Pinocchio (11 page)

These words touched Pinocchio's heart, and he quickly lifted his head and said to the Fairy, “I'll go to school, I'll work, I'll do everything you tell me, because, well, I've grown tired of living the life of a puppet, and I want to become a boy at any cost. You promised, right?”

“I did indeed, and now it's up to you.”

T
HE NEXT
day Pinocchio went to the local school.

Imagine those little scamps, seeing a puppet come to their school! They couldn't stop laughing. They played one trick after another on him: one snatched his cap, one yanked his little jacket from behind, one tried to draw a big mustache under his nose in ink, and one even tried to tie strings to his hands and feet to make him dance.

For a while, Pinocchio maintained his composure and kept his distance. But finally, feeling his patience running out, he turned to the ones who were pestering him and making sport of him the most, and he told them sternly, “Watch out, boys, I didn't come here to be the butt of your jokes. I respect others and I want to be respected.”

“Bravo, dunce! You speak like a printed book!” howled the rascals, falling over with laughter. And one of them, the cheekiest of the bunch, reached out his hand intending to seize the puppet by the end of his nose.

But he wasn't quick enough: Pinocchio stuck his leg out under the table and gave him a kick on the shins.

“Ouch! What hard feet!” cried the boy, rubbing the bruise the puppet had given him.

“And what elbows—even harder than his feet!” said another, who in return for one of his rude tricks had received an elbow in the belly.

The fact is that after that kick and that elbow, Pinocchio swiftly gained the admiration and the sympathy of all the boys in school. They all took a heartfelt liking to him and began showering him with affection.

And even the teacher boasted about him, for he could see that Pinocchio was attentive, hardworking, intelligent, always the first to arrive at school and the last to get out of his seat at the end of the day.

His only fault was knocking about with too many of his schoolmates. Among them were a bunch of rogues notorious for their lack of interest in studying or doing well in school.

His teacher warned him every day, and even the good Fairy told him over and over again: “Watch out, Pinocchio! Sooner or later those naughty schoolmates of yours will end up causing you to lose all love for learning, and they might, just might, get you into some big trouble.”

“Don't worry!” the puppet replied, shrugging and tapping his index finger on his forehead, as if to say: “There's a lot of good sense in here!”

Then one fine day, as he was walking to school, he happened to run into his usual flock of friends. As they approached, they said, “Have you heard the big news?”

“No.”

“A shark as big as a mountain has appeared nearby in the sea.”

“Really?”

“We're going to the beach to see it. You want to come, too?”

“Not me. I want to go to school.”

“Who cares about school? We can go to school tomorrow. One day more or less of school—we'll still be the same old jackasses.”

“But what will the teacher say?”

“The teacher can say whatever he likes. He's paid to spend his days grumbling.”

“And my mother?”

“Mothers never know anything,” replied those rogues.

“You know what I'll do?” Pinocchio said. “I want to see that Shark for certain reasons of my own—but I'll go see it after school.”

“Silly fool!” retorted one of the flock. “Do you think that a fish of that magnitude will hang around until it suits you? As soon as he gets bored, he'll blunder off to someplace else, and that will be that.”

“How long does it take to get from here to the beach?” the puppet asked.

“We can be there and back in an hour.”

“Then let's go! And the last one there's a rotten egg!”

The starting signal having thus been given, that flock of rogues began to sprint across the fields, with their books and notebooks under their arms. And Pinocchio was always in the lead; he seemed to have wings on his feet.

Every now and then he turned back to taunt his friends, who were a considerable distance behind him, and seeing them panting and gasping and covered with dust, their tongues hanging out, he laughed at them heartily. The wretch, in that moment, had no idea what frights and what terrible troubles lay in store for him!

W
HEN HE
reached the shore, Pinocchio began scanning the sea. But he didn't see any Shark. The sea was perfectly smooth, like a giant mirror.

“The Shark—where is it?” he asked, turning to his companions.

