At six, the boy read about how a boa swallows his prey and painted a snake swallowing an elephant. It was a drawing of a boa constrictor outside, but adults claimed it was a hat. Adults always need to explain everything, so the boy made another drawing - a boa constrictor from the inside. Then the adults advised the boy to give up this nonsense - according to them, they should do more work in geography, history, arithmetic and spelling. So the boy abandoned the brilliant career of the artist. He had to choose another profession: he grew up and became a pilot, but still showed his first drawing to those adults who seemed to him more reasonable and intelligible than the rest - and everyone answered that it was a hat. It was impossible to speak with them heart to heart - about boas, jungles and stars. And the pilot lived alone until he met the Little Prince.
It happened in the Sahara. Something broke in the engine of the aircraft: the pilot had to fix it or die, because there was only water for a week. At dawn the pilot was awakened by a thin voice - a tiny kid with golden hair, who, unbeknownst to the desert, asked to draw a lamb for him. The amazed pilot did not dare to refuse, all the more so since his new friend was the only one who could see the boa constrictor swallowing an elephant in the first drawing. It gradually became clear that the Little Prince flew from a planet called "asteroid B-612" - of course, the number is needed only for boring adults who adore numbers.
The whole planet was the size of a house, and the Little Prince had to take care of her: every day to clean three volcanoes - two active and one extinct, as well as to weed out sprouts of baobabs. The pilot did not immediately understand the danger of the baobabs, but then he guessed and, to warn all the children, he painted a planet where there was a lazy dog who did not complete three bushes in time. But the Little Prince always put his planet in order. But his life was sad and lonely, so he really liked to watch the sunset - especially when he was sad. He did this several times a day, simply moving his chair after the sun. Everything changed when a wonderful flower appeared on his planet: it was a beauty with spikes - proud, touchy and simple-hearted. The little prince fell in love with her, but she seemed to him capricious, cruel and arrogant - he was too young then and did not understand how this flower lit up his life. And then the Little Prince cleared his volcanoes for the last time, tore up the sprouts of baobabs, and then said goodbye to his flower, which only at the moment of farewell admitted that he loved it.
He went wandering and visited six neighboring asteroids. The king lived on the first: he so wanted to have subjects that he invited the Little Prince to become a minister, and the kid thought that adults are a very strange people. An ambitious man lived on the second planet, a drunkard on the third, a business man on the fourth, and a lantern on the fifth. All the adults seemed to the Little Prince extremely strange, and only the Lanternman liked him: this man remained faithful to the agreement to turn on the lights in the evenings and turn off the lights in the morning, although his planet was so diminished that day and night changed every minute. Don't be so small here. The little prince would stay with the Lanternman, because he really wanted to make friends with someone - besides, on this planet you could admire the sunset a thousand four hundred and forty times a day!
A geographer lived on the sixth planet. And since he was a geographer, he was supposed to ask travelers about the countries where they came from to write their stories in books. The little prince wanted to talk about his flower, but the geographer explained that only mountains and oceans are written in books, because they are eternal and unchanging, and the flowers do not live long. Only then did the Little Prince realize that his beauty would soon disappear, and he left her alone, without protection and help! But the resentment had not yet passed, and the Little Prince went on, however, he only thought about his abandoned flower.
The seventh was the Earth - a very difficult planet! Suffice it to say that there are one hundred eleven kings, seven thousand geographers, nine hundred thousand businessmen, seven and a half million drunks, three hundred and eleven million ambitious people - a total of about two billion adults. But the Little Prince made friends only with the snake, the Fox and the pilot. The snake promised to help him when he bitterly regretted his planet. And Fox taught him to be friends. Everyone can tame someone and become his friend, but you always need to be responsible for those who tamed. And also the Fox said that only one heart is vigilant - you cannot see the most important thing with your eyes. Then the Little Prince decided to return to his rose, because he was responsible for it. He went to the desert - to the very place where he fell. So they met with the pilot. The pilot drew him a lamb in a drawer and even a muzzle for a lamb, although he had previously thought that he could only draw boas - outside and inside. The little prince was happy, and the pilot felt sad - he realized that he was also tamed. Then the Little Prince found a yellow snake, whose bite kills in half a minute: she helped him, as promised. The snake can return everything to where it came from - it returns people to the earth, and the Little Prince returned to the stars. The kid said to the pilot that it would only look like death, so there is no need to grieve - let the pilot remember him, looking into the night sky. And when the Little Prince laughs, it will seem to the pilot that all the stars are laughing, like five hundred million bells.
The pilot repaired his plane, and his comrades rejoiced at his return. Six years have passed since then: little by little he was comforted and loved to look at the stars. But he was always overwhelmed with excitement: he forgot to draw a strap for a muzzle, and the lamb could eat a rose. Then it seems to him that all the bells are crying. After all, if the rose is no longer in the world, everything will be different, but no adult will ever understand how important this is.
