Selby Spacedog (4 page)

‘What a good idea,’ thought Selby. ‘There are some books about a talking dog that she might like.’

DAGGERS OF DEATH

Selby had a problem: on the one hand (or paw, in his case) he struggled to keep his talking a secret forever. One little slip of the tongue and he could be in for a lifetime of answering telephones, mowing lawns and doing other chores for the Trifles. But, on the other hand, every now and then he wanted to be the centre of attention. So when Ralpho the Magnificent
came to town and asked to borrow him for his magic show, Selby was delighted — at first.

‘This is great!’ Selby thought. ‘I’ll be up on stage and everyone will be looking at me!’

‘What exactly do you want Selby to do?’ Mrs Trifle asked Ralpho.

‘Nothing,’ Ralpho said. ‘I just want to throw daggers at him, that’s all.’

‘Gulp,’ thought Selby. ‘Did he say that he wanted to throw daggers at me? Real daggers?’

‘Throw what at him?’ asked Dr Trifle.

‘Daggers. You know — knives.’

‘I’m sorry but I don’t think we can let you do that,’ Mrs Trifle said.

‘Why not?’ asked the magician.

‘Because we’d miss him terribly if anything went wrong.’

‘Go wrong?’ Ralpho said. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’

‘Is he kidding?’ Selby thought. ‘With him, everything
always
goes wrong!’

‘I’ll give you a demonstration. Just watch this,’ Ralpho said, hanging a large target on the wall. ‘You’ll see how safe it is.’

Ralpho held up a dagger and then made a quick throwing motion.

‘One!’
he cried and a dagger suddenly appeared, sticking into the edge of the target.

‘Goodness!’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘You threw that so fast that I didn’t even see it go!’

‘Neither did I,’ Dr Trifle chimed in.

‘Because it didn’t go,’ Ralpho said. ‘I didn’t actually throw it. The target isn’t just a target but a very clever invention. The daggers are all
inside
the target, connected to levers. They pop out, handle first, when I yell a number. Everyone thinks that I’ve thrown them but it’s all an illusion.’

‘That’s great!’ thought Selby. ‘Finally, he has a trick that actually works!’

Ralpho lifted Selby up to the target, put his legs in the four clamps and shouted, ‘
Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!

Daggers popped out all around Selby as fast as bullets. Then, with the tenth one, the clamps automatically released and Selby dropped to the floor.

‘Wow!’ Selby thought. ‘What an invention! That’s brilliant!’

‘Very clever,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Of course you can borrow Selby.’

That night, Ralpho’s show was a total disaster, as usual. In his Disappearing Chicken Trick, the
box blew up in his face and a very angry chicken pecked him on the nose. He tried card tricks but kept guessing the wrong cards. He juggled three cactuses in pots but he caught one of them by the wrong end and spent five painful minutes picking needles out of his hand. When he tried to saw himself in half (because no one from the audience would volunteer), he sawed through the box and then through his pants and he only stopped when the saw grazed his knee. And, if all of this wasn’t bad enough, he nearly drowned during his Chains Under Water Trick. The key that he’d hidden under his tongue to open the padlock and escape was the wrong key. It was his car key. Fortunately, three people from the audience leapt in and dragged him from the tank.

When Ralpho had recovered he placed a large mirror at one end of the stage.

‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, for my Ralpho Through the Looking-Glass Trick,’ he cried. ‘I will jump through this piece of glass and shatter it into a million pieces without getting a single scratch.’

‘No! Don’t!’ came the cries from the audience. ‘You’ll kill yourself!’

Ten minutes later, the audience had talked him out of doing the mirror trick.

‘Poor Ralpho,’ Selby thought. ‘He’s been pecked, pricked, scorched, feathered, grazed and drenched and everyone’s laughing at him but he still keeps going.’

‘And now for my trick-to-end-all-tricks,’ Ralpho announced as he led Selby up on stage and clamped him to the target. ‘Sit back and watch this dog defy the Daggers of Death!’

‘You’ll kill him!’ someone yelled.

‘Settle down,’ Ralpho said, beginning to throw the first dagger before anyone could talk him out of it.

‘
One!
’ he yelled.

There was a gasp from the crowd as the dagger seemed to fly through the air and stick into the target next to Selby’s head.

‘I feel like I’m famous! This is fantastic!’ Selby thought, as Ralpho stepped forward and gave the target a spin. ‘Hey! The room’s going around and around! He didn’t say he was going to spin me!’

Ralpho yelled, ‘
Two!
as he pretended to throw the next dagger. Another dagger shot
through right beside Selby’s head.
Three!
Ralpho yelled again and another dagger appeared between Selby’s legs.

‘Quit while you’re ahead!’ someone yelled. ‘Please, stop!’

‘They really care about me!’ Selby thought. ‘I love it. I love it.’

No sooner had those words passed through Selby’s brain than the target fell off the wall and
hit the ground still spinning. All of which would have been okay if it hadn’t taken off across the stage — heading straight for the mirror.

‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought as he struggled to get his paws loose from the clamps. ‘I’ll go through the glass before Ralpho has a chance to stop me! I’ll be cut to ribbons! I can’t get loose! I don’t want to be the centre of attention anymore! Oh, woe!’

The audience screamed as the spinning Selby sped towards the mirror.

‘I’ve got it!’ Selby thought.’ The straps release after the last dagger is out. All I have to do is yell out the numbers without moving my lips.’

Suddenly the crowd heard a mysterious voice cry out
‘Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!
and as the last daggers crashed through, Selby dived clear just as the target smashed through the glass.

In a second, the audience were on their feet cheering and Mrs Trifle had raced up on stage and swept Selby up in her arms.

‘That trick-to-end-all-tricks was fantastic!’ someone yelled. ‘The way you threw your voice was the best bit of all, Ralpho!’

‘Did I do that?’ Ralpho said, scratching his head. ‘Gosh, I guess I must have.’

‘For a moment,’ Selby thought, ‘that trick-to-end-all-tricks was almost the trick-that-ended-this-dog!’

BOGUSVILLE BONANZA

‘Why does Madame Mascara insist on making these silly predictions?’ asked Dr Trifle as he followed the crowd into Mascara Mansion.

‘Well, she was a fortune-teller before she got rich from the cosmetics business,’ Mrs Trifle answered. ‘She must still enjoy peering into the future from time to time. Besides, it’s a great excuse for a tea party.’

‘But her predictions are always so unbelievable,’ Dr Trifle said.

‘She says they’re always right, of course,’ Mrs Trifle reminded her husband.

‘Two years ago Madame Mascara said that it would rain from the beginning to the end of
the year. And what happened? It rained on January first and it rained on December thirty-first. So she says she was right,’ Dr Trifle said.

‘And, as I recall,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘last year Madame Mascara said that someone from Bogusville would make the Olympic team. So when Prunella Weedy won the one hundred metres freestyle at the Bogusville Olympic Pool, she thought that she was right. But what does it matter? Nobody really takes Madame Mascara’s predictions seriously. It’s all just a bit of harmless fun.’

‘Most people just come for the lamingtons. She makes delicious lamos,’ Selby thought as he remembered the five he’d managed to sneak the previous year. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

Soon half of Bogusville was gathered in Madame Mascara’s great dining-room watching her wave her purple fingernails in front of her crystal ball.

‘We’ll have tea and cakes in a minute,’ Madame Mascara announced. ‘But first, my prediction. I predict,’ she added, shouting it out like an actor, ‘that this year someone in Bogusville will find a gold nugget the size of a pumpkin.’