I pulled the fork out of the dog and lifted him into my arms and hugged him. He was leaking blood from the fork-holes.
I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.
A "happy" dog?
A "sad" dog?
A "cross" dog?
A "concentrating" dog?
I had been hugging the dog for 4 minutes when I heard heard screaming. I looked up and saw Mr. Shears running towards me from the patio. She was wearing pyjamas and a housecoat. Her toenails were painted bright pink and she had no shoes on.
She was shouting, “What have you done to my dog?”
An angry Mrs. Shears
I do not like people shouting at me. It makes me scared that they are going to hit me or touch me and I do not know what is going to happen.
“Let go of the dog,” she shouted. “Let go of the dog.”
I put the dog down on the lawn and moved back 2 metres.
She bent down. I thought she was going to pick the dog up herself, but she didn’t. Perhaps she noticed how much blood there was and didn’t want to get dirty. Instead, she started screaming again.
I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes and rolled forward till I was hunched up with my forehead pressed onto the grass. The grass was wet and cold. It was nice.
THINK: How different are you from Christopher, assuming you are “normal”?
Christopher is so sure about a dog’s mood. He actually makes a definitive claim that a dog has “four moods”. You may have to ask: How does he know and what does he know about "doggie moods" if he has problems grappling with "human moods" and "human" facial expressions?
What he has done is to reaffirm his inability to appreciate that a ‘normal” human being’s mood comes in a flux. We are “emotional” beings. We have mood swings – we are temperamental. Christopher gives up on trying to use drawn pictures of human expressions to identify other people’s moods.
THINK: Christopher is not so different from other teenagers. Nobody likes to be screamed at. His autistic condition may probably caused him to be more sensitive to the shouting than other people.
THINK:
Do you agree with Christopher that a dog has only four moods?
Can you begrudge the fact that he makes an effort to publish the results of his analysis about a dog having four distinct types of moods in his murder mystery book?
Christopher claims in Chapter 37 that he “does not tell lies” because he “cannot tell lies”. Why is this such a powerful statement?
He is telling us that he always tells the truth. Everything he writes in his book is the gospel truth.
What do you think of his reasoning then?
He tells us that dogs “do not tell lies because they cannot talk”.
1. Is his reasoning flawed? If so, why?
2. If not so, why not?
If we are prepared to put the question of whether his reasoning is flawed or not, then, what can you say about Christopher’s way of picking his preferences?
Let us compare Christopher’s reaction to Wellington’s death and that of Mrs. Shears. Who do you think cares more for Wellington?
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