When it had stopped snowing, Pinocchio, with his fine new ABC book under his arm, set off along the road that led to school: and as he went along, he dreamed up in his little brain a thousand ideas and a thousand castles in the air, each one lovelier than the last.
And talking to himself, he said:
“Today, at school, I want to learn to read straight away: then tomorrow I'll learn to write, and the day after tomorrow I'll learn to do numbers. Then, with all my cleverness, I'll earn lots of money, and with the very first money that comes into my pocket, I want to have a fine woollen coat made for my father straight away. But what am I saying, woollen? I want to have one made for him all of silver and gold, with diamond buttons. And that poor man really does deserve it; because, after all, to buy me books and to get me an education, he's been left in his shirtsleeves.... in this cold! Only fathers are capable of sacrifices like that!...”
While he was saying this, deeply moved, he thought he heard in the distance music of fifes and the beating of a big drum: pee-pee-pee, pee-pee-pee, boom, boom, boom, boom.
He stopped and listened. The sounds were coming from the far end of a very long side road which led to a little village built on the seashore.
“I wonder what that music is? What a pity I have to go to school, otherwise....”
And he stood there, undecided. In any case, he had to make up his mind: either school, or the fifes.
“Today I'll go and hear the fifes, and tomorrow I'll go to school. There's always time for going to school,” that rascal said at last, with a shrug of his shoulders.
No sooner said than done: he turned down the side road and began to run as fast as his legs would carry him. The more he ran, the more clearly he could hear the sound of the fifes and the thumps of the big drum: pee-pee-pee, pee-pee-pee, pee-pee-pee, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And all at once he found himself in the middle of a square crammed with people, who were crowding round a big booth made of wood and canvas painted in a thousand colours.
“What's that booth?” asked Pinocchio, turning to a little boy from the village who was standing there.
“Read the sign, it's written on it, and then you'll know.”
“I'd gladly read it, but as it happens, today I can't read.”
“Well done, you dunce! Then I'll read it to you. Know then that on that sign, in letters as red as fire, it says: GREAT PUPPET THEATRE....”
“Did the play start long ago?”
“It's starting now.”
“And how much does it cost to go in?”
“Four pennies.”
Pinocchio, who was burning with the fever of curiosity, lost all restraint and said, without any shame, to the little boy he was talking to:
“Would you lend me four pennies till tomorrow?”
“I'd gladly give them to you,” the other answered, making fun of him, “but as it happens, today I can't.”
“I'll sell you my jacket for four pennies,” the puppet said to him then.
“What do you expect me to do with a jacket of flowered paper? If it rains on it, there'll be no way of ever getting it off your back.”
“Do you want to buy my shoes?”
“They're good for lighting the fire.”
“How much will you give me for my cap?”
“A fine bargain that would be! A cap made of bread dough! The mice might well come and eat it right off my head!”
Pinocchio was on tenterhooks. He was just on the point of making his last offer: but he hadn't the courage: he hesitated, he wavered, he suffered. At last he said:
“Will you give me four pennies for this new ABC book?”
“I'm a boy and I don't buy anything from boys,” answered the little fellow he was talking to, who had more sense than he did.
“I'll take the ABC book for four pennies,” shouted a second-hand clothes dealer who happened to be there and had heard the conversation.
And the book was sold there and then. And to think that poor Geppetto had stayed at home, shivering with cold in his shirtsleeves, to buy his son the ABC book!