Selby Screams (5 page)

Suddenly the robot stopped, dropped its arms and walked back to its box. The stunned Ralpho let go of Billy who tore out of the door and jumped in Aunt Jetty’s car which had just driven up. Ralpho stood staring in amazement at Selby.

“I saw you talk,” Ralpho said. “Very clever! Yes, very, extremely clever!”

“We’re terribly sorry about everything,” Dr Trifle said, as he and Mrs Trifle came in the door. “I’m afraid we didn’t expect little Billy. I’m sure I can help you fix your mummy.”

“Never mind the mummy! This talking dog robot you made,” Ralpho said, pointing to Selby, “is a great idea! I’m going home right now to make one. It’s just what I need! Bye now.”

“Talking dog robots?” Mrs Trifle said, watching Ralpho drive away. “Poor Ralpho’s gone completely round the twist this time.”

“I don’t know what he was driving at,” Dr Trifle said, looking down into Selby’s innocent eyes, “but I have to admit he made a better mummy robot than I could have. Maybe this dog robot is just what he needs to liven up his act.”

“I don’t know about livening up Ralpho’s act,” Selby thought. “If it got any livelier than today’s, I don’t think I could stand it.”

“This is fantastic!” Selby thought as the tiny dot that was Dame Cecily Quagmire’s balloon appeared on the horizon. “Dame Cecily is about to be the first person to fly a balloon around the world over both the North and the South Poles, and she’s stopping in Bogusville just before the end of her trip!”

Dr Trifle quickly took down the old torn flag from in front of the council chambers and replaced it with a new one as Mrs Trifle memorised her welcoming speech.

“This is an historic occasion…” she began. “This is a truly exciting and historic occasion … Oh, heavens,” Mrs Trifle said, looking up
from her notes. “I’ll never get this speech right and she’s nearly here.”

“You could just say, ‘G’day and welcome to Bogusville.'” Dr Trifle said.

“I most certainly could not,” Mrs Trifle said. “Mayors aren’t allowed to say ‘G’day', especially when they’re greeting international heroes who are making historic round-the-world, over-the-poles balloon flights.”

“It was just a suggestion, dear,” Dr Trifle said.

“Dame Cecily is the grand old lady of flight. She used to race aeroplanes back when they were held together with chewing gum and baling wire. Back then they used to fly by the seat of their pants. Don’t ask me how their pants helped fly the plane, but they did,” Mrs Trifle said as a crowd began to gather. “These days aeroplanes are flown by computers. It seems the only things that pilots do with the seats of their pants is sit on them,” she added. “By the way, why did you have to take down the old flag?”

“It was too tatty.”

“Tatty or not,” Mrs Trifle said, “I was sort of fond of it.”

“This one’s made of that special computer-designed Tare-Knot Miracle Flag Fabric,” Dr Trifle said. “It should last a long time. It’s so tough that you could bet your life it wouldn’t tear.”

Selby lay back in the shade of a tree and watched Dame Cecily’s balloon come closer and closer. He remembered the last episode of the TV series
Balloon Flights of Long Ago
about the early days of ballooning.

“What a wonderful sport,” he thought. “Hanging from a balloon in a big open basket. Letting the wind take you where it might. Dropping down in a meadow for a picnic lunch. Being blown off course into deserts and jungles. Being rescued by people so primitive that they’ve never even seen an Australian before. What a life. But wait just a minute!” Selby thought, jumping to his feet as the balloon approached. “That’s no basket! It’s all plastic and glass. It’s like a space capsule! And it’s covered in advertising!” Selby said, looking at the signs on the balloon that said
FLY-RIGHT FLY SPRAY
and
DR POPHAM’S STONE GROUND MUESLI PELLETS and VACATION VILLA INTERNATIONAL HOTELS.

Dr Trifle grabbed a rope that hung down from the huge balloon and pulled on it until the capsule touched the ground. He tied the rope to the tree next to Selby and watched as Dame Cecily scrambled out, zipping up her flight suit and brushing her hair as she went.

“This is a … er … truly exciting and … um … historic occasion,” Mrs Trifle said as a bus full of reporters drove up flashing cameras at Dame Cecily. “As the mayor of … um …”

“You’re the mayor, are you dear?” Dame Cecily whispered to Mrs Trifle as she grinned at the TV cameras.

