CHAPTER 21 – TRAINS

“Good morning,” says the little prince.

“Good morning,” says the man who works at the railway station.

“What do you do here?” the little prince asks.

“I change the direction of the trains,” says the man. “I send some trains to the right, some trains to the left.

And at that moment a train goes around very fast.

“They hurry,” says the little prince. “What are they looking for?”

“Nobody knows what they are looking for,” says the man.

And a second train goes around, in the opposite direction.

“Are they going back?” asks the little prince.

“They are not the same people,” says the man. “They are different people. They are coming back.”

“They are not happy where they are?”

“People are never happy where they are,” says the man.

And a third train goes around.

“Do they want to catch the first people?” asks the little prince.

“They don’t want to catch anybody,” says the man. “They are sleeping. Or they are looking outside the windows. Only the children are pressing their noses against the windows.”

“Only the children know what they are looking for,” says the little prince. “Children use their time to play with toys. And the toys start to be very important to them. And if somebody takes their toys, they cry.”

“Children are lucky,” the man says.

The little prince continues on his journey.

“Good morning,” says the little prince when he meets a businessman.

“Good morning,” says the businessman. He is a businessman who sells pills. The pills help people when they are thirsty. If you take one pill a week, you don’t have to drink.

“Why do you sell the pills?” asks the little prince.

“Because the pills save a lot of time,” says the businessman. “The pills can save fifty-three minutes a week.”

“And what do you do with the fifty-three minutes?”

“What I want.”

“When I have fifty-three minutes,” the little prince says, “I like to walk very slowly to a fountain.”