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

would your mother think about that?” which is stupid because Mother is dead and you can't say anything to people who are dead and dead people can't think.
    And Grandmother has pictures in her head, too, but her pictures are all confused, like someone has muddled the film up and she can't tell what happened in what order, so she thinks that dead people are still alive and she doesn't know whether something happened in real life or whether it happened on television.
    127. When I got home from school Father was still out at work, so I unlocked the front door and went inside and took my coat off. I went into the kitchen and put my things on the table. And one of the things was this book which I had taken into school to show to Siobhan. I made myself a raspberry milk shake and heated it up in the microwave and then went through to the living room to watch one of my
Blue Planet
videos about life in the deepest parts of the ocean.
    The video was about the sea creatures who live around sulfur chimneys, which are underwater volcanoes where gases are ejected from the earth's crust into the water. Scientists never expected there to be any living organisms there because it was so hot and so poisonous, but there are whole ecosystems there.
    I like this bit because it shows you that there is always something new that science can discover, and all the facts that you take for granted can be completely wrong. And also I like the fact that they are filming in a place which is harder to get to than the top of Mount Everest but is only a few miles away from sea level. And it is one of the quietest and darkest and most secret places on the surface of the earth. And I like imagining that I am there sometimes, in a spherical metal submersible with windows that are 30 cm thick to stop them from imploding under the pressure. And I imagine that I am the only person inside it, and that it is not connected to a ship at all but can operate under its own power and I can control the motors and move anywhere I want to on the seabed and I can never be found.
    Father came home at 5:48 p.m. I heard him come through the front door. Then he came into the living room. He was wearing a lime green and sky blue check shirt and there was a double knot on one of his shoes but not on the other. He was carrying an old advert for Fussell's Milk Powder which was made of metal and painted with blue and white enamel and covered with little circles of rust which were like bullet holes, but he didn't explain why he was carrying this.
    He said, “Howdy, pardner,” which is a joke he does.
    And I said, “Hello.”
    I carried on watching the video and Father went into the kitchen.
    I had forgotten that I had left my book lying on the kitchen table because I was too interested in the
Blue Planet
video. This is what is called
Relaxing Your Guard,
and it is what you must never do if you are a detective.
    It was 5:54 p.m. when Father came back into the living room. He said, “What is this?” but he said it very quietly and I didn't realize that he was angry because he wasn't shouting.
    He was holding the book in his right hand.
    I said, “It's a book I'm writing.”
    And he said, “Is this true? Did you talk to Mrs. Alexander?” He said this very quietly as well, so I still didn't realize that he was angry.
    And I said, “Yes.”
    Then he said, “Holy fucking Jesus, Christopher. How stupid are you?”
    This is what Siobhan says is called a rhetorical question. It has a question mark at the end, but you are not meant to answer it because the person who is asking it already knows the answer. It is difficult to spot a rhetorical question.
    Then Father said, “What the fuck did I tell you, Christopher?” This was much louder.
    And I replied, “Not to mention Mr. Shears's name in our house. And not to go asking Mrs. Shears, or anyone, about who killed that bloody dog. And not to go trespassing in other people's gardens. And to stop this ridiculous bloody detective game.