Travelling Light by Tove Jansson Read Free Book Online

looking out to sea. Some gulls flew up from the headland and screamed for a while, and then it was quiet again.
    Tom said, “Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll wake you when he comes.”
    * * *
     
    Axel came back at daybreak. First they heard the motor like a weak pulse, then it grew stronger, then the boat appeared as a little black speck on the grey morning sea and then they could see the white moustaches thrown up by the bow. Axel rounded the reef, reduced speed, and landed. He saw them standing there waiting and he knew at once. One had an improbably swollen and completely altered nose; the other could barely see out of one eye. Moreover, their clothes were torn.
    “Well, well,” said Axel. “So everything seems to be under control. Engine trouble, broken fuel line. I’m sorry about that, but you have to take things as they come. Everything okay?”
    “Fine,” said Elis.
    “Come on, then. Jump in and we’ll get home. But don’t wake the kids, they’re tired.”
    They sat down near the engine cover, where it was warmer, and Axel covered them with a tarp.
    “Here’s the lunchbag,” said Axel. “Finish the lot or Hanna will be cross. There’s coffee in the Thermos.”
    As the boat crossed the bay the sky in the east lightened and turned pink, and the first tiny glowing shard of the new sun appeared over the horizon. It was cold.
    “Don’t go to sleep just yet,” said Axel. “I’ve got something for Elis that he’s going to like. Look. Have you ever seen such a beautiful bird skeleton? You can bury it with pomp and circumstance.”
    “It’s unusually pretty,” said Elis. “And it was very kind of you to bring it to me, but I’m sorry to say I don’t think I want it.”
    And he curled up next to Tom on the floor of the boat and they both fell instantly asleep.

A Foreign City
     
     
    M Y GRANDSON AND HIS WIFE had long been trying to persuade me to go south and pay them a visit. “You need to get away from the cold and the dark,” they said, “and the sooner the better.” Meaning: before it’s too late.
    I don’t particularly like travelling, but I thought it best to accept their friendly offer and get it done. Moreover, they wanted to show off a daughter who’d come into the world a month or so earlier. No, maybe it was a year earlier. Whatever. They explained that the long flight would be too strenuous for me. They thought I should break the journey somewhere, spend the night in a comfortable hotel and continue the next day. Unnecessary. But I let them make the arrangements.
    It was already dark when we landed for my stopover.
    In the arrival lounge I realised I’d left my hat on the plane and tried to go back but they wouldn’t let me through passport control. My legs hurt; I’d been sitting still for too long. I drew a hat on the cover of my ticket but they didn’t understand and just waved me on to the next window, where I handed over all the papers my well-organised son had given me. Most had already been checked and stamped but I showed them all again to be on the safe side. I was disconcerted by this business about my hat, and in any case I hate flying. It gradually got through to me that they wanted to know how much money I had with me, so I pulled out my wallet and let them count it for themselves, then found some more in my pockets. The whole thing took a terribly long time, and by the time it was over nearly all the other passengers had vanished and I was afraid of missing the bus into town. They motioned me to another window, where I’d clearly already been. By now I was nervous and may have seemed impatient. Whatever the reason, they took me behind a counter and went through my suitcase. I had no way of explaining to them that I was only nervous because of my missing hat and my fear of missing the bus. Yes, and my insurmountable hatred of flying – well, I’ve already mentioned that.
    Finally I drew another picture of a hat, lots of hats, pointed to my head and tried