Selby Supersnoop (5 page)

‘Look at this! An old map of an island!’ Dr Trifle exclaimed.

Selby looked up from where he was lying to see Dr Trifle pull a piece of crumbly paper from the chair he was fixing.

‘Are you sure, dear?’ Mrs Trifle asked.

‘Well, I know a map when I see one. Hmmm, where did we get this chair?’

‘It’s been in the family for years. It once belonged to my great, great, great, great, great, great-grandmother,’ Mrs Trifle said, wondering if she’d said the right number of ‘greats'. ‘Peggy
Prescott was her name. She was an actor from Perth.’

‘You don’t mean Pegleg Peggy from Perth, do you?’

‘Have you heard of her?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Your great, great, great, great, great, great, whatever-she-was was very famous.’

‘I have lots of famous ancestors,’ Mrs Trifle said proudly.

‘But she wasn’t famous for being an actor,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘She was famous for being a pirate.’

‘It’s only a rumour.’ Mrs Trifle blushed a little blush. ‘There’s no proof of it.’

‘So maybe this map was hers,’ Dr Trifle said.

Selby suddenly remembered the story he’d read about Pegleg Peggy, the pirate from Perth. She was such a terrible actor that finally they booed her off the stage and she went to sea and became a pirate. For years, she and her terrible crew of cut-throats looted ships all around the South Seas, stealing jewellery.

‘They say she used to capture other actors,’ Mrs Trifle explained. ‘She’d take them back to
her secret island and make them act in plays with her. Of course she always made herself the star.’

Dr Trifle and Mrs Trifle put the map on the floor and studied it as Selby secretly peered over their shoulders.

‘I do believe it’s a treasure map,’ Dr Trifle said.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, it has all these directions that say things like, “Turn right at the big rock and walk ten paces and then turn left". Besides, it says “Treasure Map” here in the corner.’

‘So it does,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Do you suppose there’s actual real live treasure buried on this island?’

‘Well, you never know.’

‘Treasure!’ Selby thought as visions of trunks filled with jewellery flooded his brain. ‘That would be great! We could be rich, rich, rich! Oh, how I’d love to be rich! How I love treasure!’

‘The island doesn’t have a name,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘It could be anywhere in the world. What good is a treasure map if you can’t find the island in the first place?’

Suddenly Dr Trifle remembered the Island Finder program in his computer. He dashed into the study and scanned the map into the computer. After a couple of bings and a pip and a boop, the answer came up on the screen.

‘It’s a tiny little island on the Barrier Reef called Traffic Island next to another island called Refuge Island,’ he said. ‘Traffic Island, hmmm. There are no roads or people on it, so how can there be traffic? Very strange.’

‘I say we head for the Barrier Reef this weekend,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘and do some digging. It’ll be a good little adventure.’

The next day the Trifles caught a flight to an airport near the Barrier Reef. Selby was stuck in a tiny cage in the cargo section but, for once, he didn’t mind.

‘Rich, rich, rich! We’re about to be filthy rich,’ he squealed. ‘I don’t care if they’ve crammed me in this horrible box because soon they’ll be buying me emerald-studded collars and gold and silver flea combs. I’ll be the richest pet in the world! We’ll live in a mansion with lots and lots of servants. And finally I’ll be able to
tell the Trifles my secret! It won’t matter because they’ll have so many servants that they won’t have to put me to work! And I’ll be able to sit in a normal aeroplane seat — a normal first class seat, of course.’

And so it was that the Trifles and Selby found themselves waiting on a pier at a place called Information Bay. In a few minutes a boat pulled in captained by none other than Captain Slick Slipway, the near-sighted former bus driver.

‘Oh, not him again,’ Selby thought. ‘This guy is such a pain.’

‘The bus is leaving in two minutes. Watch your step,’ Captain Slipway said as the Trifles climbed on board the captain’s very bus-like boat, the Golden Dddrum. ‘Move to the rear, please.’

‘We’re going to Traffic Island,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Do you know where it is?’

‘Know where it is?’ the captain cried, pulling the cord that went ding ding as he pulled away from the pier. ‘When I gave up driving the number 275 bus and took to the sea, that sandy little blob didn’t even have a name. I’m the one
who named it Traffic Island. And I named the one next to it Refuge Island.’

‘I thought it was a very bus driver kind of name,’ Mrs Trifle said.

Two hours later, the Golden Doldrum was passing Traffic Island when Mrs Trifle suddenly cried, ‘Hey! This is our stop.’

‘You didn’t ding the dinger,’ the captain said as he pulled up to the beach. ‘I’m not a mind-reader, you know.’

Selby and the Trifles scrambled ashore. By the time the boat disappeared into the distance, Dr and Mrs Trifle were standing next to the big rock and beginning to walk sixteen paces to the right, ten paces straight ahead, and then eight paces to the left.

‘X marks the spot!’ Mrs Trifle cried, plunging her shovel into the sand. ‘Buried treasure, here we come!’

Selby sat back against a coconut palm having a daydream about buried treasure. In it Selby and the Trifles were dancing on the beach, throwing fistfuls of treasure into the air.

‘Why do people always throw treasure up in the air instead of putting it in their pockets?’ he
wondered. ‘They must get so excited they just can’t help themselves.’

For the next hour Dr and Mrs Trifle dug the hole deeper and deeper and wider and wider and longer and longer, until it was big enough to bury the number 275 bus and the Golden Doldrum.

As the day wore on, Selby’s visions of treasure began to disappear and he lay on the beach knowing that he’d now have to keep his secret forever.

‘I give up,’ Mrs Trifle said finally. ‘I don’t think there ever was any treasure. Let’s go back to the mainland.’

