23.  When I got to the police station, they made me take the laces out of my shoes and empty my pockets at the front desk in case I had anything in them that I could use to kill myself or escape or attack a policeman with. The sergeant behind the desk had very hairy hands, and he had bitten his nails so much that they had bled. This is what I had in my pockets: A Swiss Army knife with 15 attachments, including a wire stripper, a saw, a toothpick, and tweezers. A piece of string. A piece of a wooden puzzle which looked like this: [Insert image of wooden puzzle] 3 pellets of rat food for Toby, my rat. £1.47 (this was made up of a £1 coin, a 20p coin, two 10p coins, a 5p coin, and a 2p coin). A red paper clip. A key for the front door. I was also wearing my watch, and they wanted me to leave this at the desk as well, but I said that I needed to keep my watch on because I needed to know exactly what time it was. And when they tried to take it off me, I screamed, so they let me keep it on. They asked me if I had any family. I said I did. They asked me who my family was. I said it was Father, but Mother was dead. And I said it was also Uncle Terry, but he was in Sunderland and he was Father's brother, and it was my grandparents, too, but three of them were dead, and Grandma Burton was in a home because she had senile dementia and thought that I was someone on television. Then they asked me for Father's phone number. I told them that he had two numbers, one for at home and one which was a mobile phone, and I said both of them. It was nice in the police cell. It was almost a perfect cube, 2 meters long by 2 meters wide by 2 meters high. It contained approximately 8 cubic meters of air. It had a small window with bars and, on the opposite side, a metal door with a long, thin hatch near the floor for sliding trays of food into the cell and a sliding hatch higher up so that policemen could look in and check that prisoners hadn't escaped or committed suicide. There was also a padded bench. I wondered how I would escape if I was in a story. It would be difficult because the only things I had were my clothes and my shoes, which had no laces in them. I decided that my best plan would be to wait for a really sunny day and then use my glasses to focus the sunlight on a piece of my clothing and start a fire. I would then make my escape when they saw the smoke and took me out of the cell. And if they didn't notice I would be able to wee on the clothes and put them out. I wondered whether Mrs. Shears had told the police that I had killed Wellington and whether, when the police found out that she had lied, she would go to prison. Because telling lies about people is called slander. 29 I find people confusing, and this is for two main reasons. The first main reason is that people often communicate without using words. Siobhan says that raising one eyebrow can convey various meanings. It can signify "I want to engage in a sexual activity with you," or it can also mean "I think what you just said was very foolish." Siobhan also mentions that closing your mouth and exhaling loudly through your nose can convey different emotions, such as relaxation, boredom, or anger. The interpretation depends on factors like the volume of air released, the speed, the shape of your mouth, your posture, what you said just before, and many other complex factors that are difficult to discern in a matter of seconds. The second main reason is that people frequently use metaphors. Here are some examples of metaphors: "I laughed my socks off." "He was the apple of her eye." "They had a skeleton in the cupboard." "We had a real pig of a day." "The dog was stone dead." The word "metaphor" originates from the Greek words "µετα" (which means "from one place to another") and "φερειυ" (which means "to carry"). A metaphor is when you describe something using a word for something that it is not. So, the term "metaphor" itself is a metaphor. I think it should be called a "lie" because a day is not like a pig, and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. When I try to visualize the phrase in my mind, it confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye has nothing to do with liking someone a lot, and it distracts from the intended message. My name is a metaphor. It means "carrying Christ" and is derived from the Greek words "χριστος" (which means "Jesus Christ") and "φερειυ." It was the name given to St. Christopher because he carried Jesus Christ across a river. This leads to the question of what he was called before he carried Christ across the river. However, he wasn't called anything because this is an apocryphal story, which means that it is also a falsehood. Mother used to say that it meant Christopher was a nice name because it was a story about being kind and helpful. Still, I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me. 31 It was 1:12 a.m. when Father arrived at the police station. I did not see him until 1:28 a.m. but I knew he was there because I could hear him. He was shouting, “I want to see my