John Wyndham's "Chocky" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Matthew talking to himself

His (adopted) father, David, hears Matthew conducting an argument against an inaudible protagonist, who appears to be advocating a 32-hour day, an 8-day week (so it can be divided into halves and quarters) and a 32-day month. This one-sided conversation piques David's curiosity so much that he looks out of the garden shed to see who Matthew's talking to. But there's no one there!

Answer: Piff

Piff must have been a royal pain! She appeared on chairs as one was about to sit down, needed glasses of water in the middle of the night, wanted taking to the lavatory during church sermons, needed extra chairs in cafes (where she often felt sick) and was often left until the last minute on journeys' departures.

She was forgotten when Polly met some real friends on holiday. David was quite "sorry for the deserted Piff, apparently doomed to wander for ever in summer's traces upon the forlorn beaches of Sussex" but was delighted to see the back of her, nonetheless! My mother claimed that I once had an imaginary friend called Petunia, but I argued that this was the vilest calumny.

Answer: Matthew had a high temperature and begged his mother to make Chocky leave him alone

Matthew, having picked up some sort of 'flu bug at school, was delirious and didn't seem to know "whether he was talking to his mother, his father, or to some mysterious character he called Chocky". Mary used the technique that she had used with Piff and addressed a point above Matthew's head and told Chocky to go away and leave him alone. This worked.

Answer: That Matthew didn't seem to know if Chocky was a him or a her

David also thought (and I would guess, correctly) that while it's not unusual for little girls to have an 'imaginary friend', it was a bit odd for an 11-year-old boy. He was certain that there would be a word for some suitably gynandrous Greek. Mary started to worry and wondered whether they should take Matthew to a psychiatrist.

Answer: They felt it would help them to gang up on her

The 'ganging up on her if she was a girl' theory came from Mary, but David thought this was nonsensical. Matthew explained that Chocky didn't seem to know whether they were a boy or a girl and had said "that it sounded a pretty silly arrangement".

Answer: No

She was jealous. Although Matthew (who was two at the time) had burst into tears at the thought of a baby sister (he had really wanted a baby lamb!), they had grown very close and she felt displaced by his new confidante, Chocky. She started picking at Matthew and arguing with him. Polly didn't believe in Chocky either, except as a kind of Piff. Once again Mary suggested getting some professional advice about Matthew.

Answer: YNYYNNYY

Of course, Chocky was trying to get Matthew to use binary. Matthew himself came up with the ideas of Y and N to represent 1 and 0. Chocky thought it was silly "to bother with ten different figures just because you've ten fingers, when all you really need is two fingers". The wrong answers are 179 in Roman numerals (CLXXIX), octal (263) and base 16 (B3).

Answer: No

David found Matthew in "a near-hysterical condition of anger and outrage" because Chocky had said "that the engine is funny, and old-fashioned, and wasteful, and that an engine that needed gears was ridiculous anyway. And that a car that didn't use an engine to stop itself as well as make itself go was stupid. And how it was terribly funny to think of anyone making a car that had to have springs because it bumped along the ground on wheels that had to have things like sausages fastened around them." Matthew loved the family's new car and was fiercely indignant about Chocky's criticism. David began to think that they really needed advice about Matthew after this episode.

Answer: Possession

Dr Landis thought Matthew's case was fascinating. He was also convinced that 'something' had got into Matthew. He explained that our unscientific ancestors would have called it 'possession' - at which point he completely lost Mary, who still thought Chocky was an imaginary friend. David realised it had been the use of the word 'possession' and thought it "an error of judgement - of a kind one did not expect from a psychologist - and once it had been made the damage was done."

Answer: Riding a bicycle with no hands

Matthew said that the first couple of times was like "no brakes" , but after he got used to it, it was like riding a bicycle with no hands, but with Chocky doing the steering as well. David ascertained that it never happened by accident, and that Matthew had to make a conscious effort, but Mary thought that 'it' (she still would not accept that Chocky was a real entity) was 'taking control' of Matthew.

Answer: A Guardian Angel

The reporter attributed it to a Guardian Angel, not Matthew, who had just said that he had a heard a voice in his head. The item got onto the BBC's 'Today' programme as a light-hearted news item, and then it was picked up by various psychic institutes, well-meaning clergy and more press.

Unfortunately, Matthew's art teacher, Miss Soames, had sent (without permission) one of his pictures to an art exhibition, and it had been published in the national papers. David realised it wouldn't be long before somebody connected all this up, so when Dr Landis suggested Matthew went to see the well-known psycho-analyst, Sir William Thorbe, he welcomed it.

Unfortunately, Sir William Thorbe had been appointed as an advisory industrial psychologist to a big business group.

Answer: Hypnosis

He hypnotised Matthew without permission. David was annoyed and thought it high-handed. Later that evening Matthew said that Chocky was gone and cried to David that "Oh Daddy....It's like losing part of me..." Mary was delighted, still believing (if you'll excuse me, she's a really stupid woman!) that Chocky was some sort of imaginary friend.

When the letter arrived from Sir William Thorbe, it babbled on about Matthew's subconscious and David found it "insulting in the naive smoothness of its elucidations, and patronising in its reassurances".

He was furious that Mary believed every word and also that events appeared to bear him out.

Answer: Birmingham

'They' had taken Matthew, pumped him full of drugs, plastered his (unbroken) leg and told him that he'd been in an accident. During the time he was drugged, 'they' had dragged everything he had known about Chocky out of him.

Answer: Yes

After the kidnapped Matthew was settled, David 'met' Chocky, speaking through Matthew. Chocky explained that she was a teacher, missionary or explorer, from a planet somewhere far away. She had wanted to show Matthew the secret of a super power, derived from radiation (they called it X X X X X, as they could not work out a name for it), that would free the earth from the closed cycle of our solar-economy.

Unfortunately, Sir William Thorbe put paid to all this. Chocky had to leave Matthew and look for someone else.

As Chocky explained to David "There are power-empires: oil interests, gas interests, coal interests, electrical interests, atomic interests. How much would they be willing to pay for information of a threat to their existence? A million pounds...two million...three million...even more?" "And then what would a little boy's life matter?" Chocky warned that David will be watched, but with Chocky gone, and his new interest in art, he should be safe. David wanted to know what Chocky looked like, but Chocky refused.

Answer: Chocky

Of course! Chocky had explained to David that she had made mistakes, it wasn't her job to get involved. She should never have helped Matthew with his art and a proper missionary would "regretfully, but quite properly, have let Matthew drown"! David was delighted with Chocky's lack of discretion on that one, and made sure that Chocky's role in the rescue was properly recognised.