Free Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson Page B

north-east. Perhaps it will die down. By the way, we ought to ask that fisherman to coffee some day.’
    ‘I bet he doesn’t drink coffee,’ said Little My. ‘I’m sure he only eats seaweed and raw fish. Perhaps he sucks up plankton through his front teeth.’
    ‘What did you say?’ exclaimed Moominmamma. ‘What curious taste he has!’
    ‘He looks as if he didn’t eat anything else,’ added Little My. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. But he knows his own mind, and never asks questions,’ she said appreciatively.
    ‘Doesn’t he tell you anything either?’ asked Moominpappa.
    ‘Not a thing,’ said Little My. So saying, she climbed up the chimney-piece and curled up against the warm wall to sleep off the rain.
    ‘Anyway, he’s our neighbour after all,’ said Moominmamma vaguely. ‘One has to have neighbours, I mean.’ She sighed, and added: ‘I think the rain’s coming in.’
    ‘I’ll put that right,’ said Moominpappa. ‘By and by, when I’ve got a moment.’ But he thought: ‘Perhaps it’ll
clear up. I don’t want to go up there. There’s too much there that reminds me of the lighthouse-keeper.’
    *
    The long, rainy day drew to a close, and towards evening the wind had dropped so much that Moominpappa decided to take up the nets.
    ‘Now you can see I know something about the sea,’ he said, very pleased with himself. ‘We shall be back in good time for evening tea, and we shall bring the biggest fish with us. The rest we’ll throw back into the sea.’
    The island was wet everywhere. It seemed to be drooping, and had quite lost its colour in the rain. The water had risen so much that little could be seen of the beach, and the boat was rolling from side to side with its stern in the sea.
    ‘We must pull her right up the beach to the alder bushes,’ said Moominpappa. ‘Now you can see what the water can do when autumn comes. If I’d waited till tomorrow morning to take the nets up we shouldn’t have had any boat left. You can’t be too careful with the sea, you know! I wonder,’ Moominpappa added, ‘I wonder why the sea rises and falls like this. There must be an explanation…’
    Moomintroll looked around. The beach had changed completely. The sea looked swollen, it heaved wearily and sulkily and had flung up a heap of seaweed all over the beach. ‘It’s no beach for sea-horses any longer. Imagine if they only like sandy beaches and don’t bother to come back again! What if the Groke has
scared them away…’ thought Moomintroll. He threw a timid glance in the direction of the tiny islands offshore, but they had disappeared in the drizzle.
    ‘Watch where you’re rowing!’ Moominpappa shouted. ‘Look for the float and mind out for the waves or we’ll be driven ashore!’
    Moomintroll pulled on his left oar as hard as he could. The
Adventure
swung round to leeward all the time and stuck in the troughs of the waves.
    ‘Row out! Row out!’ shouted Moominpappa from the stern. ‘Turn her round! Backwards! Backwards!’ He lay on his stomach over the stern of the boat and tried to reach the float. ‘No, no, no, no! This way! No, the other way, I mean. That’s it. I’ve got it. Now row straight out!’
    Moominpappa caught the net and began to haul it in. The rain was driving in his face and the net felt very heavy.
    ‘We shall never be able to eat all this fish,’ he thought, a little disconcerted by the thought of such a large catch. ‘What a job!’ he reflected. ‘But if one has a family, one has a family…’
    Pulling on the oars like one possessed, Moomintroll saw something dark coming up with the net – it was seaweed! The net was full of seaweed, yards and yards of it!
    Moominpappa said nothing. He had stopped trying to take in the net neatly and was lying across the bow of the boat, pulling the net in any old way with his arms. Armful after armful of thick yellowish-brown seaweed came over the side, but not a single fish. All three nets
were the same