Moominpappa at Sea Read Online Free Page A

snow behind her. Against the horizon she looked like a large reeling bat. She found it slow-going, but somehow she managed. She had time. She had nothing else but time.
    *
    The family continued all night and all the next day until it was night again. Moominpappa still sat at the rudder waiting to catch sight of his lighthouse. But the night was just deep blue, and no lighthouse could be seen flashing on the horizon.
    ‘We’re on the right course,’ said Moominpappa. ‘I know we’re set on the right course. With this wind we ought to get there by midnight, but we should have seen the lighthouse when it began to get dark.’
    ‘Maybe some rotter’s put it out,’ suggested Little My.
    ‘Do you think anyone would put a lighthouse out,’ said Moominpappa. ‘You can depend on it that the lighthouse is working all right. There are some things one can be absolutely sure of: sea currents, the seasons, the rising of the sun, for example. And that lighthouses always work, too.’
    ‘We shall see it soon,’ said Moominmamma. Her
head was full of little thoughts that she couldn’t really get organized. ‘I do hope it’s working,’ she thought. ‘He’s so happy. I do hope there really is a lighthouse somewhere out there, and not just a bit of fly-dirt after all. We can’t possibly go home now, particularly after such a grand start… You can find big pink shells, but the white ones look very nice against black soil. I wonder whether the roses will grow out there…’
    ‘Shush! I can hear something,’ said Little My from the bow. ‘Be quiet all of you! Something’s happening.’
    They all lifted their noses and stared into the night. The sound of oars reached their ears. The unknown boat gradually came nearer, gliding out of the darkness. It was a little grey boat, and the man rowing it was resting on his oars looking at them quite undismayed. He looked very scruffy, but appeared to be quite calm. The light shone on his large blue eyes, which were as transparent as water. He had some fishing-rods in the bow of his boat.
    ‘Do the fish bite at night?’ asked Moominpappa.
    The fisherman turned and looked straight past them. He wasn’t going to say anything.
    ‘Isn’t there an island with a big lighthouse somewhere near here?’ Moominpappa continued. ‘Why isn’t it working? We ought to have seen it a long time ago.’
    The fisherman glided past them in his boat. They could hardly hear him when he finally said something. ‘Can’t say, really… Go back home… You’ve come too far…’

    He disappeared behind them. They listened for the sound of his oars, but could hear nothing in the silent night.
    ‘He was a little odd, wasn’t he?’ said Moominpappa uncertainly.
    ‘Very odd, if you ask me,’ said Little My. ‘Quite nuts.’
    Moominmamma sighed and tried to straighten her legs. ‘But so are most of the people we know – more or less,’ she said.
    The wind had dropped. Moominpappa sat bolt upright at the rudder with his nose in the air. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I have a feeling we’re there. We’re coming in on the leeward side of the island. But I just don’t understand why the lighthouse isn’t working.’
    The air was warm and full of the scent of heather. Everything was completely still. And then out of the night loomed an enormous shadow: the island itself was towering over them, looking at them carefully. They could feel its hot breath as the boat struck the sandy
beach and came to a standstill: they felt they were being watched, and huddled together, not daring to move.
    ‘Did you hear that, Mamma?’ whispered Moomintroll.
    Swift feet galloped up the beach, splashed a little, and then everything was quiet again.
    ‘It was only Little My going ashore,’ said Moominmamma. She shook herself, as though to break the silence, and began to poke about among her baskets, trying to get the box of earth with her roses over the side of the boat.
    ‘Now, take it easy,’ said Moominpappa