The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon [16]
Sometimes these things would make Mother and Father really angry and they would shout at me or they would shout at each other. Sometimes Father would say, “Christopher, if you do not behave I swear I shall knock the living daylights out of you,” or Mother would say, “Jesus, Christopher, I am seriously considering putting you in a home,” or Mother would say, “You are going to drive me into an early grave.”
79. When I got home Father was sitting at the table in the kitchen and he had made my supper. He was wearing a lumberjack shirt. The supper was baked beans and broccoli and two slices of ham and they were laid out on the plate so that they were not touching.
He said, “Where have you been?”
And I said, “I have been out.” This is called a white lie. A white lie is not a lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but you do not tell all of the truth. This means that everything you say is a white lie because when someone says, for example, “What do you want to do today?” you say, “I want to do painting with Mrs. Peters,” but you don't say, “I want to have my lunch and I want to go to the toilet and I want to go home after school and I want to play with Toby and I want to have my supper and I want to play on my computer and I want to go to bed.” And I said a white lie because I knew that Father didn't want me to be a detective.
Father said, “I have just had a phone call from Mrs. Shears.”
I started eating my baked beans and broccoli and two slices of ham.
Then Father asked, “What the hell were you doing poking round her garden?”
I said, “I was doing detective work trying to find out who killed Wellington.”
Father replied, “How many times do I have to tell you, Christopher?”
The baked beans and the broccoli and the ham were cold but I didn't mind this. I eat very slowly so my food is nearly always cold.
Father said, “I told you to keep your nose out of other people's business.”
I said, “I think Mr. Shears probably killed Wellington.”
Father didn't say anything.
I said, “He is my Prime Suspect. Because I think someone might have killed Wellington to make Mrs. Shears sad. And a murder is usually committed by someone known—”
Father banged the table with his fist really hard so that the plates and his knife and fork jumped around and my ham jumped sideways so that it touched the broccoli, so I couldn't eat the ham or the broccoli anymore.
Then he shouted, “I will not have that man's name mentioned in my house.”
I asked, “Why not?”
And he said, “That man is evil.”
And I said, “Does that mean he might have killed Wellington?”
Father put his head in his hands and said, “Jesus wept.”
I could see that Father was angry with me, so I said, “I know you told me not to get involved in other people's business but Mrs. Shears is a friend of ours.”
And Father said, “Well, she's not a friend anymore.”
And I asked, “Why not?”
And Father said, “OK, Christopher. I am going to say this for the last and final time. I will not tell you again. Look at me when I'm talking to you, for God's sake. Look at me. You are not to go asking Mrs. Shears about who killed that bloody dog. You are not to go asking anyone about who killed that bloody dog. You are not to go trespassing in other people's gardens. You are to stop this ridiculous bloody detective game right now.”
I didn't say anything.
Father said, “I am going to make you promise, Christopher. And you know what it means when I make you promise.”
I did know what it meant when you say you promise something. You have to say that you will never do something again and then you must never do it because that would make the promise a lie. I said, “I know.”
Father said, “Promise me you will stop doing these things. Promise that you will give up this ridiculous game right now, OK?”
I said, “I promise.”
83. I think I would make a very good astronaut.
To be a good astronaut you have to be intelligent and I'm intelligent. You also have to understand how machines work and I'm good at understanding how machines work. You also have to be someone who would