Selby Sorcerer (5 page)

At the sound of the names of Willy, Billy and the dreadful Aunt Jetty, Selby’s great mood instantly disappeared. Terror gripped his brain as he sprang to his feet to race for the back door. But before he could get out of the room Willy and Billy were standing over him holding a pair of huge knobbly green clubs.

‘I’m going to make this stinky doggy talk!’ Willy cried, raising his club.

‘You’ll do nothing of the kind,’ Mrs Trifle said, snatching the clubs away and releasing Selby.

‘But he talks!’ Billy protested. ‘He said we were brats!’

‘Yeah,’ said Willy. ‘We’re going to make him talk and then you’ll see, Auntie.’

‘I know he can talk,’ Mrs Trifle said.

Selby’s ears pricked up.

‘She does?’ he thought.

‘You do? ‘Willy said.

‘Yes, absolutely. I’ve often heard him talking when he didn’t think we were around. At night when we’re sleeping he writes emails on the
computer. And when we’re out of the house he watches TV.’

Willy and Billy (and Selby) looked at Mrs Trifle. Finally she laughed.

‘I got you then, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘What on earth are these horrible weapons?’

‘They’re wizard clubs,’ Willy said. ‘They’re really cool.’

‘Wizard clubs, schmizard clubs,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘They’re going straight out the door.’

‘They’re only toys,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘Don’t you know the movie
War of the Clone Wizards?’

‘No, I’m happy to say that I don’t,’ Mrs Trifle said, handing the clubs to her sister. ‘And if I were you I’d throw these away and get them something else to play with. Whatever happened to skipping ropes and packs of cards?’

‘I’m sure the boys weren’t going to hurt the dog,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘It’s good for kids to play with pets — even ones like old horrible here. The boys haven’t had a pet to play with since poor old Crusher died.’

‘Poor old Crusher?’ Selby thought. ‘That dog was as bad as these brats!’

Billy looked over at Dr Trifle.

‘What are they?’ he asked, pointing to the papers in his uncle’s hand.

‘This is a Science and Maths take-home quiz for kids,’ Dr Trifle answered.

‘A quiz? Do you get money?’

‘There’s no money,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Just prizes.’

‘Hey, I want a prize! I want a prize! Can I have one?’

‘Me, too! ‘Willy yelled.

‘I’m afraid that this really isn’t for you.’

‘That’s not fair!’ Willy screamed. ‘Mummy, tell Unkie it’s not fair!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Aunt Jetty asked. ‘Why can’t my boys do the quiz? Do you think they’re dumb or something?’

‘Dumb? Did I say that? No, no. They’re just a bit … I mean okay, boys, listen to these numbers. Five, four, three, two, one. Now tell me what number comes next.’

Willy and Billy looked at each other.

‘Eight?’ Willy said.

‘I know!’ Billy squealed. ‘It’s three, isn’t it? Do I win?’

‘I don’t think they’re quite ready for this sort of quiz,’ Dr Trifle said.

‘But you said this was a take-home quiz,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘I could help them.’

‘That’s just it,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘No one’s allowed to help them.’

‘And besides,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘how would it look if they got all the answers right? Everyone knows that they are our nephews. People might think that we helped them to win.’

‘Rubbish!’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘This is totally unfair. I’m going to write a letter to the
Bogusville Banner
and tell them that the mayor wouldn’t even let her own dear, sweet nephews do the quiz.’

‘All right,’ Mrs Trifle sighed. ‘These have to be finished by the end of the weekend. And you’re not allowed to help them,’ Mrs Trifle said wagging her finger at her sister.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sister,’ Aunt Jetty replied.

‘Wizard clubs,’ Selby thought, once everyone had left for the fete. ‘It’s amazing those little brats didn’t kill me. Hmmm, I wonder if Dr Trifle left a copy of the quiz around here somewhere. I think it’s time to prove that
people aren’t the animals with the highest intelligence.’

Selby went into the study and opened the top drawer of the desk.

‘Here we go,’ he thought. ‘Ooops, that’s the one with the answers written in. That would be cheating.’

Selby looked around for a blank copy and finally found one in the wastepaper basket.

‘Okay.
What is rhubarb?
What is rhubarb? I don’t know. Yes, I do. It’s that yucky stuff in the garden that makes your mouth go all funny. I guess it’s a vegie. Or is it a fruit? I’d better look it up,’ he said, grabbing a dictionary. ‘Let’s see now. It starts with R. Where are the Rs? Are they before S or after S? It’s somewhere around P. I’ll just look around here and yup I found the R words. Let’s see now. After the R comes a U. No, wait,’ Selby said, looking at the quiz question again. ‘After the R comes H. How did that H get in there? Is that right? We don’t pronounce it
ra-HOO-barb.
We say
roo-barb.
There shouldn’t be an H. But there is an H. Looking things up is soooooooo boring!’

Selby was still searching through the dictionary when he suddenly stopped.

‘I just remembered what Gary Gaggs said about rhubarb,’ he said, bursting into laughter. ‘Gee that guy is funny.
I know, I’ll write in Gary’s line on the quiz.Why not?’

‘Okay, the next one had better be easy-peasy.
What is a volcano?’

Once again Selby giggled out loud when he remembered a Gary Gaggs’ volcano joke. And once again he filled in the blank. And so it went, on and on, with Selby writing in the funniest answers he could think of.

‘I know I’m not doing this properly,’ he thought. ‘But what’s the point?, they won’t let me go in it anyway.’

Just as Selby was finishing writing the last answer, he heard a very quiet
click
in the other room.

