Wooden Bones Read Online Free Page B

enormous effort, but Pino shifted Geppetto to a sitting position. It was like trying to pull up a sack of potatoes;his papa didn’t have any strength of his own. His head drooped to the side, the white hair falling in front of his face.
    â€œPapa,” he said, “Papa, we have to go. You have to get up now. Please get up.” He knew they couldn’t stay there long. His papa needed help from someone who could give it. Without it, he really would die. “Please, Papa, I need you to get up.”
    â€œHuhnnn . . .”
    â€œCan you get up?”
    â€œUp . . .”
    â€œPapa—”
    â€œAntoinette?” Geppetto murmured. “Is that you?”
    The name sent a chill creeping up Pino’s spine. Since he was behind Geppetto, he could not see his face, but he could see that Geppetto’s head was no longer rolling aimlessly from side to side—it was fixed, pointed toward an area of the forest where the shadows were deepest. He was obviously looking at something, but there was nothing there.
    Then Pino saw it—a pair of red eyes emerging from the dark.
    The eyes glowed like hot embers from a fire. They grew brighter and larger, until the light from the eyes themselves illuminated a long snout and oily black fur. A wolf. Not just a wolf. A giant wolf, nearly as big as a horse, it seemed. The snout opened, baring rows of jagged teeth. Except for the red eyes and the white teeth—which seemed to float, suspended, in the shadows—the rest of the beast blended with the dark forest around it.
    The wolf greeted him with a low, rumbling growl that raised the hairs on the back of Pino’s neck.
    â€œAntoinette?” Geppetto said.
    â€œNo, Papa.” Then, to the wolf, Pino shouted: “Go away! We don’t want you here!”
    The growling stopped, but the eyes went on staring.
    â€œLeave!” Pino cried.
    When the wolf still wouldn’t go, Pino felt the panic rising up within him, like a flurry of hornets stirring inside his stomach. It could not end here. Not like this—eaten by a wolf. Didn’t they have enough troubles? It made Pino angry, and the anger gave him a surge of courage. He spotted a stone, one big enough to do some damage, and without hesitation he snatched it up and hurled it at the wolf.
    The stone sailed far over the wolf’s head, but the act seemed to take the wolf by surprise. It gaped at them as if it didn’t know what to do.
    â€œLeave!” Pino cried again.
    When the wolf merely blinked, Pino picked up another stone and threw it. And a third. And a fourth. With the fourth his aim was better, and he winged the wolf’s pointed ear.
    The wolf yelped and scurried away, the red eyes fading into the darkness.
    Pino felt victorious. He’d stared down a menacing threat and forced it to go away. Now he turned his attention to his papa, who was again slipping into unconsciousness, peering up at him through slit eyelids. Pino grabbed him by his bloodied shirt. It took all the strength he had—his arms straining, his legs threatening to buckle—but he managed to get Geppetto to his feet.
    The fog curling between the trees thickened. What little light remained in the forest drained away, leaving the world darker than before.
    â€œPapa,” Pino pleaded, “we have to go back. Get help for you.”
    Geppetto groaned. Pino started to lead him back the way they’d come, but that seemed to rouse Geppetto—he bucked upright, resisting.
    â€œNo, no,” he said, “can’t go back—no, they’d kill us.”
    â€œBut Papa—”
    â€œThey—they hate us, boy. Done with those folks. Done forever . . .”
    â€œWe need the doctor!”
    â€œAnother town. Another—”
    â€œWhere?” Pino cried. “Which way? Tell me.”
    But Geppetto had no answer. If his papa did not know the way to another town, then Pino saw only one