by Duncan Ball
‘This guy looks weird,’ Selby thought. ‘But as long as he knows his stuff, who cares what he looks like.’
‘Meesees Trifle?’ he said, with a thick accent. ‘Is zat choo?’ ‘Yes. You’re Mr Toast, I presume?’ ‘I pronounce it Terrrrrst,’ he said, making his mouth into a tiny O when he said it. ‘Not toast. Zat sounds like za bread you burn for breakfast,’ he said taking Mrs Trifle’s hand and kissing it. ‘And who is zeez gentleman?’
‘Mr Terrrrrst,’ Mrs Trifle said, making her mouth into an even tinier O, ‘this is my husband, Dr Trifle.’
‘He makes fencing too, no?’
‘Well, no,’ Dr Trifle said, ‘that’s why we asked you to come.’
Mr Toest looked puzzled.
‘But ve all haff to know a leetle about fencing,’ he said. ‘I cannot teach people who know nussing.’
Now it was Mrs Trifle’s and Dr Trifle’s and even Selby’s turn to look puzzled.
‘We don’t want you to teach us anything,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It eez simple: I am Egon Terrrrrst, fencing master. I come to deez leetle dry town to teach you fencing.’
‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘Fencing is another word for swordfighting! He’s a fencing master! He teaches swordfighting! I put the wrong words in the computer!’
‘Fences, not fencing,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Why would we want to learn swordfighting?’
‘Maybe you want to fence wizz … wizz kangaroos … or zoze wallababy things. You ask me to come, I come — all the way from Austria.’
‘Austria! Oh no!’ Selby thought. ‘I must have typed Austria instead of Australia! He’s come halfway round the world and he’s the wrong person for the job!’
Suddenly Dr Trifle smiled broadly and then burst into laughter.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘What we really wanted —’
‘I don’t care what you wanted. You ask me to come — I come!’ Mr Toest interrupted. ‘You give me money for aeroplane and money for coming.’
‘But, don’t you see?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘It’s all a big mistake.’
‘Zen it is your beeg mistake,’ Mr Toest said taking off a glove and slapping Dr Trifle on both cheeks with it. ‘Take zat!’
Dr Trifle smiled.
‘You’ll have to get used to the flies,’ he said.
‘Fly-uz? Wot fly-uz?! I am not swapping fly-uz. I demand satisfaction!’
‘You demand what?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Oh, no! Dr Trifle doesn’t understand that this dude is challenging him to a duel!’ Selby thought. ‘That glove thing — I saw it in Swordfighters Three’
‘Tomorrow at sunrise over zair,’ Mr Toest said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘For za dool. You shooz weaponz.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘What’s this about shoes?’
‘No, no. You shooz za weaponz zen we dool.’
‘I think he’s challenging you to a duel,’ Mrs Trifle whispered. ‘He’s saying something about choosing weapons.’
‘A duel?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Why?’
‘Because you insult me. You bring me here. You laugh at me. You apologise completely for all ziss stupid thing!’
‘How can I apologise when it’s not my fault?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Zen you die like dog!’
‘But my husband isn’t a duelling sort of man,’ Mrs Trifle explained.
‘Zen he will be a dead sort of man! Tomorrow. When the sun come up. You and me. I bring weaponz. When zere is blood zen the other person win,’ Egon said, striding off.
‘Blood? I’m sure he’s not serious about the duel,’ Dr Trifle said once Egon Toest was gone. ‘No one fights duels anymore. He’s just angry. I’ll meet him tomorrow morning. By then hopefully he will have cooled down. If he hasn’t then maybe I’ll apologise. We’ll work things out.’
‘Hmmm,’ Mrs Trifle hmmmed. ‘I wonder who sent that email.’
‘The Trifles don’t know that this guy really is serious!’ Selby thought. ‘This is all my fault! I’m the one who should be fighting the duel! Oh, woe woe woe.’
That night when the Trifles were asleep, Selby paced around the loungeroom.
‘This is all my fault,’ he thought. ‘I’ve got to find this fencing guy and talk to him. I wonder if he’s staying at the Bogusville Motel. Come to think of it, the only place to stay in town is the Bogusville Motel.’
Selby picked up the telephone and dialled.
