The Exploits of Moominpappa (Moominpappa's Memoirs) by Tove Jansson Read Free Book Online Page A

instance.
    Here's the Booble, grumbling, bumbling and shouting at us, and here are we, looking rather foolish, and then I say (quite calmly): 'Hullo, uncle! Glad to see you again!' And of course this doesn't stop him shouting, but I don't mind at all. I just ask him whether his feet are sore still.
    'You have the nerve to ask me that!' roars Edward the Booble. 'You water-flea! You nightmare! Yes, my feet are sore! Yes, my behind is sore tool'
    'Well, in that case,' I answer in a perfectly controlled voice, 'in that case the present we've brought you will suit you all the better. Three genuine eider-down Booble sleeping-bags!'
    (Rather smart, wasn't it?)
    'Sleeping-bags? Eider-down?' Edward the Booble said suspiciously and carefully felt our clouds with one foot. 'You're deceiving me again, aren't you, you dish-rags? I suppose they're stuffed with rocks...'
    He hauled the clouds up on the wharf and sniffed at them.
    'Sit down, Edward, please!' cried Hodgkins. 'Nice and soft!'
    'I've heard that before,' grumbled the Booble. 'Nice, smooth sand bottom, you said. And what was it? The hardest, knobbliest, stoniest, pestilentiallest...'
    And Edward the Booble carefully sank down on the clouds.
    'Well?' we cried expectantly.
    'Hrrumph,' said the Booble sourly. 'There seem indeed to be a few soft spots. I'll sit here and think for a while until I've decided what to do with you.'
    But we didn't care to wait. With great speed we made fast the hawser and stole past behind the Booble. And then we ran.
    'You did rather well,' said the Joxter.
    'Just an idea,' I said modestly.
    'I know,' said Hodgkins. 'Empty place, this.'
    Round green hills rose everywhere around us, with single big trees laden with bunches of green and yellow berries. We could see a few small straw huts huddling in the valleys between low stone walls stretching over the hillsides.
    But all was silent. Not a trace of the excited crowd we had imagined would come running to look at The Oshun Oxtra and ourselves, and to ask us all about the hurricane.
    'Perhaps Edward the Booble has frightened them away,' I said a little disappointedly.
    We went up the nearest hill.
    'There's a house,' said the Joxter. 'I'd like to see if the door's locked.'
    It was a small hut, not very well built of board ends and large stiff leaves.
    We knocked four times, but nobody opened.
    'Ahoy!' Hodgkins shouted. 'Anybody home?'
    Then we heard a small voice that answered: 'No, no! Nobody at all!'
    'That's funny,' I said. 'Then who's talking?'
    'I'm the Mymble's little daughter,' said the voice. 'But you'll have to go away quickly, because I'm not allowed to open the door to anybody until mother comes back.'
    'Where's mother, then?' Hodgkins asked.
    'She's gone to the garden party,' the little voice answered sadly.
    'Well, why didn't she take you along?' the Muddler asked in a shocked voice. 'Are you too small?'
    Then the Mymble's daughter started to cry and said: 'I've a sore throat today! Mother thought it might be diphtheria!'
    'Open the door, won't you?' Hodgkins said kindly. 'We'll have a look at your throat. Don't be afraid.'
    The Mymble's daughter opened the door. She had a thick woollen scarf around her neck, and her eyes were quite red.
    'Let's see now,' Hodgkins said. 'Open your mouth, please. Wider, please. Say a-a-a-ah!!'
    'Or typhoid fever, or cholera mother thought,' said the Mymble's daughter sadly. 'A-a-a-ah!'

    'Not a spot,' Hodgkins said. 'Not even swollen. Does it hurt?'
    'Terribly,' mumbled the Mymble's daughter. 'I think my throat's growing together, so I'll not be able to breathe at all, and not to eat or talk either.'
    'You'll have to go to bed at once,' Hodgkins said. 'We'll find your mother for you. Immediately!'
    'No, no, please don't,' the daughter cried. 'It was just a fib. I'm not ill at all. Mother left me at home because I've been a bad girl.'
    'A fib? Whatever for?' Hodgkins asked in astonishment.
    'To have a little fun!' said the Mymble's daughter and started to cry once