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

And then my chest didn’t hurt so much and it was easier to breathe. But I still felt sick because I didn’t know if I’d done well in the exam and because I didn’t know if the examination board would allow my exam paper to be considered after Mrs. Gascoyne had told them I wasn’t going to take it.

And it’s best if you know a good thing is going to happen, like an eclipse or getting a microscope for Christmas. And it’s bad if you know a bad thing is going to happen, like having a filling or going to France. But I think it is worst if you don’t know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing which is going to happen.

And Father came round to the house that night and I was sitting on the sofa watching University Challenge and just answering the science questions. And he stood in the doorway of the living room and he said, “Don’t scream, OK, Christopher? I’m not going to hurt you.”

And Mother was standing behind him so I didn’t scream.

Then he came a bit closer to me and he crouched down like you do with dogs to show that you are not an Aggressor and he said, “I wanted to ask you how the exam went.”

But I didn’t say anything.

And Mother said, “Tell him, Christopher.”

But I still didn’t say anything.

And Mother said, “Please, Christopher.”

So I said, “I don’t know if I got all the questions right because I was really tired and I hadn’t eaten any food so I couldn’t think properly.”

And then Father nodded and he didn’t say anything for a short while. Then he said “Thank you.”

And I said, “What for?”

And he said, “Just… thank you.” Then he said, “I’m very proud of you, Christopher. Very proud. I’m sure you did really well.”

And then he went away and I watched the rest of University Challenge.

And the next week Father told Mother she had to move out of the house, but she couldn’t because she didn’t have any money to pay rent for a flat. And I asked if Father would be arrested and go to prison for killing Wellington because we could live in the house if he was in prison. But Mother said the police would only arrest Father if Mrs. Shears did what is called pressing charges, which is telling the police you want them to arrest someone for a crime, because the police don’t arrest people for little crimes unless you ask them and Mother said that killing a dog was only a little crime.

But then everything was OK because Mother got a job on the till in a garden center and the doctor gave her pills to take every morning to stop her from feeling sad, except that sometimes they made her dizzy and she fell over if she stood up too fast. So we moved into a room in a big house that was made of red bricks. And the bed was in the same room as the kitchen and I didn’t like it because it was small and the corridor was painted brown and there was a toilet and a bathroom that other people used and Mother had to clean it before I used it or I wouldn’t use it and sometimes I wet myself because other people were in the bathroom. And the corridor outside the room smelled like gravy and the bleach they use to clean the toilets at school. And inside the room it smelled like socks and pine air freshener.

And I didn’t like waiting to find out about my maths A level. And whenever I thought about the future I couldn’t see anything clearly in my head and that made a panic start. So Siobhan said I shouldn’t think about the future. She said, “Just think about today. Think about things that have happened. Especially about good things that have happened.”

And one of the good things was that Mother bought me a wooden puzzle which looked like this:

And you had to detach the top part of the puzzle from the bottom part, and it was really difficult.

And another good thing was that I helped Mother paint her room White with a Hint of Wheat, except I got paint in my hair and she wanted to wash it out by rubbing shampoo on my head when I was in the bath, but I wouldn’t let her, so there was paint in my hair for 5 days and then I cut it out with a pair of scissors.

But there were more bad things than good things.

And one of them was that Mother didn’t get back from work till 5:30 p.m. so I had to go to Father’s house between 3:49 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., because I wasn’t allowed to be on my own and Mother said I didn’t have a choice, so I pushed the bed against the door in case Father tried to come in. And sometimes he tried to talk to me through the door, but I didn’t answer him. And sometimes I heard him sitting on the floor outside the door quietly for a long time.

And another bad thing was that Toby died because he was 2 years and 7 months old, which is very old for a rat, and I said I wanted to bury him, but Mother didn’t have a garden, so I buried him in a big plastic pot of earth like a pot you put a plant in. And I said I wanted another rat but Mother said I couldn’t have one because the room was too small.

And I solved the puzzle because I worked out that there were two bolts inside the puzzle and they were tunnels with metal rods in them like this:

And you had to hold the puzzle so that both rods slid to the end of their tunnels and they weren’t crossing the intersection between the two pieces of the puzzle and then you could pull them apart.

And Mother picked me up from Father’s house one day after she had finished work and Father said, “Christopher, can I have a talk with you?”

And I said, “No.”

And Mother said, “It’s OK. I’ll be here.”

And I said, “I don’t want to talk to Father.”

And Father said, “I’ll do you a deal.” And he was holding the kitchen timer, which is a big plastic tomato sliced through the middle, and he twisted it and it started ticking. And he said, “Five minutes, OK? That’s all. Then you can go.”

So I sat on the sofa and he sat on the armchair and Mother was in the hallway and Father said, “Christopher, look… Things can’t go on like this. I don’t know about you, but this… this just hurts too much. You being in the house but refusing to talk to me… You have to learn to trust me… And I don’t care how long it takes… If it’s a minute one day and two minutes the next and three minutes the next and it takes years I don’t care. Because this is important. This is more important than anything else.”

And then he tore a little strip of skin away from the side of the thumbnail on his left hand.

And then he said, “Let’s call it… let’s call it a project. A project we have to do together. You have to spend more time with me. And I… I have to show you that you can trust me. And it will be difficult at first because… because it’s a difficult project. But it will get better. I promise.”

Then he rubbed the sides of his forehead with his fingertips, and he said, “You don’t have to say anything, not right now. You just have to think about it. And, um… I’ve got you a present. To show you that I really mean what I say. And to say sorry. And because… well, you’ll see what I mean.”

Then he got out of the armchair and he walked over to the kitchen door and opened it and there was a big cardboard box on the floor and there was a blanket in it and he bent down and put his hands inside the box and he took a little sandy-colored dog out.

Then he came back through and gave me the dog. And he said, “He’s two months old. And he’s a golden retriever.”