CHAPTER TWO

A SHEEP

I was not hurt. But I could not start the plane again. I was alone in the desert and I did not have much water. I had to work on the plane quickly. That night, I slept on the sand.

Then, the next morning, I was very surprised. I woke up and I heard a voice. “Draw me a sheep, please!” said the voice.

“What?” I said.

“I want you to draw me a sheep,” said the voice.

I opened my eyes and I jumped up. A boy with golden hair stood next to me.

I was very surprised to see him because we were in the middle of a desert in Africa. We were alone in a desert, but he did not look frightened.

This is my picture of the boy. (It is not very good. I never learned to draw very well.)

“What are you doing here?” I said. It was difficult to speak because I was surprised.

He laughed quietly, but he did not answer me. He said again, “Please, draw me a sheep.”

“I’m good at lots of things, but I’m not very good at drawing,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, slowly. “You can draw me a sheep.”

“I can’t draw sheep,” I said, “but I can draw this.” I drew him my Picture Number One – the drawing of the snake with the whole elephant inside it.

“No! No! I don’t want a picture of an elephant inside a snake,” he said. “At home, everything is very small and elephants are too big. I need a sheep.” Then he said again, “Draw me a sheep.”

Again, I was very surprised and I drew a sheep.
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He looked at it, then he said, “No! This sheep doesn’t look very well. Try again.”

I drew a second sheep.

The boy looked at it and he smiled. “This isn’t a sheep,” he said. “This is a ram – I can see the horns on its head. Try again.”

I drew the sheep again and I did not put any horns on its head.

But he did not like that drawing because the sheep looked too old. "I want a young sheep," he said. "I want the sheep to live for a long time."

I did not want to draw another picture because I wanted to work on my plane. Then I thought hard, and I drew this picture very quickly.

"The sheep lives in the box," I said to him.

He looked closely at the picture. Then I was surprised because he laughed. "This is very good," he said. "Will the sheep eat a lot of grass?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because at home everything is very small and there isn't much grass," he said.

"It'll be fine," I said. "The sheep is very small."

He looked again at the picture and he said, "She's small, but she isn't very small," he said. Then he said "Look! She's sleeping."

I thought, "The boy understands my pictures."