Boredom Leads to Great Things 36
handed over. But we are all British here, and we will
see you through.” Churchill escaped to the neighboring
country Mozambique, and the achievement to escape from
the prison made him a national hero in Britain.^11
Another prisoner in Pretoria was the six-year-old Elon
Musk. For an unknown reason, he had been grounded and
thus prevented to visit a birthday party at his cousins’s
house. He disagreed with the decision to ground him and
felt it was an unjust decision, so he planned to escape and
visit the party anyway.^363
The first idea Elon had was to take his own bike, and he
told it to his mother Maye. She decided to lie by saying that
Elon needed a license for his bike or the police would stop
him. He wasn’t sure if his mother had told him the truth.
To be on the safe side, Elon decided to walk the ten miles
[sixteen km] to the party.
He sneaked out of the house and began walking across
Pretoria in a similar way as Churchill when he had escaped
from his prison. While Churchill navigated by the stars to
find his way through the city, Elon who had just learned
how to read, navigated by reading the road signs to find
out in which direction he should go.^326 Due to Pretoria’s
British heritage, he passed the many colonial buildings and
the double-decked buses driving on the left side of the road.
The stroll across Pretoria took four hours. Just before
Elon arrived to the party, Maye saw him walking along
the sidewalk and he saw her. Maye had earlier arrived to
the house to leave Elon’s siblings Kimbal and Tosca who
were allowed to visit the party. Elon decided retreat was