Why Did The
Chicken Cross The Road?
by Peter
Wakefield Kitcher
“Where
was Moses when the lights went out?” I said.
“I dunno,” said Percy. “Somewhere
in Palestine, I suppose. I’m not all that
familiar with the Bible.”
“It’s a question,” I said, “not
a place. Like, if we want to get out of this
situation, we need to confuse the police. We need
a question or a statement that’s not
dependent on the usual logic like ‘Is it
raining’, and you say, ‘Yes’. Like,
I say, ‘How many beans make five?’, and
you say, ‘Five’.”
“Well, that’s right.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “Someone
who really knows how many beans make five knows
everything, and it’s not just five.”
“Well, where was Moses when the
lights went out?”
“That’s the point.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how far can you walk into the woods?”
“As far as you like.”
“No,” I said, getting exasperated.
“That’s. The. Point.
You can go as far as you like, but how far can
you go in?”
“You mean, that’s the same as ‘How
many beans make five?’?”
“If you knew that, you’d know on which
side of the cup was the handle.”
Percy looked up the street. “Stop talking.
That policeman is coming along, and if he hears
us talking like this, he’ll think we’re
nuts.”
“Here, listen. If four people get on a train
and two people get off, what’s the name of
the engine driver?”
“I dunno,” said Percy. “Moses, I
expect. What was it?”
“Smith.”
“Why?”
“Because his father’s name was Smith.”
“I don’t get it.”
“No, because if you kept going past the
halfway bit in the woods, you’d be coming
out and not going in. See?”
Percy frowned at me. “What’s that got
to do with cups and saucers?”
“No, only a cup. Is the handle on the inside
or the outside?”
“The outside, of course.”
“You see, you did know it, didn’t you?”
“You didn’t say that.”
“I did. I said ‘which side’.”
“That’s different.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s just not what
you’d like. See, when I said, ‘How many
beans make five?’, it means something else.
It means I’m asking if someone knows all the
answers. See, it’s half a bean, a bean, a
bean and a half, and two beans.”
“That makes up five.”
“Yes, but you didn’t say it, because
you didn’t really know until this very
moment. Like, how long is a piece of string?”
“It depends where you cut it.”
“You don’t see it, do you? The answer
has to take in all the possibilities and the
answer is: twice half its length.”
“Does that always work?” asked Percy,
skeptically.
“Oh my goodness. Of course it does.”
Percy looked startled. “Shut up. That
policeman is coming back.”
“You shut up. Let me think. We’ve got
to have a good story as to why we were in that
store-room at eleven o’clock at night.”
“I don’t think they’d believe us
anyway.” Percy paused for a moment, then
said, “Oh! I’ve just realized what you’ve
been talking about. We went into that store-room
and all the lights went out. Otherwise, we might
have known where the security guard was. When the
lights went out, he was in the dark. When the
lights went out, Moses was in the dark, wasn’t
he?”
I had just enough time to smile at Percy before
the policeman approached us with a doubtful look
on his face. “What you lot doin’ round
here then?”
“We didn’t know where we were when the
lights went out,” said Percy. “And, by
the way, how many beans make five?”
|
