by Duncan Ball
‘And now for my trick-to-end-all-tricks,’ Ralpho announced as he led Selby up on stage and clamped him to the target. ‘Sit back and watch this dog defy the Daggers of Death!’
‘You’ll kill him!’ someone yelled.
‘Settle down,’ Ralpho said, beginning to throw the first dagger before anyone could talk him out of it.
‘One!’ he yelled.
There was a gasp from the crowd as the dagger seemed to fly through the air and stick into the target next to Selby’s head.
‘I feel like I’m famous! This is fantastic!’ Selby thought, as Ralpho stepped forward and gave the target a spin. ‘Hey! The room’s going around and around! He didn’t say he was going to spin me!’
Ralpho yelled, ‘Two! as he pretended to throw the next dagger. Another dagger shot through right beside Selby’s head. Three! Ralpho yelled again and another dagger appeared between Selby’s legs.
‘Quit while you’re ahead!’ someone yelled. ‘Please, stop!’
‘They really care about me!’ Selby thought. ‘I love it. I love it.’
No sooner had those words passed through Selby’s brain than the target fell off the wall and hit the ground still spinning. All of which would have been okay if it hadn’t taken off across the stage — heading straight for the mirror.
‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought as he struggled to get his paws loose from the clamps. ‘I’ll go through the glass before Ralpho has a chance to stop me! I’ll be cut to ribbons! I can’t get loose! I don’t want to be the centre of attention anymore! Oh, woe!’
The audience screamed as the spinning Selby sped towards the mirror.
‘I’ve got it!’ Selby thought.’ The straps release after the last dagger is out. All I have to do is yell out the numbers without moving my lips.’
Suddenly the crowd heard a mysterious voice cry out ‘Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! and as the last daggers crashed through, Selby dived clear just as the target smashed through the glass.
In a second, the audience were on their feet cheering and Mrs Trifle had raced up on stage and swept Selby up in her arms.
‘That trick-to-end-all-tricks was fantastic!’ someone yelled. ‘The way you threw your voice was the best bit of all, Ralpho!’
‘Did I do that?’ Ralpho said, scratching his head. ‘Gosh, I guess I must have.’
‘For a moment,’ Selby thought, ‘that trick-to-end-all-tricks was almost the trick-that-ended-this-dog!’
Paw note: If you want to read another story with Ralpho in it, read ‘Ralpho’s Magic Show’ in the book Selby Screams.
S
BOGUSVILLE BONANZA
‘Why does Madame Mascara insist on making these silly predictions?’ asked Dr Trifle as he followed the crowd into Mascara Mansion.
‘Well, she was a fortune-teller before she got rich from the cosmetics business,’ Mrs Trifle answered. ‘She must still enjoy peering into the future from time to time. Besides, it’s a great excuse for a tea party.’
‘But her predictions are always so unbelievable,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘She says they’re always right, of course,’ Mrs Trifle reminded her husband.
‘Two years ago Madame Mascara said that it would rain from the beginning to the end of the year. And what happened? It rained on January first and it rained on December thirty-first. So she says she was right,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘And, as I recall,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘last year Madame Mascara said that someone from Bogusville would make the Olympic team. So when Prunella Weedy won the one hundred metres freestyle at the Bogusville Olympic Pool, she thought that she was right. But what does it matter? Nobody really takes Madame Mascara’s predictions seriously. It’s all just a bit of harmless fun.’
‘Most people just come for the lamingtons. She makes delicious lamos,’ Selby thought as he remembered the five he’d managed to sneak the previous year. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
Soon half of Bogusville was gathered in Madame Mascara’s great dining-room watching her wave her purple fingernails in front of her crystal ball.
‘We’ll have tea and cakes in a minute,’ Madame Mascara announced. ‘But first, my prediction. I predict,’ she added, shouting it out like an actor, ‘that this year someone in Bogusville will find a gold nugget the size of a pumpkin.’
Suddenly the room went deathly quiet.
‘A what?’ someone shouted. ‘Could you please repeat that?’
‘A gold nugget the size of a pumpkin,’ Madame Mascara said.
‘Are you sure?’ someone asked.
