Selby Speaks (3 page)

“It worked for the Incredible Shrinking Teenager,” Selby said, feeling his stomach filling up and remembering how much he hated vegetables. “I only hope it works for me.”

Selby ran along a row of tomatoes, snatching them right and left in his teeth, and then down
a row of rhubarb, leaving behind nothing but a carpet of green leaves. In another minute he’d eaten five cucumbers and a cabbage and was staring greedily at a pumpkin.

“Suddenly I don’t feel so well,” Selby said, clutching his swollen stomach. “I’ve never eaten this much of anything in my life — not even when I gobbled the whole chocolate-cream layer cake with hundreds and thousands that Mrs Trifle made on my birthday last year.”

Selby staggered back into the house and lay down again on the cushion that was still too big and drifted off to sleep only to be wakened by singing voices coming closer and closer.

“Happy birthday to you,” Dr and Mrs Trifle sang. “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Selby. Happy birthday to you.”

Selby opened his eyes and there were Dr and Mrs Trifle bending over him.

“Poor Selby,” Mrs Trifle said, patting him on the head. “I don’t suppose he knows it’s his birthday. I’m sure he doesn’t realise that we finally gave him a bigger sleeping cushion, one that fits him properly.”

“And a nice big bowl that fits lots of those lovely Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits that he likes so much,” Dr Trifle added.

“Oh, well,” Mrs Trifle said, looking at the new collar she’d put on him when he was sleeping, “here’s something he always loves: a chocolate-cream layer cake with hundreds and thousands!”

“Yikes!” thought Selby as he put a paw to his mouth to keep from gagging.

“My goodness!” Dr Trifle said. “Did you see that? One look at that cake and he’s gone all green in the face. I do think he’s sick of sweets. Maybe we’d better give him a bowl full of fresh vegetables for a change. I’m sure he’d like that.”

“What a good idea,” Mrs Trifle said. “I’ll go and pick some right now. I hope that possum hasn’t got into the garden again.”

Selby was just dozing off when Mrs Trifle’s dreadful sister, Aunt Jetty, burst into the house having just returned from a tiger hunt in darkest Scotland.

“Darkest Scotland?” Mrs Trifle asked politely, spreading more marmalade on her toast. “You mean to say you were hunting a person eating tiger in Scotland?”

“Not a
person eater,”
Aunt Jetty said, thumping her walking-stick on the floor but hitting Selby’s tail by mistake. “Tina is quite specifically a
man eater.
She hates men. Or, putting it differently, she
loves them — for dinner. Tina was first captured in India many years ago when she terrorised villages and attacked only the men. She never ate a
whole
man, though, because of a shortage in the tooth department —”

“A shortage in the tooth department?” Dr Trifle said, looking up from the plans he was making for a talking floral clock for the Bogusville Memorial Rose Garden.

“A severe shortage. She only has two teeth: an upper and a lower. With only two teeth she couldn’t actually kill anyone but you can be sure there are a goodly number of blokes in India with shortages in the finger and toe departments.”

“I see,” Dr Trifle said, doing a quick count of his fingers and wondering when he’d last cut his fingernails.

“When they finally caught her,” Aunt Jetty went on, “they sent her to the Haggis Highland Zoo in Scotland. She loved it there for a while but finally escaped one night and attacked a piper who was playing
Scotland the Brave
on his bagpipes. When they found him the next day his dress was badly torn.”

“Kilt,” interrupted Mrs Trifle.

“No, he was very much alive,” Aunt Jetty continued. “When Tina finally noticed his dress she thought he was a woman, so she left him alone. Anyway, the locals, knowing my reputation as a big game hunter,” Aunt Jetty said, polishing her fingernails on her safari jacket, “called me in. All I had to do was to throw a net over the old girl,” Aunt Jetty said, throwing her net over Selby and yanking him upside down in the air, “like that! It was dead easy.”

“Easy, schmeasy,” Selby thought, struggling to stand up in the net but with his feet poking out everywhere. “If she doesn’t watch her step she’ll meet the world’s first woman-eating dog.”

Aunt Jetty dumped Selby onto the carpet and watched him jump through the front window and tear away down Bunya-Bunya Crescent.