‘Hello?’ the voice said.
‘Is this Mr Toest?’
‘Terrrrrst. Yes, it’s me.’
‘This is Dr Trifle,’ Selby said, putting on his best Dr Trifle voice. ‘I’d just like to say that I don’t want to duel tomorrow.’
‘Zen you are big sooky wimpy person!’
Click.
‘He hung up on Dr Trifle! — I mean, me,’ Selby thought. ‘I’ll fix that moustache-mouthed moron!’
Selby ran through dark streets till he got to the Bogusville Motel. He peered in the windows till he found the fencing master sleeping in one of the rooms. On a table were two swords and two sabres.
Selby quietly opened the window and climbed into the room. He gathered up the swords and sabres and climbed out again.
‘When I finish these will be so blunt they won’t even cut butter.’
Outside in the darkness Selby scraped the edges of the sabres on a rock until they were completely dull. Then he pounded the points of the swords on the same rock. When he was finished, he climbed back in the room and put them where he found them.
But just as he was about to leave again, he spied a wooden box and opened it.
‘Duelling pistols! What if Dr Trifle chooses pistols? I know, I’ll take the bullets out,’ he thought. ‘Hang on, if the pistols don’t shoot, old egg-face here will just put some more bullets in them. What’s this? One of them has Egon Toest written on it. That’s Egon’s pistol. I’ll take the bullet out of that one and leave the bullet in the other. Brilliant! I’m so clever I frighten myself.’
Selby took out the bullet. Suddenly Egon stirred and Selby jumped out the window again and ran towards home.
‘That was close!’ he thought. ‘Oh, no! The sun’s coming up! I’d better head for the airport.’
Half an hour later, Selby arrived at the airport and hid in some bushes. Soon Egon Toest climbed out of a taxi and the taxi sped away. In a moment, Dr Trifle got out of his car. He looked at the swords and the pistol box laid out neatly on the ground.
‘You shooz weaponz,’ Egon said. ‘Only if you shooz swords or sabres zen I win easy.’
‘You-you can’t be serious about this duelling,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘No talking!’ the fencing master interrupted. ‘Shooz your weaponz. Or you get down on knees and apologise to me and kiss my hand.’
‘I don’t mind apologising,’ Dr Trifle started, ‘but—’
Dr Trifle looked at the weapons.
‘No, I’m not going to apologise to you, you silly little man!’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I choose pistols!’ he said grabbing a pistol from the pistol box. ‘Prepare to die!’
‘Gosh,’ Selby thought. ‘I’ve never seen Dr Trifle like this. He’s sooooooo brave!’
‘You want to start dool?’ Egon asked.
‘Come on, you coward!’ Dr Trifle said.
‘Coward?! You call me coward?!’ the fencing master said, snatching the other pistol from the box. ‘We stop zeez foolishness only when you are lying bye-bye on the ground!’
The two men stood back to back and started walking as Egon Toest counted.
‘Vahn, do, tree …’
Dr Trifle giggled.
‘Vot is wrong?’
‘It’s just the way you say “one, two, three". It’s … well, it’s funny.’
‘You making funny of Egon?! I count more, four, fife, seex …’
‘It’ll serve that Egon guy right when Dr Trifle shoots him,’ Selby thought. ‘What am I saying? I don’
t want Dr Trifle to shoot anyone!’
‘… sefen, eight, nine, ten!’ Egon said, turning and pointing his pistol at Dr Trifle.
‘Fortunately Dr Trifle is a hopeless shot,’ Selby thought. ‘What am I saying? What if he doesn’t miss?!’
The men stopped, turned and faced each other. Egon pointed his pistol at Dr Trifle. Dr Trifle smiled and pointed his at the fencing master. Suddenly Selby noticed something on the side of the pistol in Dr Trifle’s hand.
‘Oh, no! He took the pistol that has Egon Toest written on it! It’s the one without the bullet! I thought he’d take the other one! Egon’s gun has the bullet in it! He’s going to shoot Dr Trifle! I can’t let this happen!’
Selby leapt out of the bushes and snapped at the fencing master’s hand. The pistol fired up into the air.
‘Selby!’ Dr Trifle cried. ‘What are you doing here?!’