son,” and “Why the hell is he locked up?” and “Of course I’m bloody angry.” Then I heard a policeman telling him to calm down. Then I heard nothing for a long while. At 1:28 a.m., a policeman opened the door of the cell and told me that there was someone to see me. I stepped outside. Father was standing in the corridor. He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan, and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people, so we do this instead, and it means that he loves me. Then the policeman told us to follow him down the corridor to another room. In the room was a table and three chairs. He told us to sit down on the far side of the table, and he sat down on the other side. There was a tape recorder on the table, and I asked whether I was going to be interviewed, and he was going to record the interview. He said, “I don’t think there will be any need for that.” He was an inspector. I could tell because he wasn’t wearing a uniform. He also had a very hairy nose. It looked as if there were two very small mice hiding in his nostrils. [2] He said, “I have spoken to your father and he says that you didn’t mean to hit the policeman.” I didn’t say anything because this wasn’t a question. He said, “Did you mean to hit the policeman?” I said, “Yes.” He squeezed his face and said, “But you didn’t mean to hurt the policeman?” I thought about this and said, “No. I didn’t mean to hurt the policeman. I just wanted him to stop touching me.” Then he said, “You know that it is wrong to hit a policeman, don’t you?” I said, “I do.” He was quiet for a few seconds, then he asked, “Did you kill the dog, Christopher?” I said, “I didn’t kill the dog.” He said, “Do you know that it is wrong to lie to a policeman and that you can get into a very great deal of trouble if you do?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “So, do you know who killed the dog?” I said, “No.” He said, “Are you telling the truth?” I said, “Yes. I always tell the truth.” And he said, “Right. I am going to give you a caution.” I asked, “Is that going to be on a piece of paper like a certificate I can keep?” He replied, “No, a caution means that we are going to keep a record of what you did, that you hit a policeman but that it was an accident and that you didn’t mean to hurt the policeman.” I said, “But it wasn’t an accident.” And Father said, “Christopher, please.” The policeman closed his mouth and breathed out loudly through his nose and said, “If you get into any more trouble we will take out this record and see that you have been given a caution and we will take things much more seriously. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I said that I understood. Then he said that we could go, and he stood up and opened the door, and we walked out into the corridor and back to the front desk, where I picked up my Swiss Army knife and my piece of string and the piece of the wooden puzzle and the 5 pellets of rat food for Toby and my £1.47 and the paper clip and my front door key, which were all in a little plastic bag, and we went out to Father’s car, which was parked outside, and we drove home. This is not a metaphor, it is a simile, which means that it really did look like there were two very small mice hiding in his nostrils, and if you make a picture in your head of a man with two very small mice hiding in his nostrils, you will know what the police inspector looked like. And a simile is not a lie, unless it is a bad simile. 37 I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person. But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can't tell lies. Mother was a small person who smelled nice. And she sometimes wore a fleece with a zip down the front which was pink, and it had a tiny label which said Berghaus on the left bosom. A lie is when you say something happened which didn't happen. But there is only ever one thing which happened at a particular time and a particular place. And there are an infinite number of things which didn't happen at that time and that place. And if I think about something which didn't happen, I start thinking about all the other things which didn't happen. For example, this morning for breakfast I had Ready Brek and some hot raspberry milkshake. But if I say that I actually had Shreddies and a mug of tea [3], I start thinking about Coco Pops and lemonade and porridge and Dr. Pepper and how I wasn't eating my breakfast in Egypt and there wasn't a rhinoceros in the room and Father wasn't wearing a diving suit and so on. Even writing this makes me feel shaky and scared, like I do when I'm standing on the top of a very tall building and there are thousands of houses and cars and people below me, and my head is so full of all these things that I'm afraid I'm going to forget to stand up straight and hang on to the rail and I'm going to fall over and be killed. This is another reason why I don't like proper novels because they are lies about things which didn't happen, and they make me feel shaky and scared. And this is why everything I have written here is true.