Swiss Army knife

Christopher’s Swiss Army knife is a small, multipurpose object that Christopher carries into a journey shaped by fear and uncertainty. When strangers come near, he keeps the knife close or names its potential for harm; it gives material form to his attempt to protect himself, but also makes clear how difficult it is for him to feel safe around other people.

A Tool Held in Reserve

After becoming sick beside a van, Christopher decides he must find out how to reach the train station by asking someone. The school’s Stranger Danger guidance shapes his choice: he believes a woman is safer to approach than a man. Before crossing the road to speak to a woman with a baby in a pushchair and a little boy carrying a toy elephant, he takes out the knife, opens its saw blade, and grips it inside the pocket that does not contain Toby. He intends to use it to stab someone if they grab him. The object is therefore not used in the encounter; its immediate role is as concealed protection while Christopher asks for directions.

A Boundary in Public

At the ticket office, Christopher keeps a hand on the knife while a man with dreadlocks and red trousers patterned with stars swears at him. The man’s appearance and abrupt hostility make the possibility of unwanted contact salient, and the knife remains at the ready in Christopher’s pocket. This moment links the object to his vigilance in crowded public spaces: even as he tries to navigate the ordinary transaction of buying a train ticket, he prepares for the possibility that another person may touch him.

Threat Named, Distance Requested

Later, when a woman kneels beside Christopher and asks whether she can help, he treats her approach as a problem of distance rather than accepting the offer. Because she is a stranger, he asks her to stand further away and tells her that his knife has a saw blade capable of cutting someone’s fingers off. She accepts his refusal and walks away. In this exchange, the knife shifts from something held silently in reserve to a warning spoken aloud. Christopher uses its capacity for violence to communicate a limit that he cannot comfortably express through ordinary social reassurance.

Protection and Vulnerability

Across these encounters, the knife’s meaning rests in the gap between its physical function and Christopher’s fear. It gives him a concrete action to take—holding it, keeping it near, describing what it could do—when unfamiliar people and unpredictable situations feel threatening. Yet the scenes do not show him using it to attack anyone: its force lies in anticipated self-defence and in establishing space. The object thus records both Christopher’s resourcefulness in trying to manage danger and the vulnerability that makes such precautions feel necessary.