Tags:
General,
Fantasy fiction,
Fantasy,
Juvenile Nonfiction,
Classics,
Action & Adventure,
Family,
Juvenile Fiction,
Fantasy & Magic,
Nature & the Natural World,
Friendship,
trolls,
Moomins (Fictitious Characters),
Children's Literature; Finnish,
Forests,
Foods,
Children's Stories; Finnish,
Floods
in the end I just ran away from them all,' finished the Snork Maiden.
They sat silent for a while and watched Moominmamma lay the table.
'Just think,' said the Snork Maiden, 'just think what sort of a family lived here before us! A thousand frocks! A floor that goes around sometimes, pictures hanging from the
ceiling, all their belongings on shelves in Mr Propertius's room. Paper doors and a special rain. What can they have looked like?'
Misabel thought of the beautiful curls and sighed.
But behind Misabel and the Snork Maiden, behind the dusty rubbish by the paper palm, gleamed a pair of observant and sharp little eyes. The eyes looked at them with some disdain and then wandered over the drawing-room suite to rest at last upon Moominmamma who was now bringing in a large dish of porridge. The eyes blackened still more and the snout between them wrinkled with a noiseless snort.
'Dinner please everybody!' cried Moominmamma. She filled a plate with porridge and set it on the floor by the palm.
The Moomins came running and sat down to dinner, 'Mother,' began Moomintroll and reached for the sugar, 'don't you think...' and then he stopped short and dropped the sugar bowl with a thump back on the table. 'Look!' he whispered. 'Look!'
They turned around and looked.
A shadow detached itself from the dark corner. A grey and wrinkly shape came shuffling out, blinked in the sun, shook its whiskers and gave the company a hostile look.
'I'm Emma,' said the old stage rat solemnly, 'and I'd like to tell you that I hate porridge. This is the third day you're eating porridge.'
'We're having gruel tomorrow,' Moominmamma replied shyly.
'I loathe gruel,' answered Emma.
'Won't Emma take a chair, please,' said Moominpappa. 'We thought this house was deserted, and that's why we...'
'House, indeed,' Emma interrupted with a snort. This is no house? She limped up to the table but didn't sit down.
'Is she angry at me?' whispered Misabel.
'What have you done?' asked the Mymble's daughter.
'Nothing,' Misabel mumbled to her plate. 'I just feel as if I had done something. I always feel as if someone were angry with me. If I were the wonderful-est Misabel in the world everything would be different...'
'Well, but as you aren't,' replied the Mymble's daughter and continued her meal.
'Was Emma's family saved?' asked Moominmamma sympathetically.
Emma didn't answer. She was looking at the cheese.... She reached for the cheese and put it in her pocket. Her gaze roved on and fastened on a small piece of pancake.
'That's ours!' cried Little My, and landed on the pancake with a flying jump.
'That wasn't nice manners,' said Mymble's daughter reproachfully. She lifted her sister aside, brushed some dust off the pancake and hid it under the tablecloth.
'Whomper dear,' Moominmamma hastened to say. 'Run along, and look if we have something nice for Emma in the pantry!'
Whomper hurried off.
'Pantry!' exclaimed Emma. 'The pantry, indeed! You seem to believe that the prompter's box is a pantry! And the stage a drawing-room, with the drops for pictures! And the curtain's just curtains and the properties a person!' She had become quite red in the face, and her snout was wrinkled up to her forehead. 'Really, thank goodness,' she cried, 'thank goodness that my beloved husband, Stage Manager Fillyjonk (mayherestinpeace) can't see you all! You don't know a thing about the theatre, that's clear, less than nothing, not even the shadow of a thing!'
'There was a herring, but it's rather an old one,' said Whomper, returning.
Emma fiercely struck the fish from his hand and shuffled stiffly back to her corner. For a long time she kept rattling a number of things and finally pulled out a large broom and began to sweep the floor.
'What's a theatre?' Moominmamma whispered uneasily.
'I don't know,' replied Moominpappa. 'Looks as if one ought to know it.'
*
In the evening a strong scent of rowan-tree flowers crept into the drawing-room. Birds came fluttering in