Haroun and the Sea of Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.’
    No sooner had Buttoo uttered these words than a harsh, hot wind blew across the Lake. The mist was dispersed, but now the wind burned into their faces, and the waters of the Lake became choppy and wild.
    ‘It’s not in the least Dull, this Lake,’ exclaimed Haroun. ‘In fact, it’s positively Temperamental!’ As the words left his lips, a penny dropped. ‘This must be the Moody Land,’ he burst out.
    Now the Tale of the Moody Land was one of Rashid Khalifa’s best-loved stories. It was the story of a magical country that changed constantly, according to the moods of its inhabitants. In the Moody Land, the sun would shine all night if there were enough joyful people around, and it would go on shining until the endless sunshine got on their nerves; then an irritable night would fall, a night full of mutterings and discontent, in which the air felt too thick to breathe. And when people got angry the ground would shake; and when people were muddled or uncertain about things the Moody Land got confused as well—the outlines of its buildings and lamp-posts and motor-cars got smudgy, like paintings whose colours had run, and at such times it could be difficult to make out where one thing ended and another began … ‘Am I right?’ Haroun asked his father. ‘Is this the place the story was about?’
    It made sense: Rashid was sad, so the Mist of Misery enveloped the swan-boat; and Snooty Buttoo was so full of hot air that it wasn’t surprising he’d conjured up this boiling wind!
    ‘The Moody Land was only a story, Haroun,’ Rashid replied. ‘Here we’re somewhere real.’ When Haroun heard his father say only a story , he understood that the Shah of Blah was very depressed indeed, because only deep despair could have made him say such a terrible thing.
    Rashid, meanwhile, was arguing with Snooty Buttoo. ‘Surely you don’t want me to tell just sugar-and-spice tales?’ he protested. ‘Not all good stories are of that type. People can delight in the saddest of sob-stuff, as long as they find it beautiful.’
    Snooty Buttoo flew into a rage. ‘Nonsense, nonsense!’ he shrieked. ‘Terms of your engagement are crystal clear! For me you will please to provide up-beat sagas only. None of your gloompuss yarns! If you want pay, then just be gay.’
    At once the hot wind began to blow with redoubled force; and as Rashid sank into silent wretchedness the greeny-yellow mist with the toilet stink came rushing towards them across the Lake; and the water was angrier than ever, slopping over the side of the swan-boat and rocking it alarmingly from side to side, as if it were responding to Buttoo’s fury (and also, in point of fact, to Haroun’s growing anger at Buttoo’s behaviour).
    The mist enfolded the swan-boat once again, and once again Haroun couldn’t see a thing. What he heard were sounds of panic: the uniformed oarsmen crying out, ‘O! O! Down we go!’ and the infuriated shrieks of Snooty Buttoo, who seemed to take the weather conditions as a personal insult; and the more shrieks and yelps there were, the rougher the waters became, and the hotter and more violent the wind. Flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder lit up the mist, creating weird neon-like effects.
    Haroun decided there was nothing for it but to put his Moody Land theory into practice. ‘Okay,’ he shouted into the mist. ‘Everybody listen. This is very important: everybody, just stop talking. Not a word. Zip the Lips. Dead silence is very important, on the count of three, one, two, three.’ A new note of authority had come into his voice, which surprised him as much as anyone, and as a result the oarsmen and Buttoo, too, obeyed him without a murmur. At once the boiling breeze fell away, the thunder and lightning stopped. Then Haroun made a conscious effort to control his irritation at Snooty Buttoo, and the waves calmed down the instant he cooled off. The smelly mist, however, remained.
    ‘Just do one thing for me,’ Haroun