Tales From Moominvalley Read Online Free PDF Page A

washing. But I'm speaking about cyclones. Typhoons, Gaffsie dear. Tornadoes, whirlwinds, sand-storms... Flood waves that carry houses away... But most of all I'm talking about myself and my fears, even if I know that's not done. I know everything will turn out badly. I think about that all the time. Even while I'm washing my carpet. Do you understand that? Do you feel the same way?'
    'Have you tried vinegar,' said Gaffsie, staring into her teacup. 'The colours keep best if you have a little vinegar in the rinsing water.'



At this the fillyjonk became angry, which was a most unusual thing. She felt that she had to challenge Gaffsie in some way or other, and she chose the first thing that came to her mind. She pointed a shaking finger at the horrid little shrub in the table vase and cried:
    'Look! Isn't it nice? The perfect thing to match my tea-set!'
    And Gaffsie was feeling just as tired and cross, so she jumped to her feet and replied:
    'Not a bit! It's all too large and prickly and gaudy, it has a brazen look and doesn't belong on a tea-table at all!'
    Then the two ladies took leave of each other, and the fillyjonk shut her door and went back to her drawing-room.
    She felt miserable and disappointed with her tea party. The small shrub stood on the table, grey and thorny and covered with little dark red flowers. Suddenly it seemed to the fillyjonk that it wasn't the flowers that did not match her tea-set. It was the tea-set that didn't match anything.
    She put the vase on the window-sill.
    The sea had changed. It was grey all over, but the waves had bared their white teeth and were snapping at the beach. The sky had a ruddy glow, and looked heavy.
    The fillyjonk stood in her window for a long time, listening to the rising wind.
    Then there was a ring on the telephone.
    'Is that Mrs Fillyjonk?' Gaffsie's voice asked cautiously.

    'Of course,' said the fillyjonk. 'No one else lives here. Did you arrive home all right?'
    'Yes, all right,' said Gaffsie. 'There's quite a wind.' She was silent for a while, and then she said in a friendly voice: 'Mrs Fillyjonk? Those terrible things you spoke of. Have they happened often to you?'
    'No,' said the fillyjonk.
    'Just a few times, then?'
    'Well, never, really,' said the fillyjonk. 'It's just how I feel.'
    'Oh,' said Gaffsie. 'Well, thank you for inviting me. It was so nice. So nothing has ever happened to you?'
    'No,' said the fillyjonk. 'So kind of you to call me. I hope we'll see more of each other.'
    'So do I,' said Gaffsie and hung up.
    The fillyjonk sat looking at the telephone for a while. She suddenly felt cold.
    My windows are going dark again, she thought. I could hang some blankets against them. I could turn the mirrors face to wall. But she didn't do anything, she sat listening to the wind that had started to howl in the chimney. Not unlike a small homeless animal.
    On the south side the hemulen's fishing net had started whacking against the wall, but the fillyjonk didn't dare go out to lift it down.
    The house was shivering, very slightly. The wind was coming on in rushes; one could hear a gale getting an extra push on its way in from the sea.
    A roof-tile went coasting down the roof and crashed to the ground. The fillyjonk rose and hurried into her bedroom. But it was too large, it didn't feel safe. The pantry. It would be small enough. The fillyjonk took her quilt from the bed and ran down the kitchen passage, kicked open the pantry door and shut it behind her. She panted a bit. Here you heard less of the gale. And here was no window, only a small ventilator grating.
    She felt her way in the dark past the sack of potatoes and rolled herself into her quilt, on the floor below the jam shelf.
    Slowly her imagination started to picture a gale of its own, very much blacker and wilder than the one that was shaking her house. The breakers grew to great white dragons, a roaring tornado sucked up the sea like a black pillar on the horizon, a gleaming pillar that came rushing