5. Explanation of the lesson "Seventeen Oranges"

 

Clem had once carried a box with him while coming out of the docks. Pongo, the policeman asked Clem what he had in the box. Clem said that it was the cat and said that if Clem opened the box, the cat would run away. Pongo did not believe him, and he asked Clem to open the box and show him. Again Clem said that the cat would run away. Finally, Clem got irritated and opened the box, the cat which belonged to the ship jumped out of the box and ran towards the docks and Clem follows it shouting in anger. After two minutes, Clem came back with the box holding the lid down tightly. Pongo started laughing at the happenings, but Clem was enraged and looked at Pongo angrily. Clem continued to be angry until he reached home. After arriving at home, he smiled as he took out a big Dutch cheese from the box. It was the story of Clem, but the boy was not so lucky. Pongo caught him and checked him thoroughly as the boy's apron string had broken and the pockets were bulging. It had something in it which he could not hold.

Pongo, the policeman, asked the boy to wait a minute, he wanted to check what was bulging. He caught the young man in the collar and took him to his cabin and looked into his pockets and found seventeen oranges. Pongo counted and placed them on the table and confronted the boy that many people were stealing things and asked if he has to say anything how those oranges came into his pockets.

 

 

The boy was scared to say anything and just kept quiet. The boy had read many detective stories, and he didn't want to make any unnecessary comments. Generally, when we blabber, those words are taken as and evidence against us. So, the boy was not going to say anything. Pongo asked him again if he wanted to say anything. Pongo decided to bring another colleague of his there so that he can be the witness in the court.

 

Pongo went out of the cabin and locked the door so that the boy couldn't escape. The boy was worried, he looked at all sides of the walls and the door. He thought about what to do and looked at the oranges and the apron with a broken string. The boy was scared and thought that probably he would go to jail for stealing, and lose his job. He was thinking of his father, whether he would scold him or feel bad. He almost felt sick as he had no way to escape. He was locked in the cabin with the oranges, and Pongo had gone to bring another policeman. He was in trouble for sure.

 

The boy swallowed the seeds. When he wanted to chew the orange peels, his inner voice told him to swallow it quickly as he had no time for chewing. He took a small knife from his pocket and cut the oranges into big pieces and swallowed one by one. There were still three oranges left on the table when the boy could hear Pongo. The boy's stomach was full, but his inner voice asked him to swallow the three oranges left on the table.

 

 

Luckily Pongo and his colleague saw some carts at the gate of the dock, and they went to them to talk to the drivers. That gave the boy some more time to swallow the three oranges.

 

He swallowed the first one and then the second orange. The door began to open suddenly. Finally, the boy finished off the last orange with a lot of struggle. Pongo and the other policeman entered the cabin. Pongo showed the boy to the other policeman and said that he was the thief and that Pongo caught him with oranges in his pocket. But when Pongo looked at the table, he could not understand anything. He could not believe his eyes when he realized what might have happened. The other policeman said that he could smell oranges. Pongo tried to search for the oranges in the narrators pocket and apron, but he could not find even one orange. Finally, Pongo understood what might have happened to the oranges.

Pongo exclaimed, "Seventeen oranges!" That too, the oranges were so big, how could the boy eat them all. Pongo had no evidence, so he could not send the boy to the jail. Pongo became enraged and shouted at the boy, but the boy did not utter a word. Finally, he had to let the boy go. The boy narrated his story of seventeen oranges to Clem Jones. Clem was worried at the fact that Pongo locked the boy in the cabin for half an hour and he has no right to do that. Clem was right, but the boy had no time to think of these things when he was in the cabin. The boy had eaten seventeen big oranges with the peel and the seeds. He was not well for a few weeks as those oranges in the stomach were too much for him.