10th January 2024, from the book my Dad read to me when I was a toddler

Quando mio padre mi leggeva questa favola, successivamente continuava a raccontarmi una favola che si inventava sul momento, e nove volte su dieci la protagonista era un'onda del mare. Infatti quando andavamo, in estate, al mare, io giocavo a dare da mangiare al mare, ma non come una mamma, bensi come una sorella maggiore che prepara i pasti ai suoi fratellini e sorelline minori. Questa mancanza mi ha sempre profondamente ferita e mi accompagnera' per il resto della vita.

Once upon a time there was a little boy called Pierino who slept in a cot. When he was not sleepy, his mother had to push the cot around the room until the child was quiet. One night Pierino just couldn't fall asleep. Mum, by his side, had already closed her eyes. "Mummy, mummy, pingi; vojo andae!" And Mummy had stretched out an arm to cradle him. But even the arm had grown tired, eventually, and the little one's cries were to no avail: Mummy had finally fallen asleep and the arm lay inert on the ground. "Ancoa, ancoa" cried Pierino at the top of his lungs, but no one answered him. At a certain point, Sora Luna looked out of the window and could not hold back a smile: the scene she saw was really funny. Pierino was lying wide awake in his cot; with a leg raised, straight up, like a mast.

His pyjama jacket was caught in his toe, which, stretched taut, resembled a sail in the wind. Then the child took a sleeve in each hand and began to blow: little by little the cot began to move, to roll across the floor towards the wall, up to the ceiling, and back down along the opposite wall. "Ancoa, ancoa," Pierino kept shouting at the top of his lungs, and the cot started for a second turn. It was very lucky for Pierino that it was night and the ground was upside down, otherwise he could easily have broken his neck!

After three complete laps Sora Luna stepped in and said to Pierino, looking him straight in the face: "Boy, haven't you had enough yet?" "No," retorted Pierino, insatiable. "Ancoa, ancoa "I want to go away! Potami where everyone sees me and says I'm bavo!" "I can't open the door," Sora Luna winked, but a thin silvery ray of her managed to squeeze through the keyhole and Pierino could direct the wheelchair there: now the world was at his feet!