by Duncan Ball
‘This is wonderful!’ he thought. ‘Dr Trifle was absolutely right: music really is the best medicine!’
Paw note: Salsa music is really boppy dance music — and I just love it!
S
SELBY SLUGS AUNT JETTY
Selby had put his mouth down into his bowl and started munching a dog biscuit when suddenly he felt something soft and gooey in his mouth.
‘Soft?’ Selby thought. ‘Gooey? Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits aren’t soft and gooey; they’re hard and dry. Oh, no, it’s that slug again!’ he cried, spitting a mouthful of biscuit and the slug on the floor. ‘I had a slug in my mouth! Oh, yuck yuck yuck! Anyway, I’d better get rid of it before Mrs Trifle sees it because she’s terrified of slugs. She goes into shock when she sees one.’
Selby picked up the slug, which was still very much alive, and tried to throw it out the window but it stuck to his paw. After three goes, it finally came loose and flew through the air, landing in the bushes at the back of the yard.
‘That’s the fourth time this week that slug has got into my bowl. Every time I throw it out the window it comes back. They’re such disgusting creatures,’ Selby thought as he rinsed some of the slug-slime out of his mouth. ‘And there’s something weird about them: they move slowly when you’re watching them and yet they get around so fast. I reckon they sprout legs and run when no one’s looking.’
Selby curled up for an afternoon nap, with the taste of slug still in his mouth.
‘I don’t mind snails,’ he thought, ‘but I hate slugs. They’re so creepy. Hmmm, I feel a snail and slug poem coming on:
‘Oh little snail
So swift, so frail
How I love your silvery trail
But a slug? — Ugh!’
Selby dozed off, still chuckling at his poem. In his sleep he dreamt that the slug had shot straight back into the house and climbed up his tail. A short time later Selby awoke with a shudder.
‘This is awful!’ he thought. ‘I’ve got slugs on the brain. I can’t even sleep without dreaming about them!’
‘Selby, it’s time to go. Come on, get up.’
Selby blinked and then blinked again. Standing over him was Mrs Trifle, wearing an old-fashioned dress, gloves and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Next to her was Dr Trifle in a dark suit with tails, a tall hat and a huge false moustache. For a moment he thought he’d gone back in time.
‘Oh, I forgot: it’s the Bogusville Historical Society Dinner tonight,’ Selby thought. ‘I heard the Trifles say that they were going to take me along with them. Oh, woe, I don’t want to go. It’s going to be dead boring.’
‘Why in the world are you taking old smelly paws to a formal dinner?’
Standing behind the Trifles was Mrs Trifle’s dreadful sister, Aunt Jetty, also dressed in old-fashioned clothes.
‘Oh no, she’s coming too!’ Selby thought. ‘Why can’t they just leave me at home?’
‘Do you mean Selby?’ Mrs Trifle asked her sister.
‘The dog is a living, breathing flea-farm,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘And he smells like a sewer. He’s full of dog germs. Nobody wants to have dinner with a dog. They’ll be throwing up all over the place.’
‘Don’t be cruel,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘The members of the Historical Society specifically asked us to bring him along. They all want to see Selby next to the statue of Bogus. He was the model for the statue, you know, and the statue is going to be put in the park tomorrow.’
‘If you let him near that statue,’ Aunt Jetty said, ‘he’ll probably do his business on it.’
‘Jetty! Don’t be silly,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Now stop complaining and let’s get going.’
‘Do my business,’ Selby thought. ‘I’ll do my business on her in a minute. Why does she always have to be so nasty to me? Boy, how I’d like to tell her just what I think of her. Of course that would mean giving away my secret so I’ll never be able to do it. Oh, well.’
Bogusville Hall was filled with long tables and lots of people in their finest old-fashioned clothes. On the stage was the statue of Bogus. Mrs Trifle sat Selby next to it while people took photographs but, when the meal started, he lay under the head table munching the dog biscuits that Mrs Trifle had brought for him.
‘This is not only boring — it’s torture,’ Selby thought. ‘Here I am eating Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits while everyone else gets to eat scrummy people-food!’
