Fun In Moominland

I wrote and illustrated this when I was 8 (that's 1975!). It is based on the Moomin characters created by Tove Jannson, a Finnish writer whose books I adored.

Chapter 1    Being a Seagull

    Moomintroll was sitting with Snufkin in the cave. 'I wonder what it's like being a seagull?' said Moomintroll.

    'It might be nice,' grunted Snufkin.

    At that moment a seagull swooped over the hole in the top of the cave. It dropped something like a cloud.

    Sniff and the silk monkey were on the beach collecting crabs, when suddenly Moomintroll called them: 'Sniff, silk monkey, come here.'

    Sniff and the silk monkey were there in a flash. 'What's happened?' asked the silk monkey.

    'Look at this cloud and jump on it. It might give us a lift to the Moominhouse.'

    When they had got on, Moomintroll shouted something like 'up, up and away!'

'So this is what it's like being a seagull,' said Moomintroll.

    They curved round the wood and saw the Snork and the Snork Maiden collecting pears from the blue trees for Moominmamma.

    'Hey,' said Sniff to them, 'do you want a ride to the Moominhouse?'

    The Snork said 'yes please,' so Moomintroll said to the cloud, 'down to the Snork,' so the cloud went down and the Snork with their pears in the baskets got on and Moomintroll shouted 'away to the Moominhouse,' and off they went. They landed on the veranda and went inside.

    Moominmamma was ironing the curtains. 'Hello, my little dears, and what happened to you?' (Moomins like adventures always).

    'We were sitting in the cave and a seagull dropped a cloud,' replied Moomintroll, 'and here it is.'

    They all had a look. 'It is very nice, did you have a nice ride?'

    'Yes thank you,' they all replied.

    'Moomintroll,' said Moominmamma, 'will you go and fetch Moominpappa, dear, and ask him will he have a look at this cloud please!'

    So off Moomintroll went. He had to climb the stairs on the way to get to Moominpappa's study. The stairs had a red and yellow patterned carpet and the rail was made of bronze and had been painted silver a few years ago by Moominpappa. At last he he got to Moominpappa's study.

    'Moominpappa! come and have a look at our cloud that Snufkin and I found!'

    They went downstairs and into the room where the Snork Maiden and the Snork were with Snufkin, Moominmamma and the silk monkey.

    'Moominpappa, will you have a look at this cloud? I say, we could go for a picnic on the cloud, couldn't we?'

    'It is a splendid idea.'

    Moominmamma gave all the orders. 'Silk monkey please help Moominpappa please. Moomintroll get the food, Snufkin get the basket for the food please, Snork Maiden get some flowers and put them in a vase please. Snork will you get the table cloth and I will make some butties and pack them in the basket.'

    They all got on the cloud when they had finished. Moominpappa said that he had found some controls, so off they went.

    They landed on the beach and Moominmamma said, 'well that was a nice ride.' In their picnic they had biscuits, butties, apples and lots of things. They had a wonderful time. After the picnic, Sniff and the silk monkey went to collect some crabs while the others tidied up.

    When they got home Moominpappa locked the cloud in the garden shed and then they went to bed. They all said 'goodnight' and went to sleep.

Chapter 2    The Cloud Goes to its Master

The next day Moomintroll opened the shed door and saw the cloud safe and sound. He took out the cloud and called Snufkin: 'Snufkin! Come here and let's have a ride on the cloud.'

    'All right! I'm coming.'

    They got on the cloud and waved goodbye. 'Let's land on the beach,' said Snufkin.

    'All right,' said Moomintroll gladly, 'here we go.' He pulled a lever, but they would not go down. 'It must be the wrong lever,' he thought, so he pulled another lever, but whatever they did they couldn't make the cloud go down. Meanwhile they had gone quite far out to sea and hadn't realised it. Moomintroll was very alarmed when he saw how far they had gone.

    'Oh dear, what will Moominmamma and Moominpappa say? I do hope they won't be angry.'

    'I don't think so,' said Snufkin.

    'I wonder where we are going,' said Moomintroll. Look, there's an island. It must be the Hattifatteners' Island.' (It can be called the Lonely Island as well).

    So they tried to see if they could land. This time they went down but they did not land, but just hovered over the ground. It went into the middle of the island and disappeared into a cave.

    'It is very dark down here, isn't it?' said Moomintroll.

    'Quite, quite,' whispered Snufkin very mysteriously.

    Suddenly the cloud landed very quietly and there in front of them was a wizard. A very bad wizard who said: 'Ah, I have customers I see,' and straight away he sent them to his dungeon and locked them in .

    It was a very dark dungeon. It had one window which was very high up and seemed to have bars across. The wall looked easy to climb and the bars easy to slip through. But the wizard had warned them that if they tried to climb the wall, an invisible fire would burn then, and to prove it he had thrown a piece of wood at the wall and it had burned very quickly.

    'Just a minute,' said Snufkin turning to Moomintroll, 'I've just remembered, I could use that sun oil that the fire spirit gave me, when I saved him from the stream' (which is another story) 'couldn't I?'

    'What a good idea. How much have you got left, Snufkin?'

    'Enough for two of us,' said Snufkin.

    'Good. Let's get started,' said Moomintroll excitedly.

    They rubbed the sun oil on each other. 'It is very easy to spread, isn't it?' said Moomintroll.

    'It is especially made to be spread easily by the fire spirits,' said Snufkin.

    They rubbed and rubbed. At last they had finished rubbing. 'Phew!' said Moomintroll. 'We had to rub hard, didn't we?  

    So they started to climb. They felt warm when they went up but apart from that they could have had no idea that there was an invisible fire on the wall. Moomintroll went first through the bars and then Snufkin.

