by Duncan Ball
‘Run!’ Selby screamed.
And the Princess did but Selby was too slow and suddenly, he was snapped up in the dragon’s mouth and lifted high in the air.
‘The ring!’ Selby cried. ‘Hey, Princess! Make him let go of me!’
‘But that will use up a wish!’
‘Who cares?! I’m about to be a dragon’s dinner!’
‘As you please,’ the Princess said, pointing her finger at the dragon. ‘I wish you would let the dog go!’
The dragon stood there in silence for a second. There was a strange stillness in the air. Then he put Selby gently on the ground and let him go.
Selby and the Princess ran back towards the castle. The dragon stood still for a moment and then started after them.
‘You should have wished he was dead!’ Selby squealed.
‘You’d have fallen and hurt yourself,’ the Princess said.
‘Good point.’
‘But don’t worry, he is well behind us.’
When they reached the castle, Princess Gwendolyn began throwing stones at the drawbridge. And in a split second it opened and Prince Nigel the Naughty came riding out.
‘Get back in yon tower, sister!’ he yelled.
Gwendolyn pointed the ring finger.
‘I wish that you would forget all the terrible things I did to you and that I can have half of everything.’
Prince Nigel stood there in silence for a second. There was a strange stillness in the air. He looked at his sister.
‘The Wishing Ring is yours now,’ the Princess said, slipping the ring on one of Selby’s toes. ‘Go ahead, make your wish.’
‘But, hang on,’ Selby said. ‘You used up all three wishes! That last bit was two!’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘It was! You wished that he would forget the terrible things you did to him and you wished that you had half of everything.’
‘That only counts as one.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Gwenny, darling sister,’ the knight said, jumping down from his horse and giving her a big hug. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been away, Nige, brother dearest. Now we had better go inside, I think there’s a dragon coming.’
‘Yes, indeed, darling sister. It is your castle too, remember.’
Selby could see Percy Peach and the Trifles sneaking out of the castle and over the drawbridge. Gwendolyn the Good Girl distracted her brother so he didn’t notice.
Selby felt the ground shake as the dragon came closer. He pointed the ring at Percy and the Trifles and then at himself.
‘Okay, ring, take us all back to Bogusville where — and when — we started,’ he said.
The Trifles and Percy stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes gaping. Selby waited to be snapped back through the wormhole but nothing happened.
‘Selby!’ Mrs Trifle exclaimed. ‘You talked!’
‘Never mind about that,’ Selby said. ‘Hey, the ring didn’t work! The wishes were all used up after all! The ring is as useless as last year’s bus pass!’
‘But why didn’t you tell us you could talk?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘I’ll explain later!’ Selby said. ‘Quick! Over to the bed! There’s a dragon coming!’
Selby, Percy and the Trifles jumped onto the bed just as the dragon came over the hill.
‘There’s no time to waste,’ Selby said. ‘Start us jiggling! Grab the controls, Percy!’
The dragon lumbered closer. Fire shot from his mouth as he let out a roar. Percy Peach snatched the controls and turned up the dial.
‘Nothing’s happening!’ he said. ‘Oh, no, it isn’t plugged in!’
‘Then plug it in!’ Selby screamed.
‘Where?! We’re outdoors — besides electricity hadn’t been invented yet!’
‘Great,’ Selby thought as the dragon looked down. ‘This is it!’
They sat trembling with fear as the dragon licked his lips, wondering which one to eat first. Then, just as he lunged at Selby, their trembling turned to a shake and then a vibration — just as it did when the B-E-D was plugged in. Suddenly they must have reached a hyper-sympathetic coefficient of molecular frequency because there was a loud snap!, and Selby, Percy and the Trifles were tumbling through darkness. Seconds later, they landed with a thud back in Bogusville.
For a moment everything was quiet. The bed was vibrating gently. Selby looked at the others, lying there. Slowly they opened their eyes.
‘I feel really weird,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I’ve got a dragon running around in my head.’
‘So have I,’ Percy and Dr Trifle said together.
‘Well at least he’s not running around here,’ Selby said, trying to make a joke of it.
Mrs Trifle suddenly sat up straight and stared at Selby.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.
