Pinocchio

Once upon a time, in a little Italian town, there lived an old carpenter named Antonio. Everyone called him Master Cherry, because his nose was red and shiny, like a ripe cherry. One day he picked up a perfectly ordinary log to carve a leg for a table, swung his axe, and the log squeaked:

"Oh, not so hard!"

Master Cherry was so frightened that his nose turned from red to blue. Just then there was a knock at the door. It was his neighbor, poor Geppetto.

"I want to carve myself a wooden puppet," he said. "One that can dance and turn somersaults. I’ll travel the world with it and earn myself a crust of bread."

Master Cherry hurried to hand over the log. Let it squeak at somebody else.

At home, in a shabby little room where even the fire in the fireplace was painted on the wall, Geppetto set to work. He carved the hair, the forehead, the eyes, and the eyes suddenly blinked and stared at him. He carved the nose, and the nose began to grow. Geppetto trimmed it, and it grew again: long, sharp, cheeky.

"I’ll call you Pinocchio," the old man decided. "It’s a lucky name."

He carved the mouth, and the mouth burst out laughing and stuck out its tongue. He carved the hands, and the hands grabbed Geppetto’s yellow wig and whisked it off his head.

"Son," Geppetto sighed, "I haven’t even finished you, and you already don’t trust me."

The moment the old man carved the legs, the puppet leaped to the floor, pitter-patter-pitter, and out the door. Geppetto ran after him down the street all the way to the corner, where a passer-by caught the runaway by his long nose and handed him back to his father.

That evening Geppetto went to the baker’s for bread, and Pinocchio was left alone. Suddenly someone in the corner said:

"Chirp-chirp!"

"Who are you?" asked Pinocchio.

"I’m the Talking Cricket. I’ve lived in this room for a hundred years. And I’ll tell you this: nothing good comes to those who don’t listen to their father and run away from home."

"So what!" Pinocchio snapped back. "I’ll run away tomorrow. I won’t go to school. I want to play, eat and sleep all day long."

"Then you’ll turn into a real donkey," said the Cricket, and slipped into a crack.

Pinocchio only snorted. Could a wooden puppet really turn into a donkey?

Geppetto came home late with empty hands: the bakery had already closed. And Pinocchio was hopping up and down:

"I’m hungry! Hungry!"

The old man pulled three pears out of his pocket, his own breakfast for the next day, and gave them to his son.

"Peel them, please," said Pinocchio. "I don’t eat the peel."

Geppetto patiently peeled the pears and put the peels and cores on the edge of the table. Pinocchio gobbled up the pears in a flash, thought for a moment, and ate the peels. Then the cores.

"You see," Geppetto smiled. "There’s no need to be so fussy. You never know what will come in handy tomorrow."

In the morning Geppetto sewed his son some clothes out of patches. And so that Pinocchio could go to school like everyone else, he sold his only jacket and bought him a primer. Snow was falling outside.

"But you have no jacket, Papa," said Pinocchio.

"I’m hot," Geppetto lied. Well, what else could he say?

Pinocchio left the house fully determined to study. But halfway there he heard a pipe and a drum: boom-boom, toot-toot! A puppet theater stood in the square. A ticket cost four coins. Pinocchio had no money, only the primer. A minute later he had no primer either.

The moment he stepped into the hall, the puppets on the stage cried out:

"It’s our brother Pinocchio! Long live Pinocchio!"

The show turned into an uproar. The owner of the theater, Mangiafuoco, came out, a giant with a black beard down to the floor, and thundered:

"Into the stove with this troublemaker! I’m just short of firewood to finish roasting my supper!"

Pinocchio burst into tears:

"Papa, save me! My papa is poor, he sold his jacket so I could study..."

And then something strange happened. Mangiafuoco scrunched up his face, wrinkled his nose and let out a sneeze:

"Achoo!"

Whenever this terrible giant felt sorry for someone, he always sneezed. He asked about Geppetto, scratched his beard, and gave Pinocchio five gold coins.

"Take them to your father. And don’t let me see you here again."

Pinocchio raced home, jingling the coins in his pocket. And toward him came a Fox who limped on one paw and a Cat who pretended to be blind.

"Good day, Pinocchio!" the Fox said sweetly. "Five coins are nothing. Would you like a thousand? Not far from here is the Field of Wonders. Bury a coin there, water it, and by morning a tree will grow, all covered in gold."

"All covered in gold," the Cat echoed.

Pinocchio thought of his father’s jacket, which he could buy along with a whole shop, and went with them. In the evening they stopped at the Red Crayfish inn. The Cat ate thirty-five fish, the Fox a whole hare, and they left Pinocchio to pay: he gave the innkeeper one coin.

At night in the forest two figures in black sacks with holes for eyes chased him. The robbers' voices sounded strangely familiar: one rasped like a fox, the other mewed like a cat.

"Your money or your life!"

Pinocchio hid the coins under his tongue and ran. He ran until he saw a little white house between the trees. He thumped on the door, and it opened. Such bright light poured out that the robbers backed away and vanished into the darkness.

On the threshold stood a girl with hair as blue as the sky. It was the Fairy. She tucked Pinocchio into bed, gave him a warm herbal drink and asked:

"And where are your coins?"

"I lost them," said Pinocchio. And at that very moment the coins were in his pocket.

His nose at once grew a hand’s width longer.

"Where exactly did you lose them?" asked the Fairy.

"In the forest... No, I swallowed them! Along with the medicine!"

His nose grew again, so much that Pinocchio couldn’t turn his head: he bumped into the cupboard, caught the door, and almost smashed the window. The Fairy laughed.