‘The crystal ball is always right,’ Madame Mascara said, watching as people started hurrying for the door. ‘Wait! Come back! Aren’t you staying to have some goodies?’
‘I’m afraid you have started a stampede,’ Mrs Trifle said.
‘Yes, a greed stampede,’ Selby thought as he nudged a lamington off a tray and gobbled it whole. ‘They all want to find that nugget.’
By the next day the whole of Bogusville was in chaos.
‘This whole prediction thing is a disaster,’ Mrs Trifle told Dr Trifle. ‘The whole town has the fever — and it’s spreading.’
‘A fever? Spreading?’ Dr Trifle said, putting his hand on his forehead to see if he was sick too. ‘Suddenly I don’t feel well.’
‘Not that kind of fever. Gold fever,’ Mrs Trifle explained. ‘The streets are filled with people with shovels and metal-detectors. And it’s not just Bogusvillians: they’re arriving by the busload from all around Australia. I’ve seen them digging up the parks and reserves. We don’t have enough police to stop them. Bogusville is beginning to look like a battlefield!’
Dr Trifle thought for a moment and then thought for a second moment. Two and a half moments later he had the answer.
‘Get Madame M to change her prediction,’ he said.
‘She absolutely won’t,’ Mrs Trifle said. “‘Never. Not ever,” she told me. She’s very stubborn. Meanwhile, the town is being torn to pieces.’
‘Well, you’re the mayor,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Trifle sighed. ‘What can I do?’
That afternoon when the Trifles were out, Selby watched angrily as he saw people digging holes on the sides of Bunya-Bunya Crescent. But it was the sight of a man jumping the Trifles’ fence and digging for gold in their back yard that made him furious.
‘The nerve of him!’ Selby thought, barking ferociously and sending the man fleeing over the fence again. ‘Madame Mascara’s to blame for this! I’ll bet she’d change her prediction quick smart if they started digging up her yard! Of course it couldn’t happen because she’s got that big high people-proof fence all around Mascara Mansion.’
Selby sat by the swimming pool for a moment, thinking.
‘I’ve got it!’ he thought after only a moment and three quarters. ‘I’ve just found the cure for gold fever.’
That night, when the Trifles were asleep, Selby sneaked out the door and ran down Bunya-Bunya Crescent towards Mascara Mansion. All around him were the sights and sounds of people digging. Soon he’d arrived at the fence around the mansion.
‘This may be a people-proof fence,’ he thought as he squeezed through the bars, ‘but it’s not Selby-proof. Now for the big dig. I hate digging — especially doggy-digging — but it’s our only chance.’
For the next hour the dirt flew between Selby’s back legs as he did his doggy-digging down and down till he disappeared into the hole. Finally he hit a big stone, breaking a claw.
‘Ouch! That’s enough,’ he gasped. ‘I can’t dig anymore. I’m all dug out. But I guess I’ve done enough digging damage for one night.’
Selby leapt up out of the hole, slipped back through the fence, and limped home. He was barely asleep when suddenly it was morning.
‘Hurry!’ he heard Mrs Trifle call to her husband. ‘Madame Mascara just rang. Apparently she must have had a change of heart because she’s going to make another
prediction.’
‘Oh, no, not again,’ Dr Trifle yawned. ‘This one could be worse. Oh well, I guess we’d better get over there and see what it is.’
Once again a crowd gathered at Mascara Mansion.
‘I have a new prediction to replace the last one,’ Madame Mascara said. ‘Instead of someone finding a nugget the size of a pumpkin, someone will find a pumpkin the size of a nugget. You know, just a little bitty pumpkin.’
A great groan went up from the audience.
‘A pumpkin the size of a tiny nugget?’ someone cried. ‘But that’s totally worthless — and boring!’
‘I’m sorry but I can’t help that,’ Madame Mascara said. ‘It’s what the crystal ball says and the crystal ball is always right.’
‘But it was wrong before when you said that someone would find a nugget the size of a pumpkin,’ Mrs Trifle pointed out.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ Madame Mascara said. ‘The crystal ball was just dirty, that’s all. Now I’ve cleaned it, I can see the prediction clearly.’