‘Someone’s here!’ he thought. Selby straightened up the papers and put them back in the drawer before dropping his quiz in the wastepaper basket and quickly poking his head into the hallway.

Suddenly a hand grabbed his collar.

‘Gotcha!’ Billy screamed.

‘Now you’re gonna talk, you stink-head!’ Willy said.

‘Yeah, right,’ Selby thought, as he looked around for the Trifles. ‘Here we go again. Where’s the camera? I don’t see a camera. Where’s the tape recorder? I don’t see one of them either. Well it’s going to take more than these little brats to make this dog talk. Ho-hum, I think I’ll just sit here and wait for the Trifles.’

‘You talk or we’re gonna hit you!’ Willy screamed.

Willy and Billy both raised their clubs in one hand.

‘Gulp,’ Selby thought. ‘I think they mean it.’

‘If we hit you,’ Willy said, ‘you could be deaded!’

‘Yeah,’ Billy giggled.

‘Okay, okay,’ Selby said. ‘I’ll talk. It doesn’t matter because nobody’s going to believe you anyway. What would you like to talk about? International diplomacy? How about Economics?
Do you know anything about Ancient History? No, no, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you sing me the words to the alphabet song?’

‘We want the answers!’ Billy squealed.

‘Listen, kid, we all want answers. Just leave me alone, okay?’

‘You tell us,’ Willy said, holding out a copy of the quiz.

‘Oh,
those
answers,’ Selby said. ‘Sorry, kids, but you’re out of luck.’

‘You give us Unkie’s answers!’ Willy screamed.

‘You want
me
to give you Dr Trifle’s answers? Wouldn’t that be cheating?’

‘We want to cheat!’ Willy said.

‘We want the prizes!’ Billy said.

‘Sorry, kids,’ Selby said. ‘I talked and that’s as far as I go.’

Suddenly the room was filled with the terrible sounds of wizard clubs which sounded like
biff!
And
bop!.
And
scrunch!
And between these sounds were other sounds like
Ouch!
And
Help!
And
Leave me alone, you brats!
And, finally,
Okay, okay! Lay off! I’ll tell you!

Willy and Billy stopped biffing and bopping but held their clubs over Selby’s bruised head.

‘You’ll find the … answers,’ he panted,'… in the study … Desk drawer … Don’t hit me again, okay?’

A second later, the boys were running towards the study and Selby was out the back door like a shot.

‘Oh, no,’ he thought, as he squeezed through the hole in the back fence. ‘I should have told them the answers were in the bedroom or the garage or something. I didn’t know they were going to let me go. Now they’re going to get the answers right and win the quiz. And that’ll make it look like the Trifles helped Willy and Billy to cheat. Oh, woe, woe, woe!’

A hush fell over the crowd in Bogusville Hall as Mrs Trifle began reading out the names of the winners of the Kids’ Science Quiz.

‘And now for the winner from Year 2 …’ Mrs Trifle started.

Selby looked over at Willy, Billy and Aunt Jetty.

‘They’re going to win for sure,’ he thought. ‘And it’s all my fault.’

‘And the winner is,’ Mrs Trifle said, holding up the winning quiz paper,’ Mandy Turner!’

Everyone clapped as the little girl climbed the steps to the stage. Then, just as Mrs Trifle was handing a parcel of books and a certificate to the girl there was a cry from the audience.

‘What about my Willy and Billy?’ Aunt Jetty yelled.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs Trifle said.

‘Admit it, Sister,’ Aunt Jetty boomed. ‘Willy and Billy had the best answers. No, no, I know what you’re thinking. I didn’t help them one little bit. I didn’t even see their answers.’

‘Then how do you know they were the best answers?’ Mrs Trifle asked.

‘Well because I … because they told me that they took … I mean …’

‘They
took?’
Mrs Trifle said. ‘What exactly did your boys
take?’

‘They took a lot of time getting all the right answers, that’s all,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘And now you’ve chucked their quiz out because you thought it would look bad for you if they won the prizes. Now tell that little girl to hand over the loot to my boys.’

‘I think I can settle this,’ Dr Trifle said.

Willy and Billy grinned with delight while Dr Trifle looked through a stack of quiz papers.

‘Willy and Billy
should
win a prize,’ he said, holding up their paper. ‘But I’m not exactly sure what prize it should be. You see I’m afraid that the answer to the first question is not: Five, four, three, two, one,
blast-off. And
the animal with the highest intelligence is not the
giraffe.
And a caterpillar isn’t
a worm with a fur coat.
Nor can I agree that rhubarb is
celery with high blood pressure.
And a volcano isn’t
a mountain with hiccups
. Would you like me to go on?’

Selby started smiling as he realised he must have mixed up the papers and had put his answers back in the desk and thrown Dr Trifle’s away.

By now everyone was screaming with laughter as Aunt Jetty blushed from ear to ear.

‘It was that stupid dog!’ Willy screamed, pointing to Selby.

‘Yeah, he told us the wrong answers!’ Billy added.

And with this, the audience laughed even louder.

Later that day when Dr and Mrs Trifle were safely at home, Mrs Trifle said, ‘I don’t know where the boys got those answers, but you have to admit they were quite funny.’

‘Yes,’ Dr Trifle agreed. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that Gary Gaggs had answered those questions himself.’

‘Well,’ Selby thought as he remembered the wonderful sight of Aunt Jetty dragging her sons out of the hall by their ears, ‘I guess you could say that he did. With a little bit of help from a certain talking dog.’