by Duncan Ball
“Mongrel, schmongrel,” Selby thought as he looked at Freddie’s sad little eyes. “She doesn’t treat him like a dog, she treats him like a stuffed toy. Poor little pup.”
“He’s in the peak of condition,” Cousin Wilhemina said, clipping a little fur here and there, and then putting a garland of flowers around his neck. “He’s a real champion, aren’t you sweet-ums?”
“He looks like a barrister’s wig with eyes,” Selby thought. “The dog show judge won’t know whether to give him a prize or pick him up and put him on his head.”
Later, at the dog show, Selby and the Trifles waited next to Cousin Wilhemina as a crowd of dog owners took turns parading their dogs in front of the judge. But all eyes were on Cousin Wilhemina, waiting for a glimpse at Freddington Lavender Lilyblush, who was hidden in his box, to surprise them at the last minute.
When no one was looking, Selby poked his head in the hole in the front of the box and had a good look at Freddie.
“You poor thing,” Selby thought. “You’re not just a piece of fluff to be dragged around from one dog show to the next. You’re a thinking, feeling dog like the rest of us. To Cousin Will you’re nothing but a hairdo on a lead. But I have an idea!” Selby thought, jumping into the box and ripping the garland of flowers from Freddie’s neck.
He grabbed a pair of clippers, flipped the little dog on his back and started shearing him as though he were shearing a sheep.
“Okay, Fred,” Selby said, leaving a patch of hair here and a patch of hair there so Freddie wouldn’t win a prize for the best Mexican Hairless by accident, “we’re going to show Cousin Will that there’s a real dog under that fur.”
Selby took some bottles of dye and coloured the tufts of fur red, green, brown and strawberry pink, as Freddie wagged his tail furiously. And to finish the job he reached outside the box and picked up some crushed paper cups and other pieces of litter, put them on a string and hung them around Freddie’s neck.
“There you go, Freddie,” Selby muttered as he hopped out of the box just in time to hear the judge call Freddie’s name. “A garland of garbage, the perfect touch. Now you’re my kind of dog.”
“Come along, Freddington,” Cousin Wilhemina said, stepping out into the spotlight and expecting Freddie to follow two steps behind as he’d been trained to do, “we’re on.”
There was a sudden hush from the crowd and even the dogs stopped barking for a minute as Freddie leaped out of the box and began prancing around the ring. But the hush turned into a roar of laughter and cheering.
“Good grief!” Cousin Wilhemina shrieked, not quite loud enough for anyone to hear above the noise. “Someone’s plucked my pooch! I’ll scalp the scoundrel!”
Then suddenly the judge’s open mouth clamped shut and a smile crossed his lips. “Amazing!” he cried, looking at Freddie and thinking how his teenage son and daughter looked when they went to the Smash and Grab Video Parlour on Friday nights. “A punk dog! Brilliant! Whoever would have thought of it! I’m going to award Freddington not only Best in Breed and Best in Show but Best New Look Dog of the Show!”
With this, there was a cheer of approval and Cousin Wilhemina began to smile in spite of herself.
“I knew he’d win,” she said to Dr and Mrs Trifle. “Freddie’s a champion and no one can stop a champion. His next show name will be Fred Frenzy.”
Selby just looked at the smiling Freddie.
“She’s right,” he thought, “you just can’t keep a good dog down.”
Raid on Planet Kapon
“Oh, wow!” Selby said, reading the entertainment page of the Bogusville Banner and seeing that the movie Raid on Planet Kapon had finally come to the Bogusville Bijou. “I’ve got to see it! I’ll wait till Dr and Mrs Trifle are asleep and sneak out to the late show.”
Selby waited outside the theatre till the movie was about to begin and then crept in in the dark and found a seat in the back row where no one would notice him. In a minute the film started with a roll of drums and some ping ping ping zip noises and then a crash of cymbals. Across the screen in a great burst of swirling galaxies and exploding stars came the title of the movie:
REVOLT OF THE UNIVERSE
Episode Eight
RAID ON PLANET KAPON
“Fantabulous!” Selby said, hanging his paws over the empty seat in front of him. “I’ve seen all the other movies in the series and this one is supposed to be the best of all of them!”
