The Pinocchio Megapack: 4 Classic Puppet Tales

by Carlo Collodi

  At that very moment, Pinocchio awoke and opened wide his eyes.

  What was his surprise and his joy when, on looking himself over, he saw that he was no longer a Marionette, but that he had become a real live boy! He looked all about him and instead of the usual walls of straw, he found himself in a beautifully furnished little room, the prettiest he had ever seen. In a twinkling, he jumped down from his bed to look on the chair standing near. There, he found a new suit, a new hat, and a pair of shoes.

  As soon as he was dressed, he put his hands in his pockets and pulled out a little leather purse on which were written the following words:

  The Fairy with Azure Hair returns

  fifty pennies to her dear Pinocchio

  with many thanks for his kind heart.

  The Marionette opened the purse to find the money, and behold—there were fifty gold coins!

  Pinocchio ran to the mirror. He hardly recognized himself. The bright face of a tall boy looked at him with wide-awake blue eyes, dark brown hair and happy, smiling lips.

  Surrounded by so much splendor, the Marionette hardly knew what he was doing. He rubbed his eyes two or three times, wondering if he were still asleep or awake and decided he must be awake.

  “And where is Father?” he cried suddenly. He ran into the next room, and there stood Geppetto, grown years younger overnight, spick and span in his new clothes and gay as a lark in the morning. He was once more Mastro Geppetto, the wood carver, hard at work on a lovely picture frame, decorating it with flowers and leaves, and heads of animals.

  “Father, Father, what has happened? Tell me if you can,” cried Pinocchio, as he ran and jumped on his Father’s neck.

  “This sudden change in our house is all your doing, my dear Pinocchio,” answered Geppetto.

  “What have I to do with it?”

  “Just this. When bad boys become good and kind, they have the power of making their homes gay and new with happiness.”

  “I wonder where the old Pinocchio of wood has hidden himself?”

  “There he is,” answered Geppetto. And he pointed to a large Marionette leaning against a chair, head turned to one side, arms hanging limp, and legs twisted under him.

  After a long, long look, Pinocchio said to himself with great content:

  “How ridiculous I was as a Marionette! And how happy I am, now that I have become a real boy!”

  PINOCCHIO UNDER THE SEA, by Mongiardini-Rembadi

  Translated from the Italian by Carolyn M. Della-Chiesa

  CHAPTER I

  Have you ever read the adventures of Pinocchio? What a famous fellow he was! He could talk and walk and live as you do, children; and still he was only a marionette! How sad the little fellow felt when he saw his father disappear in his little boat over the sea!

  Do you remember how Pinocchio then tried to swim across the ocean? How he did his best to save his poor old father? How he jumped into the water? How he swam and swam over those great, high waves? And how at last he became so tired, that he could only lie still and let the waves carry him?

  If you remember this, you will also surely remember that on the next day Pinocchio, almost lifeless, was thrown on an island. There he found himself on a small stretch of ground. All around him was the great ocean.

  Where could he get news of his dear old father? As he looked about him, he saw a large dark object in the water. It was a dolphin. It had stuck its nose out of the water and seemed to be waiting for the marionette. Of Pinocchio’s father, the dolphin knew nothing.

  “But,” said he, “I am very much afraid the boat has been lost in the night.”

  My dear children, if you have a good memory, you cannot forget that after saying this the dolphin turned and disappeared.

  This is not true. Indeed not. On the contrary, Pinocchio and the dolphin had a long talk one with the other. At the end of it, they decided to take a long journey together.

  CHAPTER II

  While the two were talking, Pinocchio kept thinking and thinking of his dear father. He looked so sad that the dolphin finally said to him:

  “If you grieve so much for the loss of your father, you must be a good son. We dolphins are very fond of good children, and I more than others. To prove this to you, I shall only say that the dolphin of which Pliny speaks was my great-grandfather.”

  “Pliny?” said Pinocchio. And he wrinkled his nose, because the name was not very well known to him.

  “Yes, Pliny the Elder, the famous author of a natural history. He was a Roman, who was born about one thousand nine hundred years ago. He was killed in a terrific eruption of Vesuvius, the one that destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii.”

  Vesuvius, Herculaneum, and Pompeii were as familiar to the marionette as was Pliny. To speak plainly, he knew nothing whatever about them. But, making believe he understood everything, he said, “Yes, yes! These things I know. But of what does Pliny speak?”

  “He tells us that in the suburbs of Naples a dolphin became very fond of a boy. Every morning he would wait near shore for the boy. When the child came, the dolphin would make the youngster climb on his back. Then the dolphin would swim to Pozzuoli, where was the boy’s school. Here the boy would go ashore, attend to his school duties, and when they were over, return to Naples on the dolphin’s back. A few years later the boy died suddenly. The dolphin, after waiting in vain for him for many days, grieved himself to death.”

  “Is this little story really true?” asked Pinocchio.

  “Pliny tells it. Some believe, some do not. But this matters little. To me, then, as to my parents and their parents, good children have always been pets. Now listen carefully. Among dolphins, it is the custom for the young ones to travel with the older ones. I am a tutor, and I am about to start on a long journey with a young dolphin. If you wish to come with us to look for your father, you are more than welcome.”

