The Exploits of Moominpappa (Moominpappa's Memoirs) (15 page)

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

M
OOMINPAPPA
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.