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"Really?" cried Pinocchio, blind with rage. "If the knocker is gone, I can still use my feet."

He stepped back and gave the door a most solemn kick. He kicked so hard that his foot went straight through the door and his leg followed almost to the knee. No matter how he pulled and tugged, he could not pull it out. There he stayed as if nailed to the door.

Poor Pinocchio! The rest of the night he had to spend with one foot through the door and the other one in the air.

As dawn was breaking, the door finally opened. That brave little animal, the Snail, had taken exactly nine hours to go from the fourth floor to the street. How she must have raced!

"What are you doing with your foot through the door?" she asked the Marionette, laughing.

"It was a misfortune. Won't you try, pretty little Snail, to free me from this terrible torture?"

"My boy, we need a carpenter here and I have never been one."

"Ask the Fairy to help me!"

"The Fairy is asleep and does not want to be disturbed."

"But what do you want me to do, nailed to the door like this?"

"Enjoy yourself counting the ants which are passing by."

"Bring me something to eat, at least, for I am faint with hunger."

"Immediately!"

In fact, after three hours and a half, Pinocchio saw her return with a silver tray on her head. On the tray there was bread, roast chicken, fruit.

"Here is the breakfast the Fairy sends to you," said the Snail.

At the sight of all these good things, the Marionette felt much better.

What was his disgust, however, when on tasting the food, he found the bread to be made of chalk, the chicken of cardboard, and the brilliant fruit of colored alabaster!

He wanted to cry, he wanted to give himself up to despair, he wanted to throw away the tray and all that was on it. Instead, either from pain or weakness, he fell to the floor in a dead faint.

When he regained his senses, he found himself stretched out on a sofa and the Fairy was seated near him.

"This time also I forgive you," said the Fairy to him. "But be careful not to get into mischief again."

Pinocchio promised to study and to behave himself. And he kept his word for the remainder of the year. At the end of it, he passed first in all his examinations, and his report was so good that the Fairy said to him happily:

"Tomorrow your wish will come true."

"And what is it?"

"Tomorrow you will cease to be a Marionette and will become a real boy."

Pinocchio was beside himself with joy. All his friends and schoolmates must be invited to celebrate the great event! The Fairy promised to prepare two hundred cups of coffee-and-milk and four hundred slices of toast buttered on both sides.

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