Wooden Bones (2 page)

“But Papa—”

“No, no, speak no more of it. It's useless to wish for something that can never be.”

*  *  *

But Pino did think more of it. He couldn't help it.

When they were in town buying flour, milk, and other goods at the store, he saw a horse and buggy pass the store's window, kicking up dust in the sunbaked afternoon. In the seat were four people—a man, a woman, and between them, a boy and a girl. The boy and the girl were nibbling on golden brown biscotti they must have gotten from the bakery down the road.

The children looked so happy, and the man and the woman were laughing. Pino thought how wonderful it would be to have a family like that. He thought how happy Papa would be too, to have a wife who smiled and laughed the way that woman smiled and laughed.

Maybe if Pino had that kind of family, he would finally feel like a real boy. He might look like a real boy, but he never really felt like one. Sometimes when he talked with other children who came to the workshop, they would look at him in a strange way or tell him that he said funny things. He hated that. He didn't like being treated differently. He wanted to be just like everyone else.

Later that night Pino waited in bed until he heard his papa's breathing become slow and heavy, then he crept to the workshop in his nightgown. The dew-laden grass felt wet against his bare feet. He didn't dare light even a candle, but
fortunately the half-moon was bright enough slanting through the windows that he needed no other light.

There, kept company only by the few chirping crickets who still lingered from summer, he set to work.

*  *  *

It took nearly two weeks, and by the end Pino was struggling to keep his eyes open during the day, but finally he was ready to show his surprise to his papa.

In truth, he would have liked to work on it a little longer, to apply a few finishing coats of polish, but Geppetto woke one Sunday in an exceptionally foul mood. A ferocious thunderstorm had blown in overnight, rattling the windows and shaking the roof, and Pino asked his papa if he was grumpy because of the weather.

Geppetto snapped that it would be ridiculous to be upset about a little lightning and thunder—or anything else you couldn't control, for that matter. He wouldn't say what was bothering him, but simply gazed morosely out the rain-streaked window.

He told Pino that they'd take the day off, and when Pino asked him what taking the day off meant, Geppetto shouted at the boy to go play with some of his toys and leave his papa alone.

This set Pino to crying, and then Geppetto begged forgiveness, and the two embraced. Pino waited until Geppetto went out to use the outhouse, then he hurried through the wind and rain to the workshop, returning to their cottage with his creation just seconds before his papa entered as well.

“What's that you have there, Pino?” Geppetto asked.

Pino moved away from the rocking chair, revealing the product of all his hours of labor: a life-size puppet carved
with great care to resemble the sketch of Geppetto's lost wife, Antoinette.

His papa stared, eyes wide and mouth open. Pino wasn't sure if the puppet was any good, though he'd done his very best. He'd used mostly scraps, a little cherry for the arms, some elm for the neck, a few pieces of oak for the torso. But he'd gouged and chiseled and rasped every divot and mole with great care, hoping that if he did it well enough, Papa would not be angry with him for using some of their wood.

He'd had to be sneaky for the hair, shearing off some horsetail hairs when the customers were preoccupied, but he thought she came across quite well. Of course, a little paint would make her skin look even more realistic, but he could always do that later.

“Do you like it?” Pino asked.

“That—that dress,” Geppetto said, his voice strangely gurgled. He brought a fist to his mouth, biting the heavily calloused skin.

“I found it in the bottom of the chest at the back of the closet,” Pino said. The dress was made of red cotton with white lace, a bit wrinkled, but still pretty. “I hope it's all right, Papa. I wanted her to look just right . . . what is it? Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh, my dear boy,” Geppetto said. “Oh, my dear boy, what have you done?”

“I'm sorry, Papa. I didn't—I didn't mean—”

“Do you know what today is? Today is the day my wife and unborn child died. A terrible day! I try not think of it. I—I try so very hard, and yet always, always, I remember. And now look what you've done! You create something that
forces
me to remember!”

“I didn't know!” Pino pleaded. “I'm sorry!”

