The curious of the dog in night time

And this is a map of everything and everywhere, and the future is on the right and the past is on the left and the gradient of the line c is the speed of light, but we can’t know about the things which happen in the shaded areas even though some of them have already happened, but when we get to f it will be possible to find out about things which happen in the lighter areas p and q .

And this means that time is a mystery, and not even a thing, and no one has ever solved the puzzle of what time is, exactly. And so, if you get lost in time it is like being lost in a desert, except that you can’t see the desert because it is not a thing.

And this is why I like timetables, because they make sure you don’t get lost in time.

197. There were lots of people on the train, and I didn’t like that, because I don’t like lots of people I don’t know and I hate it even more if I am stuck in a room with lots of people I don’t know, and a train is like a room and you can’t get out of it when it’s moving. And it made me think of when I had to come home in the car from school one day because the bus had broken down and Mother came and picked me up and Mrs. Peters asked Mother if she could take Jack and Polly home because their mothers couldn’t come and pick them up, and Mother said yes. But I started screaming in the car because there were too many people in it and Jack and Polly weren’t in my class and Jack bangs his head on things and makes a noise like an animal, and I tried to get out of the car, but it was still going along and I fell out onto the road and I had to have stitches in my head and they had to shave the hair off and it took 5 months for it to grow back to the way it was before.

So I stood very still in the train carriage and didn’t move. And then I heard someone say “Christopher.” And I thought it would be someone I knew, like a teacher from school or one of the people who live in our street, but it wasn’t. It was the policeman again. And he said, “Caught you just in time,” and he was breathing really loud and holding his knees.

And I didn’t say anything.

And he said, “We’ve got your father at the police station.”

And I thought he was going to say that they had arrested Father for killing Wellington, but he didn’t. He said, “He’s looking for you.”

And I said, “I know.”

And he said, “So, why are you going to London?”

And I said, “Because I’m going to live with Mother.”

And he said, “Well, I think your father might have something to say about that.”

And then I thought that he was going to take me back to Father and that was frightening because he was a policeman and policemen are meant to be good, so I started to run away, but he grabbed me and I screamed. And then he let go.

And he said, “OK, let’s not get overexcited here.” And then he said, “I’m going to take you back to the police station and you and me and your dad can sit down and have a little chat about who’s going where.”