“Why, yes I am,” Mrs Trifle said, “and I feel deeply honoured —”

“Thank you, thank you,” Dame Cecily said, grabbing a microphone. “How very nice, Mrs Mayor. But I’ll make the speeches if you don’t mind.”

Selby put his paws up in the open doorway of the passenger capsule and peered in at the control panel.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the world,” Dame Cecily said, waving her arms about. “This is a truly exciting and historic occasion. Tomorrow I
will fly to Brisbane and finish the first round-the-world, over-the-poles balloon flight ever. It has been a dream of many years, a dream made possible by the kindness of Vacation Villa Hotels, who spared nothing in making me comfortable in some of the most remote corners of the world, places so primitive that the people had never even seen an Australian before. And thanks to a health-giving diet of Dr Popham’s Stone Ground Muesli and thanks also to Fly-Right Fly Spray. I’d also like to thank Kevtex Wonder Fibres and Polycarborundamide Impact-Resistant Plastics and Tru-Star Computer Navigational Aids and —”

“Struth,” Selby muttered as he hopped into the capsule. “Look at all this electronic gear: radios, computers, wind-speed indicators, things to make the balloon go up and things to make it go down. It’s completely automatic. All Dame Cecily has to do is sit in it and tell it to go and the instruments do the thinking
and
the work.”

“We are only as good as our technology. I’d like to thank Oxy-Gulp Air Supply for the system that kept me from suffocating in the stratosphere,” Dame Cecily said with a laugh.
“And of course many thanks to the Your Wish-Is-My-Command Control Module which made the balloon go wherever I asked it to go.”

“My goodness! She’s been right up in the stratosphere! Wow!” Selby said as he turned around to hop out and his tail brushed against a row of switches, starting lights flashing, buzzers buzzing and beepers beeping. “I’d love to go straight up to the stratosphere!”

“Your wish is my command
,” an electronic voice from the control module said.
“Casting off. Casting off.”

“Oh, no!” Selby thought as he peered out the door just in time to see the rope drop from the capsule. “Crumbs! It’s taking off with me in it!”

There was a gasp from the crowd as the balloon lifted.

“I’ve got to get out of here fast or I’m a done dog!” Selby thought as he dived out the door of the capsule — which would have been okay if his foot hadn’t caught in the seat belt that hung down outside the capsule.

“Stop that balloon!” Dame Cecily screamed as she leaped towards the dangling dog. “If that mutt finishes my round-the-world over-the-poles trip I’ll lose the prize money! Help!”

“I’ve got to get my foot loose from this contraption!” Selby thought as the world began moving away from him. “Oh, woe woe! I’m too far up now to jump and if I fall I’m a goner!”

The balloon and the dangling Selby swept along in front of the delighted reporters, whose
cameras flashed and TV cameras turned, lifting towards the top of the flagpole as it went.

“My only chance is to yell instructions to the Your-Wish-Is-My-Command Control Module. I’ll just tell it to go back down,” Selby thought. “But … but … they’ll hear me. My secret will be out! The whole world will know I’m the only talking dog in Australia (and perhaps the world). I’ll be put in a laboratory and scientists will ask me dumb questions from morning till night. But if I
don’t
talk, I’ll be dragged up and up. I’ll suffocate in the stratosphere! Maybe I’ll freeze to death too!”

“I command you to go down!” Selby shouted. But just as he started to speak he felt the curious feeling of Tare-Knot Miracle Flag Fabric flapping against his mouth and making what he said come out more like, “Iicabubbutubugobodonnnn!” the way it would if you tried to say “I command you to go down” with a flag flapping against your mouth.

“It’s the new flag!” Selby thought as he lunged at it and grabbed a corner in his mouth. “My only hope is to hold on tight and pray the flag doesn’t rip!”

“Look! He’s holding the flag with his teeth!” Mrs Trifle yelled at Dr Trifle. “Climb the flagpole and rescue him before the balloon pulls him away!”

“I have a better idea,” said Dr Trifle, who wasn’t much good at climbing flagpoles. “I’ll just lower the flag in the usual way,” he added, pulling on one of the flag ropes. “That should pull Selby down along with the balloon.”

