Moominvalley in November Read Online Free PDF Page A

trees and gathered round his feet as he walked (Grandpa-Grumble still had very good legs) and from time to time he stopped and picked up a leaf with his stick and said to himself: that's maple. I shan't forget that. He knew perfectly well what he wanted to remember.
    It was incredible how much he succeeded in forgetting during those few days. Every morning he woke up with the same secretive expectation, and immediately started about the business of forgetting in order to make the valley come nearer. No one disturbed him, no one told him who he was.
    Grandpa-Grumble found a basket under his bed and packed it with all his medicines and the little bottle of brandy for his stomach. He made six sandwiches and dug out his umbrella. He was getting ready to escape, he was running away from home.
    Over the years many things had accumulated on his floor. There are so many things you never bother to pick up, and so many reasons for not picking them up. These objects lay scattered all over the place like so many islands, an archipelago of lost and unnecessary things. Out of habit he stepped over them and round them, they gave his daily walks round the room a certain excitement and at the same time a feeling of repetition and permanence. Grandpa-Grumble decided that they weren't needed any longer. He took a broom and made a storm sweep through the room. Everything, scraps of food, lost slippers, bits of fluff, pills that had rolled into corners, forgotten shopping-lists, spoons and forks and buttons and unopened letters, he brushed them all into a heap. From this great heap he picked out eight pairs of spectacles and put them in his basket: I shall be looking at quite new things, he thought.
    The valley was now quite close, just around the corner, and he had a feeling that it wasn't even Sunday yet.
    On Friday or Saturday Grandpa-Grumble left his house, and naturally he couldn't help writing a farewell note. 'I'm going away now and I feel fine,' he wrote. 'I've heard everything you've said for a hundred years because I'm not deaf at all and I know you have parties on the sly all the time.' No signature.
    Then Grandpa-Grumble put on his dressing-gown and his gaiters, he picked up his little basket, opened his door and closed it behind him, shutting in a hundred old years. Strengthened by his determination and his new name he headed due north towards the Happy Valley and nobody in the bay knew that he had gone. Red and yellow leaves danced round his head and from far away in the hills came another autumn downpour to wash away the last of everything he didn't want to remember.



CHAPTER 8
Lady in a Muddle
    F ILLYJONK 's visit to Moominvalley was postponed a little because she couldn't decide about the moth-balls. Putting moth-balls in everything is a big operation, with airing and brushing and all that, not to mention the wardrobes themselves, which had to be scrubbed with soda and soap. But as soon as Fillyjonk touched a broom or a duster she felt dizzy, and a giddy feeling of fear started in her stomach and got stuck in her throat. She couldn't do any cleaning, it was no good. Not after that business of washing the window.
    This won't do, poor Fillyjonk thought. The moths will eat up everything I possess!
    She had no idea how long her visit would last. If she didn't enjoy it the whole thing might be over in a couple of days. But if she was enjoying herself it might last a month. And if it was a month, her clothes might be full of moths and carpet-beetles when she got home. With horror she imagined their little jaws eating through her clothes, her carpets - and their wicked delight when they found her feather-boa!
    In the end Fillyjonk was so tired and overcome with not being able to make up her mind that she flung her feather-boa round her neck, locked the house and started off.
    Moominvalley wasn't far from her house but when she arrived her suitcase felt as heavy as lead and her boots hurt her. She went up on the veranda and knocked on