    'Come on, Snufkin, it's all right, I've landed on a very sandy beach,' said Moomintroll. So Snufkin jumped down. 'There's a boat over there, let's escape home on it before that devil of a wizard catches us.'

    So they got in the boat. This was a magic boat and it went wherever you told it to go, but Moomintroll and Snufkin didn't know that.

    'Off to the Moominhouse,' said Moomintroll, and straight away they were on the veranda outside the Moominhouse.

    'Hello,' said Moomintroll, 'we've just had a most exciting adventure!'

    'Tell me about it later, Moomintroll dear,' Moominmamma said.

    So Moomintroll and Snufkin went and told Sniff and the silk monkey.

    'Was it a good adventure?' asked SNiff.

    'Oh yes,' said Moomintroll. 'There was a wizard and he locked us up in a dungeon with a wall with an invisible fire and we escaped through the bars.

    'But the invisible fire would have burned you up!' said the silk monkey.

    'We rubbed the sun oil on us to protect us from the fire,' Snufkin answered back.

Chapter 3    Moomins at the Zoo

One day Snufkin asked Snork if he would like to go to the zoo.

    'I would like it. Ask Moomintroll if he would like to go.'

    So Snufkin went and asked Moomintroll.

    'I'll go and tell Moominmamma,' said Moomintroll, when Snufkin had finished talking to him. When Moomintroll came back he said: 'Moominmamma said that we could go and we could have a picnic as well.'

    'Oh good,' said Snufkin.

    So all the morning they arranged about going to the zoo. At last they had finished. They all went out and started their journey.

    They had to cross a bridge before getting to the zoo. On the bridge a terrible thing happened. Sniff fell in the river which flowed under the bridge.

    'Help, help! Moomintroll, Snufkin, Snork! Save me,' shouted Sniff.

    They all hauled Sniff out of the freezing cold water.

    'You ought to be more careful,' said Moominmamma who was already at the zoo gate.

    So Sniff, dripping wet, went in the zoo with the rest.

    'What's that animal with the long neck?' said Snork.

    'It's a giraffe,' said Moominmamma back.

    'That's a tiger,' said Snufkin, pointing to the tiger. 'I know that because I've come face to face with a tiger before,' continued Snufkin.

    'How big was he, Snufkin?' asked Moomintroll.

    'Much bigger than this one,' said Snufkin.

    'I know,' said Snork Maiden, 'let's go in the aquarium and see all the fish.' So they all went in the aquarium. 'Look at that lovely fish!' said the Snork Maiden. 'Moominpappa, what is it called?'

    'It says here that it is called an angel fish,' replied Moominpappa.

    'Look at this clownfish!' shouted the Snork. The clownfish was orange and white and these colours were in stripes.

    At last they came to the piranhas. There were two signs below it. They said:

and  

    'I'm glad he can't bite me,' said Moomintroll.

    'So am I!' said the Snork Maiden.

    They saw the piranha open his mouth. He had sharp teeth that gleamed in the cool bright water in the tank.

    Soon after that they went outside the aquarium. They saw a sign saying 'COME TO SEE THE SEA LIONS PERFORMING!'

    'Let's go and see the sea lions,' said Moominpappa, because he liked the sea and its things. So everyone went to see the sea lions.

    'Look! There's the sea lions' shouted Sniff. Sniff was right. Out came six sea lions and swam round the pool. The keeper gave one of the sea lions a ball and the sea lion very cleverly balanced the ball on its nose for one minute and then the keeper took it off him. Another sea lion blew into a whistle. The keeper asked how many whistles the sea lion should whistle.

    'Four,' answered Moomintroll.

    The keeper said: 'Whistle four times, Salty.' He put the whistle to the sea lions mouth and out came 1, 2, 3, 4 whistles, and everyone clapped.

    Outside they went into the monkey house, where there was a very funny chimpanzee who kept on jumping somersaults in the air. They gave it some bananas and then went to the crocodiles.

*          *          *

    Meanwhile the zookeeper was rushing about sounding alarms and shouting: 'Help! Help! The tiger's loose!'

    Moomintroll heard the zookeeper shouting first. 'Moominpappa, the zookeeper's shouting "the tiger's loose!"'

    'Well, let's get out of here!' cried Moominmamma.

    'Not so fast,' said Snufkin. 'Look, there's the tiger.'

    They all backed away. Then suddenly Moomintroll noticed a piece of string leading up to a net and underneath was a sign saying:

    'Help me to pull the string, Snork.' So they pulled the string and the ferocious tiger was caught.

    The zookeeper rushed in. 'You've caught the tiger,' he shouted, and shook hands with everyone. 'Well done,' he said.

    'It wasn't me,' said Moominpappa, 'it was Moomintroll and the Snork.'

    So the zookeeper went up to Moomintroll who was beside the Snork. He gave them each a medal.

    The tiger was named 'Moomin' after the name of the person who caught it. They had their tea at the zoo with the zookeeper. Then they watched the chimps have their tea.

    Soon the Snork said 'Let's go and see my favourite animal, the bat.'

    'All right then, dear,' said Moominmamma.

    So they all went to the nocturnal house. They saw a bush baby, a fox bat, a fruit bat, a true vampire bat and a false vampire bat. Then the Snork said: 'there's my favourite animal,' and he pointed to the bat which was called the vampire bat (the 'true' vampire bat).

    Then Moominpappa said they had better go home now, so they went out of the nocturnal house and past the monkey house and through the zoo gates.

*          *          *

That night Moomintroll was thinking about all his adventures - the adventures of the cloud and the wizard and the escape. The adventure of the tiger. The Snork was thinking how brave he was to get a medal. Soon all the lights in the Moominhouse went out one by one and everything was quiet.

The End