“Don’t just talk about it!” Selby thought, as he felt the flag slipping between his teeth. “Blinkin’ well do it!”

Cameras whirred and clicked and reporters screeched into microphones as Dr Trifle lowered the flag and grasped Selby and the dangling seat belt under one arm. A crowd rushed forward and grabbed Dame Cecily’s balloon.

“If I didn’t know better,” Dame Cecily said, as she helped lash the balloon to the flagpole, “I’d swear that dog was talking. Come to think of that, how did he get the balloon to go up?”

“You see I told you that you could bet your life that Tare-Knot Miracle Flag Fabric wouldn’t
tear,” Dr Trifle said to Mrs Trifle as he prised the flag from Selby’s trembling mouth.

“You were right,” Selby thought as he barged past Dame Cecily on his way home to watch another episode of
Balloon Flights of Long Ago.
“But it wasn’t your life that was bet — it was mine!”

“Yahoooooo! It’s my turn in a couple of minutes,” “Head-Plant” Hemholtz shouted as he looked out the window of his ski chalet at skiers jumping off the ski-jump in the annual Twisted Skis Ski-Jumping Championship. “This is my chance to win the championship at last. I’ve always wanted that Golden Twisted Skis Trophy. Grab your parkas, Dr and Mrs Trifle, and follow me. Just watch my technique!”

“I’m afraid that when it comes to technique, Head-Plant doesn’t have very much,” Dr Trifle
said as the skier raced towards the ski-jump. “If he’d only land on his feet, I’m sure there would be a big improvement. Do you know that the only time he ever landed on his feet, he skidded off the slope and right into the back of an ambulance?”

“At least he got to hospital very quickly that time,” Mrs Trifle said as she buckled up her boots. “Poor HP. It’s very kind of him to let us stay in his chalet but it’s not much fun watching him break all his bones every year in the Twisted Skis Championship. Sometimes I wonder if he has the foggiest notion what he’s doing.”

Selby was about to follow the Trifles out into the snow when Dr Trifle turned in the doorway and stopped him.

“I’m sorry, Selby, old bean,” he said, not thinking for a minute that Selby could understand everything he was saying, “but your fur just isn’t thick enough for this cold. You’d better stay inside where it’s warm.”

“It’s not fair,” Selby thought as he watched Dr and Mrs Trifle struggle through the snow towards the ski-jump. “They bring me all the
way to the Twisted Skis Ski-Jumping Championship and now they won’t let me watch. Last year I only knew Head-Plant had jumped when I heard the ambulance taking him to hospital. If only I had some warm clothing I could go out there without freezing. I’d only have to be careful that no one saw me. Why doesn’t anyone make ski parkas for dogs? But wait! I think I’ve got it!”

Selby raced to a wardrobe and got out stacks and stacks of cold-weather clothing. He pulled on a child’s parka, putting his front legs through the sleeves. Then he put on another one upside down with his hind legs poking out the sleeves.

“I may look like two midgets in a spacesuit,” Selby thought as he put on one of the parka hoods and let the other dangle between his legs, “but in all this blowing snow, no one will notice me and I can watch the ski-jumping without worrying about freezing to death.”

Selby stood in the crowd at the bottom of the ski-jump but it was snowing so heavily that he could hardly see a thing. The ski-jumpers were just blurs in the air until they touched down on the ski slope nearby.

“I think I’d rather watch them start down the jump than land. I’d better go up to the top,” Selby thought as he started up the ski-jump stairs. “That way I won’t have to see Head-Plant’s yearly catastrophe. I do hate the sight of blood and gore. Uh-oh, here he goes now.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer said over the loudspeaker, “the final skier, Head-Plant Hemholtz, is about to jump. Anyone at the bottom of the jump, please move back so he doesn’t land on you. And please don’t watch unless you like blood and gore.”

Selby arrived at the top of the ski-jump and stood just above Head-Plant as the skier was about to begin his run.

“All right!” he heard Head-Plant say. “Just tell me when I can go. I just can’t wait to be sailing through the air. It’s such a great feeling. I’m not so keen on landing but.”