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Pinocchio
Once upon a time... a carpenter, picked up a strange lump of wood one day while mending a table.
When he began to chip it, the wood started to moan. This frightened the
carpenter and he decided to get rid of it at once, so he gave it to a friend
called Geppetto, who wanted to make a puppet.
Geppetto, a cobbler, took his lump of wood home,
thinking about the name he would give his puppet.
"I'll call him Pinocchio," he told himself. "It's
a lucky name."
Back in his humble basement home and workshop,
Geppetto started to carve the wood. Suddenly a voice squealed:
"Ooh! That hurt!"
Geppeto was astonished to find that the wood was
alive. Excitedly he carved a head, hair and eyes, which immediately stared right
at the cobbler. But the second Geppetto carved out the nose, it grew longer and
longer, and no matter how often the cobbler cut it down to size, it just stayed
a long nose.
The newly cut mouth began to chuckle and when
Geppetto angrily complained, the puppet stuck out his tongue at him. That was
nothing, however! When the cobbler shaped the hands, they snatched the good
man's wig, and the newly carved legs gave him a hearty kick.
His eyes brimming with tears, Geppetto scolded the
puppet.
"You naughty boy! I haven't even finished making
you, yet you've no respect for your father!"
Then he picked up the puppet and, a step at a
time, taught him to walk. But the minute Pinocchio stood upright, he started to
run about the room, with Geppetto after him, then he opened the door and dashed
into the street.
Now, Pinocchio ran faster than Geppetto and though
the poor cobbler shouted "Stop him! Stop him!" none of the onlookers, watching
in amusement, moved a finger. Luckily, a policeman heard the cobbler's shouts
and strode quickly down the street.
Grabbing the runaway, he handed him over to his
father.
"I'll box your ears," gasped Geppetto, still out
of breath.
Then he realised that was impossible, for in his
haste to carve the puppet, he had forgotten to make his ears. Pinocchio had got
a fright at being in the clutches of the police, so he apologised and Geppetto
forgave his son.
Indeed, the minute they reached home, the cobbler
made Pinocchio a suit out of flowered paper, a pair of bark shoes and a soft
bread hat. The puppet hugged his father.
"I'd like to go to school," he said, "to become
clever and help you when you're old!"
Geppetto was touched by this kind thought.
"I'm very grateful," he replied, "but we haven't
enough money even to buy you the first reading book!"
Pinocchio looked downcast, then Geppetto suddenly
rose to his feet, put on his old tweed coat and went out of the house. Not long
after he returned carrying a first reader, but minus his coat. It was snowing
outside.
"Where's your coat, father?"
"I sold it." "Why did you sell it?"
"It kept me too warm!"
Pinocchio threw his arms round Geppetto's neck and
kissed the kindly old man. It had stopped snowing and Pinocchio set out for
school with his first reading book under his arm. He was full of good
intentions.
"Today I want to learn to read. Tomorrow I'll
learn to write and the day after to count. Then I'll earn some money and buy
Geppetto a fine new coat. He deserves it, for . . ."
The sudden sound of a brass band broke into the
puppet's daydream and he soon forgot all about school. He ended up in a crowded
square where people were clustering round a brightly coloured booth.
"What's that?" he asked a boy.
"Can't you read? It's the Great Puppet Show!"
"How much do you pay to go inside?"
"Fourpence.'
"Who'll give me fourpence for this brand new
book?" Pinocchio cried.
A nearby junk seller bought the reading book and
Pinocchio hurried into the booth. Poor Geppetto. His sacrifice had been quite in
vain. Hardly had Pinocchio got inside, when he was seen by one of the puppets on
the stage who cried out:
"There's Pinocchio! There's Pinocchio!"
"Come, along. Come up here with us. Hurrah for
brother Pinocchio!" cried the puppets.
Pinocchio weent onstage with his new friends,
while the spectators below began to mutter about uproar. Then out strode
Giovanni, the puppet-master, a frightful looking man with fierce bloodshot eyes.
"What's going on here? Stop that noise! Get in
line, or you'll hear about it later!"
That evening, Giovanni sat down to his meal, but
when he found that more wood was needed to finish cooking his nice chunk of
meat, he remembered the intruder who had upset his show.
"Come here, Pinocchio! You'll make good firewood!"
The poor puppet started to weep and plead.
"Save me, father! I don't want to die . . . I
don't want to die!"
