"...that is all ye need to know"

       The night was quite extraordinary. The Northern Lights in summer? It was as though nature herself had prepared the scenery for something remarkable. And sure enough, a meteor streaked across the entire sky, heading straight for the Lonely Mountains. Though, judging by the muffled thud of impact, it would be more accurate to call it a meteorite. Snufkin wondered whether all the valley’s inhabitants had seen the falling star. What if they had been admiring the lights, grown tired, and gone to bed at just the wrong moment? Well, if a breathless Moomin came running towards the mountains at dawn, then they had seen it. By morning, a thick fog had risen, and Snufkin nearly missed Moomin altogether at the bridge over the river. He caught a glimpse of a fleeting shadow, called out—and he was right. Just as he was right about the purpose of this early morning dash. Of course he joined in. The fog, after all, and the mountains. Someone needed to keep an eye on the child, make sure he didn’t fall anywhere. Make that two children: on the way through the forest, they were joined by Sniff, who’d been gathering firewood. Moomin tried to brush him off, claiming that he and Snufkin were simply having a marathon run (the boy’s quick thinking was admirable!), but the mere idea of a competition (and potential prizes) only excited Sniff further. He tagged along with his friend and didn’t fall behind, even when he learned the route passed through the dreaded Lonely Mountains, where the terrible alien’s flying saucer had crashed according to Moomin. In the mountains, however, the alien-hunters found only fresh air, a bit of fog, and the Hobgoblin astride his flying black panther. He too was searching for the meteorite, hoping it might be the largest ruby in the universe, and he was not at all pleased with the flying saucer theory. But Moomin paid no attention to his mockery of aliens and those who believed in them, and continued his search. Instead of a saucer or meteorite, all they found was a trail. A deep, melted groove ran from the mountain all the way to the sea. At least getting down to the beach that way was easier than the usual path. At first, there was no ruby on the beach, and no alien either. Most likely the meteorite had been small, and its red-hot core, having rolled into the water, had shattered into tiny, unremarkable stones. Snufkin, of course, kept these thoughts to himself. Moomin was far too excited, just like during his father’s stories, only this was happening to him personally, and for real. Well, the boy believed it was real, and Snufkin had no intention of disappointing him. Quite the opposite, in fact. And while he was pondering some extraordinary explanation for their failure to find a flying saucer (landed in the sea, stealth mode activated, made of sand and blending into the background), Moomin spotted a proof in the sand. The underside of some metal vessel. By the look of it, an ordinary frying pan or saucepan, washed ashore by the waves. Not the strangest find on a beach by any means. But context was stronger than facts. So much stronger that even the Hobgoblin, who had just been roaring with laughter at the alien nonsense, jerked his panther’s reins and backed away from the suspicious object a good hundred feet. Moomin, alert, advanced upon the vessel in small steps. The tip of his tail quivered slightly. And Snufkin couldn’t resist adding another touch to the scene: “Moomin, be careful! What if it’s a bomb?” Sniff reacted fastest and loudest. With a strangled cry of “Bomb!” he hid behind Snufkin’s back. Moomin himself did not retreat, did not flinch, yet his movements became even more deliberate. Kneeling before the vessel, he began gently, like a true deminer, to clear away the sand. He was a deminer now, and the imaginary adventure must’ve felt real to him, and the old saucepan was a flying saucer (and simultaneously a bomb), when Moomin tugged at the uncovered handles and fell onto his tail as the vessel popped out of the sand. A tall saucepan with two handles on the sides, looking utterly ordinary, as the Hobgoblin immediately pointed out, before flying off in search of his rubies. But nothing could now shake Moomin’s conviction of the saucepan’s extraterrestrial origin, and he set off to show his find to the other friends. Snufkin tagged along. Who knew, perhaps he might yet expand and embellish this alien story? The story nearly collapsed when they encountered a glum Little My, who, upon being asked about her foul mood, confessed that her elder sister had scolded her for losing a pan, to which Little My had not the slightest connection. Fortunately, she did not recognise Moomin’s find as her pan. But almost immediately the Nonnon approached and announced that various pans had vanished all across the valley. Now that was interesting. As he walked Moomin home, Snufkin was turning over various plot possibilities involving aliens and earthly cookware (what a goldmine of humour and puns!), when suddenly from behind, where Little My had remained, her piercing, frantic shriek came: “Thief! It’s the pan thief! Everyone come here!” It was simply astonishing how such sound volume and such a quarrelsome nature could fit inside that tiny body. At the mention of pans, Moomin immediately dashed back. Snufkin followed. At