Suddenly Selby sensed something squiggling around on his spine. He turned his head to see but he couldn’t turn far enough to see what it was.
‘It feels like a bug or something,’ he thought, trying not to panic. ‘I hope it’s nothing bitey — like a big spider. I need a mirror so I can see what it is. I know, I’ll just nip into the ladies’ loo. There are always lots of mirrors in ladies’ loos.’
Selby slipped down the hall and found the door marked ‘Ladies'.
‘Good,’ he thought, opening the door a crack before slipping into the loo. ‘I’ve got the place all to myself. If anyone comes in I can just hide in a toilet thingy till they go out again.’
Selby hopped up on a basin and turned around, looking over his shoulder. Sure enough, there was something on his back. He could see a long slippery trail starting at the tip of his tail and ending at the slug in the middle of his back.
‘Crumbs. It’s that sticky little slug again!’ he thought. ‘The flippin’ thing did climb up my tail while I was sleeping!’
Selby worked his paw up behind him and flicked the slug, sending it high into the air and across the room.
‘Good, it’s gone,’ he thought. ‘But I’d better wipe the slime off my back before someone pats me and gets their hand all gooey.’
Selby dashed into a toilet cubicle, hopped up on a toilet, closed the door, and grabbed a pawful of toilet paper.
‘Yucky yuck and double yuck!’ he mumbled as he wiped his tail and back with the paper. ‘Icky sticky gooey goo!’
Suddenly there was a voice from the next cubicle.
‘Are you okay in there?’ the woman asked.
Selby stopped wiping and stood stock still, holding his breath.
‘Crikey! Whoever she is, she heard me talk!’ he thought. ‘And she must be wondering what all that yucky yucking and icky sticky gooing is all about.’
‘I said, are you all right?’ the woman demanded.
‘Yes,’ Selby said, putting on his best woman’s voice. ‘It’s just that I was covered in —’ Selby stopped in mid-sentence, thought again and then said: ‘I mean I’m perfectly all right.’
‘Then could you give me some toilet paper? This one’s out.’
Selby started unrolling some toilet paper to let it fall down where the woman could grab it under the barrier.
‘Hey, what do you think of the mayor bringing her dog to a formal dinner?’ the woman said while she waited.
‘Crikey! It’s Aunt Jetty!’ Selby thought, winding the toilet paper up on the roll again. ‘And she’s right in the next toot! I should have recognised her voice!’
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit off?’ Aunt Jetty added.
‘But he had to be here,’ Selby said in a high voice. ‘He was the model for that lovely statue.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘Now every time I drive by Bogusville Park I’ll have to look at the old flea-bag.’
Selby could feel his blood pressure rising.
‘Flea-bag? What do you mean by that?’ Selby asked. ‘He’s no flea-bag!’
‘Okay, settle down,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘You’re obviously a mutt-lover. Hey, where’s that toilet paper? I thought you were going to give me some.’
‘Get it yourself, you great gangling galumph,’ Selby said, suddenly forgetting to put on his best woman’s voice and sounding like himself again. ‘You are the most pig-headed, nasty and stupid person who has ever walked the streets of this town. So there!’
‘Hang on, who are you? You’re a man, aren’t you?! How dare you come into the ladies’ loo and insult per
fectly innocent, decent ladies — like me. I could have you arrested! What’s your name?!’
‘My name? I’ll tell you my name,’ Selby said as he started to leave. ‘I’m Selby, the only talking dog in Australia and, perhaps, the world, you — you — you slug-brain!’
‘Hey! Come back here! I’m going to find out who you are!’
‘You just did,’ Selby said with a laugh. ‘See ya.’
Selby shot out of the loo, dashed under the table and curled up again feeling delighted with himself.
‘That was great,’ he thought. ‘I finally got to tell her what I thought of her. That was so much fun. I think I’m having a good time after all.’
Soon Selby saw Aunt Jetty’s legs re-appear, next to Mrs Trifle’s.
‘Good gracious,’ Mrs Trifle said to her sister. ‘You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’
‘Worse,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘I’ve just seen a man — in the ladies’ loo.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, and he was very rude to me. He wouldn’t give me any toilet paper.’