‘You stupid dog!’ Egon cried, grabbing his hand.
‘Now I will apologise,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘This is my dog. He must have followed me here. I’m terribly sorry. Are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ Egon whimpered, rubbing his hand. ‘He just bump into it. Now all is no good.’
‘Shall we do it again?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘No, no. No more dools. I finish wizz dools.’
Dr Trifle smiled.
‘But you were only bluffing anyway, weren’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes. Is only bluff. Is only blanks in pistols. How you know?’
‘Because I could see that the swords and sabres were dull,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘They didn’t look like they would even cut butter.’
‘Yes, I keep zem very dull because zay are for practice,’ the fencing master said.
‘Struth,’ Selby thought. ‘I went to all that trouble to dull some swords that were already dull and to take a blank out of a gun? I can’t believe it!’
The tears were now streaming down Egon’s face.
‘No more teaching. No more looking for students and putting ads on the Internet. Is too stoopid life. Now I go back to Austria and maybe I work with my father again.’
‘What kind of work does he do?’
‘He is builder. He make walls and — how you call —’
‘Fences?’
‘Yes. I work wizz him when I am young.’
‘So you know how to fix fences?’
‘All kinds .Yes. I know everything about fences.’
‘You’re just the man we need,’ Dr Trifle exclaimed. ‘You could fix the council’s fences. We’ll pay you very well.’
‘Really?’ Egon said, breaking into a smile. ‘When I start?’
‘Let’s talk to my wife,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘What a happy coincidence. As I often say, sometimes if you don’t do anything, everything works out okay.’
‘For once,’ Selby thought, ‘Dr Trifle is right.’
Paw note: This is my invention, a question comma (). Look for other question commas and exclamation commas () in this book.
S
ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO SWIM WHEN EVERY OTHER DOG CAN
A SHORT POEM WITH A LONG TITLE
WRITTEN BY ME, SELBY TRIFLE. ONE MORNING
BY THE SWIMMING POOL
IN THE BACKYARD ON A SUMMER’S DAY
WHEN IT WAS VERY VERY EXTREMELY HOT
AND I REALLY WANTED TO GO FOR A DIP!
(BUT OF COURSE I COULDN’T)
I’m not a dog who’s fond of water
I can’t swim - but know I oughta.
All dogs are born programmed to swim
My program crashed – I just can’t win!
SELBY GOD-KING
‘They’re taking me with them on holidays to a tropical island!’ Selby thought. ‘I hate this part but it’ll be worth it when we get there.’
The part Selby hated was being locked in a small cage in the baggage compartment of the aeroplane. The part he was looking forward to was lying on a beach under a palm tree. He’d seen it all in the Trifles’ brochure about the dazzling new resort island of Sunseasia. On the cover was a picture of a man, lying in a beach chair wearing a crown and surrounded by waiters with trays of delicious food. It said, ‘Come to Sunseasia and be treated like a king’.
‘That’s me,’ thought Selby. ‘Just call me King Selby.’
The woman at the check-in counter put a sticker that said ‘Sunseasia’ on Selby’s cage while Dr and Mrs Trifle filled in a label.
‘Excuse me,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘but I’m not sure what to write. I’ve put our address on it and where we’re going but I’m not sure what to put in the blank that wants to know what he is.’
The woman looked in the cage.
‘He looks like a dog to me,’ she said.
‘Yes, I’ve written “dog” but they want to know what kind of dog he is. You see, he’s lots of kinds of dog all rolled into one. He’s not just one breed. Why does the airline need this information?’
‘In case he gets lost,’ the woman said.
‘Do you mean that Selby might get lost?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘Lost, sheesh!’ Selby thought. ‘If I get lost I could miss my holiday. I don’t like the sound of this.’
‘I don’t mean lost lost,’ the woman explained. ‘It’s just that sometimes baggage gets misplaced. It almost always gets found again. But don’t worry, that usually only happens when you’re changing aeroplanes. Yours is a direct flight. Just write Australian on the form where it asked what kind of dog he is.’
In minutes Selby was on a long conveyor belt with a long line of backpacks and suitcases. Ahead, a couple of baggage handlers were grabbing them and throwing them onto trolleys.
‘Hey, Mack,’ one of the baggage handlers yelled. ‘Ever heard of Sunseasia?’
