by Duncan Ball
Selby was about to turn and run when suddenly he saw Mrs Trifle and Aunt Jetty coming down the path behind him.
‘Out of my way!’ he screamed into the room full of shocked faces and ran into the house and into a back bedroom. There his foot hit something and he fell flat on his face.
‘Willy’s teddy bear! Just my luck I’d trip over the flamin’ thing! Okay, if that brat wants it back, he’s going to get it back. But I don’t think he’s going to be very happy.’
In a second he was up and struggling to open the back window.
‘What’s going on here?!’ he heard Mrs Trifle ask from the other room. ‘You weren’t supposed to turn the lights on till we got here. Now it’s not a surprise.’
‘B-B-But there was this dog!’ someone said. ‘And he talked!’
‘Talked? What do you mean, talked?’
‘Like talk talked. He opened his mouth and words came out! Honest!’ another voice said.
‘What did this talking dog look like?’ Mrs Trifle asked as Selby still struggled with the stuck window in the bedroom.
‘He looked like your dog, Mayor Trifle. But he couldn’t have been because he was dark brown! He’s in the bedroom. Have a look for yourself!’
Selby heard the sound of running feet but before they came into the room, the window finally flew open. He hit the ground running and in a second was over the back fence and heading for home.
‘Brown? Why did they think I was dark brown?’ Selby thought. ‘Oh, I get it — it’s the mud! I’m covered in mud! Thank goodness for that!’
Selby washed himself with the garden hose before sneaking back into the Trifles’ house through the hole in the back of the garage. There, waiting for him, was Willy, wearing green pyjamas and a great wide gleeful grin.
‘They caught you, didn’t they, you poop-head? !’Willy squealed.
‘Almost, Willy,’ Selby said, dropping the teddy bear at his feet. ‘But not quite. Better luck next time, you little scoundrel.’
Willy looked down at the teddy bear.
‘Look what you did to Teddy!’ he screamed.
‘Oh, so his name isn’t Selby, after all.’
‘He’s all chewed! You did that on purpose!’
‘Oh did I?’ Selby said, clutching the bear in his paws and then ripping its head off with his teeth. ‘I’m sooooo sorry.’
‘Why you stupy–stinky–poopy dog!’ Willy bawled, grabbing Selby by the throat and shaking him violently.
Just then Dr Trifle barged though the door and stood watching in horror.
‘What do you think you’re doing?!’ Dr Trifle demanded, pulling Willy away from Selby. ‘I warned you not to use that sort of language and not to lay a hand on Selby! Now I’m going to lay a hand on you!’
‘He talks!’Willy cried. ‘He knows how to talk. Honest, he does!’
Selby looked up innocently as Dr Trifle put Willy across his knee.
It was a calm and collected Selby who slunk silently away to get a good night’s sleep. Soon he could hear the soothing sound of Willy’s screams as Dr Trifle beat time on his bottom.
‘There are times when I really do feel sorry for that brat,’ Selby yawned. ‘But I don’t think this is one of them.’
SELBY HOUSE BOUND
‘Selby, fetch!’ Dr Trifle called, throwing a stick. ‘Come on, boy, bring it back to me.’
‘He’s got to be joking,’ Selby thought. ‘My stick-chasing days are over. It’s sooooo dumb. He throws the stick and I bring it back. Then he throws it again and I bring it back again. It’s just not something for a thinking, feeling, reading and writing dog like me to be doing.’
‘What’s wrong with Selby?’ Dr Trifle asked, throwing another stick onto a growing pile of sticks. ‘He used to fetch sticks but he doesn’t anymore.’
‘I used to do it to make him feel happy,’ Selby thought. ‘But now it bores me out of my brain.’
‘Maybe he’s forgotten what to do,’ Mrs Trifle said.
‘Is that possible?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Do you suppose he’s just getting old and his memory is going?’
‘With Selby, anything is possible. But never mind. We have something else we have to do: we’re going to buy a house.’
‘Buy a house? But we already have a house.’
‘We have a little house. This is a nice big house.’
‘I never knew that you wanted to live in a bigger house.’
