by Duncan Ball
Suddenly a flash of lightning showed that Selby was standing next to the bottom step of the stairs.
‘Maybe I’ll just go up a bit,’ Selby said, feeling his way up a few steps. ‘But these steps are so narrow and uncomfortable to stand on. I’d better go up to the first landing.’
Selby made his way up to the first landing and lay down.
‘Everything’s okay,’ he thought. ‘There are no ghosts and I’m okay.’
It was just after this last thought that the wind died down for just long enough for him to hear footsteps on the floor below.
‘Gulp. Footsteps,’ he thought. ‘It’s too soon to be the Trifles. Who can it be?’
Selby was about to put his head through the railing and wait for another lightning flash so he could see below when he heard the clunk of more footsteps on the stairs.
‘I must be imagining things,’ he thought, as he inched across the landing to the stairs beyond. ‘There are only two keys: one’s on the floor downstairs and the other one is in Mrs Trifle’s safe. So nobody can be in the tower. Did I say “no-body"? Ghosts have no body!’
Selby fled up the stairs, taking them two at a time and not stopping till he reached the next landing.
But again the footsteps followed.
‘It can’t be the ghost! There aren’t any such things!’ Selby thought as his brain raced and his feet fled up another flight of rotten steps.
The footsteps were louder now and coming closer and closer.
‘When are the Trifles going to get here?!’ Selby screamed in his brain. ‘Why didn’t I just feel around for the key and get out? What does it matter if they found out my secret?’
Selby shot up another flight of stairs and then another but the footsteps clomped along behind him.
With one final run, Selby dashed up the last steps to the top of the tower and looked out through the open windows to the ground a long way below.
‘I could jump but I’d be a goner!’ Selby thought. ‘I’m trapped! There’s nowhere to go! And look — the Trifles’ car is coming up the hill! If only I could hide for just a minute! But where?’
Selby turned and looked out over the railing at the huge brass bell that hung over the stairwell.
‘It’s my only chance,’ he thought. ‘I’ll leap out onto the bell! Gulp. That’s what the Dead Ringer tried to do when he fell. But I have to do it! It’s my only chance!’
With the footsteps now only metres away, Selby climbed up onto the railing and leapt out into the darkness, grabbing the clapper of the bell in his paws. But before he knew it, the clapper swung to the other side, striking the bell with a loud clong. And before he knew it again, the clapper swung back and clonged the other side of the bell. Suddenly there were the sounds of feet running down the stairs, and piercing screams.
‘The ghost is here!’ a voice yelled. ‘He’s ringing the bell!’
‘The ghost lives!’ another voice shouted.
‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s not the ghost, after all! It’s some of those pesky ghost hunters!’
Selby swung back and jumped for the railing, just barely clearing it and landing on the top step. In a second he was tearing down the stairs, passing ghost hunters everywhere. At the bottom he shot through the open front door and into the arms of Mrs Trifle.
‘Selby!’ she said. ‘How did you get out?’
‘Mayor Trifle!’ a ghost hunter cried as she ran through the door. ‘The ghost is in there! Did you hear him ring the bell?’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t, Myreen,’ Mrs Trifle said, feeling a little confused. ‘What with all this wind … By the way, how did you get into the tower?’
‘We came to listen for the bell — it is March the fourteenth, you know. We found the key lying on the ground just outside the door, so we went in. Then, sure enough, the ghost rang the bell.’
‘I see. The key must have landed outside the tower,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘not inside the way I thought it did. So do you want to go in again?’
‘No, we’re happy now,’ Myreen said. ‘You can keep the tower closed for all we care. We’ve proved that there’s a ghost. That’s all we wanted.’
‘But wait,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘The ghost rang the bell at the wrong time. It’s nearly eleven o’clock — not ten.’
‘You’ve forgotten one thing, doctor,’ Myreen explained. ‘Eighty-seven years ago there was no daylight saving’s time. They didn’t set their watches ahead at the beginning of summer the way we do now.’
‘She’s right,’ Selby said, as he watched Myreen and the Friends of the Gaspard Ghost pile into their cars and drive away. ‘But she’s wrong about the ghost. Anyway, it serves them right for scaring me like that.’
