“Yes, I promise, and now it is up to you.”

CHAPTER 26

Pinocchio goes to the seashore with his friends to see the Terrible
Shark.

In the morning, bright and early, Pinocchio started for school.

Imagine what the boys said when they saw a Marionette enter the classroom!  They laughed until they cried.  Everyone played tricks on him.  One pulled his hat off, another tugged at his coat, a third tried to paint a mustache under his nose.  One even attempted to tie strings to his feet and his hands to make him dance.

For a while Pinocchio was very calm and quiet.  Finally, however, he lost all patience and turning to his tormentors, he said to them threateningly: 

“Careful, boys, I haven’t come here to be made fun of.  I’ll respect you and I want you to respect me.”

“Hurrah for Dr. Know-all!  You have spoken like a printed book!” howled the boys, bursting with laughter.  One of them, more impudent than the rest, put out his hand to pull the Marionette’s nose.

But he was not quick enough, for Pinocchio stretched his leg under the table and kicked him hard on the shin.

“Oh, what hard feet!” cried the boy, rubbing the spot where the Marionette had kicked him.

“And what elbows!  They are even harder than the feet!” shouted another one, who, because of some other trick, had received a blow in the stomach.

With that kick and that blow Pinocchio gained everybody’s favor.  Everyone admired him, danced attendance upon him, petted and caressed him.

As the days passed into weeks, even the teacher praised him, for he saw him attentive, hard working, and wide awake, always the first to come in the morning, and the last to leave when school was over.

Pinocchio’s only fault was that he had too many friends.  Among these were many well-known rascals, who cared not a jot for study or for success.

The teacher warned him each day, and even the good Fairy repeated to him many times: 

“Take care, Pinocchio!  Those bad companions will sooner or later make you lose your love for study.  Some day they will lead you astray.”

“There’s no such danger,” answered the Marionette, shrugging his shoulders and pointing to his forehead as if to say, “I’m too wise.”

So it happened that one day, as he was walking to school, he met some boys who ran up to him and said: 

“Have you heard the news?”

“No!”

“A Shark as big as a mountain has been seen near the shore.”

“Really?  I wonder if it could be the same one I heard of when my father was drowned?”

“We are going to see it.  Are you coming?”

“No, not I. I must go to school.”

“What do you care about school?  You can go there tomorrow.  With a lesson more or less, we are always the same donkeys.”

“And what will the teacher say?”