Selby Snaps (7 page)

‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘Why didn’t I go for a walk when I felt like going for a walk! Now he’s going to find out that I can understand people-talk! I know, I’ll try not to listen. I’ll just empty my mind.’

‘Okay,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘What do I ask him?’

Mrs Trifle looked at the books she’d borrowed.

‘Why not ask him if he knows how to talk,’ she said, ‘like the dog in the books.’

‘Oh, no, not that!’ Selby thought. ‘That’s the last thing I want to be asked! Help! I’ve got to stay perfectly calm.’

‘Okay, Selby,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Do you know how to talk?’

‘I didn’t hear that. I didn’t hear that,’ Selby thought, feeling his cheeks turning pink. ‘I didn’t hear him ask if I can talk. Now I’ve
actually said it to myself! How can I keep from feeling anything?! I’ve been keeping it a secret all these years! It’s just bursting to get out!’

Dr Trifle was just about to turn the adjustment screws on the Truth-ometer dials when three of the needles flickered.

‘Did you see that?!’ Dr Trifle said. ‘He understood me!’

‘He can’t have,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Try it again.’

Dr and Mrs Trifle bent down and looked Selby in the eyes.

‘I can’t stand it!’ Selby screamed in his brain. ‘They’re staring at me! It’s bad enough with the Truth-ometer but I can’t lie to them when they’re looking at me like this!’

‘Okay, Selby,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Do you know how to talk? Do you?!’

Suddenly the needles on the Truth-ometer dials shot up.

‘I do believe you’re right!’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘He had feelings when I asked that question! If he had feelings then he must have understood me. Selby can understand English!’

‘They’ve found me out,’ Selby thought. ‘Now I just
have
to confess.’

Selby was about to say, ‘Okay, I know how to talk but please don’t tell anyone else,’ when suddenly Dr Trifle said to Mrs Trifle, ‘Let me try this on you again just to be sure.’

Dr Trifle tugged the wires out of Selby’s paws and handed them to Mrs Trifle.

‘Now remember not to say anything,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘You look very young, young lady. Are you twenty years old?’

Mrs Trifle tried not to smile.

‘Well, that part works. The Blush Indicator went way up into the red zone so the Truth-ometer knows that you’re a lot older than twenty,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Now for your real age. Of course I know the answer but I’ll pretend that I don’t. Mrs Trifle,’ he said in his best police inspector’s voice, ‘are you forty-four years old?’

Mrs Trifle’s face twitched slightly and then her mouth turned down.

‘Something’s wrong?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘The Stroppiness Indicator is up to a hundred Huffs!’

Mrs Trifle threw down the wires.

‘What’s wrong, dear?’ Dr Trifle asked.

‘What do you think is wrong? Why don’t you look at the calendar for once!’ Mrs Trifle said as she stormed off to the bedroom.

Dr Trifle glanced at the calendar.

‘Oh, no!’ Dr Trifle said, hurrying into the bedroom after his wife.

‘What’s going on?’ Selby said, looking at the calendar. There, on that day’s date, someone had drawn a big, pink smiley face.

‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s her birthday! She’s not forty-four — she’s forty-five today and Dr Trifle forgot it again. No wonder the Truth-ometer went crazy! Hmmm, where’s the battery in this thing?’

Selby whipped the battery out and snapped it in the other way round just as Dr and Mrs Trifle returned to the loungeroom.

‘I thought you were going to remember this time,’ Mrs Trifle sniffed. ‘I dropped so many hints about those shoes I wanted.’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Let’s go and buy them right now.’

‘All right. I’m sorry I got so upset,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But, hang on. Are you listening to this, Selby? Come on, put the wires back in his paws
and let’s find out once and for all if he understands us.’

Dr Trifle placed the wires between Selby’s toes.

‘Right,’ he said, staring at the dials on the Truth-ometer. ‘Do you know how to talk?’

Selby watched as the dials on the machine went in every direction.

‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘We’re getting mega Smirks on the Embarrassment Indicator and Shivers by the dozen and Gigs and Squirms and even Huffs. The machine’s gone haywire! He’s lying and telling the truth at the same time. It doesn’t make sense,’ Dr Trifle said, throwing it in the wastepaper basket. ‘Oh well, come along dear. Let’s forget this nonsense and buy those shoes.’

‘What a good idea,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘and I think there may just be a matching handbag too.’

‘Oh me, oh my, oh me,’ Selby thought as the Trifles’ car drove off. ‘That was a close one. I just hope he doesn’t get any ideas again about learning the truth.’

