Free Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson Page A

didn’t seem to belong to the island somehow, or to the night.
    ‘I’ll think about that tomorrow,’ said Moomintroll to himself. ‘I’ve more important things on my mind now.’

The North-Easter
    JUST before sunrise, the wind got up. It was a vile, stubborn wind, blowing from the east. The family woke at about eight o’clock, and by then the wind was blowing in showers from the east and gusts of rain were sweeping round the lighthouse.
    ‘Now we shall get some water,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Thank goodness I found that barrel and cleaned it!’ She put some wood on the fire and lit it.
    Moomintroll was still in bed. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. A wet patch had appeared on the ceiling, and a drop of water was getting larger in the middle of it. Then it fell on to the table and another one started to form immediately.
    Little My crept in through the door. ‘This is no weather for the lift,’ she said, squeezing the water out
of her hair. ‘The wind’s blowing it straight off the lighthouse wall.’
    They could hear the wind howling round the tower and the door shut with a bang.
    ‘Is coffee ready?’ asked Little My. ‘Weather like this makes me feel ravenous. The sea’s swept right into the black pool and the old man’s point has become an island! He’s blown inside out and is lying under his boat counting raindrops.’
    ‘The nets!’ said Moominpappa, jumping out of bed. ‘We’ve got the nets out.’ He went to the window but couldn’t see a trace of the float. The east wind was blowing in right over the point. It would be a ghastly job pulling them up with the wind blowing from the side. And the rain, too.
    ‘They can stay where they are,’ decided Moominpappa. ‘There’ll just be more fish in them, that’s all. After I’ve had my breakfast I’ll take a turn up above and see if I can get the hang of this gale. It will have blown itself out by this evening, you’ll see.’

    The gale looked just the same from up above. Moominpappa stood looking at the lamp, unscrewed a nut and then screwed it up again, and opened and closed the lamp door. It was useless, he still didn’t know how it worked. How utterly thoughtless not to leave proper instructions in a lighthouse like this! Unforgivable, really.
    Moominpappa sat on one of the gas cylinders and leant against the wall. Above him the rain was beating on
the window-panes, lashing and whipping them as each gust blew past. The green pane was broken. On the floor beneath it a little lake had formed. Moominpappa looked at it absently, and imagined it was a delta with long, winding rivers, and let his eyes wander across the wall. Someone had written something that looked like poetry with a pencil. Moominpappa leant closer and read it:

    Out there on the empty sea,
    Where only the moon appears,
    No sail has been seen to pass
    In four long and dreary years.
    ‘The lighthouse-keeper must have written that,’ Moominpappa thought. ‘He thought of it one day when he felt miserable. Imagine lighting the lamp for ships that never go past.’ Higher up the wall he had been feeling more cheerful, and had written:
    A wind from the east, and old hags’ jeers,
    Will both, as a rule, end up in tears.
    Moominpappa started to creep round the walls looking for things the lighthouse-keeper had written. There were many notes about the strength of the wind. Apparently the worst storm had been one with a south-westerly wind, force ten. In another place the lighthouse-keeper had written some more verses, but they had been crossed out with heavy black lines. All he could pick out was something about birds.

    ‘I must find out more about him,’ thought Moominpappa. ‘As soon as it clears up I must go and find the fisherman. They must have known one another. They lived on the same island. Now I’m going to shut this trap-door. I shan’t come up here any more. It’s too depressing.’
    He climbed down the ladder, and said: ‘It’s moving a little towards the