‘Yes, one that doesn’t have lots of other houses all around it — where it’ll be peaceful and quiet.’
‘And you’ve actually found a house like that?’ Dr Trifle said, throwing another stick onto the pile.
‘Yes, it’s right out in the country. It’s where that old mine used to be, in Slaghaven Heights. I rang the real-estate agent and she’ll be meeting us at the house shortly.’
‘Well I suppose it can’t do any harm to have a look at it,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘What’s wrong with staying here?’ Selby thought. ‘I love this house. I hope Mrs Trifle isn’t serious about moving.’
Twenty minutes later Elvira Poshbody, the real-estate agent, met the Trifles and Selby in front of the empty house. It had just begun to rain.
‘This is the most fabulous house,’ Mrs Poshbody said. ‘I just know you’re going to love it.’
‘It looks okay,’ thought Selby, ‘but that’s not the point: living way out here would give me the creeps. Besides, I like where we live now. It’s only a short walk to town. I could never get to town from here unless someone drove me. I hope it’s horrible inside.’
‘Do show us through it,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘It does look quite stunning.’
‘Yes, I’m impressed too,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘That’s the last thing I wanted to hear,’ Selby thought. ‘Maybe there’s some way that I can put them off it. I’ll have to think of something.’
When Mrs Poshbody opened the door, Selby went ahead of them through the first room and into the next room.
‘Bad luck: the house looks okay,’ he thought. ‘Maybe I could do something to make it look not so okay…’
Selby suddenly spied a pencil lying on the floor.
‘I’ll try the old cracked walls trick,’ he thought. ‘That’ll give them something to think about.’
Selby drew some jagged lines on the wall and then quickly dropped the pencil again as the real-estate agent led the Trifles into the room.
‘Look at this magnificent dining-room,’ the woman said. ‘Can’t you just see yourself and ten of your closest friends sitting here on a warm summer’s day eating and talking?’
‘It is nice,’ said Mrs Trifle. ‘But tell me this: is the house sinking?’
‘Sinking? Goodness no. These foundations are as solid as old cheese.’
‘Then why are there cracks in the walls?’ Mrs Trifle asked. ‘I think the foundations must be breaking up or sinking — or both.’
‘Good point,’ Dr Trifle added. ‘We wouldn’t want to buy a house that had problems like that.’
‘Very strange,’ Mrs Poshbody said as she looked closely at the walls. ‘Goodness me! Look! They aren’t cracks at all. They’re only pencil lines made to look like cracks. Someone’s been scribbling on the walls.’
‘Why so they have,’ Dr Trifle laughed. ‘Isn’t that strange?’
‘Crumbs,’ Selby thought. ‘I guess I’ll have to do better than that.’
Selby raced around through another room and into the kitchen ahead of the group.
‘Hmmm, it’s raining now,’ he thought. ‘What a good time for the old leaky roof trick. Maybe they won’t want to buy the house if the roof leaks.’
With this he quietly got some water from the sink and poured a big puddle on the floor.
‘Now I’d better hide,’ Selby thought as he climbed into the cupboard under the sink, ‘or they’ll think it’s a Selby puddle and not a leaking roof puddle.’
Just as Selby closed the cupboard door Mrs Poshbody led the Trifles into the kitchen
.
‘And here is your dream kitchen,’ the woman said. ‘Just think of the fabulous meals you’ll be able to make here. Good food makes a happy home.’
‘It’s very nice,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But tell me something: does the roof leak?’
‘Roof? Leak? Impossible!’ Mrs Poshbody exclaimed, waving her hands in the air. ‘Why this house has the tightest, driest roof in the whole of Slaghaven Heights.’
‘Then how do you explain this puddle?’ Mrs Trifle said, pointing.
‘Oh, that !I-I-I …’ Mrs Poshbody said, suddenly at a loss for words. ‘I spilled a glass of water just before you arrived, that’s what I did. And I didn’t have time to wipe it up.’
