The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Chapters 131 - 157 Summary

Christopher's father apologizes to him for hitting him. In order to make Christopher happy he takes him to Twycross Zoo to see the animals. Christopher has never been to this zoo before, so he needs a guide book, to help him map out a route for exploring the zoo. He enjoys his day at the zoo with his father very much.

Christopher explains that while he likes Sherlock Holmes, he doesn't like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, because he believed in the supernatural. He feels Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is being stupid by believing in fairies and thinking people could communicate with the dead. Christopher instead likes to live by Occam's razor which says, "No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary". Which means, you should try to understand something by eliminating any unnecessary information, then you are left with only the facts needed to understand the problem or situation.

Christopher uses this principle to help him find his book. He first looks for it in the garbage can, but it is not there. He then looks in the garbage can where his father keeps the yard waste, but again it is not there. He eliminates looking for the book in small places, because the book is too large to hide in a small space. This is how he uses Occam's razor, by concentrating only on places in the house large enough to contain the book. He finally finds the book in a shirt box in his father's closet.

He also makes another discovery in the shirt box, because underneath his book is a number of unopened envelopes addressed to him. He takes one of the envelopes to his room and hides it under his mattress. He hides the envelope, because his father has arrived home and he doesn't want him to know he has been in his room. His father has told him to stay out of his room, so Christopher knows he will be in trouble, if his father finds out he has been looking in the closet.

After eating dinner, he returns to his room to read the letter. It is from a woman telling him she has a job in London working as a secretary at a steel factory. She talks about a man named Roger, who she lives with and the new apartment they bought. She asks him to write her and explains she knows he is probably still mad at her for leaving him. The letter is postmarked eighteen months after his mother has died, but it is signed Mum.

Christopher is excited, because he now has two mysteries to solve. He has to solve who killed the dog and who wrote the letters. He thinks maybe they are written to another Christopher and not him.

Six days later Christopher has the opportunity to return to his father's closet and retrieve more letters. He finds forty-three letters all addressed to him and written by the same person-his Mum.

She tells him about her life in these letters; how she and Roger bought a second-hand refrigerator and stove, her first job working as a secretary for two men who are surveyors, and about getting a tooth pulled.

The most important letter is the letter in which she explains why she left Christopher and his father. She tells Christopher she is not a very good mother. She explains she doesn't have the patience needed to raise a special needs child like Christopher. She tells him she and Christopher's father would fight all the time about her losing her temper with Christopher and how after a while they just stopped talking all together.

Then she and Roger, who is Mr. Shears, became close, because they both had bad marriages. She feels comfortable and secure with Roger, who asked her to leave her home and go to London to live with him. At first she refused to leave Christopher, but after a while she saw how Christopher and his father were better just the two of them, then with her. She had wanted to say good-bye to Christopher, but his father refused to allow her to see him again.

She closes the letter by telling Christopher it is not his fault she left and she loves him. It is then Christopher realizes his mother is alive and his father has been lying to him the whole time. This realization makes him sick and he shuts down emotionally.

Christopher's father returns from his emergency call to find him lying on his bed with vomit on his clothes and bedsheets. He realizes what has happened and tries to explain he thought telling Christopher his mother is dead would be better than the truth. He tells Christopher he was going to give him the letters when he was older. Christopher does not respond to his father, instead he just lies on the bed.

His father runs him a bath, changes the sheets and changes Christopher out of his soiled clothes. Christopher doesn't fight him nor does he scream and hit him when his father touches him to take off his clothes, so he can take his bath.

Christopher, while looking for his book, makes an amazing discovery. He finds letters written to him by his mother, after she supposedly died. He realizes he has been lied to by his father and the truth makes him sick and withdrawn. Christopher now has to face a new reality, which he is not prepared to cope with.



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