Directions: One of the most unique characteristics of Christopher is his seeming lack of emotional response to the world around him. Read through the following passage and highlight each section which you feel lacks an appropriate emotional response, then use the parentheses to annotate what may be a more typical response in red. In the chart at the end of the passage, fill in the direct quote which lacks the appropriate emotional response and in the adjacent box, describe the emotion and why you feel it is needed.

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead (Oh my god. The dog had been murdered!.) There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.

I went through Mrs. Shears’ gate, closing it behind me. I walked onto her lawn and knelt beside the dog. I put my hand on the muzzle of the dog. It was still warm.

The dog was called Wellington. It belonged to Mrs. Shears who was our friend. She lived on the opposite side of the road, two houses to the left.

Wellington was a poodle. Not one of the small poodles that have hairstyles but a big poodle. It had curly black fur, but when you got close you could see that the skin underneath the fur was a very pale yellow, like chicken.

I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why…

I had been hugging the dog for 4 minutes when I heard screaming. I looked up and saw Mrs Shears running towards me from the patio. She was wearing pajamas and a housecoat. Her toenails were painted bright pink and she had no shoes on.

She was shouting, ‘What in fuck’s name have you done to my dog?’.

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 fucking dog for Christ’s sake.’