CHAPTER FIVE
Four planets
I sat next to the little prince and he told me the story of his journey. Here it is.
Some birds helped him to fly away from his planet. They carried him across the sky.
He visited four very small planets and he met some very strange grown-ups.
There was a king on the first planet, but he was alone. There were no other people.
The king said to him, "You can do lots of things for me!"
The little prince asked, "Why?"
And the king said, "Because I am a king."
And the little prince said, "No, thank you."
On the second planet, there was a man. He had a big book and he wrote lots of numbers in it.
"What are you doing?" the little prince asked him.
"I'm writing down the number of stars in the sky. They're my stars," the man said.
"Why are they your stars?" the little prince asked.
"Because I write down the number of stars on my paper," he said.
The little prince thought, "This man has numbers in his book. He doesn't have stars. I have volcanoes and my flower on my planet."
A lamplighter lived on the next planet. He had one lamp. His planet was very small and the days and nights went very quickly. He had to light the lamp and put it out every minute because the planet was very small. This was very strange, but he was a good man and the little prince liked him.
The man on the fourth planet was a writer. "I know about all the planets," he said. "I write books about them."
"I have three volcanoes and a flower on my planet," the little prince said.
"Flowers die," the writer said. "Flowers aren't interesting, but my books are interesting."
The little prince became very sad. "Why did I leave my planet?" he thought.
But he said to the writer, "Where can I go next on my journey?"
"Earth is an interesting planet," said the writer. "Go there."