the crossroads on the edge of town, he beheld a scene worthy of a Bosch painting: half a dozen women, including Little My and her elder sister, surrounded someone in a shabby brown hat and brandished frying pans and saucepans with indignant cries. Several more pans lay in the dust underfoot. Moomin ran up to the Mymble, and when he asked what was happening, Little My answered for her sister, announcing that she had caught the thief who had stolen cookware all over the valley. Within the circle of enraged women, a completely ordinary vagabond hunched, barefoot, dressed in clothes even more tattered and patched than Snufkin’s. On a thin stick over his shoulder hung a small, meagre sack. Spotting the newcomers, he suddenly perked up, stepped towards Moomin, and pointed at the frying pan found on the beach. “Oh, my little pan! I lost it on the shore…” But before Snufkin could lament that the mystery of the flying frying pan was solved and Moomin would be disappointed, his friend demonstrated that his imagination truly knew no bounds. “Hey, what are you doing? He’s not a thief!” he cried, shooing the women away from the vagabond. “He’s an alien whose flying saucer crashed on Earth! Didn’t you see the falling star last night? That was him!” Everyone gasped, and Snufkin did his best to look surprised as well, though inwardly he felt the same excitement as Moomin, albeit for different reasons. What a splendid version of events! And it could be embellished with evidence and developed into a full-fledged adventure! True, the vagabond looked no less stunned than anyone else, but Snufkin would find ways to apply pressure; the alien would have to play along soon enough… “An alien who came to Earth to steal saucepans?” Sniff muttered nearby. An amusing deduction, but unfortunately Little My overheard and renewed her screeching, insisting that a thief was a thief, whether alien or local. The women snapped out of their initial shock and hefted their frying pans again. Oh, they’d scare off the lead actor now, and then there’d be no adventure at all… But Moomin reacted swiftly once more. Grabbing the vagabond by the hand, he took off at a run. Snufkin watched the mob of furious housewives pursue them, then set off himself, but across the meadow and through the grove, straight for his tent. Intuition and logic both suggested that Moomin would bring his long-awaited alien to hide there. He might have made for home, but Moominhouse stood in open ground, and the pursuers wouldn’t lose sight of the fugitives. And so it happened. Snufkin reached the tent at the same moment as Moomin and the alien and, without a word, gestured towards the open entrance. “I’m off home now!” Moomin rasped, panting heavily, and pushed the ‘alien’ into the tent. “I’ll tell everyone you’ve left, so they stop looking for you, and I’ll bring you food! We’ve got a huge apple harvest this year!” And he was gone, only the tuft of his tail flickered among the bushes. Making sure no one else was crashing through the grove towards the tent, Snufkin stepped inside and unrolled the door flap behind him. He turned to the alien. The creature hesitated in the middle of the tent, squinting. But the light filtering through the unbleached canvas was more than enough for Snufkin. The vagabond turned out to be a decrepit old fellow of indeterminate species (not quite Hemulen, nor Fillyjonk, nor Stortass): grey locks straggled beneath his hat, his shoulders were stooped, his knees no longer straightened. Sparse, coarse hairs trembled on his long but narrow nose. He was clearly accustomed to taking life’s blows and had resigned himself to them. Persuading him to play along would be easy enough. To begin, Snufkin gestured towards the blanket in the corner to invite the traveller to have a seat. Then he drew himself up to his full height, making it clear who was stronger and therefore in charge. With a subtle movement, he produced a folding knife from his pocket and flicked open the blade. Fear stirred in the old man’s dark eyes. Good. Now Snufkin could select a thin branch from the woodpile, settle himself on the floor, and begin whittling it into a fish skewer or some such trifle. “Not the best introduction to Moominvalley, was it?” he asked quite peacefully, glancing at his guest. The old man sat barely breathing, as if uncertain whether to be afraid. “Branded a thief straight away. And housewives can be terrifying when roused. So here’s my proposal.” He paused to knock out and refill his pipe. Moominpappa wasn’t the only one who could deploy a dramatic pause. “You’ll lie low at my camp for a while. The boy will bring food. I have nothing to offer, sorry, what with all the meteorite chasing this morning I didn’t get a chance to catch any fish. In return, I ask a mere trifle. Tell the boy you really are an alien who arrived on that meteorite. If need be, make up something about other planets. But it probably won’t come to that; Moomin will fill in any blanks himself. Besides, it won’t be for long. Two or three days, then you can slip away unnoticed, free, unharmed.” “But I’m not…” “I’m a wanderer myself, and I’d rather not see the police and the locals decide what to do with an ordinary tramp.” Snufkin twirled the miniature harpoon he had whittled from the branch between his fingers. And when the old man inevitably agreed to take part