About this story
Master Cherry hands the troublesome wood to an old woodcarver who wants a marionette that can dance, fence and earn bread, and who names you Pinocchio before he has carved your face. Your first three movements are a laugh, a kick that hurts him, and a step toward the open door. Six chapters follow the puppet into the street, past a talking cricket and a burning brazier, to a puppet theatre where a giant called Fire-Eater is about to sneeze.
Who you’ll meet
Geppetto and Master Cherry, the two Tuscan carpenters in whose workshop the reader — a still-faceless block of talking pine — changes hands.
How it opens
Master CherryAn ordinary piece of pine will make an excellent table leg.
The carpenter raised his axe above the block where your awareness had begun.
You knew neither room nor carpenter, only the certainty of the descending edge.
Please do not strike so hard.
Master CherryWho said that?
Master CherryNo customer, apprentice, or hidden child is here to mock me.