"A lie, my boy, comes in two kinds. One has short legs and the other has a long nose. Yours, I see, has a long nose."

Pinocchio cried so hard that the Fairy took pity and called the woodpeckers. Tap-tap-tap! And his nose was ordinary again.

"I’ll go and fetch Papa right now," Pinocchio promised.

But on the path under the oak the Fox and the Cat were already waiting for him, as friendly as if nothing had happened. And Pinocchio, what a wooden head, went with them to the Field of Wonders. He buried four coins, watered them from a puddle, and went off for a stroll, just as the Fox had taught him. All the way he dreamed: "I’ll buy Papa a jacket, no, ten jackets! And a palace. And a whole cartload of candy." Then he ran back for his golden tree. In the field there was only a little hole. On a branch sat a parrot, roaring with laughter:

"Whoever sows money reaps foolishness!"

Nobody ever saw the Fox or the Cat again.

Pinocchio went back to the Fairy. She forgave him and became something like a mother to him. For a whole year he went to school and tried so hard that his teacher praised him. And then the Fairy said:

"Tomorrow you will become a real boy."

That very evening Pinocchio met his best friend, skinny little Candlewick.

"I’m going to Toyland!" he whispered. "There are no schools there, and no teachers. A week there is six Thursdays and one Sunday."

"I have to be home tomorrow..."

"Well then, sit at home like an old grandpa!"

At midnight a cart arrived, pulled by little donkeys in white shoes. Pinocchio hesitated for exactly as long as it took the cart to start moving. Then he jumped on.

In Toyland everyone played all day long, shouting and chasing balls. Some rode wooden horses, some flew kites, some drew on the walls with charcoal: "Long live toys! Down with lessons!" Nobody could write it without mistakes, but who cared?

"Well," Candlewick kept asking, "isn’t it better here than at school?"

"It is," Pinocchio agreed. And only now and then, before falling asleep, he remembered the white house and the blue hair.

Five months went by. One morning Pinocchio scratched his head and felt two long furry ears. Candlewick pulled off his cap, and he had the same.

The boys looked at each other and burst out laughing. But instead of laughter, what came out was:

"Hee-haw! Hee-haw!"

Then Pinocchio remembered the Cricket’s "you’ll turn into a real donkey", but it was too late. The boys became donkeys, and a sly driver sold them at the fair: Candlewick to a farmer, Pinocchio to a circus. There they taught him to jump through a hoop. And once, during a show, he saw a woman with blue hair in the front row. Pinocchio stared so hard that he tripped and went lame.

The circus had no use for a lame donkey. His master led him to the sea to sell him to a fisherman. But on the pier the donkey slipped, and splash, into the waves! There a school of little fish, sent by the Fairy, was already waiting for him. They nibbled the donkey skin off him like a wet coat, and a wooden puppet floated up out of the water.

"Goodbye!" Pinocchio called from the waves and swam away.

Suddenly a dark mountain rose from the deep. It was the Giant Shark, as long as a whole ship. His mouth was like the gate of a cave, and his teeth like a white fence. He took a breath, and Pinocchio, along with water, fish and seaweed, flew into the darkness.

Inside it was black and quiet and smelled of fish. Then, far, far away, a little light flickered. Pinocchio walked toward it, splashing through puddles. There stood a table, on the table a candle in a bottle, and at the table sat someone old, gray-haired and thin.

"Papa!"

"Son! Can it really be you?"

Geppetto, it turned out, had set out to search for him in a little boat across the whole sea, and the Shark had swallowed the old man together with his boat. Since then he had lived here in its belly, eating what was left of a swallowed ship. And now he had only one last candle.

"Let’s escape," said Pinocchio.

"But I can’t swim," Geppetto sighed.

"I can. I’m made of wood."

The Shark was old and slept with his mouth open, because he was short of breath. Pinocchio and Geppetto tiptoed over his tongue as if over a soft carpet and jumped into the night sea. The old man held on to his son’s shoulders. Pinocchio swam until his arms ached, and still there was no shore.

"I see I can’t make it," he whispered.

Just then a big Tuna surfaced beneath them. The Shark had swallowed him once too, and he had escaped after them.

"Climb on my back," said the Tuna. "I know the way."

At dawn he carried them to the shore.

Geppetto was weak and could hardly walk. They found a straw hut, and in it, who would have thought, the Talking Cricket.

"Stay as long as you need," said the Cricket. "I told you: those who listen to their father will be well."

Every morning Pinocchio went to the gardener Giangio and turned the wheel that drew water from the well. A hundred buckets for a glass of milk for Papa. In the evening he wove baskets to sell and learned to read by the light of a lamp. Five months went by. Little by little Geppetto came back to life, and Pinocchio saved up forty coins for a new little jacket.

One day he met the Snail who served the Fairy.

"The Fairy is ill and lying in the hospital," said the Snail. "She hasn’t even got money for bread."

Pinocchio gave all forty coins without thinking for a minute.

"Tell the Fairy I’ll bring more tomorrow."

That night he wove baskets until midnight. And in the morning he opened his eyes and did not recognize himself. His hands were warm and pink. His nose was ordinary, a little upturned. He wore new clothes, and in his pocket was a purse made of bone, and in it forty gold coins. By the window, fresh and cheerful, Geppetto was planing a frame.

"Papa! What happened?"

"You did it all yourself, son," Geppetto smiled.

And on a chair in the corner sat an old wooden puppet. Its head drooped to one side, its arms hung down, its legs were crossed, its nose long and sharp. Pinocchio looked at it for a long time, and then he said:

"How funny I was when I was a puppet!"