‘What a good taste he had. Thanks a lot!’ Snufkin said. He was happy again.
‘What became of the other lottery prizes?’ asked Sniff. ‘The meerschaum tram’s under the drawing-room pier-glass, but what about the others?’
‘Well, we never had any champagne,’ Moominpappa thoughtfully replied. ‘So I expect the whisk is still somewhere at the back of the kitchen drawer. And the smoked-ring evaporated in a few years…’
‘But the organ-grinding handle!’ cried Sniff.
Moominpappa looked at him.
‘If I only knew your birthday,’ he said. ‘Your daddy the Muddler always was a careless one with calendars.’
‘I can choose any day,’ Sniff said.
‘All right, you may expect a mysterious parcel any day,’ Moominpappa said. ‘Shall I read some more?’
Moomintroll nodded.
And Moominpappa started to read again.
*
The door opened slightly and very slowly, and a little grey wisp of smoke floated through the crack and curled up on my carpet. Two pale and shining eyes blinked at the top of the curl. I saw it all very clearly from my hiding-place under the bed.
‘It’s a ghost,’ I said to myself. And funnily enough it was much less frightening to look at him than it had been to listen to him coming up the stairs.
The room had suddenly grown cold with an icy draught, and the ghost sneezed.
I don’t know how you’d have felt, but for my part I immediately lost much of my respect. So I crawled out from under the bed and said: ‘Cold night, sir!’
‘Yes,’ replied the ghost in an annoyed tone. ‘A bleak night of fate resounding with the horrible wails of the phantoms of the gorge!’
‘What can I do for you?’ I asked politely.
‘On a night of fate like this,’ the ghost continued stubbornly, ‘the forgotten bones are rattling on the silent beach!’
‘Whose bones?’ I asked (still very politely).
‘The forgotten bones,’ said the ghost, ‘Pale horror grins over the damned island! Mortal, beware!’ The ghost uncurled, gave me a terrible look and floated back towards the half-open door. The back of his head met the door-jamb with a resounding bang.
‘Oop!’ said the ghost.
I didn’t hide my delight.
With a last hiss the ghost glided downstairs and out into the moonlight. Down on the ground he turned and bade me farewell with three horrible laughs.
‘I’ll have to tell the others tomorrow,’ I said to myself. ‘Perhaps Hodgkins can invent a ghost-proof lock to put on my door.’
Hodgkins took the matter more seriously than I had expected. ‘That kind of a ghost can be troublesome enough,’ he said. ‘If you laugh at him. When he would like to frighten you.’
‘Do you know what he’s done tonight?’ asked the Joxter. ‘He’s painted a skull and crossbones and the word “poison” on the Muddler’s tin, and the Muddler’s feeling very offended and says he isn’t that kind of person.’
‘How childish,’ I said.
‘Yes, and then there are all kinds of warnings in red paint all over The Oshun Oxtra,’ continued the Joxter, ‘and I suppose he hasn’t finished yet.’
He hadn’t.
The Island Ghost pestered us all the week; every night became filled with owl-hoots and knocks and tables jumping around and breaking. And when he finally found a piece of chain in Hodgkins’s tool chest and ratttled it for four hours at a stretch the situation became unbearable. We decided to invite the ghost to a secret council and talk some sense into him. So we nailed a message to the palm-wine tree:
Dear Island Ghost,
For obvious reasons a special Ghost Council will be held at this place on Tuesday before sunset Members’ complaints will be attended to. Bring no chains, please.
Board of the Royal Colony
‘Since when are we royal?’ asked the Muddler.
‘Since I became Inventor to the King,’ answered Hodgkins.
‘I must ask mother to embroider crowns on all my undies,’ said the Mymble’s daughter.
‘It was more fun to have an Outlaw Colony,’ I said. ‘I’m feeling royal anyway.’
The ghost replied in the afternoon, with red paint on parchment (The parchment was found to be Hodgkins’s old raincoat, nailed to the tree with the Mymble’s daughter’s breadknife.)
Hodgkins read the message aloud:
‘The Hour of Fate is nearing. Tuesday, but at midnight, when the Hounds of Death are howling in the lonely wilderness! Vain creatures, hide your snouts in the cold earth that rings with the heavy tread of the Invisible! Your Fate is written in blood on the walls of the Chambers of Terror. I’ll bring my chain if I like.
