The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Chapters 2-41

Reading Check

1. Big black poodle (Chapter 2)

2. The Hound of the Baskervilles (Chapter 7)

3. He loves him. (Chapter 31)

4. Ninety-nine seconds (Chapter 41)

Short Answer

1. People’s faces move too quickly. (Chapter 3)

2. Christopher pulls out the garden fork, picks up the dog, and hugs him, suggesting that he feels empathy and affection toward Wellington. (Chapter 5)

3. He wonders if she told the police he killed Wellington. If so, that was a lie, and telling lies about people is slander. (Chapter 23)

4. If he thinks about something that didn’t actually happen (a lie), he starts thinking about other things that didn’t actually happen, and there’s an infinite number of them. It makes him feel shaky and scared. (Chapter 37)

Chapters 43-127

Reading Check

1. It makes him feel safe. (Chapter 47)

2. No. (Chapter 59)

3. Five weeks (Chapter 73)

4. It’s like a film he can rewind, fast forward, and pause. (Chapter 113)

Short Answer

1. He feels like he is being observed through a one-way mirror because even though he knows people are working out what he is thinking when they look at him, he is unable to work out what they are thinking when he looks at them. (Chapter 43)

2. Heaven doesn’t exist, and people choose to believe in it because they don’t like the idea of dying. (Chapter 61)

3. A staff member who monitors students while they’re taking examinations (Chapter 71­)

4. He saw five red cars in a row, so it is a Super Good Day, which makes it a good day for taking risks. (Chapter 97)

Chapters 131-157

Reading Check

1. Yellow and brown (Chapter 131)

2. Circles instead of dots over the letter i (Chapter 149)

3. Ghosts (Chapter 151)

4. A train set (Chapter 157)

Short Answer

1. To Christopher, loving someone means helping when they get into trouble, looking after them, and telling them the truth. (Chapter 137)

2. Father told him not to mess with anything in his room, so Christopher takes that literally and tells himself he will not mess with things while looking. He will move them and then move them back. (Chapter 149)

3. To Christopher, hard rain sounds like white noise, which is like silence but not empty. (Chapter 157)

4. Father apologizes for lying to him and tries to explain why he did. He starts running a bath. He gently removes Christopher’s vomit-soiled clothes and walks him to the bathroom. (Chapter 157)

Chapters 163-233

Reading Check

1. “Little man” (Chapter 163)

2. He screams and pushes Father off the bed. (Chapter 167)

3. Cows in Scotland (Chapter 181)

4. That he doesn’t get lost in time (Chapter 193)

5. The underground station (Chapter 211)

Short Answer

1. Feelings are pictures in a person’s head of what is going to happen or what might have happened instead of what occurred. People smile if they see a happy picture and cry if they see a sad one. (Chapter 163)

2. It makes him feel calmer. (Chapter 167)

3. His decision to go 100 miles away from home to live with Mother causes him physical pain, which he compares to the memory of a bad cut. In space he would be more than 1,000 times farther away from home. (Chapter 179)

4. Being in enclosed spaces, like the airing closet at home, makes him feel safe. He hides there because he doesn’t want the policeman to take him to Father. (Chapter 197)

5. Thinking about things makes them interesting, in Christopher’s view. They don’t have to be “new things.” He gives an example of learning how to make music with water and thin glasses, which many people don’t know how to do even though they have thin glasses and water in their houses. (Chapter 223)