And that would have been that if — just on the dot of eleven o’clock when Mrs Trifle had closed the door and the Trifles were driving off down the hill — Selby hadn’t looked back at the Bell Tower and heard one faint clong of the bell.
‘Gulp and double gulp,’ he thought. ‘If there isn’t a ghost, who just rang that bell?
Paw note: Myreen Spleen’s visit happened in the story ‘In the Spirit of Things’ in the book Selby Speaks.
S
SELBY’S SOLO
‘This is going to be an exciting day!’ Mrs Trifle announced. ‘I’m going to fly solo in the Whirly-Bird.‘
‘You’re flying what in the what?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘The Whirly-Bird. My instructor’s helicopter,’ Mrs Trifle explained. ‘She says I’m ready to go solo. To fly it all by myself. It’ll be so much fun — but so scary!’
‘Well, it’s an exciting day for me too. While you’re up in the air I’ll be on the roof trying out my new invention, the WOMBAT.’
‘Haven’t wombats already been invented?’ asked Mrs Trifle.
‘No, not one of those wombats. WOMBAT stands for Wind-O-Mometer, Barometer And Thermometer,’ Dr Trifle explained. ‘It’s to tell us all about the weather. Only I haven’t added the last two bits yet so I guess it’s just a WOM right now.’
‘A WOM?’
‘A Wind-O-Mometer. For measuring wind speed,’ Dr Trifle said, leading Mrs Trifle into his workroom.
‘It doesn’t look like a weather anything to me. It looks just like one of those old square clothes lines,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘And there are even clothes on it.’
‘That’s where I got the idea. Have you ever noticed that when you put outerwear — like shirts and pants and that — on one side of a clothes line and underwear on the other it goes round and round in the wind?’
‘Not really.’
‘Well, it does; and that’s how I’m going to measure wind speed. I’ll put the meter part down here in the house so we can look at it any time we like and find out how fast the wind is blowing.’
‘How very nice,’ Mrs Trifle said, wondering what people would think when they saw the Trifles’ laundry on the roof. ‘But I’d better be going. Are you going to cone along and see me fly solo?’
‘I’d like to, but I’ve got to work on the WOM before someone else discovers the same thing and beats me to it. In the invention business you have to be the first — it’s the early bird that catches the worm, we say.’
For the next hour Selby watched from the front yard as Dr Trifle struggled to bolt the base of the WOM to the roof of the house.
‘It looks weird,’ Selby thought, ‘but I guess that all the best inventions seem strange at first.’
Selby crept up the ladder for a closer look and then walked up the roof to the peak just as Dr Trifle was putting in the last bolts.
‘Finished!’ the doctor said. ‘Selby! What are you doing up here, you silly thing? How will I get you back down the ladder? Oh, well, you’re going to have to stay here for a minute while I connect up the meter.’
With this, Dr Trifle tied a rope to Selby’s collar and then to the pole of the WOM.
‘That’ll keep you from falling off the roof,’ he said, uncoiling a wire as he hurried down the ladder. ‘Don
’t worry, I’ll be back in a tick.’
‘This is great! I can see all around from up here,’ Selby thought as a breeze came up. ‘And look! The WOM is beginning to turn.’
Then a gust of wind caught the outerwear and underwear and started the WOM spinning faster.
‘Well, it works,’ he thought. ‘The only problem is that the underwear is pulling up on the whole thing.’
Suddenly Selby saw the thrilling sight of the Whirly-Bird coming up over the trees.
‘It’s Mrs Trifle!’ he thought. ‘And she’s flying all alone! She must be so proud of herself.’
Sure enough, as the helicopter came closer, Selby could see Mrs Trifle, waving.
‘She wants Dr Trifle to see her,’ Selby thought. ‘I hope he comes out of the house before she goes away again.’
The helicopter came closer and closer until it hovered right over the house, making the WOM spin like a pinwheel in a cyclone. Selby watched in terror as the invention began pulling upward.
‘This thing’s going so fast it’s going to take right off into the air! And if I don’t get loose, I’ll go with it!’