When Giovanni heard Pinocchio's cries, he was
surprised.
"Are your parents still alive?" he asked.
"My father is, but I've never known my mother,"
said the puppet in a low voice.
The big man's heart melted.
"It would be beastly for your father if I did
throw you into the fire . . . but I must finish roasting the mutton. I'll just
have to burn another puppet. Men! Bring me Harlequin, trussed!"
When Pinocchio saw that another puppet was going
to be burned in his place, he wept harder than ever.
"Please don't, sir! Oh, sir, please don't! Don't
burn Harlequin!" "
That's enough!" boomed Giovanni in a rage. "I want
my meat well cooked!"
"In that case," cried Pinocchio defiantly, rising
to his feet, "burn me! It's not right that Harlequin should be burnt instead of
me!"
Giovanni was taken aback.
"Well, well!" he said. "I've never met a puppet
hero before!"
Then he went on in a milder tone. "You really are
a good lad. I might indeed . . ."
Hope flooded Pinocchio's heart as the
puppet-master stared at him, then at last the man said:
"All right! I'll eat half-raw mutton tonight, but
next time, somebody will find himself in a pickle."
All the puppets were delighted at being saved.
Giovanni asked Pinocchio to tell him the whole tale, and feeling sorry for
kindhearted Geppetto, he gave the puppet five gold pieces.
"Take these to your father," he said. "Tell him to
buy himself a new coat, and give him my regards."
Pinocchio cheerfully left the puppet booth after
thanking Giovanni for being so generous. He was hurrying homewards when he met a
half-blind cat and a lame fox. He couldn't help but tell them all about his good
fortune, and when the pair set eyes on the gold coins, they hatched a plot,
saying to Pinocchio:
"If you would really like to please your father,
you ought to take him a lot more coins. Now, we know of a magic meadow where you
can sow these five coins. The next day, you will find they have become ten times
as many!"
"How can that happen?" asked Pinocchio in
amazement.
"I'll tell you how!" exclaimed the fox. "In the
land of Owls lies a meadow known as Miracle Meadow. If you plant one gold coin
in a little hole, next day you will find a whole tree dripping with gold coins!"
Pinocchio drank in every word his two "friends"
uttered and off they all went to the Red Shrimp Inn to drink to their meeting
and future wealth. After food and a short rest, they made plans to leave at
midnight for Miracle Meadow.
However, when Pinocchio was wakened by the
innkeeper at the time arranged, he found that the fox and the cat had already
left. All the puppet could do then was pay for the dinner, using one of his gold
coins, and set off alone along the path through the woods to the magic meadow.
Suddenly... "Your money or your life!" snarled two
hooded bandits. Now, Pinocchio had hidden the coins under his tongue, so he
could not say a word, and nothing the bandits could do would make Pinocchio tell
where the coins were hidden.
Still mute, even when the wicked pair tied a noose
round the poor puppet's neck and pulled it tighter and tighter, Pinocchio's last
thought was
"Father, help me!"
Of course, the hooded bandits were the fox and the
cat.
"You'll hang there," they said, "till you decide
to talk. We'll be back soon to see if you have changed your mind!"
And away they went. However, a fairy who lived
nearby had overheard everything . . . From the castle window, the Turquoise
Fairy saw a kicking puppet dangling from an oak tree in the wood. Taking pity on
him, she clapped her hands three times and suddenly a hawk and a dog appeared.
"Quickly!" said the fairy to the hawk. "Fly to
that oak tree and with your beak snip away the rope round the poor lad's neck!"
To the dog she said: "Fetch the carriage and
gently bring him to me!"
In no time at all, Pinocchio, looking quite dead,
was lying in a cosy bed in the castle, while the fairy called three famous
doctors, crow, owl and cricket. A very bitter medicine, prescribed by these
three doctors quickly cured the puppet, then as she caressed him, the fairy
said:
"Tell me what happened!"
Pinocchio told her his story, leaving out the bit
about selling his first reading book, but when the fairy asked him where the
gold coins were, the puppet replied that he had lost them.
In fact, they were hidden in one of his pockets.
All at once, Pinocchio's nose began to stretch, while the fairy laughed.
"You've just told a lie! I know you have, because
your nose is growing longer!"
Blushing with shame, Pinocchio had no idea what to
do with such an ungainly nose and he began to weep. However, again feeling sorry
for him, the fairy clapped her hands and a flock of woodpeckers appeared to peck
his nose back to its proper length.
