Mark Fuller Dillon

Too-ticky looked at him with her calm blue eyes. Still, he wasn't quite sure that she really did see him. She was looking into her own private winter world that had followed its own strange rules year after year, while he had lain sleeping in the warm Moominhouse.

"What song is that?" asked Moomintroll.

"It's a song of myself," someone answered from the pit. "A song of Too-ticky, who built a snow-lantern, but the refrain is about wholly other things."

"I see," Moomintroll said and seated himself in the snow.

"No, you don't," replied Too-ticky genially and rose up enough to show her red-and-white sweater. "Because the refrain is about the things one can't understand. I'm thinking about the aurora borealis. You can't tell if it really does exist or if it just looks like existing. All things are so very uncertain, and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured."

"I don't either.... You believe it's cold, but if you build yourself a snowhouse it's warm. You think it's white, but at times it looks pink, and another time it's blue. It can be softer than anything, and then again harder than stone. Nothing is certain."

"Oh, it's like this," thought Moomintroll. "I believed it simply formed on the ground somehow."

"Frighten me if you can," he thought happily. "I'm wise to you now. You're no worse than anything else when one gets to know you. Now you won't be able to pull my leg any more."

Moominmamma scooped up a handful of snow and made a snowball. She threw it clumsily, as mothers do, and it plopped to the ground not very far away.

"I'm no good at that," said Moominmamma with a laugh. "Even Sorry-oo would have made a better throw."

"Mother, I love you terribly," said Moomintroll.

The Snork Maiden had come across the first brave nose-tip of a crocus. It was pushing through the warm spot under the south window, but wasn't even green yet.

"Let's put a glass over it," said the Snork Maiden. "It'll be better off in the night if there's a frost."

"No, don't do that," said Moomintroll. "Let it fight it out. I believe it's going to do still better if things aren't so easy."

Suddenly he felt so happy that he had to be alone.

"The whole sea lay spread out in front of him, grey and streaked with even white waves right out to the horizon. Toft turned his face into the wind and sat down to wait.

"Now, at last, he could wait."

"In the evening, when everyone had gone home and the bay was silent, Toft would tell himself a story of his own. It was all about the Happy Family. He told it until he went to sleep, and the following evening he would go on from where he had left off, or start it all over again from the beginning.

"Toft generally began by describing the happy Moominvalley...."

"When he woke up in the dark he knew what he would do. He would... make his way to Moominvalley and walk on to the veranda, open the door and tell them who he was.

"When Toft had made up his mind, he went to sleep again and slept all night without dreaming."

"He looked right into it, it was as deep as the sea and was flooded with a tremendous swell. Toft looked deeper and deeper and waited patiently. At last, deep down inside the ball, he could see a faint point of light. It shone and then disappeared, shone and disappeared at regular intervals, like a lighthouse.

"What a long way away they are, Toft thought. He felt the cold creeping up his legs but he stayed where he was staring at the light which came and went, so faint that one could only just see it. He felt as though they had deceived him somehow."

"Toft had never known before that deep down at the bottom of the sea lived Radiolaria and the very last Nummulites. One of the Nummulites wasn't like his relatives... and little by little he was like nothing except himself. He was evidently very tiny and became even tinier when he was frightened."

"One evening in the yellow light of sunset the Creature leant over the water and saw its own white teeth for the first time. It opened its mouth and yawned, then snapped its mouth shut and gnashed its teeth a bit, and thought: I don't need anyone now, I've got teeth."

"It's what one shows when one is angry."

"Toft suddenly exclaimed: 'That's what you think! What do you know about what Moominpappa likes?'

"They all stopped eating and stared at him....

"'Well, what do you know!' said Mymble in astonishment. 'Toft's baring his teeth!'"

"He wanted to be alone to try and work out why he had been so terribly angry at that Sunday dinner. It frightened him to realize that there was a completely different Toft in him, a Toft he didn't know and who might come back and disgrace him in front of all the others."

"I don't want friends who are kind without really liking me and I don't want anybody who is kind just so as not to be unpleasant. And I don't want anybody who is scared. I want somebody who is never scared and who really likes me. I want a mamma!"

"While the guests were honouring the Moomin family in silence, a faint thumping sound could be heard outside somewhere near the kitchen steps. It sounded as though something was groping its way up the wall... Toft raised his head, the Creature was outside now, a great heavy body rubbing along the wall by the kitchen door.

"It has become too big, Toft thought. It's so big that it can't move properly."

"'It's no good... We can't hit back. Neither of us will ever learn to hit back. You must believe me.... Make yourself tiny and hide yourself! You'll never get through this!'"

"Suddenly the crystal ball became overshadowed. A dizzy vortex opened in the heavy blue swell and then closed itself again, the Creature of the Protozoa group had made itself tiny and returned to its proper element. Moominpappa's crystal ball, which gathered everything and took care of everything, had opened up for the bewildered Nummulite."

"You want to be careful not to let things get too big."

"If the automatons somehow sensed his presence, they paid him no mind, allowing Schubert to reach the edge of the open grave unopposed. Within the grave lay a closed casket. The Haarpuder puppet stepped forward, and when it spoke the artificial voice chased a chill down Schubert’s spine. 'You act as though you have never attended a funeral before,' it said.

"'Certainly not a puppet funeral,” Schubert replied. He spoke without thought, only pausing after the echo of his words had faded to study the automaton more closely.

"The machination laughed mirthlessly. 'They are all puppet funerals, my friend.'

"Schubert poked the automaton’s left cheek. It gave way like a silken cushion beneath which lay the cogs and gears that articulated its slightly crooked smile. 'You are clearly a puppet,' he said. 'You are a work of art, to be certain, but you are nevertheless a puppet, an automaton, an artificial construct. How can it be that you speak and act so much like the real Sebastian Haarpuder?'

"'You act as though you have never attended a funeral before,' the automaton said, repeating, perhaps, the only words it had been programmed to speak.

"'Certainly not a puppet funeral,' Schubert said, echoing his earlier assertion.

"It elicited the same dour response from the automaton.

"'They are all puppet funerals, my friend.' It turned suddenly, with a smoothness that belied its cog-and-gear nature. 'Why that song?' it asked.

"'What song?'

"'The automation looked at him, cocked both its head and its mock smile and said, 'You act as though you have never attended a funeral before.'"