Chapter 59-79
Summary: Chapter 59
Returning to the present Christopher sets out to investigate Wellington’s murder. He knocks on Mrs. Shears’s door, and explains that he did not kill Wellington. Mrs. Shears closes the door in his face.
Christopher waits until she leaves, then sneaks around the side of her house and jumps the garden wall.
In her garden he finds a locked shed. He looks through the window of the shed and sees the garden fork used in the murder.
Mrs. Shears spots him in her garden and threatens to call the police. Christopher goes home, happy to have discovered a clue.
Summary: Chapter 61
Christopher recalls a vicar called Reverend Peters who said heaven was a different kind of place than our universe.
Christopher believes that heaven doesn’t exist as he’s far too logical. He reasons that heaven could possibly lie on the other side of a black hole, but for the dead to get there they’d have to be fired off into space by rocket.
Summary: Chapter 67
Christopher sketches a map of his neighbourhood and goes out to interview the people on his street about the murder. He struggles with talking to strangers, so he clutches his Swiss Army knife tight inside his pocket as he approaches Mr. Thompson’s house.
Mr. Thompson claims to have been away on the night of the murder. The resident at Number 44 has nothing to say. So Christopher heads to Number 43, but the people crack a joke about how policemen getting younger and younger, as Christopher hates being laughed at, he walks away.
He skips Number 38 because he’s anxious of the people who live there. At Number 39, Mrs. Alexander, an elderly neighbour, is gardening in her front garden.
She has no information regarding Wellington’s murder but invites Christopher in for tea. He refuses to go in the house, so Mrs. Alexander decides to bring biscuits out for him. Christopher, however, worries she might be calling the police and walks away.
Christopher figures there are three reasons someone might kill a dog: because they hate the dog; because they are crazy; or because they want to upset the owner.
Christopher struggles to think of anyone who hated Wellington and does not know anyone who is crazy.
He does know that most murderers know their victim and that the only person who would to hurt Mrs Shears is in fact Mr. Shears. As Mr. Shears left about two years ago and didn’t come back.
When his mother passed away, Mrs. Shears would come over and cook for Christopher and Ed as she felt lonely. Sometimes she stayed over.
Christopher isn’t sure why Mr. Shears left Mrs. Shears, but if Mr. Shears didn’t want to live in the same house as Mrs. Shears anymore he probably hates her.
He might have decided to kill Wellington to make her sad. Christopher decides to find out more about Mr. Shears.
Summary: Chapter 71
Siobhan needs very thick glasses in order to see, and Mrs. Peters has to wear a hearing aid in order to hear.
Christopher plans to prove that he is not stupid like his peers by scoring an A grade on his A-level math test, which no one at his school has done before.
The test is a mock A Level exam for his A Levels which get him into university.
Summary: Chapter 73
Christopher discusses the arguments that his mother and father , he thought they might get divorced.
Their fighting, he says, started as a result of the stress that resulted from taking care of him and dealing with his behavioural problems.
His mother used to say Christopher would lead her to an early grave. He writes that many of his problems have gone now, because he has grown up and can make decisions for himself.
Summary: Chapter 79
Christopher arrives home to his father who’s prepared his dinner. Ed has carefully arranged Christopher’s food on his plate so that no food item touches another.
Father questions Christopher but he mixes the truth with a lie. Father states that Mrs Shears called to report that he had been poking around her garden. Christopher explains that he thinks Mr. Shears killed Wellington.
Upon hearing the name Mr. Shears, Father bangs the table in anger. He forbids Christopher from ever mentioning Mr. Shears’s name again and orders him to stop asking questions about who killed Wellington.
Christopher sits in silence for a moment. He promises Father that he will do as he says.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger’s Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour’s dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.