Chapter II

So I lived my life alone, without anyone I could really talk to, until six years ago when my plane had an accident in the Sahara Desert. Something broke in my engine. Since I had no mechanic or passengers with me, I had to try to fix it all by myself. It was a matter of life or death: I only had enough drinking water to last a week.

So on the first night, I slept on the sand, a thousand miles from any place where people live. I felt more alone than a sailor lost at sea on a raft. So you can imagine how surprised I was when, at sunrise, a strange little voice woke me up. It said:

"Please—draw me a sheep!"

I jumped up, completely shocked. I rubbed my eyes hard. I looked all around me carefully. And I saw a very unusual little person, standing there and looking at me very seriously. Here you can see the best picture I later managed to draw of him. But my drawing is much less charming than he was.

But that's not my fault. When I was six years old, the grown-ups discouraged me from becoming a painter, so I never learned to draw anything except boas from the outside and boas from the inside.

Now I stared at this sudden appearance with my eyes wide open in surprise. Remember, I had crashed in the desert a thousand miles from any place where people live. Yet this little man didn't seem lost in the sand, or tired, hungry, thirsty, or scared. He didn't look like a child lost in the middle of the desert, far from any people. When I finally could speak, I said to him:

"But—what are you doing here?"

And in reply, he repeated very slowly, as if it were very important:

"Please—draw me a sheep..."

When something is too mysterious, you don't dare disobey. Even though it seemed silly to me, there I was, a thousand miles from any people and in danger of dying, so I took a piece of paper and my pen from my pocket. But then I remembered that I had studied geography, history, math, and grammar, and I told the little fellow (a bit annoyed too) that I didn't know how to draw.

"That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep..."

But I had never drawn a sheep. So I drew for him one of the two pictures I had drawn so many times. It was the boa constrictor from the outside.

"No, no, no! I don't want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is very dangerous, and an elephant is too big. Where I live, everything is very small. What I need is a sheep. Draw me a sheep."

So then I drew a picture.

He looked at it carefully, then said:

"No. This sheep is already very sick. Draw me another one."

So I drew another picture.

My friend smiled kindly and patiently.

"You see for yourself," he said, "this is not a sheep. This is a ram. It has horns."

So then I drew again.

But he didn't like that one either, just like the others.

"This one is too old. I want a sheep that will live a long time."

By now, I had run out of patience, because I was in a hurry to start taking apart my engine. So I quickly drew this picture.

And I explained it to him.

"This is just his box. The sheep you asked for is inside."

I was very surprised to see my young judge's face light up:

"That's exactly what I wanted! Do you think this sheep will need a lot of grass?"

"Because where I live everything is very small..."

"There will surely be enough grass for him," I said. "It's a very small sheep that I've given you."

He bent his head over the drawing.

"Not so small that—Look! He has fallen asleep..."