‘You asked a man for toilet paper in the ladies’ loo? Are you joking? Who was he? What did he look like?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t actually see him. He was in the next toot.’
‘He was? How can you be sure he was a man if he was in “the next toot”, as you say?’
‘I know what a man sounds like and he definitely sounded like one. I asked him who he was and he said his name was Selby and that he was a talking dog. Very funny: ha ha.’
‘You didn’t just imagine this, did you?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
‘Absolutely not. Cross my heart.’
‘I think you were probably just mistaken,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Some women have quite deep voices, you know.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘Just eat your ice cream before it melts. We can talk about it later.’
Selby was rolling around under the table, killing himself trying not to laugh. Then, suddenly, he saw the slug — making its way up the outside of Aunt Jetty’s dress.
‘Hello,’ Selby thought, ‘there’s that slug again. When I flicked it off me, it must have landed on Aunt Jetty. Oh, goody goody — this is going to be great! Just wait till she sees it! She’ll scream the roof off!’
Selby rubbed his paws together and watched with delight as the slug made its way up above the tabletop. He put his paws over his ears, waiting for the scream that he knew would come the very moment Aunt Jetty saw — or felt — the creature.
Minutes passed and then more minutes.
‘I can’t stand it!’ he thought, panting to catch his breath. ‘It’s like waiting for a bomb to go off! But nothing’s happening. Come on, come on. Hurry up, sluggy wuggy, do your stuff.’
Selby uncovered his ears.
‘This is driving me around the twist! I can’t stand it. I’ve got to see what’s happening.’
Selby crept out from under the table and looked at Aunt Jetty who was sitting down busily talking to Mrs Trifle.
‘I can’t see the slug on her anywhere,’ Selby thought. ‘Where’s it gone?’
Suddenly Selby spied the slug: in the middle of the flower that was pinned to Mrs Trifle’s lapel.
‘Crikey!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s crawled off Aunt Jetty and now it’s on Mrs Trifle. Poor Mrs T will go into shock when she sees it! I’ve got to get it off her! But how?’
Selby’s brain went into top gear.
‘I know, I’ll bump the table underneath so hard that people’s bowls of ice cream will fall over and spill. Then — while Mrs Trifle is distracted — I’ll grab her flower. If I’m quick about it, she won’t notice a thing.’
Then Dr Trifle looked at Mrs Trifle’s flower.
‘He’s obviously seen the slug,’ Selby thought, ‘and he’ll quietly pick it off the flower so she doesn’t notice.’
‘What a pretty flower,’ Dr Trifle said, putting his face down close to it. ‘I wonder if it smells as good as it looks.’
Dr Trifle leaned over and sniffed Mrs Trifle’s flower.
‘Mmmm, that’s lovely,’ he said, drawing back.
‘Bad luck,’ Selby thought. ‘He didn’t notice the slug. But, hang on — where is it? It’s not on her flower anymore. It’s disappeared again!’
But not for long. In a moment Selby saw the slug, clinging to Dr Trifle’s moustache.
‘Oh, no!’ Selby screamed in his brain. ‘It’s dangling down right under his nose. It looks like a greebie that came out of his nose! Everyone’s going to see it in a second! How embarrassing!’
Selby’s mind went into top gear once again. In a flash he’d grabbed the pepper shaker and ducked down under the table again.
‘This should do it,’ Selby thought as he filled his paw with pepper and then blew it up to where Dr Trifle was sitting. ‘That slug won’t be hanging onto his moustache for long.’
Selby saw the doctor’s body shake and quake and shudder. Then there were some ‘Ah ah ah ah’s’ followed by a huge ‘Chooooooooooooooo!’ which nearly sent Dr Trifle sailing out of his chair.
Selby looked up to see Dr Trifle sticking his slugless moustache back on his upper lip.
‘It worked! My plan worked! He sneezed it off. It’s gone forever. Now I can relax,’ Selby sighed. ‘This has been kind of fun after all. It certainly hasn’t been boring. I got to tell Aunt Jetty off and I got rid of that pesky little slug. But now I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to get home and have a good night’s sleep.’