‘I said, that it’s good that the dragon isn’t here. I mean it’s good that we got away from him.’
‘B-B-But you spoke!’ she cried.
‘In plain English!’ Dr Trifle added.
‘So what?’ Selby said. ‘You heard me talk before — at the castle, remember?’
‘Castle?’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘What castle? What are you talking about? Why are you talking?! Dogs aren’t supposed to talk.’
The three of them were now pacing around the room, looking at Selby.
‘Do you have any idea what this means?!’ Percy cried. ‘Okay so we didn’t go through a wormhole — but this! The vibrations must have started him talking. We’re all going to be rich!’
‘Rich?’ Dr Trifle said.
‘Yes people will pay gobs of money to hire him — he’ll be on TV and in the movies! He’ll have his own fan magazine! We’ll charge admission to see him! Scientists will pay us heaps of money to ask him questions all day!’
‘But he’s our dog, not yours,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘And I don’t think it would be very nice to make him famous. His life — and ours — would be ruined. I don’t think we should tell anyone.’
‘I agree,’ said Dr Trifle.
‘Of course it would be nice to have an extra pair of hands — well, paws really — around the house,’ Mrs Trifle added. ‘I think Selby would be a good little dishwasher and house cleaner.’
‘And bed-maker,’ Dr Trifle added.
‘I don’t care whose dog he is,’ Percy said. ‘If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t know he could talk. I’m going to sell “The True Story of Selby the Talking Dog” to every newspaper and magazine in the world!’
‘Please don’t,’ Selby pleaded. ‘Okay, so I’ve known how to talk for years. I just didn’t tell you because I want to be left alone. Can’t we just forget about this? I promise I’ll never say another word.’
Mrs Trifle frowned.
‘We love you very much, Selby,’ she said. ‘We’ve done everything for you. And you’ve been a good pet. But you haven’t been entirely honest with us, now have you?’
‘Well I wasn’t dishonest. I just didn’t tell you that I could talk, that’s all.’
‘You listened in to our conversations for years. Do you know how embarrassing that is?’
‘I tried not to listen,’ Selby said. ‘Oh, please, let’s just forget about everything.’
‘How can we?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘We can’t just pretend you’re just an ordinary non-talking pet. No, Selby, I’m afraid that your life — and ours — has changed forever, whether we like it or not.’
‘Oh, why oh why did I talk?’ Selby thought. A salty tear made its way down his cheek and into his mouth. ‘This is awful. The B-E-D didn’t work. It just put me to sleep. The whole castle thing was just a dream. Oh how I wish they didn’t know I can talk. I wish I could have my life back!’
Percy and the Trifles stood there in silence for a second looking at Selby. There was a strange stillness in the air. Then Mrs Trifle moved again. She reached down and picked him up.
‘Oh, Selby,’ she said. ‘You loo
k all worried and nervous. What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?’
‘He must have,’ Dr Trifle said, patting him. ‘If only we knew what was on that little mind of his. If only he could talk to us.’
‘A talking dog?’ Percy said, heading for the front door. ‘That’s as silly as my wormhole theory. See you next time I’m in town, folks. Bye.’
‘Good grief!’ Selby thought as the astronomer drove away. ‘Suddenly they don’t know I can talk anymore! What happened?’
‘I think I know what he’d tell us if he could talk,’ Mrs Trifle said, reaching for one of Selby’s paws.
‘You do?’ Dr Trifle said.
‘Yes, he’d say, “I’ve got a ring stuck on my toe and it hurts",’ Mrs Trifle said, taking the ring off Selby’s toe. ‘Look, someone must have dropped this cheap ring and it got stuck on Selby’s toe, poor baby. I wonder how long he’s been walking around like this.’
Selby looked up at the Trifles.
‘The Wishing Ring!’ he thought. ‘There was still one more wish in it after all. I just forgot to say the word “wish” when we were at the castle so the magic didn’t work. And it wasn’t all a dream after all, but luckily the Trifles don’t remember it.’
A warm feeling came over him as he thought of all the wonderful times he’d had there in the nicest little house in the nicest little town in Australia, and perhaps, the world.
‘I’m just so lucky to be at home again with the Trifles,’ Selby thought, ‘my very favourite people in this whole wrinkled universe. I love them so much I could burst. Now that’s real magic.’