Moments later Madame Mascara was showing people out, through the front gate.
‘I’m still puzzled about why you changed your prediction,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Of course I’m very happy you did but —’
‘I didn’t change anything,’ Madame Mascara interrupted.
‘Is it something to do with this huge hole someone dug in your yard?’ Mrs Trifle asked. ‘Did someone get in and start digging for gold?’
‘Hole? I don’t see any hole,’ Madame Mascara said, keeping her back to it and trying to ignore it. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
With this, Madame Mascara took one fateful step backwards and overbalanced, falling headlong into the hole.
‘That hole,’ Selby thought as he fought back a giggle. ‘And it serves her right!’
‘Are you okay?’ Mrs Trifle asked, peering down at the woman.
‘I’d be better if I hadn’t hit my head on this rock,’ Madame Mascara said, swiping the rock that had broken Selby’s claw with her hand. ‘My goodness,’ she shrieked as she saw the glitter of yellow under the dirt. ‘It’s a gold nugget! A nugget the size of a pumpkin! I’m rich! What am I saying? I’m already rich. I’m richer!’ she cried. ‘I told you the crystal ball is always right! Aren’t I a lucky duck, though?’
‘You certainly are a lucky duck,’ Selby thought as he sighed and sucked his sore paw. ‘And I’m a very unlucky dog!’
Paw note: Other stories with Madame Mascara in them are ‘Fool of Fortune’ in the book Selby Speaks and ‘Selby on the Loo(se)’in Selby Supersnoop.
S
TERROR IN THE TOWER
‘Come along, dear, we have an appointment with a ghost,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘And let’s bring Selby with us. He hasn’t been out all day.’
‘A ghost?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?’
‘No, but some people do. I’ll explain everything on the way out to the Bell Tower.’
Selby sat in the back seat of the car, gazing into the darkness as the Trifles’ car made its way up the windy road to the top of Tower Hill. In the darkness the tower suddenly appeared standing alone like a lighthouse on a rocky point.
‘Ghosts, sheesh,’ Selby thought. ‘I don’t believe in them but they still scare my pants off — or at least they would if I wore pants.’
‘Myreen Spleen, the ghost hunter with the TV show, is to blame for this,’ Mrs Trifle said to Dr Trifle.
‘Oh, yes,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘She came to our house once, remember?’
‘Of course. Anyway, in the last episode of her program, Australian Spirits, Then and Now, she told the true story of the Dead Ringer and now Myreen and some other people want the Bell Tower opened to the public.’
‘The Dead Ringer? What’s it about?’
‘It all happened eighty-seven years ago,’ Mrs Trifle said, pulling up in front of the tower. ‘The mayor at the time was a Mr Gaspard. He decided to lock up the Bell Tower so that pranksters couldn’t get in at night and ring the bell.’
Dr and Mrs Trifle and Selby got out of the car. Then Mrs Trifle took a huge iron key from out of her handbag and put it into the old lock.
‘It was in that year on March fourteenth,’ she continued, ‘at exactly ten pm that it happened.’
‘March fourteenth,’ Dr Trifle said, ‘but that’s today — and it’s almost ten o’clock right now.’
‘I know,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
‘Get on with the story!’ Selby thought as his hair ruffled in the wind. ‘The suspense is killing me.’
‘At exactly ten o’clock that night a woman who lived nearby heard the bell ring once and then fall silent,’ Mrs Trifle continued.
‘So, someone had got into the Bell Tower?’ Dr Trifle said.
‘Mayor Gaspard went to have a look but returned saying that no one could be inside. After all the door was still locked and the bell rope had been taken away when the tower was locked. Of course the woman who’d heard the bell wanted to go in and see for herself but he wouldn’t let her have a key.’
‘This mayor fellow must have been very strange.’
‘Very, very strange. No one knew where he’d come from or what he’d done for a living before he came to Bogusville. Even though he was voted in as mayor, he was a man of mystery,’ Mrs Trifle said as she pushed open the old door.
‘Sheesh!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s so cold and dark in here. I’m not sure I like this.’
‘Then the mystery deepened,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Mayor Gaspard disappeared. After a while a new mayor was elected and one of the first things that mayor did was to open this very door.’