“Maybe he went to breakfast,” replied one of his companions, laughing.

“Or maybe he went back to bed for a little nap,” added another, laughing even harder.

From these absurd answers and their silly cackling, Pinocchio gathered that his schoolmates had played a cruel trick on him. His feelings hurt, Pinocchio said to them in a furious voice, “Now what? What have you gained by making me believe that fib about the Shark?”

“We've gained plenty!” those rogues replied in chorus.

“Such as?”

“We've made you skip school and come with us. Aren't you ashamed of being so punctual and hardworking every day at school? Aren't you ashamed of studying as much as you do?”

“What difference does it make to you if I study?”

“It makes a big difference, because you make us look bad to the teacher.”

“How?”

“Because the kids who study always make the kids who don't want to study, like us, look bad by comparison. And we don't want to look bad! We have some self-respect, too!”

“So what do I have to do to make you happy?”

“You have to be fed up, like us, with the school and the lessons and the teacher—our three great enemies.”

“And what if I want to keep studying?”

“We'll never look you in the face again, and we'll make you pay the first chance we get!”

“To tell the truth, you almost make me laugh,” said the puppet, shaking his head.

“Hey, Pinocchio!” shouted the biggest of the boys, walking right up to him. “You better not act like a tough guy here! You better not act so cocky! Because you might not be afraid of us, but we're not afraid of you, either! And don't forget there's one of you and seven of us.”

“Seven—like the seven deadly sins,” said Pinocchio, laughing.

“Did you hear that? He insulted all of us! He called us deadly sins!”

“Pinocchio, you better apologize—or else!”

“Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!” said the puppet, thumbing his nose to mock them.

“Pinocchio! You'll be sorry!”

“Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!”

“We'll beat you like a donkey!”

“Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!”

“We'll send you home with a broken nose!”

“Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!”

“You'll get the boo-boo now!” shouted the boldest of those rogues. “Here's a taste to start with, and you can save the rest for supper!”

And as he said that, he punched Pinocchio in the head.

But it was tit for tat, as the saying goes, because the puppet, as might be expected, answered at once with a counterpunch. And from then on, the battle became general and fierce.

Though Pinocchio was alone, he defended himself like a hero. He used those rock-hard wooden feet of his so well that his enemies were forced to keep a respectful distance. Wherever his feet could reach and strike, they left souvenir bruises.

At this point, the boys, vexed at being unable to match the puppet in hand-to-hand combat, thought it wise to resort to projectiles. They untied their bundles of schoolbooks and began flinging them at Pinocchio: their spelling books, their grammar books, Thouar's
Popular Tales
, Baccini's
Memoirs of a Chick
, a couple of books by a fellow named Collodi, and still others. But the puppet, who was sharp-eyed and quick-witted, always managed to duck in time, so that all the books sailed over his head and dropped into the sea.

Think of the fish! Believing that those books were something good to eat, whole schools of fish swarmed to the water's surface. But after sampling a page here and a frontispiece there, they spat them right back out, making the sort of face that seemed to say, “This stuff is not for us: we are accustomed to much better fare!”

Meanwhile, as the battle was growing fiercer and fiercer, a large Crab, who had crawled ever so slowly out of the water and onto the beach, shouted out in an ugly voice that sounded like a trombone with a cold, “Cut it out, you incorrigible rascals! These fistfights between boys and boys never end well. They always end in disaster!”

Poor Crab! He might as well have been preaching to the wind. And indeed that rogue Pinocchio turned and scowled at him, saying rudely, “Oh hush, you tiresome Crab! You'd be better off sucking on some lozenges to cure that cold of yours. Or else go to bed and try to sweat it out!”

By this time the boys, who had finished throwing all their own books, spotted the puppet's bundle of books lying nearby, and quick as a wink they snatched them up.

Among these books was one that had a thick hard cover and vellum on the spine and corners. It was called
Treatise on Arithmetic
. I'll let you imagine how heavy it was!