Then a lot of words came up on the screen, getting bigger as they went, and a deep voice read them out at the same time:
Prince Zak and Princess Su have made their way to Planet Kapon to live in peace after the end of the Third Galactic War. They have the all-powerful Star Web which was given to them by the Mighty Master of the Universe before he died. With the Star Web safely in the hands of the prince and princess the Universe will remain good and nice and its people will be able to do as they please forever. But little do they know, Lord Dar Coarse is gathering together the Forces of the Darkened Light to raid Planet Kapon and steal the Star Web.
“Crikey!” Selby said as another star exploded on the screen. “I thought Lord Dar Coarse was killed when he fell screaming into the sun at the end of the last movie.”
“The time has come to crush Prince Zak and Princess Su,” Lord Dar Coarse said to his evil robot Yor Wun 2. “I don’t want any accidents this time. Do you hear? No accidents! Let’s get going.”
Lord Dar Coarse and his fleet of hundreds of star ships sped through time and space till they reached Planet Kapon. Then, hovering in the darkness above the tiny planet, Lord Dar Coarse pressed a button that said FORCE FIELD and suddenly all the lights in the houses on Planet Kapon went off, including the nightlight in the bubble house where Prince Zak and Princess Su lay sleeping.
Lord Dar Coarse’s star ship drifted silently down to the surface of the planet while the other ships stayed behind.
“Wake up!” Selby said, almost loud enough to be heard above the music. “They’re coming to get the Web!”
Lord Dar Coarse and Yor Wun 2 got out of their ship and stood for a moment in the darkness outside the prince and princess’s house. The villains took out their light sabres and were ready to burst in through the door when suddenly the prince and princess appeared on the top of the bubble above them.
“The force of right! The freedom of might!” Prince Zak yelled (as he always did), and he threw the Star Web — which looked to Selby like the net that Phil Philpot put over his peach tree to keep the birds from eating his peaches, only the Star Web glittered with blue light — over Lord Dar Coarse and Yor Wun 2.
“Great stuff!” Selby said, climbing right up onto the back of the seat to get a better view. “This is so exciting! This is wonderful!”
Just when the prince and princess were escaping from the planet with the Star Web, the movie suddenly stopped and the theatre went completely black except for the manager’s torch.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the manager said, “I regret to say that the power has gone off all over Bogusville. You may wait for a while and see if it comes on again and we can finish the movie, or come to the box office and I’ll give you your money back. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“What a disappointment,” Selby thought as he shot past the ticket office without stopping to get back the money which he hadn’t paid anyway. “I’d better go home. It could be hours till the power comes back on.”
Selby was on his way through the middle of Bogusville when he noticed two dark figures standing in the road. They both held torches with long red cones on their ends.
“I don’t want any accidents this time,” one of the men said in a low voice. “Let’s get going.”
“Crikey!” Selby said, stopping dead in his tracks. “That’s what Lord Dar Coarse said to Yor Wun 2! Oh, no! Look at the light sabres! It’s them! They’ve shut off the power with their force field! I’d better tell the police.”
Selby tore back to the police station to find
Constable Long and Sergeant Short, but the building was empty.
“They’ve captured the cops already!” Selby said. “I’ll have to take matters into my own paws.”
Selby raced to Phil Philpot’s house and pulled the net off the peach tree.
“I don’t have the Star Web so this will have to do,” he said as he ran back to the spot where the two men stood in the road.
Then, holding the net in his mouth, Selby crept up a tree and walked quietly out on a limb that hung over the men.
Suddenly Selby yelled out in plain English: “The forces of right! The freedom of might!” only it sounded more like: “The gorses of gright! The greedom of gite!” with his mouth full of net — and with this he dropped the net down over the two men and jumped after it.
“I’ve got you now, Lord Dar Coarse,” Selby said, winding the net around the two struggling men. “And as for your evil robot, you can kiss him goodbye. He’ll be nothing but nuts and bolts when I’m finished.”
