ‘Save my handbag! Oh, save my handbag!’

  ‘But you’re holding it!’ I answered.

  ‘Oh, glory be!’ she said. She opened her large black handbag and started rummaging in its depths. At last she found her powder compact.

  ‘I’m afraid my powder’s sea-damaged,’ she said sadly.

  ‘You’re every bit as beautiful without it,’ I replied gallantly.

  She gave me an unfathomable look and blushed deeply.

  *

  Let me stop here, at this remarkable turning-point of my stormy youth, let me close my Memoirs at the moment when the most wonderful of Moomins comes into my life! Since then my follies have been supervised by her gentle and understanding eyes, and thereby transformed into sense and wisdom while losing little of the enchantment and liberty that have led me to write them down.

  It is a terribly long time since all this happened, but when I have now related it anew to myself I have a decided feeling that it could all happen again, in some quite new manner.

  I’m laying down my memoir-pen convinced that hundreds of new adventures await me, still greater, still more astonishing.

  I would like every young Moomin to consider my exploits, my courage, my good sense, my virtues, and my follies – even if he would never be wiser from the experience he will one day have to acquire for himself in the wondrous way that is natural for all youthful and talented Moomins.

  This is

  THE END

  of the Memoirs.

  EPILOGUE

  MOOMINPAPPA laid his memoir-pen on the verandah table and looked in silence at his family.

  ‘Your health!’ said Moominmamma with great emotion.

  ‘Your health,’ Moomintroll said. ‘Now you’re famous!’

  ‘Eh?’ said Moominpappa and jumped in his chair.

  ‘When this book’s published you’re sure to be famous,’ said Moomintroll.

  The author wiggled his ears and grinned.

  ‘Perhaps!’ he said.

  Sniff cried: ‘But then – what happened then?’

  ‘Oh – then,’ Moominpappa replied and made a vague sweeping gesture that comprised the house, the family, the garden, the Moomin Valley, and generally everything that follows after one’s youth.

  ‘Dear children,’ said Moominmamma shyly. ‘Then everything started.’

  A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows.

  ‘To be out at sea on a night like this…’ said Moominpappa abstractedly.

  ‘What about my daddy?’ Snufkin asked. ‘The Joxter? What became of him? And of mother?’

  ‘Yes, and the Muddler?’ asked Sniff. ‘Did you lose the only daddy I ever had? Not to speak of his button collection and the Fuzzy?’

  Moominpappa hesitated.

  And at that exact moment, singularly enough, at the very moment needed for this story – there was a rap on the door.

  Three hard, short knocks.

  Moominpappa snatched his gun from the wall and cried: ‘Who’s there?’

  A deep voice answered: ‘Open the door, Moomin! The night is cold!’

  Moominpappa let go of the gun and threw the door wide. ‘Hodgkins!’ he cried.

  Yes, in walked Hodgkins, shook the rain off himself and said:

  ‘It took some time to find you. Hullo. You’re not a day older.’

  ‘Nor you either,’ cried Moominpappa. ‘Oh, what happiness! Oh, how glad I am!’

  Then a small, hollow voice was heard to say: ‘On a night of fate like this the forgotten bones rattle more than ever on the lonely beach!’ And the Island Ghost climbed out of Hodgkins’s knapsack with a friendly grin.

  ‘Glad to meet you,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Would you like a glass of rum punch?’

  ‘Thanks,’ Hodgkins said. ‘One for me. And a few for the others outside.’

  ‘Have you brought somebody?’ asked Moominpappa.

  ‘Yes, a few parents,’ Hodgkins replied.

  ‘Whose parents?’ shouted Sniff and Snufkin.

  ‘Yours of course,’ said Hodgkins. ‘They’re a little shy. Didn’t want to come in with me.’

  Sniff disappeared through the verandah door with a howl and came back hauling after him a wet and embarrassed Muddler holding hands tightly with a Fuzzy.

  Behind them strolled the Joxter with an unlit pipe between his teeth, and last came the Mymble and the Mymble’s daughter and thirty-four small Mymble kiddies. The verandah was filled to bursting point.

  It was an indescribable night!

  Never before has any verandah held so many questions, exclamations, embraces, explanations, and rum punches at the same time. And when the Muddler at last began to unpack his button collection and gave it away on the spot to his son, the feast reached its height. The Mymble began to collect her children and put them to bed in the cupboards.

  ‘Silence!’ cried Hodgkins and raised his glass. ‘Tomorrow…’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ repeated Moominpappa with shining eyes.

  ‘Tomorrow the adventures begin anew,’ Hodgkins continued. ‘Because I’m treating you all to a bit of travel. Everybody present. Mothers, daddies and kiddies. With the former Oshun Oxtra, the world’s foremost Amphibian! Are you coming?’

  ‘Not tomorrow, tonight!’ shouted Moomintroll.

  And in the foggy dawn they all tumbled out in the garden. The eastern sky was a wonderful rose-petal pink, promising a fine clear August day.

  A new door to the Unbelievable, to the Possible, a new day that can always bring you anything if you have no objection to it.

  I am Moominmamma. Turn over and see what Moominpappa has to show you…

  MOOMIN-GALLERY

  I am Moominpappa, but of course, you all know me by now. Here I am in pensive mood – I wish I knew where that hat disappeared to.

  This is Sniff, one of Moomintroll’s young friends. A little clumsy sometimes, but means well. After all the Muddler was his father.

  A solitary chap, young Snufkin. Quite unlike the Joxter, his father, but with the same independent outlook on life.

  I don’t quite know what the Groke is doing here. She isn’t much use for anything except as an exclamation!

  Ha! here is the would-be-philosopher, our old friend the Muskrat, who likes to be left in peace to think – at least that is what he wants us to believe he is doing.

  These two are apt to turn up anywhere. Thingummy and Bob – mischievous pair, too fond of pea-shooters and such; but I was young once.

  The feminine touch. The Snork Maiden has taken a fancy to Moomintroll, but look what he did for her. Now I remember when I was a boy…

  But to proceed. Moomintroll – now there is a chip off the old Moominblock if you like. An eternal reminder of my youth…

  As for the Hemulen – why do they wear so much clothing? Must remember to look that up – he is our leading Moominphilatelist and also sound on Moomincholog
y.

  So, if you want to read more about these curious but likeable inhabitants of Moominland, you should look at the list of books at the front. I wrote the notes above in 1952, how time goes, and have now added a few more opposite.

  Misabel we met that curious summer. How she enjoyed acting in my plays, and changing clothes.

  A tremendous big fellow that Hemulen who invaded the valley one winter. One of those terrific do-gooders. Hmm – bit noisy.

  Ah, Too-ticky – much addicted to bathing-houses, the sea-side in every particular in fact, and quite a philosopher in a way.

  No selection would be complete without Little My. What would we do without her imperturbability – good word, what! good girl, good-bye for now.

  * All Boobies have pea-soup on Thursdays.

  † All Boobies take a special bath on Saturdays.