Selby Snaps (5 page)

‘The TOOT has turned!’ Selby thought. ‘When will this thing ever stop?!’

Meanwhile at the finish line, Mrs Trifle stood next to Dr Trifle holding the Wacky Wheels trophy.

‘I think I see the winner coming now,’ Mrs Trifle said.

‘Yes, it must be,’ Dr Trifle said, looking through his binoculars, ‘because the police car is behind it flashing its lights.’

‘Can you see the driver?’

‘Hang on, it looks like Jetty!’

‘Jetty? My sister? Here, give me those,’ Mrs Trifle said, grabbing the binoculars. ‘Good
grief, it is her! And she’s driving a toilet! It’s
your
TOOT! Look out everyone!’

People screamed and scattered as the TOOT tore up to the finish line and screeched to a stop.

‘The battery finally ran out!’ Selby thought as he rolled along the ground.

Selby picked himself up and heaved a sigh of relief. There was a deathly silence. All eyes were on the huge figure that hurtled through the air and slammed into Melanie Mildew’s Bogusville Town Hall pavlova.

‘Jetty! Are you all right?’ Mrs Trifle asked, pulling her sister from the sugary mess.

‘I think I am,’ Aunt Jetty said as she wiped pavlova out of her eyes. ‘No thanks to that stupid toilet of yours!’

‘We’re terribly sorry,’ Mrs Trifle said.

‘And so you should be!’ Aunt Jetty said, snatching the Wacky Wheels trophy from her hands. ‘Give me that thing! I won it fair and square!’

‘And so she did,’ Selby thought, giggling to himself, ‘with a little bit of help from little old me.’

‘The war has begun,’ Mrs Trifle said as an aeroplane swooped low over the Trifles’ rooftop. Selby’s eyes opened.

‘War?! What war?!’ he thought, his brain still muddled from a deep sleep. ‘Where am I?’

The night before, while the Trifles were out, Selby had watched one of his favourite videos. It was an old film called
Bomb Brigade
about the soldiers who take apart unexploded bombs.

‘It can’t be a
real
war,’ Dr Trifle said as another plane zoomed overhead.

‘No, of course not,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘It’s just war games.’

‘War games? Don’t you play them on a computer?’

‘Not this sort. The army has war games to practise in case there’s a real war. They’re having a make-believe battle out near Gumboot Mountain all day today.’

More planes screamed overhead.

‘That was close!’ Dr Trifle said, dropping his toast.

‘It’s only make-believe,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But did you know they used to make bombs in Bogusville?’

‘Really? When was that?’

‘A long long time ago, during a real war, there was a bomb factory outside town. The building’s gone now. The bombs were sent overseas to where the war was.’

Selby remembered the scariest scene in
Bomb Brigade.
In it, Captain Colin ‘Chip’ Halloway crouched in a big hole next to an unexploded bomb. Bit by bit he took the bomb apart. Soldiers, hiding behind sandbags nearby, talked to him on an army telephone. They were following a drawing of the inside of a bomb.

‘I say, Chip,’ the major said. ‘Where are we with the old girl?’

Chip picked up the phone and held it between his shoulder and his ear.

‘I’m down to the clock,’ he answered. ‘She’s still ticking. One last wire to snip and we’ll all be home for tea. Got a black wire and a white wire here. You chaps have any idea which one to cut?’

The major studied the drawing.

‘Sorry, old man,’ he said. ‘Haven’t a clue.’

Chip put his wire-cutters on the white wire. His hand shook. Sweat poured down Selby’s face as he watched. The telephone suddenly slipped off Chip’s shoulder and banged against the bomb.

‘Sheeeeshh!’ Selby gasped. ‘That gave me a start! I’m as jumpy as a kangaroo!’

Chip left the phone on the ground but kept talking into it.

‘I’m going for the black,’ he said, taking the wire-cutters off the white wire and placing them around the black.

He squeezed the handle but his hand was shaking violently. He paused to catch his breath.

Meanwhile, one of the soldiers pointed to something in the drawing of the bomb.

‘Hold on!’ the major cried. ‘We think it’s the white wire! The white! Do you hear me, Chip?!’

But the telephone was on the ground. There was only a little squeaking sound coming out of it.

