Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi Read Free Book Online

resumed his journey, “how unlucky we poor kids are! Everyone scolds us, everyone warns us, everyone gives us advice. They seem to have gotten the notion, to hear them talk, that they’re both our fathers and our teachers, every last one of them, even talking crickets. And just because I didn’t follow that dreary Cricket’s advice, he tells me that all sorts of bad things will happen to me! Supposedly I’ll even run into murderers! It’s a good thing I don’t believe in murderers—never have. In my opinion, murderers were made up by fathers just to scare kids who wanted to go out at night. And besides, even if I did meet some on the road, you think I’d be afraid of them? Not a chance. I’d go right up to them and shout, ‘Hey Mr. Murderers, what do you want with me? You better not try any funny stuff! Just run along and mind your own business!’ I can see it now: at that torrent of harsh words, those murderers would run like the wind. And if they happened to be rude enough not to run away, well then, I’d run away myself, and that would be the end…”
    But Pinocchio was unable to finish his train of thought, because just at that moment he thought he heard a slight rustling of leaves behind him.
    He turned to look, and there, in the dark, he saw two ominous black figures, completely draped in coal sacks. They were bounding toward him on tiptoe, like ghosts.
    â€œThey really do exist!” he thought, and not knowing where else to hide his four gold coins, he stuck them into his mouth, under his tongue.
    Then he tried to escape. But before he had taken a single step, his arms were seized and he heard two horrible, cavernous voices saying, “Your money or your life!”
    Since the coins in his mouth prevented him from responding with words, Pinocchio made a thousand faces and gestures, like a mime, in an attempt to make it clear to those two hooded figures—whose eyes were all he could see, through holes in the sacks—that he was a poor puppet without so much as a phony penny to his name.
    â€œCome on! Cut the act and give us the money!” shouted the murderers in menacing tones.
    And the puppet made a gesture with his head and his hands, as if to say: “I don’t have any.”
    â€œHand over the money or you’re dead!” said the tall one.
    â€œDead!” said the short one.
    â€œAnd after we kill you, we’ll kill your daddy, too!”
    â€œYour daddy, too!”
    â€œNo, no, no, not my poor daddy!” yelled Pinocchio, desperation in his voice. But when he yelled, the gold pieces clinked in his mouth.
    â€œOh, you rascal! So you’ve hidden the money under your tongue? Spit it out, right now!”
    But Pinocchio refused!
    â€œWhat, are you deaf? Just you wait, we’ll make you spit it out!”
    At that, one of them seized the puppet by the tip of his nose and the other grabbed hold of his pointed chin, and they began tugging, quite rudely, in opposite directions, trying to force the puppet’s mouth open—but to no avail. It was as if his mouth had been nailed and riveted shut.
    Then one of the murderers, the short one, whipped out a nasty-looking knife and tried to stick it between Pinocchio’s lips, like a lever or chisel. But Pinocchio, quick as lightning, chomped down on the hand with his teeth, bit it clean off, and spat it out. Imagine his astonishment when he looked at the ground and saw he had bitten off not a hand but a cat’s paw.
    Emboldened by this first victory of his, he wrenched himself free from the murderers’ clutches, jumped over the roadside hedge, and fled into the countryside. And the murderers followed, like two dogs after a rabbit. And the one who had lost a paw ran on a single leg—no one ever knew how he managed it.
    After running fifteen kilometers, Pinocchio couldn’t go any farther. As a last-ditch effort, he climbed up the trunk of a towering