On the way home, Selby was dozing off as he listened to Mrs Trifle and Aunt Jetty.
‘What did you think of the food?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
‘Are you kidding?’ Aunt Jetty replied. ‘The food’s always terrible at these dinners. The best part was the topping on the ice cream.’
‘Topping? What topping? I just had a plain old scoop of ice cream with nothing on it.’
‘You didn’t have a thingy on top?’
‘No. What kind of thingy?’
‘A marshmallowy sort of thingy,’ Aunt Jetty said. ‘It was the tastiest part of the whole meal.’
‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘I think she’s talking about the slug.’
‘What exactly did this marshmallowy thingy taste like?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
‘Well it wasn’t sweet,’ said Aunt Jetty. ‘And it was sort of soft and gooey. It really was out of this world. I could have a whole plate full of them.’
‘I can’t believe it! Aunt Jetty ate the slug!’ Selby thought, trying not to laugh out loud. ‘Oh, this is the perfect ending to a perfect day! I’m so glad the Trifles took me to the dinner. I haven’t had so much fun in years!’
SELBY SNOWBOUND
SELBY’S ULTIMATE ADVENTURE
‘What do you think is the tallest mountain in the world?’ asked the Trifles’ mountaineer friend, Wilfred Crampon, as he paced back and forth in his huge mountaineering boots.
‘Is this a trick question?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Mount Everest, of course. Everyone knows that.’
‘Wrong, wrong and double wrong,’ the mountaineer said. ‘Everyone thinks that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world but it most definitely is not.’
‘Surely it’s been measured, Crampy,’ Dr Trifle said, using Wilfred Crampon’s nickname.
‘Of course it’s been measured. But you can’t tell if a mountain is the tallest by just measuring it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Simple dimple: you not only have to measure it but also every other mountain in the world to see if there’s a higher one,’ the mountaineer explained.
‘Crampy’s got a point,’ Selby thought as he lay on the carpet listening to the conversation and trying to keep his tail out of the way of Crampy’s boots.
‘So you’re saying that there’s a mountain that’s never been measured but that you think is taller than Mount Everest?’ said Mrs Trifle.
‘I kn
ow it is!’
‘But how could the mountain measurers have missed it?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Simp dimp: they never noticed it. You see it’s in the farthest corner of Antarctica. I discovered it three months ago when I was on my One-Man-Across-Antarctica expedition. I was zipping along on my snow-mobile when suddenly bang! There it was smack dab in front of me! For a minute I thought I had a touch of mountain madness.’
‘Mountain madness?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘People who spend a lot of time in freezing cold snowy places sometimes see things that aren’t there. But the mountain definitely was there and I’ve got pictures to prove it.’
‘So then you whipped out one of those measuring telescope things,’ Dr Trifle said excitedly, ‘and measured it and then made trigonometric calculations and — Bob’s your uncle — you found out that it was taller than Mount Everest! Great work, Crampy!’
‘Well… not exactly,’ Crampy Crampon said, scratching his scraggly beard.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Bob wasn’t my uncle. I mean I didn’t have one of those measuring thingies. And, besides, I’m hopeless at trigono-whatsis.’
‘But you’re sure it’s higher than Mount Everest?’
‘I can tell by just looking at it. It’s really really really really really really tall!’ Crampy said, raising his hand up and almost hitting the ceiling. ‘Which is at least one really taller than Mount Everest.’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Mrs Trifle. ‘Just tell everyone about the mountain. Someone is bound to dash down to Antarctica to measure it properly.’
‘Not on your life! They might climb it too. And I want to be the first to climb it.’
‘You want to climb it? ‘Dr Trifle said.
‘Well, I am a mountaineer and it is a mountain. Hey, I’ve got an idea!’ Crampy cried. ‘Let’s all go to Antarctica!’
‘Are you serious?’ Dr and Mrs Trifle said at exactly the same time.
‘Deadly,’ said Crampy. ‘You can make those trigono-whatsis calculations while I climb the mountain. It’ll be the ultimate adventure.’
