The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Chapter 211 Summary & Analysis

As the train makes more stops, Christopher begins to worry that he’s going to stay on too long and miss London, but he doesn’t want to leave his hiding place and run into the policeman. He watches people going into the bathroom, and sometimes people see him on the luggage rack and make rude comments. Finally, the train stops and doesn’t start moving again, so Christopher gets down from the shelf. His bag is gone. He sees another policeman in the next carriage, so he gets off the train to avoid him.

Christopher finds himself in a huge, loud train station. He’s overwhelmed at first, but he imagines a red line leading away from the train and follows it. He reaches a gate where a man tells him that a policeman is looking for him. When the man goes to find the policeman, Christopher walks away and leans against the wall of a shop. He looks at all the signs around him, but there are so many that they get all mixed up in his mind until he can’t read them. He counts to fifty and holds onto his knife for safety.

Christopher makes his hand into a tube and looks through it so that he can only see one sign at a time. This allows him to find the sign for the information desk. A man comes up to him and says Christopher looks lost, but he retreats when Christopher takes out his knife. Christopher goes to the information desk and asks whether he’s in London. The woman confirms that he is, and when he gives her the address of his mother’s flat, the woman tells him which tube station is closest. She’s astonished when Christopher doesn’t know what the tube is, but she directs him to the entrance.

Christopher pretends all the people around him are cows and walks to the escalators holding onto his knife and Toby in his pockets. He’s never seen escalators before, so he goes down the stairs instead. In the tube station, he sits in a passport photo booth and watches people through the curtain. By observing, he figures out how to buy a ticket and go through the ticket gates. He buys a ticket to Willesden Green at a machine, puts it through the ticket slot, and goes through the gates. He likes the gates because they remind him of a science fiction film.

Christopher sees a sign showing all the stops on the Bakerloo Line, including Willesden Junction, where he’s supposed to go. He walks down the tunnel where the sign directs him, and then he has no choice but to go down an escalator. People are all around him, and he wants to hit them but he doesn’t, because he knows he’ll get in trouble with the police.

Christopher ends up in another, smaller station in a tunnel. He reads the advertisements on the walls and sits down on a bench. The station becomes crowded, and he starts groaning and feels sick. Suddenly there’s a loud roaring and a wind, and he closes his eyes, thinking something terrible is happening. The noise quiets, and Christopher sees everyone getting on the train that has arrived. The train leaves, but Christopher is terrified and wants to be home. Then he remembers that he can’t go home because his father lied to him. The trains come again and again, and Christopher sits on the bench feeling horribly sick.