‘They must mean Zunbeezia,’ he said. ‘Chuck it over here.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure.’
‘What’s going on?!’ Selby squealed as he was loaded in the bottom of a huge jumbo. ‘We haven’t even left the airport yet and already they’ve lost me! Help! Let me out of here!’
Selby looked out through the holes in the cage but there was only darkness.
‘Crumbs! This gives me the willies,’ he thought as the plane took off. ‘Oh, well, there’s nothing I can do. I’ve just got to wait till I get there and get sent back.’
Selby drifted off to sleep and only awoke when the plane bounced to a stop.
Once again Selby and a pile of suitcases were wheeled across the runway. One by one, the suitcases were thrown onto a conveyor belt. They came out into a hall where people waited to grab their bags. Selby went round and round and then round and round some more until it finally stopped.
‘Great!’ Selby muttered. ‘They’ve closed the airport for the night! Now I’ve got to wait till tomorrow. Thanks a lot.’
No sooner were these last words out of Selby’s mouth than he saw two pairs of eyes peering into his cage.
‘Ooops! What if they heard me talk?’ he thought.
Outside two men whispered quickly to each other in a language that Selby didn’t understand. They looked at the tag then whispered some more. In a second they’d picked up the cage, left the airport, and were running through a rainforest.
‘They must have heard me!’ Selby thought. ‘I’m being dog-napped! Now they’re going to sell me or something!’
Selby tried to force the cage open but the lock was too strong.
‘Oh, woe woe woe, how did I get into this mess?!’
All night long Selby bounced along in the cage. As the sun rose he found himself in the middle of a circle of houses made of bark and leaves.
The two men talked in loud voices to all the people who gathered around. They pointed excitedly at the cage.
Suddenly one of the men yelled:
‘Nail-Art-Sua!’ and the crowd chanted ‘Nail-Art-Sua, Nail-Art-Sua, Nail-Art-Sua’
‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ Selby thought. ‘But they seem to like me. Well you would like a ta
lking dog if you’d never seen one before, wouldn’t you? Maybe they’ll open the cage and I can make a run for it.’
Two villagers appeared carrying a big iron pot filled with water. They pushed some wood under it and lit a fire.
‘Oh good, soup,’ Selby thought. ‘I’ll be in that.’
Selby watched as the water got warmer and warmer. A massive man with a band of feathers around his head stepped forward. Using an iron bar he broke the lock, opened the cage and pulled Selby out with one hand.
‘Nail-Art-Sua,’ he said, holding Selby over the pot.
‘Wait on,’ Selby thought. ‘They forgot to put the ingredients in the soup. What are they doing? Oh, no! I think I’m the ingredients!’
Suddenly Selby was plunged into the water.
‘Stop it!’ Selby yelled. ‘Don’t cook me! I’m Selby, the only talking dog in the world!’
‘Nail-Art-Sua,’ the crowd chanted, ‘Nail-Art-Sua.’
Selby went under the warm water and when he bobbed to the surface, the big man was rubbing him with soap.
‘Hey, this water isn’t hot,’ Selby said. ‘It’s only warm. What are you doing? Oh, I see what you’re doing! — you’re washing me! Then, you’re going to cook me, is that it?’
Selby was pulled from the pot and surrounded by people who dried him with pieces of cloth.
‘Can we talk this over?’ Selby asked. ‘Look, I can talk. I’m a talking dog. I must be worth stacks of money. You could sell me. Why don’t you just let me go and I’ll sell myself and send you the money?’
The big man carried Selby to a high wooden throne and sat him down. Two young girls put a crown of flowers on his head and then bowed.
‘God,’ they said. ‘Nail-Art-Sua. God-king.’
‘No, no, please,’ Selby said with a blush. ‘I’m not a god. It’s a natural mistake — anyone might make it — but I’m just an ordinary dog. Well sort of an ordinary dog. I talk, that’s all. It doesn’t make me a god. Crumbs!’ Selby thought. ‘These people really think I’m a god and they’ve made me their king.’
The girls gave him a puzzled look.
‘No god?’ one of them said.
‘Ooooops, hang on. Yes, okay, I’m a god-king. Hey, you speak English.’