“I brought old Tina back here when I caught her,” she said. “It’s finders keepers I reckon. I’ve just put her in the Bogusville Zoo. She should be happy there.”

Selby went for a walk through Bogusville Reserve till dark and then took his usual short
cut back through the zoo, squeezing between the bars of the closed front gate.

“There’s nothing more peaceful than a zoo at night, when there are no crowds and the animals can relax,” Selby said as he made the rounds of the cages, looking at each of his animal friends.

He stopped for a minute and sang a bit from his favourite opera,
Cleopatra and the Asp
, to Bazza the opera-loving boa constrictor and watched as tears of joy formed in the old snake’s eyes. And then he poked a handful of hay to Terrence Tusk, the one-tusked elephant.

“How are they treating you, Terry?” Selby asked, not expecting an answer because he, Selby, was the only talking animal in Australia and, for all he knew, the world. “How’s the tusk?”

Selby was about to take his usual short cut through the empty cage next to Terrence’s when he saw a newly painted sign at the front of it which said:

“Hmmmmmmmm,” Selby said, looking closely at the sign. “How am I going to take my short cut? The cage isn’t empty any more. They’ve put an animal in it. But what’s an
an eater
? Is it an animal I’ve never heard of before, some woolly beast that eats
ans
? If so, what’s an
an
? Oh, silly me, I know! They must be getting an
anteater
and Postie hasn’t painted the T in yet,” Selby said, referring to Postie Paterson, Bogusville’s postman and part-time helper at the zoo. “Well, anteaters are pretty harmless — at least to dogs. I think I’ll take my usual short cut anyway. It’s a lot quicker than going all the way back through the front gate.”

Selby barged in through the bars of the cage, little knowing that Postie (a not-very-experienced sign-writer who always painted signs backwards because when he painted them frontwards he always ran off the end of the sign) had written a warning sign to say that Two-Tooth Tina was a MAN EATER. He’d started by painting the R and then the E and so on but he hadn’t got a chance to paint in the M and finish the sign when closing
time came so the sign still only said AN EATER.

As Selby walked through the cage towards the bars at the back he felt a pair of eyes following him in the darkness.

“Hmmmmmmmm,” he thought. “There’s something creepy about this place. I feel like there are eyes following me around in the darkness. It must be that new anteater. I wonder where he is?”

Suddenly there was a great roar and Tina jumped out into the moonlight.

“Yoooooooooowww!” screamed Selby as he backed into a corner. “You’re no flippin’ anteater! Get away from me! Help!”

Tina roared again and snapped at Selby’s front paws. Selby quickly stood on his hind legs and put his front legs over his head.

“It’s Tina! What is she doing here? I thought she was still in darkest Scotland! Oh no! Aunt Jetty must have brought her back! Heeeeeeeeelllllllllllp!”

“Roooaaarrr! Arrrrrr!” Tina snarled and her two teeth clicked so fast as she lunged for Selby’s feet that it sounded like a high-speed knitting contest.

Selby jumped in the air as she snapped and snapped until he found himself dancing from foot to foot with his front legs still over his head. Then suddenly Tina sat back on her haunches and watched.

“What
is
she doing?” Selby thought, still jumping furiously from foot to foot. “I know! She thinks I’m a Scottish dancer doing a highland fling.”

Selby grapped a piece of cardboard from the ground without missing a step and held it to his waist with one paw to make it look like a kilt as homesick tears formed in Tina’s big round eyes.

“The Campbells are coming …” Selby sang and his feet hammered the ground in a frenzied blur. “And I’ve got to be going because I can’t
(puff)
keep this up much longer. Heaven’s above, how am I going
(puff)
to get out of here with all my toes?”

Just then something strange and snakelike slipped gently around Selby’s waist. It was Terrence Tusk’s trunk reaching in from the next cage and soon Selby was lifted high in the air.

“I’ll take the high road,” Selby sang as he was lowered to the safety of the elephant’s cage, “and Tina can have the low road. Phew! Thanks Terry. You rescued me just in time. One more minute and that highland fling would have been my last fling.”

It was one of those days when Mrs Trifle would gladly have given someone else the job of being mayor of Bogusville. The day went from catastrophe to catastrophe and crisis to crisis and then — to make matters worse — in dashed international daredevil superstar Awful Knoffle.