Translation:The girl with a turned up nose/Chapter 5

by Monteiro Lobato

THE VENETIAN PARTY

THAT night there was a small evening party in the palace gardens. The avenues of white sand were lined with motionless fireflies, wide-eyed like torches serving as lamps. In the pond, little serenading frogs coaxed the "Moonlight Nocturne", accompanied by the cries of thousands of little crickets. The prince walked around the garden in the company of the little girl and then invited her for a gondola ride. Off they went in a gondola made of mother-of-pearl, rowed by twelve seahorses.

They sailed over the water, lulled by the beautiful verses that a poet dragonfly recited to the sound of a tiny harp played by Master Mantis.

On the way back from this beautiful walk, the prince invited her to fly.

— There are even airplanes around here? asked the girl, amazed.

— They're safer than men's planes, you'll see," replied the prince.

Despite her fear, the little girl took courage and accepted the invitation.

Straight away, an aircricket came. It was a green cricket, carrying on its back a little wicker boat on the head of two insects, a beetle and a firefly. The firefly, with its large phosphorescent eyes, served as the plane's spotlight and the beetle was there to buzz, pretending to be the noise of the propeller. Narizinho found the ingenious invention very funny and got into the little boat without fear. The beetle buzzed and the airplane shot off into the sky like a bolt of lightning. They went up, up, up so high that the earth from there looked like an orange. They flew through clouds and came very close to the moon, which the little girl had the pleasure of touching with the tip of her finger. And they only came down when the sun was rising.