“Hey! Who is that?” the men yelled. “What’s going on?”
Just then the lights of Bogusville went back on, revealing Constable Long and Sergeant short tangled in the net with their traffic torches still glowing. Selby looked at the policemen and backed slowly away thinking of a thousand places he’d rather be at the moment.
“Hey!” yelled Sergeant Short, looking right at Selby. “Isn’t that Mayor Trifle’s dog?”
“Why yes it is,” Constable Long said, pulling the net off them. “He must have been right here when this happened. He probably saw the person who did it.”
“Yeah,” said Sergeant Short. “If only dogs could talk, I think someone would have some serious explaining to do.”
“Gulp,” Selby thought as he dashed back to the Bijou to see the rest of Raid on Planet Kapon. “If the lights had come on two seconds sooner, I’d be the one doing the serious explaining.”
Selby Delivers the Goods
Selby was in a panic. It all started when Mrs Trifle phoned for takeaway food from the Trifles’ favourite restaurant, The Spicy Onion. Whenever Mrs Trifle ordered food from The Spicy Onion she got a special dish of prawns cooked in peanut sauce just for Selby. Always — except this time. Selby had walked into the room while Mrs Trifle was on the phone and heard her say: “Yes, that’s right, the beef thing-a-me and the egg plant whatsit and the zucchini alla what’s-her-name — I’m terrible at those foreign names — yes, that’s the whole order. Thank you.”
“No peanut prawns!” Selby thought as his stomach rumbled with hunger at the idea of them. “What have I done wrong? How can they expect me to survive on a diet of Chunk-O-Gravy Hunks and Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits. I’m a thinking, feeling dog and I need some variety in my diet. Crumbs, you don’t suppose she … hates me? No. She’s such a wonderful person. She couldn’t hate anyone, not even me. I’m sure she just forgot to order the prawns. I’ll fix it up.”
Selby waited till Mrs Trifle had left the study and gently nudged the door closed. He picked up the phone and dialled The Spicy Onion.
“This is Dr Trifle of Bunya-Bunya Crescent,” Selby said, putting on his best imitation of the doctor’s voice. “I’d just like to add a dish of peanut prawns to the order my wife phoned in earlier.”
“Yes sir, of course,” Phil Philpot, the owner and cook of The Spicy Onion said. “Is that all?”
“That’s all,” Selby said. “When do you think you’ll be bringing it around to my house?”
“You want it delivered to your house?” Phil Philpot asked, sounding a bit surprised and a little irritable after all the questioning from the police who had just returned the net from his peach tree.
“Of course,” Selby said, wondering what better place to send the Trifles’ dinner than to the Trifles’ house.
“Okay,” Phil Philpot said. “It’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Thanks,” Selby said, quietly putting down the phone as the Trifles’ footsteps approached.
“Are you ready to go now, dear?” Mrs Trifle asked her husband.
“Yes, almost ready,” the doctor answered. “I just have to find the theatre tickets.”
“To go? Theatre tickets?” Selby wondered as he lay on the carpet watching. “Aren’t they going to eat first?”
Dr Trifle looked through every drawer of the desk twice and then went back for a third look.
“By the way,” he said to Mrs Trifle, “have you organised dinner for the bushfire brigade?”
“I rang The Spicy Onion,” said Mrs Trifle. “It’s going to be delivered to the fire brigade hall. It’s all taken care of.”
A shiver shot up Selby’s spine.
“Cripes,” he thought. “The food wasn’t for us after all! What have I done? I’d better phone The Spicy Onion straight away before they deliver the food here instead of the fire brigade hall.”
For the next twenty minutes Selby watched the phone anxiously but Dr Trifle continued to search his desk for the theatre tickets.
“Oh, here they are,” Dr Trifle said, pulling them out of the book he was reading, The Inventor’s Guide to Fast-Moving Cam Shafts and Water-Driven Floral Clocks, where he’d been using them for a bookmark. “We’d better get going or we’ll be late.”
