Free The Exploits of Moominpappa (Moominpappa's Memoirs) by Tove Jansson Page B

Autocratical Anthem (with the refrain: 'Surprised, aren't you?') and the Mymble, always easily moved, cried floods of tears.
    Hodgkins pulled at the peak of his cap and went aboard, followed by the Royal Outlaw Colony (with roses and Japanese pearls still raining over us), and the remaining space in the former Oshun Oxtra was speedily filled with Mymble kiddies.
    'Excuse me!' the Muddler suddenly cried and jumped back over the gangway. 'By heck, I daren't! Not in the air! I'll be sick again!' He rushed back and disappeared in the crowd.
    And a moment later the Amphibian began to tremble. The engines droned, the door was closed and bolted, and then the ship took a sudden leap from the platform and sailed over the tree-tops in the Garden of Surprises.
    'We're up! We're up!' the Joxter cried.
    Yes, one moment we were up in the air, the next we skidded over the waves, ploughing up a splendid foam.
    'Hold on now,' Hodgkins cried. 'We're going down.' He pulled a lever.
    Suddenly the Amphibian was filled by green light and swarms of bubbles went dancing across the port-holes.
    'We'll never come up,' said little My.
    I pressed my snout against the cold glass and looked out into the sea.
    Hodgkins had switched on a row of headlights and we moved through the green deep in a circle of light
    'Are all the fish in bed?' the Joxter asked.
    'They're afraid,' said Hodgkins. 'Wait a bit.'
    We waited. In a little while a little fish-child came

    swimming out of the green dark into our light. He seemed to hesitate, then he came up to the Amphibian and sniffed at it with great interest.
    He carried a small lantern on his nose.
    'Why doesn't he light it?' the Mymble wondered.
    'Perhaps his battery's dead,' Hodgkins said 'There's another one!'
    In a few minutes dozens of small fish were swarming around us. Then some young sea-serpents and a few mermaids appeared, and finally a big bespectacled fishing-frog thrust his nose at one of the port-holes.
    'Are they dumb?' I asked.
    'Just a moment,' Hodgkins replied and turned a knob on his special wireless. There was a crackle, and then we heard the fishing-frog speak.
    'I'm of the definite opinion that this thing reminds me not a little of a whale,' the fishing-frog said in the circumstantial manner he had acquired in two hundred and ten years of lonely swimming.
    'But what a funny diet he keeps,' said the small fish-child. 'Look at that pale snouted fish he's swallowed! He'll have bad dreams tonight.'
    'Meaning you,' said the Joxter and gave me a friendly pat on the back. 'He thinks you're the strangest fish here.'
    'Be quiet, the serpent's talking,' I said.
    'I'd be surprised if this whale would ever get the time to digest it,' now said the serpent. 'Blazing with light, indeed. He'll be caught sooner or later.'
    'One asks oneself with a certain apprehension whether it's a manifestation of stupidity or of defiance,' said the fishing-frog. 'Still, one has to admit that the effect is most pleasing to the eye. I'm afraid my glasses do not allow me really to appreciate the illumination. But as a law-abiding citizen one asks oneself also what his wattage might be.'
    'What's he talking of?' the Mymble asked.
    'They seem to have some kind of lighting regulation,' the Joxter said with a snort. 'Apparently you're not allowed even to light the lamps on your own snout.'
    'Very sensible,' remarked the Island Ghost. 'The night of fate veiling the cemetery in black shrouds. Black wraiths flitting through the dark. Good idea.'
    Indeed, each one of the sea-people carried a small unlit lantern. They now formed a dense crowd around the Amphibian and seemed to like our light.
    'It can't last,' said a cod. 'The Sea-Hound's sure to come.'
    The crowd moved uneasily and the smallest fishes disappeared.
    'Where's he hunting tonight?' the serpent asked anxiously.
    'I heard him in the western parts before nightfall,' replied a sea-spook. 'There was a porpoise carrying a light. He ate it, of course.'
    'They're off,' I said.