Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

And if she was a teacher at school I could have said, “Where is 451c Chapter Road, Willesden, London NW2 5NG?” but she was a stranger, so I said, “Stand further away,” because I didn’t like her being so close. And I said, “I’ve got a Swiss Army knife and it has a saw blade and it could cut someone’s fingers off.”

And she said, “OK, buddy. I’m going to take that as a no,” and she stood up and walked away.

And the man with the diamond patterns on his socks said, “Mad as a fucking hatter. Jesus,” and he was pressing a handkerchief against his face and there was blood on the handkerchief.

And then another train came and the man with the diamond patterns on his socks and the lady with the guitar case got on and it went away again.

And then 8 more trains came and I decided that I would get onto a train and then I would work out what to do.

So I got on the next train.

And Toby tried to get out of my pocket so I took hold of him and I put him in my outside pocket and I held him with my hand.

And there were 11 people in the carriage and I didn’t like being in a room with 11 people in a tunnel, so I concentrated on things in the carriage. And there were signs saying There are 53,963 holiday cottages in Scandinavia and Germanyand VITABIOTICSand 3435and Penalty ?10 if you fail to show a valid ticket for your entire journeyand Discover Gold, Then Bronzeand TVICand EPBICand suck my cockand Ostructing the doors can be dangerousand BRVand Con. ICand TALK TO THE WORLD.

And there was a pattern on the walls which was like this:

And there was a pattern on the seats like this:

Then the train wobbled a lot and I had to hang on to a rail and we went into a tunnel and it was noisy and I closed my eyes and I could feel the blood pumping in the sides of my neck.

And then we came out of the tunnel and went into another little station and it was called Warwick Avenueand it said it in big letters on the wall and I liked that because you knew where you were.

And I timed the distance between stations all the way to Willesden Junction and all the times between stations were multiples of 15 seconds like this:

0:00Paddington

1:30Warwick Avenue

3:15Maida Vale

5:00Kilburn Park

7:00Queen’s Park

10:30Kensal Green

11:45Willesden Junction

And when the train stopped at Willesden Junctionand the doors opened automatically I walked out of the train. And then the doors closed and the train went away. And everyone who got off the train walked up a staircase and over a bridge except me, and then there were only 2 people that I could see and one was a man and he was drunk and he had brown stains on his coat and his shoes were not a pair and he was singing but I couldn’t hear what he was singing, and the other was an Indian man in a shop which was a little window in a wall.

And I didn’t want to talk to either of them because I was tired and hungry and I had already talked to lots of strangers, which is dangerous, and the more you do something dangerous the more likely it is that something bad happens. But I didn’t know how to get to 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG, so I had to ask somebody.

So I went up to the man in the little shop and I said, “Where is 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG?”

And he picked up a little book and handed it to me and said, “Two ninety-five.”

And the book was called LONDON AZ Street Atlas and Index, Geographers’ A-Z Map Company, and I opened it up and it was lots of maps.

And the man in the little shop said, “Are you going to buy it or not?”

And I said, “I don’t know.”

And he said, “Well, you can get your dirty fingers off it if you don’t mind,” and he took it back from me.

And I said, “Where is 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG?”

And he said, “You can either buy the A-to-Z or you can hop it. I’m not a walking encyclopedia.”

And I said, “Is that the A-to-Z?” and I pointed at the book.

And he said, “No, it’s a sodding crocodile.”

And I said, “Is that the A-to-Z?” because it wasn’t a crocodile and I thought I had heard wrong because of his accent.

And he said, “Yes, it’s the A-to-Z.”

And I said, “Can I buy it?”

And he didn’t say anything.

And I said, “Can I buy it?”

And he said, “Two pounds ninety-five, but you’re giving me the money first. I’m not having you scarpering,” and then I realized that he meant ?2.95 when he said Two ninety-five.

And I paid him with my money and he gave me change just like in the shop at home and I went and sat down on the floor against the wall like the man with the dirty clothes but a long way away from him and I opened up the book.

And inside the front cover there was a big map of London with places on it like Abbey Woodand Poplarand Actonand Stanmore.And it said KEY TO MAP PAGES. And the map was covered with a grid and each square of the grid had two numbers on it. And Willesdenwas in the square which said 42and 43. And I worked out that the numbers were the numbers of the pages where you could see a bigger-scale map of that square of London. And the whole book was a big map of London, but it had been chopped up so it could be made into a book, and I liked that.

But Willesden Junction wasn’t on pages 42 and 43. And I found it on page 58, which was directly under page 42 on the KEY TO MAP PAGESand which joined up with page 42. And I looked round Willesden Junction in a spiral, like when I was looking for the train station in Swindon, but on the map with my finger.

And the man who had shoes that did not match stood in front of me and said, “Big cheese. Oh yes. The nurses. Never. Bloody liar. Total bloody liar.”

Then he went away.

And it took me a long time to find Chapter Road because it wasn’t on page 58. It was back on page 42, and it was in square 5C.

And this was the shape of the roads between Willesden Junction and Chapter Road.

And this was my route:

So I went up the staircase and over the bridge and I put my ticket in the little gray gate and went into the street and there was a bus and a big machine with a sign on it which said English Welsh and Scottish Railways,but it was yellow, and I looked around and it was dark and there were lots of bright lights and I hadn’t been outside for a long time and it made me feel sick. And I kept my eyelids very close together and I just looked at the shape of the roads and then I knew which roads were Station Approachand Oak Lane,which were the roads I had to go along.

So I started walking, but Siobhan said I didn’t have to describe everything that happens, I just have to describe the things that were interesting.