After the Trifles drove out of the driveway, Selby dashed for the phone only to hear a knock at the door. He peeked out the front window and saw Phil Philpot driving away. When he opened the door he found twenty-one boxes of hot food — plus one box of peanut prawns.
“Crumbs,” Selby said, dashing to the phone only to find that The Spicy Onion was closed for the night. “I’ll have to get the food to the bushfire brigade hall myself — quick!”
So Selby was in a panic. He had a problem: how was he to carry all those boxes of food all the way across Bogusville?
“I know!” he said, remembering the old tea trolley that Dr Trifle had left out to be taken to the tip. “I’ll just put it all on the trolley and push it there.”
It was dark and no one saw Selby pushing the loaded trolley along the footpath that led up Mulga Hill towards the bushfire brigade hall. And if pushing it uphill was hard, holding it back going down the hill was even harder.
“But what am I doing?” Selby suddenly thought, jumping on the trolley. “I’ll just ride it down the hill and I’ll be there in no time.”
The trolley took off like a runaway bowling ball, jumping the kerb and tearing down the middle of the street with Selby hanging onto it, and the food, for dear life.
“Oh, no!” Selby said, looking ahead to the bushfire brigade hall with its front door open and all the fire fighters sitting at a long table having their meeting. “I’ve got to slow this thing down.”
Selby put his hind paws on the ground and dragged them but the trolley only went faster and faster towards the open door.
“This is serious!” Selby thought, trying to stay cool but not succeeding. “This is more than serious — it’s a disaster! Even if I can stop this thing I’m a done dog. They’ll see me. Everyone will know that it was me who phoned The Spicy Onion. Then they’ll know that I can talk! This isn’t a disaster, it’s a catastrophe! I’ve got to think of something fast!”
The hall came closer and closer and Selby suddenly realised that he was about to run down all the fire fighters in Bogusville at one go.
“I’ve got to warn them,” he thought. “What can you say to clear a hall full of fire fighters fast? I’ve got it!”
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” he screamed.
The second they heard the word fire! the fire fighters ran for every door and window in the hall and they didn’t stop till they were sitting safely in Bogusville Creek.
Meanwhile, Selby tore through the empty hall, throwing all the boxes of food onto the long table as he went, and then shot out the back door and straight into a thicket of lantana.
In a few minutes the fire fighters returned, dripping wet, to the hall.
“I didn’t see any fire,” one of them said.
“Neither
did I,” said another. “I didn’t even smell smoke. But look! Phil Philpot’s been in and brought us our dinner. He must have been in and out of here in a flash. That must be the fastest delivery on record.”
That night when the Trifles arrived home they were careful not to wake Selby who was sleeping on the carpet.
“Very strange,” Dr Trifle said. “He’s all scratched. Do you suppose he’s been in a fight?”
“Who, Selby?” said Mrs Trifle. “Selby doesn’t fight. He’s too smart for that. Whatever happened it must have made him happy. Just look at that smile on his face. I haven’t seen him looking so happy since the last time he had takeaway food from The Spicy Onion.”
“Hmmmmm …,” Dr Trifle hmmmmmed thoughtfully, “that’s funny. I could swear I smell peanut prawns.”
Selby’s Beautiful Body
“What are you doing with that bicycle?” Mrs Trifle asked Dr Trifle as she bounded out of the bedroom in her new tracksuit. “No tinkering, now. It’s exercise time.”
“I’m not tinkering, dear,” Dr Trifle said, removing the brakes from the bicycle he was working on in the lounge room. “I’m going to turn this old thing into an exerciser. I’ll make a stand for it so that the back wheel is off the ground. Then I can sit right here and read a book or watch TV and still get plenty of exercise.”
“What a marvellous idea — but you’d better stop now, Slim-Slam is on,” Mrs Trifle said, turning on the television to their favourite TV exercise program, Slim-Slam, and watching as Ronald Ringlets and the Slim-Slam Dancers bounced out on stage, pumping their fists in the air to a pop tune.