Selby worked frantically to untie the knot around his collar as the WOM’s bolts began pulling out of the roof one by one.
‘If only Dr Trifle would come out of the house then Mrs Trifle would fly away!’
Just then Dr Trifle raced out the door and waved to Mrs Trifle, who waved back. But as she revved the helicopter’s engine the WOM suddenly pulled out its last bolt and broke loose from the roof, sending it spinning up into the air and dragging Selby along with it.
‘I’ll be sucked into the helicopter’s blades!’ he screamed as he sailed up towards the Whirly-Bird. ‘In a second I’ll be six hundred pieces of sliced salami!’
Then, without seeing the sailing Selby, Mrs Trifle sped away. Dr Trifle watched as Selby and the WOM fluttered down to the ground, sending outerwear and underwear everywhere.
‘Selby! Thank goodness you’re safe!’ Dr Trifle cried, running to his side.
‘No thanks to that invention of his,’ Selby thought. ‘That WOM was a bomb!’
Dr Trifle began gathering up outerwear and underwear and bits of his invention.
‘I’m afraid it wasn’t much good for measuring wind speed,’ he said, ‘but I think I’ve just invented a hang-glider for dogs! Hmmm, I wonder who I can get to give it a test flight. I’d better not wait too long or someone will beat me to it.’
‘I wish he wouldn’t look at me like that. He can get some other dog to do it,’ Selby thought as he dashed off to have a good sleep under his favourite sleeping bush. ‘I guess this time the Whirly-Bird caught the WOM’.
Paw note: This is a terrible pun and I’m sorry.
(But I still think it’s funny.)
S
SELBY IN CYBERSPACE
In the middle of a summer’s night Selby crept into the study. He booted up the computer — as he often did when he couldn’t sleep — logged on to OzGab and searched for his favourite site on the Internet.
‘I just love the newsgroup called Pet Tales,’ he thought. ‘People tell such fun stories about their pets. That guy Big Foot has such great stories about his clumsy cat, Cat-Astrofee. Last week he told about the time the cat chased a rat into a drain and everyone — the Police Rescue Squad and the Fire Department and everyone — was in there looking for it. He really made it sound funny. And that woman who calls herself Two-Up Penny from Adelaide; she has so many pets and she’s such a good story-teller. And I love the way she writes in that silly way the Pet Tales people call “Stupid Writing”, or “Stewpet Rye-tin”. Like writing “pig chair” for “picture” and “Andy ho” for “anyhow” and all that other funny stuff.’
Selby browsed through the Pet Tales messages reading one by a girl who called herself Wendy the Wagger about her goldfish that kept jumping out of the bowl. Then he read another one by Fabulous Fabiola about her parrot, Binky, chewing up a lampshade.
‘Those weren’t so good,’ he thought as he scanned though the messages. ‘Oh, good! Here’s one by Two-Up Penny. Let’s see what her pets have got up to since last time.’
Selby read the story about Two-Up Penny’s pet snake, Slick, getting loose and chasing her frog, Hip-Hop, around the house till Penny finally rescued it. It was wonderfully funny, as usual, but it ended with a sentence that made Selby absolutely furious. It said:
Eye half lotsa petz end eye loaf dem oil.
Bod won pet eye wone heff isa dug.
Dugs R dum. Day arrrr ferry stewpet
pets — end day smell bat.
Baggin tree daze. 2-Up Any
‘What?’ Selby thought. ‘What does she mean that the one pet she won’t have is a dog? How dare she say that dogs are dumb and they smell bad? Some humans are dumb and smell bad too. She’s the one who’s dumb! And I used to love her stories. I think I’ll give her a piece of my mind. What if I told her that I am a dog? That would make her think. Of course she’d never believe me. I know, maybe I’ll tell her some stories about myself but, of course, I’ll leave off the bit about being able to talk. I’ll pretend that I’m a person. Even better, I’ll pretend that there’s a really intelligent dog that belongs to some friends of mine. But of course the dog will really be me.’