"Now, don't tell any more lies," the fairy warned
him," or your nose will grow again! Go home and take these coins to your
father."
Pinocchio gratefully hugged the fairy and ran off
homewards. But near the oak tree in the forest, he bumped into the cat and the
fox. Breaking his promise, he foolishly let himself be talked into burying the
coins in the magic meadow.
Full of hope, he returned next day, but the coins
had gone. Pinocchio sadly trudged home without the coins Giovanni had given him
for his father.
After scolding the puppet for his long absence,
Geppetto forgave him and off he went to school. Pinocchio seemed to have calmed
down a bit. But someone else was about to cross his path and lead him astray.
This time, it was Carlo, the lazy bones of the
class.
"Why don't you come to Toyland with me?" he said.
"Nobody ever studies there and you can play all day long!"
"Does such a place really exist?" asked Pinocchio
in amazement.
"The wagon comes by this evening to take me
there," said Carlo. "Would you like to come?"
Forgetting all his promises to his father and the
fairy, Pinocchio was again heading for trouble. Midnight struck, and the wagon
arrived to pick up the two friends, along with some other lads who could hardly
wait to reach a place where schoolbooks and teachers had never been heard of.
Twelve pairs of donkeys pulled the wagon, and they
were all shod with white leather boots. The boys clambered into the wagon.
Pinocchio, the most excited of them all, jumped on to a donkey. Toyland, here we
come!
Now Toyland was just as Carlo had described it:
the boys all had great fun and there were no lessons. You weren't even allowed
to whisper the word "school", and Pinocchio could hardly believe he was able to
play all the time.
"This is the life!" he said each time he met
Carlo.
"I was right, wasn't I?" exclaimed his friend,
pleased with himself.
"Oh, yes Carlo! Thanks to you I'm enjoying myself.
And just think: teacher told me to keep well away from you."
One day, however, Pinocchio awoke to a nasty
surprise. When he raised a hand to his head, he found he had sprouted a long
pair of hairy ears, in place of the sketchy ears that Geppetto had never got
round to finishing.
And that wasn't all! The next day, they had grown
longer than ever. Pinocchio shamefully pulled on a large cotton cap and went off
to search for Carlo. He too was wearing a hat, pulled right down to his nose.
With the same thought in their heads, the boys stared at each other, then
snatching off their hats, they began to laugh at the funny sight of long hairy
ears. But as they screamed with laughter, Carlo suddenly went pale and began to
stagger.
"Pinocchio, help! Help!"
But Pinocchio himself was stumbling about and he
burst into tears. For their faces were growing into the shape of a donkey's head
and they felt themselves go down on all fours. Pinocchio and Carlo were turning
into a pair of donkeys. And when they tried to groan with fear, they brayed
loudly instead.
When the Toyland wagon driver heard the braying of
his new donkeys, he rubbed his hands in glee.
"There are two fine new donkeys to take to market.
I'll get at least four gold pieces for them!"
For such was the awful fate that awaited naughty
little boys that played truant from school to spend all their time playing
games. Carlo was sold to a farmer, and a circus man bought Pinocchio to teach
him to do tricks like his other performing animals.
It was a hard life for a donkey! Nothing to eat
but hay, and when that was gone, nothing but straw. And the beatings! Pinocchio
was beaten every day till he had mastered the difficult circus tricks.
One day, as he was jumping through the hoop, he
stumbled and went lame. The circus man called the stable boy.
"A lame donkey is no use to me," he said. "Take it
to market and get rid of it at any price!"
But nobody wanted to buy a useless donkey. Then
along came a little man who said:
"I'll take it for the skin. It will make a good
drum for the village band!"
And so, for a few pennies, Pinocchio changed hands
and he brayed sorrowfully when he heard what his awful fate was to be. The
puppet's new owner led him to the edge of the sea, tied a large stone to his
neck, and a long rope round Pinocchio's legs and pushed hlm into the water.
Clutching the end of the rope, the man sat down to wait for Pinocchio to drown.
Then he would flay off the donkey's skin.
Pinocchio struggled for breath at the bottom of
the sea, and in a flash, remembered all the bother he had given Geppetto, his
broken promises too, and he called on the fairy. The fairy heard Pinocchio's
call and when she saw he was about to drown, she sent a shoal of big fish. They
ate away all the donkey flesh, leaving the wooden Pinocchio.
