Tshepo lived with his mom, dad, sister Lindwe and his granny in the city. A few years

ago Tshepo and his family were driving back from visiting aunty Gloria when they

had an accident. Tshepo’s brain got hurt in the accident. He spent months in the

hospital getting better. He now uses a wheelchair to move around and talks by

pointing at pictures in a communication book.

Every morning Tshepo’s mom took Lindwe to school and every morning Tshepo

wished that he could also go to school. One day Tshepo’s dad brought a brown box

home. Tshepo wondered what it was. His dad opened the box and took out a machine

with lots of pictures on it. “This is a talking machine”, he said. A talking machine?

thought a very puzzled Tshepo. “Let me show you”. Tshepo watched as his dad

pressed on the pictures and then the machine spoke the message. Cool! Thought

Tshepo. “You will soon be going to school Tshepo and you will need a talking

machine”.

Tshepo went to school everyday. He loved it, but none of the children wanted to play

with him. This made Tshepo feel very lonely and sad.

One day Tshepo’s teacher Miss Cassey said: “class I have a surprise, tomorrow we

will be going to the zoo”. Everyone was very excited!

The next day everyone got into a big bus and went to the zoo. They saw the elephants,

the giraffes, the lions and even a snake. Suddenly somebody screamed: “Run!

everybody run, Sam the gorilla has escaped!”

Everybody was so scared and ran away and forgot Tshepo. “Where is Tshepo?” “He

is still inside the zoo Miss Cassey” said Paul. “Oh no!”

Sam looked up and saw Tshepo. Sam started walking towards Tshepo. Tshepo didn’t

know what to do. He pressed hello and his talking machine said “Hello there”. Sam

stopped and looked at this strange boy in a chair with shiny wheels.

Sam crept closer and sniffed Tshepo. Tshepo pressed some more pictures and his

talking machine said: “my name is Tshepo, how are you today?” Sam got a fright and

jumped backwards.

Tshepo pressed some more pictures and his talking machine said, “don’t be scared,

it’s just my talking machine”. Sam came carefully closer and sniffed the small boy

and his talking machine. Sam looked closely at Tshepo’s talking machine. Tshepo

said: “look if I press this, it says Hello”. Now you try. Sam looked at this strange

talking machine and then at Tshepo and again at the talking machine. Sam then

pressed hello and the talking machine again said: “hello”.

Tshepo then showed Sam all the things his talking machine could say. The two of

them sat there for an hour. The next thing Tshepo heard a helicopter and a lady

screamed: “Oh no! He is eating him!” and she fainted.