ON THE WINGS OF AN ANGEL
Well, that was fast! It only took me about an hour or so to write this chapter. It's much mellower than the previous chapter. It's basically a "school day" for Pinocchio, as you might call it.
Despite the simplicity of this chapter, I enjoyed writing it very much. It feels wonderful to bring back some of the old gang from the old story. Naturally, I look forward to your feedback.
Characters (with exceptions) © Disney
Story © unicorn-skydancer08
All rights reserved.
Chapter 9: Lessons
About a week later, Armando and Arietta arrived at the cottage. They came bright and early, and they made sure to bring plenty of supplies with them. To make themselves look more like teachers, they were dressed in their finest clothes; Arietta wore her hair in a formal knot at the nape of her neck, and Armando had slicked back his own hair and trimmed his beard. When they stood at the front door, Armando was the one to knock.
Within five minutes, Pinocchio answered the door. "Armando! Arietta!" he said, looking surprised and pleased to see them.
"Hello again, Pinocchio," said Arietta, smiling warmly at her small pupil. "Ready for your first day of lessons?"
"I guess so." Pinocchio stepped further back and opened the door wider so they could enter. "Come in!"
"Thank you very much," said Armando as he stepped grandly over the threshold.
"Terence," Pinocchio called, "Arietta and Armando are here!"
In another minute, Terence appeared. "Good morning, Terence," Armando greeted the young man.
Terence only groaned softly in reply as he gingerly kneaded his brow with his fingertips. Armando lifted an eyebrow slightly at him. "Are you feeling all right?"
Arietta also noticed that Terence was quite pale, and he had dark smudges under his eyes. In the light coming in from the window, Pinocchio didn't look so well either. "Haven't you two been sleeping well?" she asked.
"Not really," Terence murmured, still massaging his forehead. "No."
"Did we come at a bad time?" Armando asked tentatively. "If you'd like us to come back later…"
"Oh, no," Terence didn't hesitate to interject. "We made a bargain. You said you'd teach Pinocchio today, so that's the way it will go."
"I was really looking forward to being with you," said Pinocchio, which was true; he needed something to take his mind off things.
"Very well, then," said Armando. "Let us begin."
They used the kitchen, since that was the most convenient room for them, and Terence said they were free to help themselves to anything if they got hungry. Besides, Armando needed a few examples when teaching Pinocchio arithmetic.
"Do you know your numbers, Pinocchio?" he asked when he and the boy were sitting next to each other at the table. "Can you count?"
"A little," Pinocchio admitted. "I can count all the way up to twenty."
"Do you know how to add and subtract?"
"No."
"Then we'll start out small and simple." Armando selected three pears from the fruit bowl and lined them up carefully in front of Pinocchio. "How many pears do we have right now?"
Pinocchio used his index finger to help himself count. "One…two…three! We have three pears."
"Right. Now, when you add, you put something together with the rest, and then you count what you have in all." Armando added another pear to the line. "How many pears are there, now?"
"One, two, three—four!" Pinocchio smiled.
"So, what do you get with one and three?"
"Four!" said the boy triumphantly.
Armando nodded. "There you have it. That's all there is to adding."
"That's it?" Pinocchio asked.
"That's it," Armando affirmed. "Once you understand it, it's a piece of cake. Let's try something else, shall we?"
He spent the next twenty minutes teaching Pinocchio how to add, using the fruit for demonstration. Another twenty minutes was spent on subtraction, where Pinocchio learned to take things away and figure out what he had left. It took Pinocchio a while to truly grasp the concept, but he caught on soon enough; when he did, he found he enjoyed it immensely. Armando, with the use of some paper, some ink, and a quill he had brought with him, also showed the boy how to count beyond twenty, all the way up to a hundred. Painstakingly, Pinocchio copied out the numbers himself, trying to make them as neat as possible.
Armando smiled. He could tell already that Pinocchio would be a very good student.
After an hour, Armando decided that was enough arithmetic for the time being (though he advised Pinocchio to practice regularly throughout the week), and after taking a short break to get something to eat and drink, they now switched to history. Armando read Pinocchio a few simple history lessons from a book, focusing mainly on medieval history, from the Anglo-Saxon era to the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Pinocchio didn't find history nearly as fun as math, but he liked the way Armando narrated the stories, using plenty of facial expressions and body language, and altering his voice when necessary to make the story seem more dramatic and exciting.
Arietta took over after that. She started off her teaching with art, and she was pleased to see that Pinocchio was already a bit of an artist and knew his colors quite well. This was easily the most enjoyable subject for Pinocchio.
Finally, toward mid-afternoon, they dedicated a final hour to studying music. Of course, Pinocchio knew how to sing, but Arietta taught him more of the basic principles of music; she provided further details about the seven major notes and how they could be combined in any order to create all kinds of melodies. She taught about scales, chords, arpeggios, cadences, the differences between pianissimo and fortissimo, and so on.
At last, Arietta and her husband decided that ought to do it for one day, and like all teachers, they assigned Pinocchio some homework before they took their leave.
"You're doing very well, Pinocchio," Arietta said.
"Just keep on doing what you're doing, and you'll make a fine scholar," added Armando.
Pinocchio's heart lifted at their approval. Later, while the boy was sitting at the table, doing his homework while Jiminy supervised him, Terence strolled into the room and announced that he was going for a little walk.
"Where are you going?" Jiminy asked.
"Nowhere special," Terence said abstractedly. "Just around. I need to get out and get some fresh air."
"When will you be back?" asked Pinocchio.
"I'll be back a little before supper. Will you be all right until then?"
"I guess," said Pinocchio, though he felt a twinge of disappointment that Terence didn't mean for him to come along. "I've got homework to finish anyway."
"And I'll stay with Pinoke and keep an eye on him," said Jiminy.
Terence gave a brief nod of satisfaction. He bent down and kissed his son gently on the forehead, took a moment to scratch Duke's ears, and then he was gone.