‘Pick up the phone!’ Selby yelled. He was on his feet now, staring at the television. ‘The white wire, Chip! Cut the white wire!’

‘Don’t cut the black wire or it will set the bomb off!’ the major yelled into the telephone. ‘Listen to me, Chip!’

But Chip couldn’t hear. Suddenly, he took his wire-cutters off the black wire and quickly snipped the white one.

For a moment there was silence as Chip lay back on the ground, panting. But then there came a loud buzz followed by a whirring noise. Chip sat up straight. The wheels in the bomb mechanism turned and a pin moved down towards a piece of metal.

‘It’s the firing pin!’ Selby screamed. ‘Run for your life! It’s going to explode!’

Captain ‘Chip’ Halloway quickly pulled a wooden pencil from his pocket and thrust it in between the pin and the metal. The wheels stopped. The bomb didn’t explode. Selby breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Chip, what’s happening?! Did you cut the wire?! Do you hear me?! Pick up the phone!’ the major yelled.

Chip reached over and picked up the phone. He was smiling.

‘Mission accomplished,’ he said. ‘Now which one of you chaps is going to buy me a drink?’

A cheer went up from behind the sandbags.

Selby was just remembering this when another plane swooped down over the Trifles’ house.

‘Did you see Selby jump?’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I do believe these war games are frightening him, poor possum.’

‘Frighten, schmighten,’ Selby thought. ‘War games don’t scare this old trooper. In fact I’m sooooo not frightened that I think I’ll go out and see how the war’s coming along.’

With this Selby made his way out through the hole in the back of the garage. It was rainy and
damp but soon he was dashing along beside a speeding tank with explosions all around him.

‘This is so much fun!’ Selby said, as a soldier stopped to pat him. ‘Oh, I’d love to be in the army.’

Selby spent the day watching soldiers shoot other soldiers with squirts of paint and aeroplanes drop flour bombs. Anyone who got covered in flour had to lie on the ground and pretend they were dead.

Finally, Selby had turned for home when he saw a group of soldiers lying in a trench. On the other side of a hill was a soldier scooping dirt away from the side of an unexploded bomb.

‘Oh, great!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s just like in
Bomb Brigade!
I’ve got to watch this.’

Selby crept up close and lay watching the soldier next to the bomb. Instead of a telephone, he wore headphones with a mouthpiece that curved out in front of his mouth.

‘Hey, Sarge!’ he called out. ‘Talk me through this, okay? I’m scared!’

Selby snickered to himself.

‘Scared,’ he thought. ‘I’m not scared one little bit. I’ve seen the real thing — well the
movie
version of the real thing.’

‘What’s the serial number on the bomb, Dwayne?’

Selby could just hear the voice from Dwayne’s headphones.

‘It says AA24356 dash B,’ Dwayne answered, taking out the screws on a metal panel and removing it to see the mechanism inside.

‘Hey, that looks like the one in
Bomb Brigade,’
Selby thought. ‘It must be an old one they use for practice.’

‘Okay, got it here.’

‘Do you see any wires in there?’

‘Just two — a black one and a white one.’

‘Well-ah-maybe cut the black one.’

‘I’d cut the white one,’ Selby thought. ‘But, hey, that’s just me. Do what you want. This is sooooo much fun. I reckon he’s going to get it wrong. But what does it matter — it’s only a game.’

A plane swooped down overhead.

‘Crikey! I wish they wouldn’t do that!’ the soldier muttered. ‘I’m nervous enough as it is.’

‘What was that, Dwayne?’

‘Never mind. If I cut the black wire, then what?’

‘The
white
wire,’ Selby thought again.

‘We’re not sure, Dwayne.’

‘Come on you guys!’ Dwayne yelled. ‘What do you mean, you’re not sure?!’

‘The plan is all ripped. It’s old because it’s an old bomb. Nobody knew there were still live bombs left anywhere till the rain uncovered this one.’

Selby looked up. It was just starting to rain again. Suddenly those last words sank in.

‘A
real
bomb?’ he thought. ‘Is that possible? Oh, no! This must be one of the bombs from the old bomb factory. I’m getting out of here!’

Selby was about to run when he heard the soldier say, ‘I can’t do it! I can’t!’

‘You have to, Dwayne! Don’t pike out now! The women and children of Bogusville are depending on you!’