Selby Speaks (4 page)

“Mrs Mayor, ya gotta give me permission to leap Gumboot Gorge,” Awful Knoffle pleaded, holding up a photo of himself jumping seventy-two school buses on his motorcycle. “Nobody’s
ever done it before. From the moment I saw it I knew I had to be the first. It’s just a
gorgeous
gorge. Ha ha ha ha ha.”

“I’d hate to have you land in Bogusville Hospital. As I recall you didn’t quite make it over the seventy-second school bus and you crashed and broke every bone in your body,” Mrs Trifle said.

“Yeah, well, I don’t remember much about that but Gumboot Gorge will be a snap. I can do it!” Awful said, pounding the mayor’s desk with his fist and hitting her sandwiches by mistake.

“If there was anything I could do to keep you from this crazy scheme of yours, I would,” Mrs Trifle said. “But as it happens, Gumboot Gorge isn’t in Bogusville so you can do as you like and I can’t prevent you.”

“Aawl riiiiiiight! Why am I wasting my time talking to you then? I’ve got a gorge to jump!” Awful said, dashing for the door just as Dudley Dewmop, Bogusville’s short-sighted, part-time dog-catcher stumbled in.

“I’ve got him! I finally caught the phantom pooch!” Dudley screamed as he threw a hessian
bag with a large lump in it on the carpet. “Every night for weeks I’ve heard that unmistakable baying — Oooooooooo. Oooooooooo,” Dudley howled at the ceiling. “But I finally caught him with my Handy-Dandy Telescoping Sleeve Net.” With this a long pole with a net on the end shot out of his sleeve and captured Mrs Trifle’s squashed sandwiches.

“Dudley!” Mrs Trifle said grabbing what was left of the sandwiches from Dudley’s net. “What are you talking about and exactly what is in that bag?”

“It’s him!” Dudley said, throwing open the bag to reveal a rather embarrassed Selby who wasn’t having much of a day either. “The phantom pooch! The mystery mutt! The diabolical disappearing dog that howls in the night and keeps everyone awake! I’ve caught him!”

“That’s no disappearing dog. That’s my dog, Selby,” Mrs Trifle said. “And he doesn’t go out and howl at night. He stays right in my house and sleeps like any normal dog. In the past three weeks you’ve brought me seventeen perfectly innocent dogs, three cats and a possum and each
time you said you’d caught this mysterious dog of yours. Forget the phantom pooch and buy a decent pair of glasses so you can see properly.”

“Er … ah … yes, Mrs Mayor,” Dudley said, backing out the door and pushing the Sleeve Net up his sleeve again as he listened to a distant sound that could have been the unmistakable baying of the phantom pooch but was really Dr Trifle’s new invention, a talking floral clock in the Bogusville Memorial Rose Garden screaming out,
“It’s twenty past twooooooooooooo!”

“Poor Selby,” Mrs Trifle said. “I hope the silly man didn’t hurt you.”

“Hurt, schmurt,” thought Selby, whose pride — but nothing much else — was hurt as anyone’s might have been if they were netted and dumped on the mayor’s carpet. “If that near-sighted ninny catches me again I’ll bite him into next week.”

All of which he thought too soon because the next day every man and his dog (which included Selby) was at Gumboot Gorge waiting to see Awful Knoffle make his death-defying leap.

“This is great!” said Selby, who loved anything death-defying as long as his own life wasn’t at stake, and he climbed a tall tree away from the crowd.

“What a view!” Selby thought as he grabbed thinner and thinner branches near the top of the tree. “From here I’ll be able to see Awful tear all the way up the mountain and then leap the gorge.”

All of which would have been okay if Selby hadn’t spied an even thinner branch at the very top of the tree where the view was even better — which still would have been okay if he hadn’t sat on the branch — and which still would have been okay if the branch hadn’t decided at that very moment to break off, sending Selby plummeting downward, hitting branch after branch on the way.

“Ooooooooooooh!      Nooooooooooo!” Selby screamed, as he landed, slightly bruised, on the ground. Dudley Dewmop, who was innocently admiring Awful Knoffle’s roaring motorcycle, heard Selby’s scream and mistook it for the unmistakable baying of the phantom pooch.

“It’s him! It’s the diabolical disappearing dog!” Dudley screamed as he knocked Awful from the motorcycle and hopped on. “I’ve got to get him!”

Dudley put the big bike in gear and tore up the steep slope towards Selby.

“Gimme my bike back, numbskull!” Awful screamed, chasing after Dudley.

In a flash Selby was on his feet and running, with the motorcycle just behind.

“I’ve got you now!” yelled the short-sighted part-time dog-catcher.

“Help!” thought Selby as the puzzled crowd watched him tear up and down the steep sides of Gumboot Mountain with the mad motorcyclist hot on his heels. “Somebody’s got to stop this
(puff)
madman before he runs me over!”

The answer came to Selby in a flash: “I’ll
(puff)
run to the edge of the gorge
(puff)
and he’ll have to stop and get off the bike
(puff puff).
Then I’ll climb down to where he can’t get to me!”

Selby dashed to the edge of the gorge as fast as he could and then dug in his heels for a quick sliding stop.

“Oh, no!” Selby thought as he skidded towards the top of the cliff with the shortsighted motorcyclist just behind. “I’m not going to stop in time! This time I’m really a done dog!”