Today I thought a brilliant thought
The sort of thought a genius ought
To think. But it was me instead,
Who’d caught this thought within my head.

Just how it was it came to be
That such a thought had chosen me
I really wouldn’t have a clue
It was a bolt straight from the blue.

I couldn’t wait to blab it out
I’d whisper it, I’d yell, I’d shout.
Of course they’d be surprised to see
A talking thinking dog - like me.

They’d say, ‘Did you hear what he said?’
“Why goodness me!’ and ‘Strike me dead!’ ‘
That thought makes thinking obsolete!’
And then they’d bow and kiss my feet.

They’d quote my brilliant thought a lot
The phones would all be running hot
Teachers would be specially taught
To teach my extra-special thought.

The thought had knocked me upside down
I scratched the words upon the ground.
But then it rained, to my dismay,
And washed my brilliant thought away.

But still I kept it in my head
Hanging from a slender thread.
I knew that any thought you think
Can disappear within a blink.

I shouted it, I spoke, I said,
My thought - to keep it in my head.
I did this on and on and on
But then I sneezed - and it was gone!

It wafted off into the air
Right now it could be anywhere.
Today I thought a brilliant thought
But now, alas, my thought’s forgot.

Selby was very careful about most things. So making a major slip-up, like talking out loud and in plain English in public, was very unusual. But the shock of looking into a pet shop and seeing himself in a cage had been too much.

‘That’s me!’ he cried. ‘It’s my spitting image! A perfect copy! Oh, no,
I’ve been cloned!’
Selby had a closer look at the dog in the cage. ‘Well I guess he doesn’t look exactly like me,’ he said. ‘He has a little white spot on his chest. But he certainly looks similar.’ ‘I beg your pardon?’

Selby wheeled around to see Kitty Littaire, the owner of Mutts & Moggies, standing behind him on the footpath.

‘You just talked,’ she said. ‘I heard you.’

‘Crumbs,’ Selby thought. ‘She heard me! I’d better stay absolutely quiet. If I do it long enough she’ll just think she was hearing things.’

‘Don’t think you can fool me,’ Kitty said. ‘I know that I heard what I heard. And
you
are coming with
me!’

Selby struggled against the woman’s steely grip but it was no use. The hands that had grappled with some of the roughest pets in the world soon had Selby locked in a cage with the dog that looked like him. The dog was so happy that he began licking Selby’s face.

Kitty Littaire quickly locked the pet shop door, turned the sign to ‘Closed’ and drew the curtains.

‘Goodness, you certainly do look like Bubbles here — except for the white spot, that is,’ Kitty — who had a very keen eye for pet differences — said. ‘Now why don’t you and I have a little conversation?’

‘Not on your life,’ Selby thought.

‘I know you!’ Kitty said. ‘You’re the mayor’s dog! You’re Selby, aren’t you?’

‘Maybe I am and maybe I’m not,’ Selby thought.

The pet shop owner paced the floor for a moment.

‘You don’t really understand me, do you Selby?’

‘ ? ‘

‘And right now I know you hate me.’

‘!’

‘Well let me explain about pet shop owners,’ she said. ‘You think that we just sell puppies and kittens and goldfish. Of course we do. And we all love animals. But none of us wants to spend the rest of our lives selling little packs of fish food and birdseed and guinea pig pellets. No, not us. We are all waiting for that very special pet to come along, the one that will make us fabulously rich. It could be a two-headed cobra. Or it may be a rat that can learn to play
Jingle Bells
on a set of tiny bells. Or, Selby, it could even be a talking dog —
the only talking dog in Australia!
Maybe even in the whole world.’

‘I’ll ignore her,’ Selby thought. ‘Sooner or later she’ll have to let me go.’

‘All my life I’ve been looking for something like you and now I’ve got you!’ the woman said. ‘Now I
own
you and your life has changed
forever. So it’s no good playing Mister I-Don’t-Know-What-You’re-Talking-About because
you
do!’

‘Oh please,’ Selby thought.

‘I’ll bet that the Trifles don’t know you can talk,’ Kitty continued. ‘Only you and I know that you can talk. But you’re never going back to them anyway. You have just officially disappeared. Now are you going to talk? You will when you’re hungry.’

Kitty Littaire got out her mobile phone and dialled.

‘Countess? It’s me, Kitty Littaire. Remember me? I have found the perfect pet for you. How would you like a talking dog to add to your collection … Of course, I’m serious! He speaks perfect English. He would make the perfect companion for you there in your castle. But he’s going to cost you a great deal of money. Okay, I’ll hold him but you’d better get here quickly because I know a lot of other people who’d like him.’