The Ghost, called the Horriblest.’
‘Well,’ said Hodgkins. ‘Fate’s a word he’s fond of, I see, and capitals. Don’t be afraid. And don’t be too brave, either. Wouldn’t be polite.’
The ghost greeted us punctually at twelve o’clock with three hollow howls and a green light (that lost its effect on account of our camp fire.)
‘I have come!’ said the ghost in his inimitable tones. ‘Tremble, mortals, for the revenge of the forgotten bones!’
‘Evening,’ said the Joxter. ‘You haven’t forgotten those bones, I hear. Whose are they? Why don’t you bury them?’
‘Now, now, Joxter,’ said Hodgkins. ‘Don’t tease him. Dear ghost. Wouldn’t you please let us have some sleep? Can’t you move somewhere else for a while?’
‘Everybody’s accustomed to me,’ said the ghost sadly. ‘Not even Edward the Booble’s scared any more.’
‘I was!’ said the Muddler. ‘I’m still scared!’
‘That’s kind of you,’ replied the ghost thankfully and hastened to add: ‘The lost skeleton caravan’s wailing in icy moonlight!’
‘Listen,’ Hodgkins said kindly. ‘You don’t seem to have the fun you ought to have. I’ll speak to the King. Perhaps he could give you a territory of your own. What? Something with a good supply of phosphorus and tin cans?’
‘And fog horns?’ said the ghost a little hesitantly. ‘Do you think you could find me a real skeleton?’
‘Do my best,’ said Hodgkins. ‘By the way. Do you know the thread-and-resin trick?’
‘No! Tell me!’ said the ghost with interest.
‘Quite simple,’ said Hodgkins. ‘You take a length of thick sewing cotton. Number twenty at least. Fasten it to the window-frame (of an enemy). Stand outside and rub the thread with a piece of resin.’
‘And it produces a noise of horror?’ asked the ghost happily.
‘It does. And if you happen to have a tin tube and a pair of stilts…’ Hodgkins continued.
‘By my demon eye, you’re a real friend,’ said the ghost and curled up at his feet. ‘Tin tube, did you say? I have one.’
Then Hodgkins sat half the night describing the most astonishing devices for frightening people. He drew the constructions in the sand. And at dawn the ghost was elected a member of the Royal Colony and officially named The Terror of Horror Island.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I wonder if you’d care to lodge with me? You can have the drawing-room to yourself. Not that I’m afraid to live alone, but it’s always safer to have someone in the house.’
‘By all the Hounds of Hell,’ the ghost began, paling with annoyance. But then he calmed down and replied: ‘Well, thanks, that’s kind of you.’
I made him a nice bed out of a packing-case that I painted black with a decoration of skulls and bones in pale green. His feeding bowl I marked ‘Poison’ (to the Muddler’s great satisfaction).
‘Most cosy,’ said the ghost. ‘Please don’t mind if I rattle a little at midnight. It’s a habit.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘But not more than five minutes, and please keep away from the meerschaum tram. It’s valuable.’
‘All right,’ said the ghost. ‘But I’ll take a whole night out on Midsummer Night.’
CHAPTER 7
Describ
ing the triumphant unveiling of the Amphibian and its sensational trial dive to the bottom of the sea.
AND Midsummer Night came and went (at the Eve the Mymble gave birth to her smallest daughter and named her My, which means The-smallest-in-existence) and the trees blossomed, the blossoms changed into oranges, the oranges were eaten (mostly by the Joxter), and nobody ever found the time to write those Colony laws.
Sometimes Edward the Booble waded to our shores and bawled at us as he was wont to do. I invented one philosophical truth after the other. The Joxter did nothing special, but said he felt fine. The ghost had taken to knitting socks and scarfs. The click and rattle was good for his nerves, he said.
But one special day – a lonely day when I longed to go away round the world with the Hattifatteners – something happened.
Hodgkins called a meeting of the council. He had put on his captain’s cap and a solemn expression. We understood that something important had taken place and waited in silence for him to speak.
‘My old crew,’ Hodgkins began in a funny voice. ‘This is a great day. The Oshun Oxtra is now an Amphibian.’
‘Really,’ said the Mymble’s daughter.
‘Excuse me, a what?’ asked the Muddler.