in the performance, he pocketed the knife and reached for his guitar. Snufkin heard the rustle of grass even through his strumming. Then a shadow flickered in the gap of the tent door, and Moomin called out to him in a low voice before scrambling inside. In his paws he carried an enormous basket of enormous, bright red apples, and underfoot his foolish dog was fretting. At the sight of food, the ‘alien’s’ stomach gave a distinct rumble, and he fell upon the proffered fruit with the eagerness of one who had not eaten in days. Snufkin would not have refused a juicy apple himself, but Moomin, engrossed by his extraterrestrial guest, did not think to invite his friend to join the meal. No matter. Entertainment sometimes sufficed in place of bread. And Moomin devouring a real alien with his eyes was a most amusing spectacle. “Delicious, aren’t they?” he burst out before the vagabond had even finished half an apple. “Do you eat apples often, back on your home planet?” “Every day!” the vagabond replied, clearly so overwhelmed by good fortune that he forgot his role entirely. Moomin immediately latched onto this slip. “Is that so? Aliens eat apples too?” The false alien froze, the fruit halfway to his mouth. “But I’m not…” Snufkin hastily brushed his sleeve across the guitar strings, and when the vagabond glanced his way, he gave an imperceptible shake of his head and a threatening look from beneath his hat-brim. “Please, don’t worry!” Moomin squared his shoulders and pressed a paw to his chest in a solemn gesture. “We’re on your side!” But then he leaned forward eagerly, tail aloft. “What is your name?” “Well… Herax,” the vagabond answered warily, and Moomin’s imagination took flight at once. “Of course! You’ve come from the Hercules constellation!” Herax immediately looked to Snufkin for guidance, and Snufkin nodded. Having received confirmation of his fictions from the alien himself, Moomin demanded to hear about his home planet. The ‘alien’ choked and coughed. Hmm. No actor, this one. Snufkin hastened to distract the boy. “Moomin, Master Herax can hardly speak while he’s eating. Have a little patience.” Moomin sighed, but though he refrained from questioning, he did not cease to think (aloud) about the starry heavens. He leaned back on the ground and, gazing at the tent ceiling, painted for himself the wonders of the cosmos. A remarkable child, really; give him a theme and he would invent the rest himself. “Yes, Master Herax, I quite understand. It must be hard swimming upstream against the Milky Way, flying through meteor blizzards, facing the forces of the cosmos all alone…” The vagabond chewed his apples slowly, with an air of resignation, clearly dreading the moment his mouth would be free for further revelations about his home planet. And Moomin, quite unaware, delivered the final blow: “How I wish I could travel with you to the Hercules constellation…” Time to intervene before the vagabond decided he would rather face a mob of pan-wielding women than one inquisitive child. “Moomin, it’s much too far. The journey would take far too long. Your mother and father—and the Nonnon, too—would miss you terribly.” “I’ve already spoken with the Nonnon.” Moomin sat up, the better to gesture. “She said I must go, and she promised to sew me a space suit.” The vagabond choked again. Truth be told, Snufkin nearly dropped his pipe. And Moomin had already bid them farewell and dashed off to see his sweetheart, to check whether his space suit was ready. Herax of the Hercules constellation stared after the boy, then turned in bewilderment to Snufkin. His entire form was a silent question, And what do we do now? But Snufkin had long since planned this phase of the operation. He would simply have to implement it sooner. He reached into his backpack for the necessary props. Somewhere in here was just the thing… Ah, yes. Feeling the right cord under his fingers, he drew out a rather large locket, half a paw’s breadth across, dark blue with a gleaming five-pointed golden star on its lid. Snufkin usually employed it for hypnotising ‘clients,’ but today the locket would serve a different purpose. A star was a most fortunate symbol in this context. He also required a sheet of paper, ink, and a pen. Snufkin laid these out on the block of wood that served him as a table. “Write,” he commanded. Herax, still stunned and frightened, obeyed, shuffling towards the ‘table’, but immediately withdrew his hand from the pen. “Mister, I don’t recall when last I wrote anything, nor how it’s done. At most, I make a cross mark in the papers when the cops nab me for something. I didn’t last two years at school, and that was… so many years ago.” Snufkin regarded the old man’s knotted, trembling fingers. Indeed, it had not occurred to him that not all wanderers were as literate as he. But this was not a catastrophe. He seated himself at the block, dipped the pen in the inkwell. He was skilled at mimicking various handwriting styles. Herax, relieved, moved away to the basket of remaining apples. “Moomin, farewell. I have many more stars to visit. Yes, you very much wished to accompany me, but besides the journey to the Hercules constellation being far too long, there is another reason I departed without a word of goodbye. You see, I could not bear to take such a fine boy away from the inhabitants of Earth. Thanks