The crowd screamed as Selby flew out into the middle of the gorge with the motorcycle soaring through the air above him.

“I’ve got you now, phantom pooch!” Dudley yelled, seeing the blur that was Selby dropping into the gorge and wondering why the ground was suddenly so smooth.

With this, Dudley shot out his Telescoping Sleeve Net and scooped up the airborne dog. Together they tore over the gorge, landing safely on the other side, and screeched to a halt.

“I’m not going to suffer the embarrassment of being dumped on Mrs Trifle’s carpet again,” Selby thought as he ripped the net apart with his teeth and jumped into the safety of a nearby bush. “It’s bad enough that he nearly killed me!”

Dudley threw down the big motorcycle and searched the empty net for his captive as some of the crowd gathered around to congratulate him on the jump he didn’t know he’d made.

“I had him but he got away!” Dudley screamed looking at the hole in the net. “The diabolical disappearing dog’s done it again! Oh, well, I’d better get this motorcycle back to Awful so he can do his death-defying jump.”

“And I’m staying home till that twit buys some new glasses,” Selby said, making a Dudley-defying jump out of the bushes and running for town, passing the weeping daredevil as he went.

“Glenda Glitter my favourite movie star is right here in Bogusville!” Selby said as he read in the
Bogusville Banner
that the Tinsel Trust Film Company was at the Bogusville Timber Mill making a movie called
The Perils of Raelene.
“She’s so beautiful. I just have to go and watch her act.”

Inside the timber mill the movie crew was busy setting up bright lights, cameras and microphones.

“There she is!” Selby thought as he trotted in unnoticed and quickly spotted Glenda, standing on one side as someone sprayed her hair and someone else put powder on her face. “How I’d love to talk to her about her movies.”

In a minute the director lifted his loudspeaker and shouted, “Places everyone!” And then, pointing to a huge log that was ready to be sawed down the middle by an enormous, round saw blade, he said, “Glenda, sweetie. Be a nice girl and hop up on that log.”

“Log?” Glenda said looking at the gigantic tree trunk. “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not climbing up on that thing. And nobody’s going to make me!”

“What a voice! What passion!” Selby thought. “I’ve been in love with her ever since I saw her in that dreadful movie,
Kelpie, King of Queensland.
She only had one line to say but she said it beautifully.”

“You have to. It’s in the script,” the director said. “This is the scene where you’re tied to the log while the saw cuts it down the middle. Preston and Rex fight and you scream your little blonde head off. When Preston wins the fight he runs over and pulls the lever to stop the saw. Got it?”

“It’s too dangerous and I’m not going to do it!” Glenda said, flashing her lavender eyes and throwing her hair over her shoulder the way movie stars do. “You can get someone else!”

“Shut up, Glenda!” the director yelled. “Just do as I say!”

“That’s no way to get the greatest actress in Australia to do what you want,” Selby thought angrily. “She could just walk away and never finish the movie.”

“What if Preston loses the fight?” Glenda asked, climbing up a ladder and onto the log while two men tied her down with a thick rope. “I mean, he might get knocked down. What if he doesn’t get up in time to stop the saw? What’ll happen to me?”

“Actors don’t really fight in a movie. You ought to know that. They’ll just pretend to punch each other,” the director said. “Besides, there are plenty of us here to pull the lever and stop the saw if anything goes wrong.”

“You’d better be right,” Glenda said. “I don’t fancy being sliced down the middle.”

“Action!” the director yelled and Rex and Preston pretended to fight as the saw sliced its way down the log, throwing up a cloud of sawdust. “Cut! I mean, stop! The fighting looks too phoney. Pull the log back and try it again.”

Again and again they shot the scene until Glenda was so hoarse from screaming that she could barely talk.

“This is great!” Selby thought, squeezing through the crowd to get a better view. “What wonderful acting!”

“Ouch! Stop that!” Preston cried, clutching his jaw. “You’re not supposed to
really
hit me!”

“I only tapped you. It was an accident!” Rex yelled. “Can I help it if I made a mistake? Don’t be such a baby!”

“Don’t you call me a baby, you big sissy!” Preston yelled.

“I am not a sissy!”

“Yes you are!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” the director yelled, holding them apart. “I think we’re all a bit tired. Let’s take a short break for coffee and then we’ll do the scene one last time. Everyone but you,” he said looking up at Glenda. “You stay up on the log. It’s too hard getting you down and then tying you on the log again.
Have a rest. You must be tired after all that screaming.”

In two minutes the film crew had left the shed and Glenda was fast asleep and snoring.

“This is my chance to get a really close look at her,” Selby thought as he climbed up the rope and stared at the glamorous star.

“What beautiful skin,” Selby said. “And what gorgeous hair. I remember the way it looked when she played Princess Su in
Raid on Planet Kapon
. I can see why actors are always falling in love with her and fighting over her. And here I am
(sigh)
alone with her.”

Selby wrapped the rope tightly around one paw so he wouldn’t fall and then leaned down and pressed his lips lightly on her cheek, covering them with make-up.

“Crumbs,” Selby said, taking a breath and getting a lungful of powder. “Ah-choo!” he screamed, losing his balance and thrashing about in the air with a hind leg. “Ah-choo! Ah-double-choooooo!”

Selby’s leg swung around and caught the lever, knocking it over out of reach and starting the great saw blade whirring.