I think this is the way I'm going to tell the story to the park animals, since I rather doubt they know the Pinocchio tale.
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KOREE and the String
"I tie this string around your neck like this, and you can't eat up all the large fish in my pond, just bring them to me to sell at the market," the man said, holding Koree by the neck. "There." But just then, he lost his footing, and slipped. Koree saw his chance and flew away, string and all.
But no matter how he flung it around, the string would not come off. Kuri will have to undo the knot, Koree thought. But he could not go to the woods where Kuri usually played; the tax collector was in the pond nearby.
What would he do? Koree was circling the air, when he saw ripples in the water. It was little Kuri! But what was that he was carrying? Koree could see it was his fisherman father, who loved the water but could not swim. From his place way up in the sky, Koree could also see swimming out into the deep ocean was the giant whale-shark, could also see carnage of a fisherman's boat. Right away, he guessed what had happened.
Kuri had seen his father's craft attacked by the monster fish, known for harming fishermen in the area. Right away, he had gone to help his father and somehow managed to chase it away with a spear. But it had completely broken the boat. The father clung to Kuri, who struggled to support both of them and tried to get to the nearest island shore.
"C'mon Kuri, you can do it," Koree thought. But just when they were almost there, a wave bounced back from a boulder on shore and hit Kuri in the face, turning his body around. He was so tired now and could not see that he was swimming out toward the sea...in the direction of the whale-shark!
"Oh, no!" Koree thought. Quickly, he swooped down towards the two in the water. "Kuri! Kuri!"
When the boy looked up towards the sound, the wet, dangling string slapped him in the face. Instinctively, he grabbed it.
"Hang on!" Koree pulled as hard as he could to get Kuri and his father to dry land.
The tax collector, seeing everything from his flat boat, said, "The string around the cormorant's neck was tied there to bring large fish to the fisherman; but the bird used it to keep the fisherman from going to the large fish!" That is a very smart cormorant indeed. It seems the tax collector thought he needed to start thinking about becoming friends with this bird, because he never bothered this family again.
END