Paw note: See ‘Selby Soars to New Heights’ in the book Selby Speaks to see how Percy and Dr Trifle discovered the Peach-Trifle Comet.
S
THE NIGHT I DREAMT I WAS A KNIGHT
I blipped a dragon on the head
And thought that he was surely dead
Until he said, through fire and smoke,
‘You seem a decent sort of bloke
So tell me if you have a reason
For blipping dragons out of season.
And while you’re at it tell me, do:
Whatever did I do to you?’
He had a point, that much I gave him
But talking wasn’t going to save him.
‘You’re right,’ I smiled. ‘I must agree
Yu’ve never done a thing to me.
Your only gaffe, your big mistake
Was being born a dragon, mate.’
‘So save your breath, make no excuses
You dragons have no other uses.
You were invented, don’t you see?
For dragon-blipping knights - like me.’
With this I raised my knobbly stick.
He closed his eyes and bit his lip.
(I guess I could have used a gun
But blipping them is much more fun.)
‘Okay, you’ve had your little joke!’
(He sort of whimpered as he spoke.)
‘Please don’t hit me with that club!
This time you’re going to make me blub!’
The creature must have realised
I hate it when a dragon cries.
I dropped my club and turned to go
Perhaps I was a wee bit slow
Just when I should have really fled
The mongrel blipped me on the head!
UNSUITABLE ME
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Rod Morrison for his excellent editing; Barbara Pepworth for her eagle proofreading eye; the team of Beverley Stevenson, Lyndall Thomas and Ben Bishop for turning Selby into a cyber celebrity through Selby’s web site; and many more thanks for the often-unthanked others at HarperCollinsPublishers who slave tirelessly into the wee hours to fill that yawning gulf of demand for more copies of books about this ever-humble little dog.
About the Author
Duncan Ball is an Australian author and scriptwriter, best known for his popular books for children. Among his most-loved works are the Selby books of stories plus the collections Selby’s Selection, Selby’s Joke Book and Selby’s Side-splitting Joke Book. Some of these books have also been published in New Zealand, Germany, Japan and the USA, and have won countless awards, most of which were voted by the children themselves.
Among Duncan’s other books are the Emily Eyefinger series about the adventures of a girl who was born with an eye on the end of her finger, and the comedy novels Piggott Place and Piggotts in Peril, about the frustrations of twelve-year-old Bert Piggott forever struggling to get his family of ratbags and dreamers out of the trouble they are constantly getting themselves into.
Duncan lives in Sydney with his wife, Jill, and their cat, Jasper. Jasper often keeps Duncan company while he’s writing and has been known to help by walking on the keyboard. Once, returning to his work, Duncan found the following word had mysteriously appeared on screen: ikantawq …………..
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Emily Eyefinger
Emily Eyefinger, Secret Agent
Emily Eyefinger and the Lost Treasure
Emily Eyefinger and the Black Volcano
Emily Eyefinger’s Alien Adventure
Emily Eyefinger and the Devil Bones
Emily Eyefinger and the Balloon Bandits
Piggott Place
Piggotts in Peril
Selby’s Secret
Selby Speaks
Selby Screams
Selby Supersnoop
Selby Spacedog
Selby Snowbound
Selby Surfs
Selby Snaps!
Selby’s Joke Book
Selby Splits
Selby’s Selection
Selby’s Stardom Selby’s Side-splitting Joke Book
Selby Sorcerer
Copyright
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2000
This edition published in 2011
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
www.harpercollins.com.au
Text Copyright © Duncan Ball 2000
Illustrations Copyright © Allan Stomann 2000
The right of Duncan Ball and Allan Stomann to be identified as the moral rights Author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 (Cth).
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
25 Ryde Road, Pymble, Sydney, NSW 2073, Australia
31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 0627, New Zealand
A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India
77&85 Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8JB, United Kingdom
2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada
10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Ball, Duncan
Selby Snaps / Duncan, Ball.
ISBN: 978-0-2072-0020-5 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9519-2 (ePub)
1. Dogs–Juvenile fiction. I. Stomann, Allan. II. Title.
A823.3
Cover and internal design by Christa Edmonds