  “My dear Mr. Dolphin, I shall be delighted. May I ask where we are to go?”

  “We are to go on a journey around our world.”

  “Around the world!” exclaimed the marionette. “It must be amusing to see two dolphins walking arm in arm around the streets.”

  “Yes,” continued the dolphin, “this young pupil of mine, who belongs to the Marsoon family, wishes to educate himself. And how can he better educate himself than by travel?”

  “To educate himself!” exclaimed Pinocchio, opening wide his eyes. That word had always been hard for him to swallow. “Educate! Oh! Oh! That word I never did like.”

  “What are you saying?” asked the dolphin.

  “Oh, nothing, nothing! I was just thinking that my teeth are aching.”

  “Then it might hurt you to go into the water, and…” began the dolphin, kindly.

  Pinocchio was perplexed. The idea of looking for his father he liked very much. Still, when he thought of that word educate, he shivered. He had always hated school as he hated fire. And you remember, he once lost his feet through playing with fire.

  “What a nuisance it will be,” he kept mumbling, thinking of the sleepy time it would mean for him.

  “Tell me, my dear sir,” he then said, just to gain time, “shall we travel by train?”

  “Of course not! How could we? I told you that we are to travel in our world. That means that we are not to move out of the water.”

  “So much the worse,” again thought Master Pinocchio. “Still, I don’t see what kind of education there can be in seeing only sea and sky! Good Mr. Dolphin, do you think that, if I go with you, I shall ever find my father?”

  “Perhaps. We may come upon him on some desert island. Who knows? In any case, it is your sacred duty to look for him. Will you come?”

  “Yes!” answered Pinocchio, firmly. “I will go.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Afraid,�
� laughed Pinocchio, with scorn. “Why, I don’t know what fear is. Just listen. Once, while traveling, I came face to face with a lion. Instead of taking to my heels as many would have done, I took a large stone and threw it into his mouth. It lodged in his throat. The poor beast looked at me so sadly, that instead of dispatching him, I took the stone out of his throat, and he went quietly away.”

  “Oh, if that is the case,” replied the dolphin, who could swallow the story almost as well as the lion had swallowed the stone, “if that is the case, I beg your pardon.”

  “Very well. When shall we start?”

  “Tonight, just after sunset.”

  “How can we travel In the dark?” asked Pinocchio. He and darkness had never been great friends.

  “Do not be afraid. We are to travel by the light of the sun.”

  “Of the sun? Why, we are to travel by night.”

  “Nevertheless,” answered the dolphin, smiling, as dolphins are wont to smile, “nevertheless, we shall travel by the light not only of one sun, but of many suns.”

  Pinocchio looked at him with his mouth wide open. The dolphin calmly went on: “I promise to show you the sun in the sea.”

  Pinocchio wrinkled his nose, as was his habit when puzzled. “I wonder if the dolphin is making fun of me,” he thought.

  “Now I shall leave you, as I have many things to do before starting. Remember, this evening,” said the dolphin as he went off.

  “Do not be afraid. I will be here,” was Pinocchio’s reply.

  “Very well. Good-by, Pinocchio.”

  “Until tonight, Mr. Fish.”

  The dolphin, who had gone a short distance, returned and said proudly, “Just to enlighten you a little, I am not a fish.”

  Again Pinocchio’s eyes opened wide.

  “What then? A horse?”

  “Pinocchio, I am surprised at you. No, neither horse nor fish.”

  “I never knew of there being anything but fish in the sea.”

  “Who told you so? There are many animals, my dear boy, who live in the sea, but who are not fish.”

  “What then? Birds? Elephants? Dogs?”

  “Yes, sir, just so. Still, you people who live on the earth and read books, you ought to know all these things.”

  “Well…yes…I do read books. In fact, I have read every book that has ever been written.”

  “All of them? Nothing less? Why, I didn’t think a man could do that if he had a hundred lives to live,” murmured the good old dolphin.

  “Well, Pinocchio,” he went on, “remember tonight, and do not forget that I am not a fish.” With this remark he disappeared in the blue waters.

  Pinocchio looked after him for a long time.

  “The sun in the sea? Dolphins not fish? I don’t know why, but I’m very much afraid I’m being made fun of.”

  CHAPTER III

  When he was alone, Pinocchio began to think of looking for something to eat. After trying here and there in vain, he had to be satisfied with looking at a few empty oyster shells. The best he could do was to make believe that he had already had a good meal out of them. This, of course, was not very easily done, because the pangs of hunger kept making themselves felt more and more. At last, to forget them, he decided to make a tour of the island. This he did, and after that he took a nap.

  When he awoke, it was near sunset. He had all he could do to get to the meeting place in time.

  Off he hastened, and reached the spot just in time, for there was the dolphin, head out of water, looking for Pinocchio.

  A small dolphin, about a yard long, was in the wake of the larger dolphin.