“We have to take it apart.”

“But, Papa!”

Geppetto brushed past Pino. He took hold of the puppet's head with both hands, his fingers digging into the horsehair.

“Papa!” Pino cried. “Please!”

“I'm sorry, boy.”

Gritting his teeth, Geppetto yanked the head from side to side. It was too terrible to watch, so Pino buried his face in his hands. He kept waiting for the awful sound of splintering wood.

But then Geppetto cried out in surprise, and it was such a shock that Pino looked at what was happening.

To his astonishment, the puppet had seized Geppetto's arms, wooden fingers clamping on to his papa's wrists as sure as any vise. That wasn't all. The once immobile puppet was rising, black coal eyes blinking up at Geppetto with a face that revealed nothing. Geppetto gaped back in utter shock, fingers groping at empty air, still struggling to grab the puppet's head. The puppet moved jerkily, gears and sockets and joints stiff, but it was still much stronger than the wood-carver.

Then they were both standing, nearly eye to eye, and Geppetto fell.

He landed hard on his backside, but his gaze never wavered from the puppet looming over him. Pino went to him, but Geppetto spoke as if he didn't even know the boy was there.

“Antoinette,” he whispered.

The puppet's mouth moved up and down, creaking as it swiveled on its hinges, but no other sound came out. Outside thunder boomed repeatedly across the valley, sounding to Pino much like a mallet pounding on a hollow log.

A
fter that Geppetto did not speak again of destroying Pino's creation. He also never called it Antoinette, referring to it only as the puppet.

“Get that puppet out of my workshop,” he'd say, or “Lock the puppet in the storeroom, Pino, I hear a wagon coming.” He never looked at it when he said this. In fact, he seldom looked at it at all.

Pino begged forgiveness, but his papa told him what was done was done, and that they'd just have to see what came of it.

The puppet followed them as they went about their business, strutting and stumbling like a toddler learning to walk. It moved its mouth often, but it never spoke. Sometimes it gestured wildly with its hands, but these movements never seemed to amount to anything. It was as if the puppet felt the need to speak but had nothing to say.

When Geppetto locked it in the storeroom at night or when they had visitors, it stared at them sadly but did not resist.

Sometimes during the night Pino woke to his papa quietly sobbing. Pino never said anything, but he always had a hard time sleeping after that. He'd lie there gazing into the darkness, wondering if the puppet could hear the sound of his papa's suffering. He wondered if it would even care.

This went on for several weeks, until finally they had to go into town. Geppetto was grumpier than usual, saying he just couldn't put it off any longer. They were low on supplies.

He shoved the puppet in its closet. For once he looked it squarely in the face, pointing his rough finger just inches from the puppet's polished nose.

“Stay in here,” he said. “If a customer comes while we are gone, make no sound. No one must know of your presence. Do you understand? Do you know how important this is?”

The puppet's wooden eyelids slid shut and open, but otherwise it made no response.

“Nod your head!” Geppetto said. “Do something to show me you hear me!”

Still the puppet only gaped stupidly. Geppetto slammed the door. He locked it and shoved the key into his pocket, then seized Pino's hand and tugged him out the door.

The sky was the color of a dull knife. Their breath fogged in the morning air. They'd been without a horse since their old mare died in the summer, so they had to walk. Pino was gasping for breath by the time the town came in sight.

When Geppetto saw that it was busy in town, with lots of wagons filling the streets and people milling on the boardwalks, he clenched down even harder on Pino's hand.

Geppetto was usually quite talkative with the store owner and the other customers, but this time he merely shoved the items they needed into the leather satchels they'd brought—a pound of flour, a half dozen eggs, a loaf of cheese, and some milk. Although he had less than a third of what he usually bought, he was already heading to the counter. Usually Pino asked for some licorice, but he didn't dare today.

Unfortunately, they had the bad luck to get behind Signora
Moretti, the old widow who was deaf in one ear. Her deafness hadn't impaired her love of gossip, however, and she was regaling the portly shopkeeper with news about the blacksmith's excessive drinking.