‘The houseboat is rebuilt. Into an Amphibian,’ Hodgkins explained. ‘An Amphibian’s a submarine. On wheels. With wings.’
‘Triumph!’ I cried. ‘Hodgkins, you’re famous now!’ ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Perhaps not famous. But satisfied.’
The trial flight took place the same afternoon. The former Oshun Oxtra was placed on a platform in front of the Autocrat’s throne and covered with a red canvas.
‘A black one’s much more festive, I think,’ said the Island Ghost clicking away at his knitting. ‘Or even a thin veil, ashen pale as midnight fog. The shade of horror, you know.’
‘What a prattler he is,’ said the Mymble who had brought all her children to the event. ‘Hullo, dearest daughter! Come and look at your latest brothers and sisters!’
‘Mother dear,’ said the Mymble’s daughter, ‘have you made new ones again! Please tell them that their sister is a Colonial Princess on her way to a trip around the moon in an Amphibian.’
The Mymble kiddies bobbed, nodded, and stared.
Hodgkins disappeared behind the canvas to inspect his invention for the last time. ‘Ought to test the exhaust,’ he
said. ‘Something’s the matter with the pipe. Joxter! Go aboard, will you, and switch on the big fan!’
After a while the big fan was heard to start.
Almost at once a lump of oatmeal porridge came flying out from the exhaust pipe and hit Hodgkins in the eye.
‘Strange sight!’ he said in some surprise.
The Mymble kiddies shouted ecstatically.
‘Our breakfast porridge,’ Hodgkins said reproachfully to the Muddler.
‘Excuse me,’ the Muddler replied. ‘There was a little left over, but I’m definitely sure I put it in the teapot Not in the exhaust pipe.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked the Autocrat. ‘May We begin Our opening speech, or are you too busy to listen?’
‘It’s just my little My, I hear,’ explained the Mymble delightedly. ‘Such a little personality already! Porridge in an exhaust pipe! What an idea!’
‘Don’t take it too seriously, madam,’ Hodgkins said, a little stiffly.
‘May We begin or may We not?’ asked the King.
‘Please, Your Majesty, go ahead,’ I said.
The fog horn gave a long blast, the Hemulic Voluntary Brass Band stood at attention, and Daddy Jones climbed to his throne amid general cheering. When all was silent again he spoke:
‘Dear foggy-headed subjects! The occasion calls for a few solemn words. Take a good look at Hodgkins. Our Royal Surprise Inventor! His latest and greatest invention is to be unveiled shortly and starting on its pioneer voyage over land, through the ocean deep, and in the air. Please keep this bold enterprise somewhere at the back of your fuzzy minds when you are hopping around and generally passing the time of day. We are still expecting great things of you, dearest muddle-heads. Try to spread a little honour and glory over Our kingdom in the future, and if you can’t do that, then at least give the hero of the day the best of your cheers!’
The people cheered enthusiastically. The Hemulens started on Daddy Jones’s favourite waltz, and amid a shower of roses and Japanese pearls Hodgkins went up to the platform and pulled the silk rope.
The canvas fell to the ground.
It was a great moment.
The Hemulic Band changed over to the Autocratical Anthem (with the refrain: ‘Surprised, aren’t you?’) and the Mymble, always easily moved, cried floods of tears.
Hodgkins pulled at the peak of his cap and went aboard, followed by the Royal Outlaw Colony (with roses and Japanese pearls still raining over us), and the remaining space in the former Oshun Oxtra was speedily filled with Mymble kiddies.
‘Excuse me!’ the Muddler suddenly cried and jumped back over the gangway. ‘By heck, I daren’t! Not in the air! I’ll be sick again!’ He rushed back and disappeared in the crowd.
And a moment later the Amphibian began to tremble. The engines droned, the door was closed and bolted, and then the ship took a sudden leap from the platform and sailed over the tree-tops in the Garden of Surprises.
‘We’re up! We’re up!’ the Joxter cried.
Yes, one moment we were up in the air, the next we skidded over the waves, ploughing up a splendid foam.
‘Hold on now,’ Hodgkins cried. ‘We’re going down.’ He pulled a lever.
Suddenly the Amphibian was filled by green light and swarms of bubbles went dancing across the port-holes.
‘We’ll never come up,’ said little My.