to you, I shall remember my visit to Earth with joy. Farewell, Moomin. At the edge of the cosmos, I shall pray for your happiness. And accept this locket as a keepsake. I have placed a tiny seed within it. It is a flower from the Hercules constellation. Farewell.” The result, in Snufkin’s estimation, was not bad at all. Moominpappa would have appreciated it (or else been dismayed that he could not do as well). And at the bottom of his backpack there were always pits, seeds, or grains of exotic plants. One never knew what trifle might prove useful in creating a new reality. Snufkin considered himself Moominpappa’s colleague, only he neither wrote nor told his stories but brought them to life. At least in the eyes of other creatures. A few words, a secretly planted trinket, a trick—and the enchanted beast saw the world around itself a little (or greatly) changed. Perhaps this art was closest to theatre, but theatre-goers still knew the action on stage was a performance. Snufkin’s ‘clients’ held his performances for real. Usually, that would bring him some material benefit. Daily bread, at least. But the soul, too, requires sustenance. For instance, genuine childish joy, sparkling eyes, sighs of wonder. He could understand Moominpappa, what drove him to torment himself constantly with pen and paper. His son had the gift not only of imagination but of sharing joy and wonder. A small, light-grey emitter of happiness… Snufkin might first have come to Moominvalley for his own reasons, but he stayed for Moomin. Dropping the round, bumpy seed into the locket, Snufkin turned to the vagabond and lowered his head slightly. The look from beneath his hat-brim usually had as much effect on timid souls as any knife. “Now go to sleep, for I’ll be waking you before dawn. It’s a long road to the pass, and you must be out of the valley by sunrise.” That night, the sky again blazed with silent green fire. At this rate, Moomin might arrive before dawn, if Nonnon finished his space suit in time. Snufkin decided to keep watch by the Snorks' house, waiting for the green Snork girl to slip out with some piece of cloth in her paws and run towards Moominhouse. Out she slipped. Off she ran. Her legs were short, her speed low, her stamina likewise. Snufkin had enough time to return to the tent, rouse Herax, and hurry him to the foot of the mountains. The night was still, and as the two walked among the hills, Snufkin’s keen ear caught Moomin’s voice. From the direction of the river and the tent. Most likely Moomin had found the letter and the gift and was now gazing at the sky, calling for the alien, begging him to return, asking why he had fled without saying goodbye… Herax, apparently, was thinking along similar lines, for after thanking Snufkin, he added: “That little one will probably be upset, reading that letter…” “But if he realised you weren’t an alien,” Snufkin assured him, “he’d be far sadder.” “Yes, but… I don’t like deceiving him…” Ah, well. Not everyone valued truth and falsehood equally, nor knew how to employ both. It was too late to retrain this truth-lover; one could only reassure him. “I’ve saved his dream of the stars intact. Now go on alone, and quickly. If Moomin spots you, it’ll be awkward.” Herax trudged up the road. Not fast, but what could one expect of an old fellow? Snufkin remained standing on the road, only turning to face the valley. Moomin would surely not rest until he had scoured the entire area and satisfied himself that the alien was truly gone. And indeed, after some time, a running figure appeared on the road. Wearing something blue. Well, the Nonnon’s handiwork did rather resemble a space suit. Or rather, a jumpsuit. No doubt her scholarly brother had shown her pictures from encyclopaedias. The suit lacked a helmet, but did include a hole for the tail. Moomin called out from a distance, through his panting: “Snufkin! Has Master Herax left already?” Snufkin said nothing and just stared at the sky. Moomin would inevitably follow his gaze and also study the play of the northern lights, rather than the winding road up the slope. Between the shimmering panels of light above, a bright star flashed and vanished. Most opportune. One who saw aliens everywhere would surely take it for a flying saucer. Or rather, a frying pan. The very one Moomin had dug up on the beach yesterday. Yes, the best deception was the one the victim invented themselves. Though why ‘victim’? Had Moomin lost anything these past twenty four hours? He had only gained a new friend and an entire cosmos. “Goodbye, Master Herax…” Moomin beside him murmured, his voice half sad, half hopeful, and in the light of the aurora his fur seemed golden. Let him be sad for now; it was a light sadness, and in a year only pure light would remain. “Snufkin,” Moomin pondered on their way back to Moominhouse. “Before winter… you won’t go without saying goodbye to me, will you?” Snufkin refrained from a chuckle, however non-ironic. “Certainly not. I will bid farewell properly.” “And…” The boy’s voice dropped to barely audible. “Will you… return in spring again?” That was a more complex question. He had never returned anywhere yet. But with this valley… He was willing to try it. This trust, this adoration were too strong a drug. Besides, he liked very much what he had become here. “Certainly, Moomin. I promise.”