One of those rascals snatched up that volume and, aiming at Pinocchio's head, flung it with all his might. But instead of hitting the puppet, it struck the head of one of his companions, who turned white as a washed sheet. All he said, before collapsing onto the sand, were these words: “Oh mother help me—for I am dying.”

At the sight of that dead-looking boy, his frightened companions took to their heels; in the blink of an eye they were out of sight.

But Pinocchio stayed behind. And though he, too, from grief and fright, was more dead than alive, nevertheless he ran to soak his handkerchief in seawater, and he began to bathe his poor schoolmate's temples. Pinocchio sobbed and despaired and called his schoolmate's name and said, “Eugenio! My poor Eugenio! Open your eyes and look at me! Why aren't you answering? I'm not the one, you know, who hurt you like this! Believe me, it wasn't me! Open your eyes, Eugenio! If you keep your eyes closed, you'll make me die, too! Oh, God! How can I go back home now? How can I dare face my good mother? What will become of me? Where will I run to? Where will I hide? Oh, how much better it would have been—a thousand times better—if I had gone to school today! Why did I listen to those schoolmates who are the bane of my life! The teacher even told me so! And my mother told me over and over: ‘Beware of keeping bad company!' But I'm too stubborn, too headstrong. I always let them talk, but then I just do as I please! And I end up paying for it. And so, for as long as I've been in the world, I've never had fifteen minutes of peace. Oh, God! What will become of me, what will become of me, what will become of me!”

And Pinocchio kept crying, and bawling, and hitting himself in the head, and calling poor Eugenio by name—when he suddenly heard the muffled sound of approaching footsteps.

He turned, and there stood two policemen.

“What are you doing here, stretched out on the ground?”

“I'm helping this schoolmate of mine.”

“Has he fallen ill?”

“It looks that way.”

“He isn't ill!” said one of the policemen, leaning down to look closely at Eugenio. “This boy has been wounded in the temple—who wounded him?”

“Not me!” sputtered the puppet, who could barely breathe.

“If it wasn't you, then who did wound him?”

“Not me!” Pinocchio said again.

“And what was he wounded with?”

“With this book.”

“And whose book might this be?”

“Mine.”

“That's enough—we don't need to know anything else. Get up right now and come along with us.”

“But I—”

“Come with us!”

“But I'm innocent—”

“Come with us!”

Before leaving, the policemen called out to some fishermen, who just in that moment happened to be passing by, and said to them, “We're giving you this boy who has been wounded in the head. Carry him home with you and take care of him. Tomorrow we'll come by to see him.”

Then they turned back to Pinocchio, put him between them, and commanded him in soldierly voices: “Forward march! On the double! Or you'll be sorry!”

Not needing to be told twice, Pinocchio began walking down that path, which led to town. The poor devil barely knew what had hit him. He thought he must be dreaming, and what an awful dream it was! He was beside himself. He was seeing double, his legs were wobbly, his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he couldn't spit out a single word.

And yet, through that stupor and bewilderment, one very sharp thorn was piercing his heart: I mean the thought of having to walk, escorted by policemen, past the windows of the good Fairy's house. He would have rather died.

They reached the edge of town and were about to enter it when a rough gust of wind lifted Pinocchio's cap from his head and blew it ten paces away.

“Would you permit me,” the puppet asked the policemen, “to retrieve my cap?”

“Go ahead, but be quick about it.”

The puppet went and picked up his cap—but instead of putting it back on his head, he put it between his teeth and started running full tilt toward the seashore. He was fast as a bullet.

The policemen, seeing they would have a hard time catching up, sent a dog after him, a great big mastiff dog, who had won first prize in all the dog races. Pinocchio ran, and the dog ran faster. Soon people were leaning out their windows and flocking to the road, eager to see the outcome of such a furious sprint. But their curiosity went unsatisfied, because between them Pinocchio and that mastiff dog kicked up such a cloud of dust that after a few minutes nobody could see anything.