‘Hang on a tick!’ Selby thought. ‘She didn’t spill any water — I did! She’s not telling the truth. Okay, so I was, well, slightly sneaky when I drew those pencil marks and slightly sneaky again when I poured the water on the floor but she doesn’t know that. She must think that the roof really is leaking and now she’s lying to the Trifles!’
‘Well that’s a relief,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘You had me worried for a minute there.’
‘What’s the plumbing like?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Of course it’s an old house, as you can see,’ Mrs Poshbody said, ‘but the plumbing is all brand spanking new.’
‘Brand spanking nothing,’ Selby said, looking at the pipes next to his head. ‘These pipes are so old that only the rust is holding them together. There she goes, lying again! No more Mr Nice Dog. No more Mr Slightly-Sneaky Dog either. Now she’s going to learn what a down-and-dirty dog can do!’
‘Have a look how beautifully the water flows out of these lovely taps,’ Mrs Poshbody said, reaching to turn on the water.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Selby thought.
The moment he heard the agent turn the water on, Selby began banging a pot against a water pipe.
‘What’s that?’ Dr Trifle asked. ‘The plumbing must be wonky if it makes that banging noise every time you turn on the taps.’
‘Banging noise?’ Mrs Poshbody asked, quickly turning off the water. Selby stopped banging. ‘What banging noise?’ the woman added.
She turned the water on again and this time Selby banged even harder.
‘That banging noise,’ Mrs Trifle said.
‘Oh, that banging noise. That’s — well — that’s —’
‘Wonky plumbing,’ Mrs Trifle cut in.
‘No, no, it’s the latest thing in plumbing. It’s a special feature that makes sure you don’t leave the water running by mistake. That’s what it is. Yes. You see, the banging reminds you to turn it off.’
‘What a clever invention,’ said Dr Trifle. ‘I wish I’d thought of it first.’
‘Crumbs,’ Selby thought. ‘The problem with the Trifles is that they’re too trusting. They’re so honest that they think that everyone else is honest too. I’ve got to protect them from this awful woman! This calls for the old faulty wiring trick.’
From where Selby was hiding no one could see the paw that reached up and switched the lights quickly off and on.
‘Goodness!’ Dr Trifle said. ‘There’s something wrong with the wiring.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ the woman said.
‘The wiring,’ Mrs Trifle sighed. ‘There must be a short-circuit somewhere which is making the lights flicker. Why the whole house could catch fire.’
‘No, no, that’s not true. This house could never burn down,’ the real-estate agent said. ‘That flickering is a new service from the electricity company.’
‘A new service?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Who would want their lights flickering all day?’
‘It doesn’t happen every day. They do it to tell you when it’s time to pay the bill. You just phone them and they tell you how much you owe. That way they don’t have to send you a notice or anything. It saves time and it saves postage and think of all the trees they don’t have to cut down to make paper to print all those electricity bills. It is very good for the environment.’
‘Another brilliant idea,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘There are people out there thinking all the time.’
‘Now follow me, there’s lots more to see,’ the real-estate agent said, leading the Trifles out of the kitchen.
‘Well, the cracks trick and the puddle trick and the noisy pipes and faulty wiring tricks didn’t work — at least this cunning little dog still has one last card up his sleeve,’ Selby thought as he crept up the back stairs and then climbed through the hole that went into the roof. ‘I saw a program on TV recently about rats getting into roofs. I’ll give them the old rats in the roof trick.’
With this he scampered lightly back and forth across the ceiling.
‘Bush rats!’ he heard Dr Trifle say. ‘The roof is full of rats! There could be hundreds of them. I saw a program on TV recently about rats getting into roofs. They’re lovely little creatures but when they make nests in your house, they can do terrible damage. And they’re so hard to get rid of. No matter what you do they just keep coming back.’
‘They’re not rats,’ the real-estate agent said. ‘What you hear is the gentle sound of gumnuts bumping together in the breeze in that beautiful old gum tree just outside the window.’
‘Bumping gumnuts?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Well that’s no problem. In fact I kind of like the sound of that.’
‘Me too,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I think I’m going to like living close to nature.’
‘I give up,’ Selby thought as he crept back downstairs. ‘That woman is too smart for me. I guess I’ll just have to get used to living way out here. Oh, well.’