Just then, as the fish stopped nibbling, Pinocchio
felt himself hauled out of the water. And the man gaped in astonishment at the
living puppet, twisting and turning like an eel, which appeared in place of the
dead donkey.
When he recovered his wits, he babbled, almost in
tears:
"Where's the donkey I threw into the sea?"
"I'm that donkey", giggled Pinocchio.
"You!" gasped the man. "Don't try pulling my leg.
If I get angry . . ."
However, Pinocchio told the man the whole story .
. .
"and that's how you come to have a live puppet on
the end of the rope instead of a dead donkey!"
"I don't give a whit for your story," shouted the
man in a rage. "All I know is that I paid twenty coins for you and I want my
money back! Since there's no donkey, I'll take you to market and sell you as
firewood!"
By then free of the rope, Pinocchio made a face at
the man and dived into the sea. Thankful to be a wooden puppet again, Pinocchio
swam happily out to sea and was soon just a dot on the horizon.
But his adventures were far from over. Out of the
water behind him loomed a terrible giant shark! A horrified Pinocchio sawits
wide open jaws and tried to swim away as fast as he could, but the monster only
glided closer.
Then the puppet tried to escape by going in the
other direction, but in vain. He could never escape the shark, for as the water
rushed into its cavern-like mouth, he was sucked in with it. And in an instant
Pinocchio had been swallowed along with shoals of fish unlucky enough to be in
the fierce creature's path.
Down he went, tossed in the torrent of water as it
poured down the shark's throat, till he felt dizy. When Pinocchio came to his
senses, he was in darkness. Over his head, he could hear the loud heave of the
shark's gills.
On his hands and knees, the puppet crept down what
felt like a sloping path, crying as he went:
"Help! Help! Won't anybody save me?"
Suddenly, he noticed a pale light and, as he crept
towards it, he saw it was a flame in the distance. On he went, till:
"Father! It can't be you! . . ."
"Pinocchio! Son! It really is you . . .
" Weeping for joy, they hugged each other and,
between sobs, told their adventures. Geppetto stroked the puppet's head and told
him how he came to be in the shark's stomach.
"I was looking for you everywhere. When I couldn't
find you on dry land, I made a boat to search for you on the sea. But the boat
capsized in a storm, then the shark gulped me down. Lucklly, it also swallowed
bits of ships wrecked in the tempest, so I've managed to survive by gettlng what
I could from these!"
"Well, we're still alive!" remarked Pinocchio,
when they had finished recounting their adventures.
"We must get out of here!"
Taking Geppetto's hand, the pair started to climb
up the shark's stomach, using a candle to light their way. When they got as far
as its jaws, they took fright, but as so happened, this shark slept with its
mouth open, for it suffered from asthma.
As luck would have it, the shark had been basking
in shallow waters since the day before, and Pinocchio soon reached the beach.
Dawn was just breaking, and Geppetto, soaked to the skin, was half dead with
cold and fright.
"Lean on me, father." said Pinocchio. "I don't
know where we are, but we'll soon find our way home!"
Beside the sands stood an old hut made of
branches, and there they took shelter. Geppetto was running a temperature, but
Pinocchio went out, saying,
"I'm going to get you some milk."
The bleating of goats led the puppet in the right
direction, and he soon came upon a farmer. Of course, he had no money to pay for
the milk.
"My donkey's dead," said the farmer. "If you work
the treadmill from dawn to noon, then you can have some milk."
And so, for days on end, Pinocchio rose early each
morning to earn Geppetto's food. At long last, Pinocchio and Geppetto reached
home. The puppet worked late into the night weaving reed baskets to make money
for his father and himself.
One day, he heard that the fairy after a wave of
bad luck, was ill in hospital. So instead of buying himself a new suit of
clothes, Pinocchio sent the fairy the money to pay for her treatment.
One night, in a wonderful dream, the fairy
appeared to reward Pinocchio for his kindness. When the puppet looked in the
mirror next morning, he found he had turned into somebody else. For there in the
mirror, was a handsome young lad with blue eyes and brown hair.
Geppetto hugged him happily.
"Where's the old wooden Pinocchio?" the young lad
asked in astonishment.
"There!" exclaimed Geppetto, pointing at him.
"When bad boys become good, their looks change
along with their lives!"
The End
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