Chapter 12 “The Doctors”

If the poor puppet had dangled there much longer, all hope would have been lost. Luckily for him, the pretty girl with blue hair once again looked out her window. Filled with pity at the sight of the poor little fellow being knocked helplessly about by the wind, she clapped her hands sharply together three times.

At this signal, a loud rustling of wings was heard and a large bird came and settled itself on the window ledge.

“What do you command, beautiful fairy?” asked the bird, bending his beak in homage (for the child with blue hair was none other than a very kind fairy who had lived, for more than a thousand years, in that forest).

“Do you see that puppet hanging from the limb of that big oak tree?”

“I see him.”

“Very well. Fly immediately to him. With your strong beak, break the knot that holds him, take him down, and lay him softly on the grass at the foot of the tree.”

The bird flew away and after two minutes returned, saying, “I've done what you've commanded.”

“How did you find him? Alive or dead?”

“Looking at him, I thought he was dead. But that assumption proved erroneous, for as soon as I loosened the knot around his neck, he expelled a long sigh, then mumbled, ‘Thank you. Now I feel better!'”

The fairy clapped her hands twice. A magnificent poodle in an immaculate coachman's uniform appeared. He walked on his hind legs, just like a man.

“Come,” said the fairy to him. “Get my best coach ready and set out toward the forest. On reaching the oak tree, you'll find a poor, half-dead puppet stretched out on the grass. Lift him up tenderly, place him on the silken cushions of the coach, and bring him here to me.”

The dog, to show that he fully understood the fairy's explicit instructions, wagged his tail two or three times, then set off at a quick pace.

In a few minutes, a lovely little coach pulled out of the stable. It was drawn by a hundred pairs of white mice, and the poodle sat on the coachman's seat and snapped his whip gaily in the air, as if he were a real coachman in a hurry to get to his destination.

In fifteen minutes the coach was back. The fairy, who was waiting at the door of the house, lifted the poor little puppet in her arms, took him to a small room, put him to bed, and sent immediately for the best doctors of the neighborhood.

One after another the doctors came: a crow, an owl, and a glowing cricket. They gathered around Pinocchio's bed.