Chapter SixAs retold for Aaron Pinocchio falls asleep with his feet on a foot warmer, and awakens the next day with his feet all burned off.
Pinocchio looked
out on the dark, night street. Being only a Marionette without much
experience, he hadn't great cause to be frightened of the dark, but
it did worry him a little.
"Just a little," he thought.
As he
started out on his search for food, it began to thunder, and though
Pinocchio was only a Marionette and didn't have much experience with
storms, he was worried a little. "Just a little," he thought
to himself, ducking his head under his arm with each bright flash of
lightning that now and again shot across the sky so it seemed to turn
into a sea of blue-white fire. The wind, blowing cold and angry, raised dense
clouds of dust, while the trees shook and moaned in a wierd way.
Pinocchio wondered if he should turn back, but the hunger he felt was
greater than his anxiety.
"I know exactly what I should do,"
Pinocchio said out loud, "I should run as fast as I can to the
town. The less time I'm out in this storm, the less time there will
be for anything to happen to me. I bet in the town there will be
someone who won't mind giving me a bit of bread, and maybe even letting
me come inside and eat it."
In a dozen leaps and bounds, the
Marionette came to the village. His hunger was such that the run
exhausted him and he puffed like a great whale, his tongue
hanging out.
Wasn't the puppet surprised to find that the whole village was dark and
appeared deserted. Where were all the people who had been out during the day? The
stores were closed, and the doors and windows to all the houses fastened shut. He didn't even see
any dogs in the street. It seemed like, well, I tremble to say it but it
seemed to him like the Village of the Dead.
"Hello!" Pinocchio cried
out several times.
No one answered.
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"Hello!" he cried out
several more times.
Still, no one answered.
A clap of thunder followed by a bright
bolt of lightning licking at his heels, the desperate puppet ran up to a doorway,
threw himself on the bell and rang it wildly. "Someone will
surely answer that," he said to himself.
A window opened in the
second story above him, and an old man, looking out, called down
angrily, "What do you want at this hour of night?"
"I'm
hungry. I want some bread," Pinocchio answered. He didn't know to
say please as he had never been taught polite manners.
"You want
some bread, do you? Stay right there," answered the old fellow,
supposing he was dealing with one of those boys who loved to roam around
at night ringing people's bells and disturbing their rest.
"How wonderful! Soon I won't be hungry any more," Pinocchio
thought. As he stood on the doorstep and waited, he began already to feel better. The storm, though troublesome, was not so threatening, the wind less cold, and his stomach less hollow.
After a minute or two, he heard the same voice
cry out, "Get under the window, and hold out your hat!"
"I
guess they're not going to let me in, but I'll be happy just to have
something to eat," Pinoccho thought as he eagerly patted about on his
head for a
hat to oblige the man.
Which is when he realized he had no hat and had never had one.
Stepping out under
the open window, Pinoccchio answered, "I have no hat! Must I have one?"
Oh! Promptly, the Marionette was showered with a bucket of ice-cold water
which poured down over his wooden head, shoulders and body.
"That
wasn't nice!" Pinocchio shouted.
"Go home where you belong and
leave decent people alone," the old fellow yelled down.
Though this
was mean of the man to do, Pinocchio was, in a way, fortunate that
something more evil didn't happen to him. The world is full of many nice
people, but there are also in it people who aren't so nice, and it isn't
safe for little children to be out by themselves at night.
The
Marionette returned home as wet as a dishrag, exhausted and still hungry. No strength left in him, nearly frozen, he
sat down on the chair and put his two feet on the foot-warmer to
dry them.
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In no time at all, Pinocchio was asleep. And while the
Marionette slept, his wooden feet began to burn. Slowly, very slowly,
they blackened and turned to ashes, but Pinocchio snored away as if his
feet were not his own. He didn't wake until dawn, when he heard a loud
knocking on the door.
"Who is it?" the Marionette called, yawning and
rubbing his eyes. Then, remembering his lesson from the previous night,
even though he felt it wasn't nice and that he wouldn't have wanted to be
treated that way, he yelled, "Don't you know better than to disturb
decent people at this hour? Go home where you belong! I don't care if
you are hungry!"
"Pinocchio, it's I," a voice answered.
The voice belonged to Geppetto.
Click on Pinocchio to go to Chapter Seven
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