There was still the obstacle of the gates on all the Catchfools bridges being locked, but Sop had the answer here. Being a thief had its advantages. He volunteered to go along, picking the necessary locks and keeping an extra eye out for trouble. Pinocchio almost wished he could have joined them. To see the majestic city of Venice by night, especially sneaking along its canals and bridges under the cover of chameleon cloaks, sounded thrilling. But that would have meant accompanying Cinnabar. And that sounded about as thrilling as picking out those little crusty brown things that kept mysteriously showing up in his nose—another of the strange aspects of being human. So Pinocchio had to wait while Cinnabar and Sop set off on their mission to steal the propulsion canister. At first, he and the others were all so preoccupied with final preparations—packing food, attaching the frame that Zingaro had built from stiff strips of naiad scales onto the carpet to support the canister, getting everything up to the rooftop for departure—that worrying about whether Cinnabar and Sop would get caught was pushed aside.