Despite Geppetto's crowding behind her and clearing his throat, she went on jabbering in her high-pitched voice, punctuated by the occasional squeal of laughter.

“Excuse me . . . ,” Geppetto began.

Before he could say more, there was a great commotion outside, people along the boardwalk shrieking and shouting and crying out in surprise.

Pino was watching Papa, and he saw the wood-carver's face turn as white as the flour they were intending to buy.

Signora Moretti and the shopkeeper bustled immediately to the window, as did the others in the store. Everyone in town must have been doing the same, because there was the thumping and pounding of many footsteps on the boardwalk. Geppetto didn't move. Pino was desperate to see what was out there, but his papa had hold of him like a shackle.

“Oh my word,” Signora Moretti said, a hand fluttering to her throat. “What—what is
she
?”

Geppetto's face fell, his white hair falling across his eyes like a curtain. He shook his head from side to side, then looked sadly at his boy.

“We have to move now,” he said.

W
hile everyone's attention was diverted, Geppetto and Pino left the proper amount of money on the shopkeeper's counter and squeezed out the doorway. Geppetto sneaked behind the murmuring crowd that lined the boardwalk. Pino hurried after him, his satchel thudding against his back.

He caught only a glimpse of Antoinette over the wall of people, a bit of horsehair and wooden cheek. She wouldn't have seen them except that a barber standing in his doorway noticed them.

“Signore Geppetto!” the lanky man in a white apron cried, waving his razor in a way that made Pino nervous. “Signore Geppetto, is that woman your doing?”

“It's not a woman!” Geppetto shot back. “It's just a thing! It's made out of wood!”

When he spoke, the crowd shifted and turned, and for a brief moment the puppet had a clear view of them.

It stared with its dull black eyes, then immediately lurched in their direction.

Geppetto hurried even faster, racing out of town, the puppet stumbling after them like a drunk. Pino heard the whispering of the townsfolk until they passed around the first bend.

Pino begged Geppetto to slow down, but he wouldn't even answer. They put some distance between themselves and the puppet, and soon it was out of sight.

When they reached their cottage, Pino slumped to the floor, wheezing and panting. Sweat blurred his eyes. He'd never felt his heart beat so hard.

“Pack—pack some clothes for both us,” Geppetto said, diving into the closet and pulling out two large sheepskin packs. “I will get whatever tools we can carry.”

“But, Papa—”

“Do it!”

This sharp retort brought tears to Pino's eyes, but he fought them back. This was all his doing, so there could be no crying now.

While Papa hustled out to the workshop with one of the bags, Pino packed the other bag full of as many clothes as it would fit, leaving a little room for the food they'd just bought at the store, as well as the bread, fruit, and dried meat they still had left in their cupboard. He heard clinking and clanking from the workshop.

Only a few minutes later his papa returned. The pack slung over his shoulder bulged as if it might rip apart.

“What do you have there?” Geppetto said, glancing into Pino's bag. “You got us food—good boy. Now we should—wait, one thing more. I can't leave it.”

He returned to their room and retrieved the box that contained his portrait of Antoinette. He started to put the yellowed paper into his bag, then he seemed to think better of it, folding it into quarters and stuffing it into his pant pocket.

Then he returned to the front door. He was reaching for the knob when it turned on its own and the door swung open.
Standing before them was the puppet. If not for its blinking eyes, it could have been a statue.

“You!” Geppetto cried. “How
dare
you come back here. Do you know what you've done? Do you . . . do you . . .”

His words trailed off, for he was looking over its shoulder at the road.

Pino saw the same thing as his papa: Down at the far end, just where the road bent around the corner into a grove of oaks, a crowd was fast approaching.

The dirt was still glazed with the morning frost. First it looked like just a few people, but they kept coming, dozens of them—men, women, young, and old. They filled the road like a river, flowing steadily in their direction. At first it seemed to Pino that some of them carried staffs. It was only when he looked closer that he saw that they were rifles.