  Pinocchio had made up his mind that even though he might be a dunce on the earth, still he knew more than a common dolphin. So he looked at the little fellow as much as to say, “Be very careful how you speak to me, young man. Remember, I am far above you.”

  The old dolphin was very busy with the preparations for their journey. He came and went and gave orders to his servant.

  You may laugh, children, but it is true. The dolphin had a servant, who was also a dolphin, but of the family of the Globiceps. These are so called because of their round heads, which look like the globes used in the electric lighting of streets.

  The young dolphin was playing in the water. He tried to attract Pinocchio’s attention in many ways. He spouted water through the hole which every dolphin has at the top of his head. He called to the marionette. He smiled at the youngster. It was of no use. Pinocchio, with his wooden nose in the air and his dough cap on one ear, would not even turn his head.

  “I wonder if he is deaf or blind,” the dolphin finally said, loudly enough to be heard.

  Pinocchio turned with a start.

  “For your own benefit, I just wish to say that I am not now and never have been deaf,” he said as haughtily as he could.

  “Then why do you look at me in that fashion? And why don’t you answer me?” was the reply.

  “I am acting just as a gentleman should toward those who are beneath him,” said Pinocchio.

  “I don’t know which of us is the better of the two. All I do know is, that my father was the richest inhabitant of the sea and that the other dolphins considered him their king.”

  “King?” mumbled Pinocchio, who knew himself to be the son of a poor carpenter, earning so little that he never had a penny in his pocket.

  “But king or not, what does it matter? In this world we are all equal, for we have all been created by God. Listen, my dear marionette. Come here. As we are to travel such a long distance together, we should be friends. Are you willing to be my friend?”

  These pleasing words made Pinocchio see how stupid and how rude he had been.

  “Think of it! A fish (oh, no, I mean a sea animal) giving me lessons in politeness!” Then turning to the dolphin, he said, “Yes, we shall be friends. What is your name?”

  “Marsovino. And yours?”

  “Pinocchio.”

  “A beautiful name. Come, shake hands.”

  “Very willingly,” replied Pinocchio.

  The good little animal stuck one of his fore fins out of the water for Pinocchio to shake.

  “And what is the tutor’s name?” said the boy of wood to the boy of the sea.

  “The tutor is a dolphin of the Tursio family, but I call him father. Is it true that you are coming with us on our travels?”

  “Yes,” said the marionette, proudly. “And I am able to teach you.”

  “Teach me! That’s strange. How do you expect to teach me?”

  “You will soon find out. You talk rather disrespectfully to me. I have been in all the schools of the kingdom. And you? You probably have never been on land for twenty-four hours.”

  Marsovino looked at the marionette smilingly, but made no reply.

  Pinocchio walked up and down with his hands in his pockets and his hat at an angle of forty-five degrees, ruffling his feathers at the brilliant remark he had made.

  As soon as Tursio came near, Marsovino asked him if he were ready.

  “Yes. Everything is finished,” was the reply. “Are you ready, Pinocchio?”

  “Yes. I am ready. Let us start.”

  “Start? How? Do you mean to say that you are coming under the sea with that suit?”

  “Of course. It’s the only one I have.”

  “A suit of paper! The very idea! Luckily I have prepared for this. Here, Globicephalous,” he said to his servant, “give me that little suit of ray leather—the one I had you make this morning.”

  “Splendid,” cried Pinocchio, clapping his hands. “Now I have a new suit.”

  Putting it on, he looked at himself in the water. Seeing how dark and unbecoming it appeared, he turned to Tursio and said excitedly:

 
“I don’t want this. It Is too ugly. I like my pretty flowered-paper one better.”

  “Your paper one Globicephalous will carry in his satchel for you. Should you wear it in the water, it would be spoiled.”

  “I want my pretty suit!” insisted Pinocchio. “If any one saw me in this thing, he would ask me if I had been through the coal-hole.”

  “But yours will be ruined if you wear it in the water, I tell you.”

  “I want mine. I want mine,” wailed Pinocchio.

  “Very well. Globicephalous, take the paper suit out of the traveling bag and give it to the boy.”

  The marionette turned, expecting to see an ordinary traveling bag. Instead, he saw Globicephalous take an enormous oyster out of the water.

  “Isn’t that strange! Oyster shells for a traveling bag!”

  “Strange? Why, what is strange about that?” asked Tursio.

  “What is its name?” asked Pinocchio.

  “That is the giant Tridacna. They are the largest oyster shells known.”

  “How large the animal inside must be,” observed Pinocchio, with a yawn.

  “Yes. It is very large, and also very beautiful. The center of the body is a violet color dotted with black. Around this is a green border. At the extreme edge the colors change from deepest to lightest blue. Yes, indeed. It is very beautiful.”

  “What a good meal it would make,” thought Pinocchio. His only wish was for a good dinner, but in order to be polite he said, “Who would ever think that there are such things under the sea!”

  “Why, you have been in every school in the kingdom and don’t know that? Books on the subject you can find everywhere.”

  Pinocchio bit his lips, but did not say a word. Quickly he dressed himself again in his paper suit and declared himself ready to start.