‘The bus — I mean, the boat — isn’t due till tomorrow morning,’ Dr Trifle said, looking at the schedule. ‘We’ll have to camp here for the night.’

That night Selby curled up next to the campfire as the Trifles lay in their sleeping bags.

‘Life is so cruel,’ he thought. ‘I was just about to be a free dog — a free rich dog — and now I never will be. Oh, woe woe woe.’

‘I suspect that my great, great, great, great,
great, great-grandmother wasn’t a pirate after all,’ Mrs Trifle said.

‘It’s true that actors are very impractical and unreliable people,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘They don’t even know their left from their right. Pegleg Peggy might have even made up this whole treasure business.’

‘He’s right,’ Selby thought. ‘Actors don’t know their left from their right.’

Selby remembered a play rehearsal he’d seen. Every time the director told the actors to turn to the right, they turned to the left. And every time the director said, ‘Go left,’ they went to the right.

Selby thought for a minute and then thought for another minute. By the time a third thinking minute came around, he’d jumped to his feet.

‘But hold the show!’ he thought. ‘Stage left and stage right are just the opposite to audience left and audience right. When actors go to the left, they go to the audience’s right. Maybe that’s why Peggy’s directions are wrong — they’re all backwards!’

Selby waited until the Trifles were snoring quietly and then slipped the map out of the
picnic basket along with a torch. In a second he was standing by the big rock.

‘Let’s see, now,’ he said. ‘First I take sixteen paces to the right — I mean to the left — then ten paces straight ahead, and then eight paces to the right.’

Selby stood on his hind legs and stretched out each step to make it a human-size step instead of a dog step. In a minute he’d arrived at the spot and was digging furiously. In another minute he’d hit something hard with his paws. He took a deep breath and blew the sand aside — and there it was.

‘A treasure chest!’ he cried. ‘This is it! The lost treasure of Pegleg Peggy, the pirate from Perth! Oh, joyful day!’

Selby lifted the top of the chest and pointed his torch inside. A blinding sparkle and twinkle and glitter shone back at him.

‘The treasure!’ he said. ‘I’ve found it! It was true after all! I’m a free dog now! I can’t wait to talk to the Trifles and tell them everything!’

Selby grabbed a pawful of jewellery and threw it into the air without knowing why he was doing it. Then he draped a dozen necklaces
around his neck and pushed rings on every toe and even put bracelets up and down his legs.

‘Wow, look at this!’ Selby gasped as he pulled a jewel-covered crown from the bottom of the pile and put it on his head. ‘My very own personal crown! King Selby!’

Selby stood on his hind legs and walked slowly back to the campfire, dropping rings and bracelets everywhere as he went.

‘I can’t wait to tell the Trifles. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!’

Selby paced back and forth by the fire and then stood in the shadows clearing his throat.

‘Ahem,’ he cleared. ‘Aaaaaheeeeem!’

Mrs Trifle’s eyes opened and she spotted a necklace and two rings lying in the sand beside her. She reached out and picked them up.

Selby stood nearby smiling a sideways smile and wondering when she’d notice him.

‘Darling, wake up!’ Mrs Trifle cried, shaking her sleeping husband. ‘Look what I’ve found!’

Dr Trifle woke up slowly and looked at the jewellery.

‘I do believe some actors must have camped here,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Look at this jewellery — it’s the kind they use in plays.’

‘Why, yes,’ Dr Trifle said, turning a ring around in his fingers. ‘It looks real but it’s all fake — completely worthless.’ Dr Trifle gave a big laugh. ‘Think of it,’ he laughed. ‘We came to find buried treasure and all we found was costume jewellery!’

Suddenly Mrs Trifle looked over to where Selby stood.

‘Goodness me,’ she said, rubbing her eyes. ‘Did you see what I saw?’

‘All I saw was a blur.’

‘Me too.’

‘Some animal must have dashed into those bushes over there.’

‘And that noise,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘It sounds like something digging.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Dr Trifle said with a yawn. ‘Go back to sleep. It’s probably only a possum.’

‘That Pegleg Peggy was not only a hopeless actor,’ Selby thought as he threw the phoney crown and the rest of the rings and bracelets back in the chest and started filling in the hole. ‘She was a hopeless pirate too! What an idiot! Just my luck that all she ever stole was fake costume jewellery!’

‘Bogusville is in the middle of a crime wave,’ Mrs Trifle said to Dr Trifle who was patting Selby, ‘and since I’m the mayor, I’ve called a meeting so we can talk about what to do. You have to come too.’

‘A crime wave,’ Selby thought. ‘That’s really creepy. It makes tingles go up my spine.’

‘But I was going to wash the car this evening,’ Dr Trifle said.

‘That’s all taken care of,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Vivian is coming to take the car to the car wash while we’re out at the meeting.’

‘How will Vivian get the car to the car wash?’

‘Drive it. What did you think? The keys are in it and it’s parked out on the street.’

‘You left the keys in the car in the middle of a crime wave? Is that wise?’

‘It’ll be okay,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘No one’s ever stolen a car here in Bunya-Bunya Crescent.’

‘Well, all right,’ said the doctor. ‘But who is this Vivian person?’

‘Vivian Hanshaw, the car mechanic,’ Mrs Trifle explained.

Dr Trifle looked closely at Selby’s fur as he patted him.

‘The car isn’t the only thing that needs a wash,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Selby’s fur is all flat and dull. I’ll have to give him a bath this weekend.’

‘Good idea,’ said Mrs Trifle. ‘I hate it when his fur gets all matted down and horrible.’

As soon as the Trifles were out of the house, Selby — who had just been reading the chapter in The Art of the Private Investigator about car theft — began to worry.