Section 1
In Florence, a city in Italy, there is a small street named Porta Rosa. It's not too far from a big square called Piazza del Granduca. On this street, there is a market where people sell vegetables. And right in front of that market, there is a special statue of a pig. This pig is not made of regular materials, but instead, it’s made of brass and it looks very interesting. The pig statue is very old and has turned from a bright color to a dark green color. But something really cool about it is that water comes out of its nose! The nose looks shiny like it was just cleaned. Lots of people who don’t have a lot of money, including kids, drink from the water that comes out of the pig’s nose. They hold their hands up to the nose and drink from there. It’s funny to see a boy with no shirt holding onto the statue of the pig’s head and putting his lips on the pig’s mouth to drink water. Anyone who goes to Florence can easily find the place where the statue is. If someone doesn’t know where to find it, they can just ask a beggar on the street for the “Metal Pig” and the beggar will show them where it is.
It was nighttime in the wintertime and the mountains were covered with snow. But even though it was dark outside, the moon was shining really bright. When the moon shines in Italy, it’s like a regular winter day in other places, but even better because the air is clear and it feels like we're up high in the sky. In other places, like in the north, the sky can look gray and make us feel like we’re being pushed down to the ground, like when we get buried in the ground when we die. In the garden of the big palace where the grand duke lives, there is a part where lots of pretty roses grow, even in the wintertime. In that part of the garden, there was a little boy who had been sitting there all day long. He didn’t have nice clothes and looked a little rough, but he had a smile on his face. This boy is like Italy because Italy is a beautiful place with happy people, but there are also people who are suffering. The little boy was feeling hungry and thirsty, but no one gave him anything to eat or drink. When it started getting dark, the person who took care of the garden told him to leave. After leaving the garden, the little boy went to a bridge called the Arno. He stood there for a while, thinking and looking at the shiny stars in the water below the bridge. He could see a pretty bridge called Della Trinita in the distance too. Then he went to the Metal Pig statue and hugged it with his arms. He bent down a little and drank a lot of the fresh water that was coming out of the pig’s nose, which looked really shiny. Nearby, the little boy had some salad leaves and two chestnuts that he was thought to eat for dinner. There was no one else in the street, so he felt like it was his own special place. He felt brave, so he climbed onto the back of the Metal Pig statue and rested his curly head on the pig’s head. Before he knew it, he fell asleep there.
It was very late at night, around midnight. The Metal Pig statue suddenly moved a little bit, and the boy heard it say, “Hold on tight, little boy, because we’re going for a ride!” Then the pig statue started to move really fast, and it felt like they were flying. They went to a big place called Piazza del Granduca, where there was a statue of a horse with a rider, and the horse made a loud sound. As they were riding on the Metal Pig, everything around them suddenly came to life. The coats-of-arms painted on the old council-house shone really brightly and looked like they were almost see-through. Michael Angelo’s statue of David also looked like it was moving and getting ready to throw his sling. Even the metal statues of people in the square, like Perseus and the group showing the Rape of the Sabines, looked like real people and were shouting and screaming in fear. The Metal Pig took the boy to a place called the Palazzo degli Uffizi, where there was a covered area where people gather for the carnival. The Metal Pig then stopped and said to the boy, “Hold on tight, because we’re going up some stairs.”
The little boy didn’t say anything because he was both a little bit scared and a little bit happy. The Metal Pig took him to a long room called a gallery, which the boy had been to before. The walls in the gallery were really shiny because there were lots of paintings on them. There were also statues and sculptures of people all around, and it was so bright in there that it looked like it was daytime. Then the Metal Pig led the little boy into a side room, and as the door opened, the boy was amazed by the beauty of the things he saw. He recognized some of the sculptures and paintings, but tonight they seemed even more dazzling and bright than he remembered. And in the middle of the room stood a statue of a woman, so exquisitely crafted that it took the boy’s breath away. She was called the Venus de’ Medici and she looked like she could move with her graceful limbs. There were other statues too, like men holding swords and fighting. The boy was amazed by all the bright colors and how it seemed like the statues were alive. It was like he was in a magical world full of beautiful things.