‘What did he find?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘He found,’ Mrs Trifle said dramatically, ‘Mayor Gaspard lying dead on the floor right here.’
‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought, as a gust of wind blew the door shut. ‘I’m standing where a dead person was! Open the door! Let me out of here! Quick! My legs are turning to jelly!’
‘Uh-oh,’ Dr Trifle said, nervously, ‘we’re not locked in, are we?’
‘No, I have the key in my hand, darling,’ Mrs Trifle said as she turned on her torch. ‘Don’t you worry.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Dr Trifle sighed. ‘So who had locked the mayor in the tower?’
‘No one knew,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘The police decided that he’d gone up the stairs to the bell and then, because there was no bell rope, he reached out to push the clapper. That’s when he must have overbalanced and fallen to his death.’
‘What’s this clapper thing? Do you mean that the bell used to clap?’
‘No, silly, the dangly bit in a bell is called a clapper.‘
‘A clapper?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘They should call it a ringer or a dinger or even a ring-dinger. But now wait a minute. Who rang the bell on March fourteenth? It couldn’t have been the mayor. Goodness, what a mystery!’
‘And there’s more,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Three years later, Mayor Gaspard was seen alive in Brisbane.’
‘The same Mayor Gaspard? So the dead man wasn’t the mayor, after all.’
‘That’s right. The police went looking for the mayor but only found a confession. He had escaped again — this time on a ship. In his confession he told how he’d been in prison before he came to Bogusville to try to lead an honest life. But he had an identical twin brother and the twin brother found him and threatened to tell everyone his secret if the mayor didn’t pay him a lot of money.’
‘So the mayor had locked his brother in the tower to shut him up?’ Dr Trifle said.
‘To teach him a lesson, he said in his note. But that night when the bell rang and he went to investigate he found his brother lying dead on the floor. Soon afterwards, he ran away to Brisbane.’
‘I get it!’ Dr Trifle exclaimed. ‘The Dead Ringer. The mayor’s brother looked just like the mayor which made him a dead ringer for his brother.’
‘And he was also a dead
ringer because he died ringing the bell,’ Mrs Trifle added.
‘So now the ghost of the mayor’s brother stalks the tower,’ Dr Trifle said in a quivery voice. ‘Woooooooooooooo. Are you here, ghosty wosty? Woooooooooooooo.’
‘Oh, I wish he wouldn’t do that,’ Selby thought. ‘It’s creepy enough in this place without ghost noises.’
‘There’s a group who call themselves the Friends of the Gaspard Ghost,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘They believe in the ghost. They’re the ones who want the tower opened. The problem is these rickety stairs. What do you think?’
‘I think it would be much too dangerous to let people walk on these stairs,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘I do, too,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘And they’re very expensive to fix.’
‘Well, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any ghost,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Not that ghosts have hide and hair — so let’s go home.’
Mrs Trifle turned the key in the lock, opening the door again. ‘Come on, Selby,’ she said.
‘Phew!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s about time. I can’t wait to get out of here — if only I can get my legs un-jellied.’
And that was when it happened. In that terrible instant, as Selby stood there with wobbly legs and the Trifles waited outside the door for him, there came a flash of lightning followed by deafening thunder and a gust of wind that slammed the door shut.
‘Yikes!’ Selby thought as his heart began to race. ‘I hope they can get the door open again!’
‘Selby’s still in there,’ he heard Dr Trifle say. ‘Where’s the key?’
‘Oh, bother,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘the door knocked it out of my hand, when it slammed shut. It must be inside.’
‘You mean we’ve locked Selby in with the key inside?’
‘It’s okay,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘There’s another one in the safe in my office. He’ll be okay on his own for a few minutes. He can’t go anywhere.’
‘Stay calm, stay calm,’ Selby thought as he heard the Trifles’ car drive away. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. There are no such things as ghosts. The key is right here on the floor somewhere. All I have to do is feel around till I find it and then open the door. Hang on! What am I saying? I can’t open the door. If I do that, they’ll know I’m not an ordinary non-talking dog! I’ll just have to wait. Gulp. I hate standing where a dead person was.’
