The story of Pinocchio

Chapter eight

                 Bella smiled, as she placed her puppets inside of their proper cases, while Pinocchio changed into his regular clothing, behind the changing booth. He stepped out only to be greeted face to face with Stromboli. "You did phenomenal! Everyone loved you." "They did?" Pinocchio felt a happy tear slip down his cheek. "Yes, my little star." He pinched Pinocchio's cheek. "Well, when can we get started to travel to the next city?" Pinocchio asked eagerly. "Wait! Not so fast, if you want to go to the next city, and possibly the world, what you need to do is very simple."

He reached for his main look alike marionette puppet, who he named Vincent and then pulled out a contract and quill. "The contract states: You will have to agree, to work for me for the rest of your life." "Until noted otherwise," Vincent budded in. "Shut it you, ninny!" "And you agree that very earnings you make come directly to me, and you must work for me even in the poor weather conditions, and you can't miss a single performance. The contract also says that you are my property and I own you, until the day I die," "Yeah, until the day he dies!" The puppet agreed. "Shut it, I can handle this myself." He tossed the puppet carelessly to the ground. "Ow." Vincent moaned.

He handed Pinocchio the quill, "Well, I guess I'll work for you." "Wonderful! All you have to do is sign here." Pinocchio took the quill from him and signed his name.

Pinocchio.

"Pa, but I want to join your circus to? Why can't I dance? I don't want to just be puppets all the time." "The job suits you my dear daughter, you want to dance but you can't look at your leg for heaven's sake. How do you suppose you can glide and dance gracefully without making a fool out of yourself?" "Pa." Bella started, trying to Protest. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to that other leg now do we?" Bella felt the tears stinging her eyes and ran out of the room not wanting to cry in front of Pinocchio. "Anyways, how she lost her leg was tragic, it happened very young, but I can't bring myself to remember that." "Anyways, Pinocchio you need to be well rested for you next show, but we can't let anything happen to our little, gold mine can we?" "W-what do you mean?" Pinocchio freaked out at this a little, breathing hard. He was instantly shoved into a nearby cage, and Stromboli locked it with a key he placed on a desk, "No, you can't do this!"

"I can, you signed the contract, you belong to me." Pinocchio felt tears dripping down his face. "You belong to him," Mimicked Vincent. "Come on you foolish puppet!" He grabbed his puppet by its soft torso. "Get some rest, my little star." Stromboli laughed, menacingly as he shut the door behind him. Pinocchio sobbed into his knees, holding them against his chest.

Jiminy knew Pinocchio was foolish for signing that contract, but he knew he had to help him somehow, he just didn't know how. He saw the key laying on the desk and climbed his way to the top, with the help of his trusty umbrella of course.

He grabbed the key and struggled his way down. He fell on the ground, and the key fell on top of him. He groaned in pain. The ley was squishing him a little, he was small enough to wiggle himself out of it and tried with all of his strength to wiggle himself out of there.

He was able to scout the key over to Pinocchio. "Pfft, Pinocchio?" Pinocchio perked up from hearing a familiar voice.

"Jiminy?" Pinocchio whispered, "You came for me?" "I sure did, Stromboli isn't going to lay a hand on you." "You got the key? But how?" "Never mind that, just open the cage so we can get out of here." Pinocchio nodded, and reached his hand from the bars and picked up the key, unlocking the cage. "That's right, not let's hurry and get you out of here, he left the window open so you can climb out of there." Pinocchio nodded, and listened to Jiminy. "Come on, follow me. I'll lead you home." Pinocchio smiled and ran after Jiminy who was hopping away quickly.