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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. Except I haven’t done any of those things. I just asked Mrs. Alexander about Mr. Shears because—”
But Father interrupted me and said, “Don’t give me that bollocks, you little shit. You knew exactly what you were bloody doing. I’ve read the book, remember.” And when he said this he held up the book and shook it. “What else did I say, Christopher?”
I thought that this might be another rhetorical question, but I wasn’t sure. I found it hard to work out what to say because I was starting to get scared and confused.
Then Father repeated the question, “What else did I say, Christopher?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
And he said, “Come on. You’re the fucking memory man.”
But I couldn’t think.
And Father said, “Not to go around sticking your fucking nose into other people’s business. And what do you do? You go around sticking your nose into other people’s business. You go around raking up the past and sharing it with every Tom, Dick and Harry you bump into. What am I going to do with you, Christopher? What the fuck am I going to do with you?”
I said, “I was just doing chatting with Mrs. Alexander. I wasn’t doing investigating.”
And he said, “I ask you to do one thing for me, Christopher. One thing.”
And I said, “I didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Alexander. It was Mrs. Alexander who—”
But Father interrupted me and grabbed hold of my arm really hard.
Father had never grabbed hold of me like that before. Mother had hit me sometimes because she was a very hot-tempered person, which means that she got angry more quickly than other people and she shouted more often. But Father was a more levelheaded person, which means he didn’t get angry as quickly and he didn’t shout as often. So I was very surprised when he grabbed me.
I don’t like it when people grab me. And I don’t like being surprised either. So I hit him, like I hit the policeman when he took hold of my arms and lifted me onto my feet. But Father didn’t let go, and he was shouting. And I hit him again. And then I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.
I had no memories for a short while. I know it was a short while because I checked my watch afterward. It was like someone had switched me off and then switched me on again. And when they switched me on again I was sitting on the carpet with my back against the wall and there was blood on my right hand and the side of my head was hurting. And Father was standing on the carpet a meter in front of me looking down at me and he was still holding my book in his right hand, but it was bent in half and all the corners were messed up, and there was a scratch on his neck and a big rip in the sleeve of his green and blue check shirt and he was breathing really deeply.
After about a minute he turned and walked through to the kitchen. Then he unlocked the back door into the garden and went outside. I heard him lift the lid of the dustbin and drop something into it and put the lid of the dustbin back on. Then he came into the kitchen again, but he wasn’t carrying the book anymore. Then he locked the back door again and put the key into the little china jug that is shaped like a fat nun and he stood in the middle of the kitchen and closed his eyes.
Then he opened his eyes and he said, “I need a fucking drink.”
And he got himself a can of beer.
131. These are some of the reasons why I hate yellow and brown:
Custard
Bananas (bananas also turn brown)
Double Yellow Lines
Yellow Fever (which is a disease from tropical America and West Africa which causes a high fever, acute nephritis, jaundice and hemorrhages, and it is caused by a virus transmitted by the bite of a mosquito called Aedes aegypti, which used to be called Stegomyia fasciata; and nephritis is inflammation of the kidneys)
Yellow Flowers (because I get hay fever from flower pollen, which is one of 3 sorts of hay fever, and the others are from grass pollen and fungus pollen, and it makes me feel ill)
Sweet Corn (because it comes out in your poo and you don’t digest it so you are not really meant to eat it, like grass or leaves)
Dirt
Gravy
Poo
Wood (because people used to make machines and vehicles out of wood, but they don’t anymore because wood breaks and goes rotten and has worms in it sometimes, and now people make machines and vehicles out of metal and plastic, which are much better and more modern)
Melissa Brown (who is a girl at school, who is not actually brown like Anil or Mohammed, it’s just her name, but she tore my big astronaut painting into two pieces and I threw it away even after Mrs. Peters sellotaped it together again because it looked broken)
Mrs. Forbes said that hating yellow and brown is just being silly. And Siobhan said that she shouldn’t say things like that and everyone has favorite colors. And Siobhan was right. But Mrs. Forbes was a bit right, too. Because it is sort of being silly. But in life you have to take lots of decisions and if you don’t take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do. So it is good to have a reason why you hate some things and you like others. It is like being in a restaurant like when Father takes me out to a Berni I