Selby pecked out story after story through the night but he didn’t bother to write in Stewpet Rye-tin. He told about how his friends’ dog ‘Ibbles’ had got a boot off a rhino’s nose. He told about how Ibbles had found a huge opal and put a stop to an opal rush. Selby wrote on changing the names of everything, including the Trifles’ names which he changed to Mr and Mrs Elfirt. At the very end he wrote:
I just wanted to say that my friends’
dog, Ibbles, is the warmest, friendliest,
and most intelligent creature who
ever walked this planet. And you,
Two-Up Penny, must be a heartless,
unfeeling person not to like dogs.
‘I hope that makes her feel terrible,’ Selby thought. ‘And I hope everybody reads it. Let’s see now, how do I sign it? I’ve got to choose a name for myself.’ Selby looked at his paws resting on the keyboard in front of him. ‘That’s it — Paw Paw. I’ll sign it Paw Paw.’
Selby logged off and then crawled off to sleep, exhausted.
And that would have been that if there hadn’t been another hot, sleepless night a few days later. Once again Selby paid a visit to Pet Tales. One by one he read through the messages till he found one called ‘Paw Paw, my pet, where are you?’ Selby quickly read it:
Deer rest Paw Paw, ware effer U R, I
wan U 2 no dat U R de mose
wunerful yoo-man bean eye hef met
on de Net. I wus rong about dugs and
eye hurt U deeplee so eym sore ee.
Ow ken eye meck it up 2 U? Pleez
telle mi ooo U R & ware U R & I’ll
come 2 U. Eye ho-up pure knot hang
ree wit mi cuz eye tink eye luv U, daah-link.
2-Up:-) :-D :-{}
Pee Esse: Iffe U don telle mi ware U R
eye wille fine U annie wey!
‘Gulp,’ Selby thought as a chill went up his spine. ‘She thinks she’s in love with me and she wants to find me! I wanted to make her angry or sorry or something but not this! Fortunately she’ll never figure out who I am or where I live. Besides, she thinks I’m a human being anyway. I’d better not write any more messages on Pet Tales!’
And that would have been that again but two weeks later, on a day when the Trifles were out, there came a sudden, sharp knock at the door.
‘Are you in there, Dr and Mrs Trifle?’ the woman’s voice sang out. ‘You don’t know me, but my name is Two-Up Penny — I mean Penny Wise. Could I talk to you for a minute?’
‘Oh, no! It’s Two-Up Penny!’ Selby thought. And in his panic he tripped and fell heavily on the floor.
There was a second’s silence and then: ‘So you are at home,’ Two-Up Penny said. ‘Good, because I must
talk to you. It’s very important.’
‘How did she get here?’ Selby thought. ‘Maybe she’s figured out that the messages came from the Trifles’ computer! Maybe when she talks to them she’ll know that they didn’t write those stories!’
Crazy thoughts shot through Selby’s brain and then there came another knock at the door.
‘Listen to me,’ Penny said. ‘I know you country people are very shy, but will you just answer a few questions for me?’
‘I’m trapped like a rat!’ Selby thought. ‘If she managed to find me she probably knows that I’m a talking dog! She knows everything about me! I’ve got to get rid of her before the Trifles get back.’
‘You don’t even have to open the door,’ Penny said. ‘Just answer me, please.’
‘You’ve got the wrong house,’ Selby said in a high voice. ‘Please go away.’
‘Mrs Trifle, please let me explain —’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Selby said.
‘But I’ve come all the way from Adelaide. Please. I’ll tell you what happened. I’ve discovered something truly incredible.’
‘I don’t want to hear anything incredible,’ Selby said. ‘We don’t like incredible things here in the country. We just like usual things.’
‘But it’s truly fantastic,’ Penny pleaded.
‘All right then, just make it quick and then go.’
‘Well, first of all there’s this man named Paw Paw who was writing messages on the Internet —’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Selby said sharply.
‘Well, he’s a friend of yours,’ Penny sighed, ‘and I’ve fallen in love with him.’
‘So what?’ said Selby.
‘So I want to find him.’
‘Well, he probably doesn’t live in Bogusville,’ Selby said. ‘We don’t have people named Paw Paw. We have people named Fred.’
