PINOCCHIO BECOMES A PUPPET AGAIN;
A DOGFISH SWALLOWS HIM

Fifty minutes passed and the man thought:
“My poor little lame donkey is dead now. I’ll
pull him out of the water, and then I’ll make a
good drum out of his skin.”

So he began to pull at the rope. He pulled and
pulled and pulled, and at last — what do you
think he pulled out of the water?

A little dead donkey? No, not a donkey! He
pulled a little wooden puppet out of the water!
When he saw the wooden puppet, the poor man
opened his mouth and didn’t know what to say.
Then he asked Pinocchio:

“And where is the little donkey that I threw
into the sea?”

“I am the little donkey,” said Pinocchio and
laughed.

“You?"

“Yes, me.”

“How can that be? You were a little donkey
when I bought you!”

“Well, master, if you want to know, I’ll tell
you. Once I was a puppet. I went to school like
other boys. But I was lazy and didn’t want to
learn. Then I ran away from home. One day I became a donkey with long ears and a long tail!
Then a circus man bought me. He taught me to
dance. But one night I fell and broke my leg.
I became lame. So the director sold me to you and
you bought me?

“And I gave him a gold piece for you. Now,
who will give me back my gold piece?”

“And why did you buy me?” asked Pinocchio.
“You bought me to make a drum out of my skin!
A drum!”

“Yes! And now where shall I find another
skin?”

“There are so many other little donkeys!” said
Pinocchio.

“Tell me, you bad boy," said the man. “Is that
the end of your story?”

“No? answered the puppet. “It isn’t! When you
threw me into the water, a lot of fish began to
eat me. Some ate my ears, others my neck. Some
fish ate the skin on my legs and one fish ate my
tail. They ate up all the meat on the donkey’s body.
Then they tried to eat the wood. They couldn’t do
that because my wood is very hard. So they swam
away. And now you know all my story. You know
why you pulled a puppet out of the water and not
a donkey.”

“I can laugh at your story,” cried the man,
“but I know that I bought you for one gold piece I
must have my money back. Shall I tell you what I’ll
do? I’ll sell you again for a gold piece.”

“All right, sell me if you can!”

With these words Pinocchio jumped into the
water and swam away.

He swam and swam. Suddenly he saw... Do
you know what he saw? He saw the great head of
the Dogfish! Only think how frightened Pinocchio
was when he saw his great open mouth. Pinocchio
tried to swim away from the Dogfish. He worked
with his arms, his legs and his feet. He swam
quicker and quicker. But nothing could help
him! The Dogfish swam quicker than the puppet.
He swam up to Pinocchio, opened his great mouth
with its great teeth and swallowed him.

It was very dark all round. Pinocchio could
See nothing. He listened, but he could hear nothing.
But suddenly he saw a light far away and he began to walk to it. The light became brighter and
brighter. He walked and walked — and at last he
found... What do you think he found?

Read the next chapter, and you will know what
Pinocchio found in the body of the Dogfish.