I pressed my snout against the cold glass and looked out into the sea.
Hodgkins had switched on a row of headlights and we moved through the green deep in a circle of light
‘Are all the fish in bed?’ the Joxter asked.
‘They’re afraid,’ said Hodgkins. ‘Wait a bit.’
We waited. In a little while a little fish-child came
swimming out of the green dark into our light. He seemed to hesitate, then he came up to the Amphibian and sniffed at it with great interest.
He carried a small lantern on his nose.
‘Why doesn’t he light it?’ the Mymble wondered.
‘Perhaps his battery’s dead,’ Hodgkins said ‘There’s another one!’
In a few minutes dozens of small fish were swarming around us. Then some young sea-serpents and a few mermaids appeared, and finally a big bespectacled fishing-frog thrust his nose at one of the port-holes.
‘Are they dumb?’ I asked.
‘Just a moment,’ Hodgkins replied and turned a knob on his special wireless. There was a crackle, and then we heard the fishing-frog speak.
‘I’m of the definite opinion that this thing reminds me not a little of a whale,’ the fishing-frog said in the circumstantial manner he had acquired in two hundred and ten years of lonely swimming.
‘But what a funny diet he keeps,’ said the small fish-child. ‘Look at that pale snouted fish he’s swallowed! He’ll have bad dreams tonight.’
‘Meaning you,’ said the Joxter and gave me a friendly pat on the back. ‘He thinks you’re the strangest fish here.’
‘Be quiet, the serpent’s talking,’ I said.
‘I’d be surprised if this whale would ever get the time to digest it,’ now said the serpent. ‘Blazing with light, indeed. He’ll be caught sooner or later.’
‘One asks oneself with a certain apprehension whether it’s a manifestation of stupidity or of defiance,’ said the fishing-frog. ‘Still, one has to admit that the effect is most pleasing to the eye. I’m afraid my glasses do not allow me really to appreciate the illumination. But as a law-abiding citizen one asks oneself also what his wattage might be.’
‘What’s he talking of?’ the Mymble asked.
‘They se
em to have some kind of lighting regulation,’ the Joxter said with a snort. ‘Apparently you’re not allowed even to light the lamps on your own snout.’
‘Very sensible,’ remarked the Island Ghost. ‘The night of fate veiling the cemetery in black shrouds. Black wraiths flitting through the dark. Good idea.’
Indeed, each one of the sea-people carried a small unlit lantern. They now formed a dense crowd around the Amphibian and seemed to like our light.
‘It can’t last,’ said a cod. ‘The Sea-Hound’s sure to come.’
The crowd moved uneasily and the smallest fishes disappeared.
‘Where’s he hunting tonight?’ the serpent asked anxiously.
‘I heard him in the western parts before nightfall,’ replied a sea-spook. ‘There was a porpoise carrying a light. He ate it, of course.’
‘They’re off,’ I said. ‘Something’s scared them.’
‘They’ll eat us,’ said little My.
‘I’d better put the kiddies to bed,’ remarked the Mymble. ‘Hurry up, please!’
Her children formed a circle to help each other with the back buttons.
‘Count yourselves tonight,’ said the Mymble. ‘This excitement’s made me so tired.’
‘Aren’t you going to read to us?’ the kiddies cried.
‘Yes, of course,’ said the Mymble.
‘Where did we stop last time?’
The kiddies chorused: ‘This-is-one-eyed-Bob’san-guinary-work-remarked-Inspector-Twiggs-pulling-a-three-inch-nail-from-the-ear-of-the-corpse-it-must-have-happened.’
‘I know, I know,’ said the Mymble. ‘Hurry into bed now and we’ll say your prayers first.’
Just then we caught sight of the Sea-Hound on the starboard.
It looked so terrifying that Hodgkins switched off all the lamps at once.
But his surprise was so great that he wasn’t able to handle the ship properly, and instead of rising to the surface the Amphibian dived down like a stone to the bottom of the sea and started to crawl forward on her caterpillar chains.
The sea-weed brushed our sides and clawed at our port-holes like ghastly fingers. In the silent dark we heard the panting of the Sea-Hound chasing us. Now his grey snout with the long drooping whiskers appeared, horribly lighted by his evil yellow eyes. They were like a couple of search-lights that found the Amphibian and held it…