Selby sighed a deep sigh and sat down next to the Trifles.
‘Now if you’ll just sign the contract, the house will be yours,’ the woman said.
‘Do you mean you want us to buy the house right now?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Why yes.’
‘But this is all so sudden,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Could we just think it over for a few days?’
‘Think it over? Are you kidding? Do you realise that there are sixteen other people waiting to get their hands on this prime piece of property?’
‘Sixteen? Really?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Well at least twelve. Six of them wanted to sign the contract this morning but I said no — I’m giving the Trifles the first go at it,’ the woman said. ‘And do you know why I’m doing this for you?’
‘No, why?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
Mrs Poshbody put her hand on Mrs Trifle’s arm and then smiled warmly.
‘Because I like you,’ she said. ‘I like you both enormously. You’re such wonderful lovely people.’
‘Really?’ Mrs Trifle said with a blush. ‘Oh, well, I guess we’ve decided to buy the house, haven’t we, dear?’
‘Yes, I think we have,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘Oh, that woman is a smarmy charmy little liar!’ Selby thought. ‘She’s just saying that to get the trusting Trifles to buy the house before they have a chance to think it over.’
Seconds later the contract was signed.
‘You are now the proud owners of the best house in Tipperary Road, Slaghaven Heights,’ the real-estate agent said. ‘In fact it’s the only house in Tipperary Road.’
‘Tipperary Road?’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Where have I heard that name before?’
‘Tipperary,’ Dr Trifle said very slowly. ‘That does sound familiar. Tip — Tip — Tip —’
‘Tip!’ Mrs Trifle cried. ‘That’s it! Tipperary Road is where they’re going to put the new rubbish tip! I completely forgot! It’ll be right next to the house!’
‘Well, yes, but I’m sure it won’t be that bad,’ Mrs Poshbody said with a smile.
‘Why didn’t you warn us? We don’t want to live next to a rubbish tip.’
‘Because you didn’t ask,’ Mrs Poshbody said, rubbing her hands together. ‘Besides, it’ll be so easy to get rid of your rubbish — all you’ll have to do is throw it out the window!’ she added with a laugh.
; ‘We’ve just changed our minds,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘We don’t want to buy the house after all.’
‘Sorry — it’s too late,’ Mrs Poshbody sang, heading for the door with the contract in her hands. ‘You signed the contract so it’s too bad for you — as long as you have the contract you have to buy the house.’
‘This is awful!’ Selby thought. ‘I can’t let this happen to my dear sweet owners, the Trifles. Besides, I don’t want to live next to a tip either!’
‘You cheated us!’ Mrs Trifle cried. ‘You wretch!’
Suddenly something in Selby snapped. Before he knew it, he’d leapt high in the air, snatched the contract from Mrs Poshbody’s hands, and was tearing it to shreds.
‘Give me that, you awful dog!’ the woman screamed. ‘Make him give it to me, Mrs Trifle.’
‘Make him give what to you?’ Mrs Trifle said as Selby dropped what was left of the contract at her feet.
‘Your dog destroyed a legal contract! He could go to jail for that! Now you have to sign another one!’
‘Oh, really?’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘What is this woman talking about?’
‘Contract? Jail?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I have no idea. I think she’s gone gaga.’
‘Well!’ the woman exclaimed.
She turned on her heels, strode out of the house, and drove away.
‘Thank goodness for Selby,’ Mrs Trifle said.
‘Yes,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘It was almost as if he knew what was happening. You don’t suppose he really understands what we’re saying, do you?’
‘Don’t be silly, dear.’
‘Well when he grabbed that contract it did seem like he was trying to protect us from our own mistake.’
‘No, no,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘He must have grabbed the contract because I called that woman a wretch.‘
‘That’s what I mean: he understood what you were saying.’
‘It’s not that — he thought I said fetch. When he heard fetch he grabbed the contract and brought it back to me.’
‘I see!’ said Dr Trifle. ‘And that means that his memory’s come back. I’d better throw some sticks for him before he forgets again.’
