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THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO
PART 1 CHAPTER 5
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Pinocchio is hungry. He finds an egg, but then his dinner flies out of the window.
WHEN HE SAW he had killed the Cricket, Pinocchio was quite frightened; but not for long. He was soon thinking about other things. As night came, a strange, empty feeling began to grow in his stomach. So far, in his whole life, he had had nothing to eat.
Boys and girls get hungry fast. In a few moments that strange empty, feeling inside him had become hunger. The hunger grew bigger and bigger. Soon Pinocchio was as hungry as a tiger.
He looked around the room. For the first time he noticed the fire.
There it was, the logs burning brightly. And there, over the fire, was the pot -- full of something delicious. As always, it was boiling happily and sending up clouds of what looked like real steam.
Pinocchio ran to the fireplace and stretched out his hand to take the cover off. He had a big surprise: the pot, as you and I know, was only painted! Think how he felt! His long nose became at least two inches longer.
He ran about the room looking for food. He looked in all the boxes and drawers. He even looked under the bed in search of a piece of hard, old bread, or a biscuit or a small cake, or perhaps even a bit of dried fish. A bone left by a dog would have tasted quite good, he thought! But he found nothing.
As he kept searching, his hunger grew and grew. Soon he felt weak. His head seemed to be turning round and round. He got quite frightened, and began to cry.
"The Talking Cricket was right," he said to himself. "It was bad of me to run away from home. If Father were here now, he would give me something to eat. Oh, how uncomfortable it feels, being so hungry!"
Then, hidden among some small pieces of wood in a corner of the room, he saw a round, white thing. Could it be a hen's egg? Quickly he picked it up and looked at it. Yes! It was an egg.
Pinocchio's happiness is impossible to describe. You must picture it for yourself. At first he thought that he was dreaming. He turned the egg over and over in his hands, he kissed it. He even talked to it: "And now, how shall I eat you, Mr Egg? Should I just break you open and eat you as you are, I wonder? No, it is better to cook you in a pan, I think. You will taste better that way."
But how would Pinocchio do the cooking? He looked around.
In another corner of Geppetto's room there was a foot warmer --just a small bucket with a little fire in it. That would do.
He placed a pan over the foot warmer. In the pan, he put some water. As soon as the water started to boil --tac!-- he broke the eggshell. But what was this? Instead of some lovely white and yellow food coming out, here was a dear little yellow chick. It seemed happy to be out of the egg.
"Many, many thanks, Mr. Pinocchio," it said politely. "You have saved me from a lot of hard work. I don't need to break out of this shell myself, now! Good-bye and good luck to you, young Sir! -- Oh, and give my thanks to your father, too, for letting my egg stay in his home for so long."
With these words he hopped into the air, and flew through the open window out into the night.
The poor puppet stood there as if he was made of stone. His eyes and his mouth were wide open. In his hands he held the two empty halves of the eggshell.
When he saw that his dinner had flown out of the window, Pinocchio began to cry and shout and stamp his feet on the ground.
"The Talking Cricket was right!" he said to himself, again. "If I had not run away from home and if Father were here now, I should not be dying of hunger. Oh, how I hate being hungry!"
And as the empty, hungry feeling in his stomach grew worse and worse, he thought he might walk back to the little town. Perhaps some kind person there might give him a bit of bread.