Selby Santa (5 page)

‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

‘I’m stuck,’ Gary admitted. ‘It’s about a private eye trying to find a baby but I can’t work out how he finds him.’

‘Have you got lots of jokes?’ Mrs Trifle asked.

‘Sure, but that’s not enough. The kids will hate it if it doesn’t have a proper ending. Gosh, writing jokes is easy. Writing plays is hard. I’m just not a playwright.’

Gary went back to work, trying every ending he could think of, but he didn’t like any of them. He worked on into the evening as Selby lay there listening.

‘I give up,’ he said finally. ‘I can’t go on.’

Gary put his head on the desk. Soon he was fast asleep. Selby hopped up on the desk and read the play on the screen.

‘Poor Gary,’ he thought. ‘He’s right. He’s got lots of great jokes but the play doesn’t work properly. But he can’t quit now. He’s got this far. Hey, maybe
I
can think up an ending.’

Now Selby paced around the study, his brain in top gear as ideas popped around in his head like popcorn.

‘Okay, so her son wasn’t lost after all. He was hiding under his bed. No, too silly. Maybe the son was kidnapped and then he ended up kidnapping the kidnappers and … No. Let’s just say that the son is now a teenager and he was adopted and … Hey! I’ve got it! I know how to end the play!’

An hour later, Gary woke up when Mrs Trifle came into the study with a cup of tea.

‘Here’s a little something to keep you going,’ she said.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Gary said, ‘but I’m not doing too well with this play.’

By now Mrs Trifle was reading the play on the screen and chuckling.

‘This is very funny, Gary. I don’t know why you don’t like it.’

‘I couldn’t find the right ending,’ Gary said.

Just at that moment, Mrs Trifle burst into laughter.

‘What do you mean? The ending is brilliant!’

‘It is?’ Gary said, looking at the screen. ‘Hey, you’re right! That’s not bad at all. I don’t even remember what I wrote.’

‘Maybe Melanie was right,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Maybe you can write a play in your sleep. I think you’ve just saved the Stage Stompers.’

And save them he did. Gary’s play,
Sam Shovel Cracks a Case,
was so popular with the kids that they had to put on ten extra performances. Gary played the part of the detective and Melanie played the part of the woman with the missing baby.

‘That ending was very clever,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Seriously, Gary, how did you think of it?’

‘I honestly don’t know,’ Gary said. ‘It just seemed to come out of nowhere. I guess I’ll never really know.’

‘I hope you never will,’ Selby thought. ‘I hope nobody ever will.’

ALMOST THE END

To see how Selby solved the mystery of the missing baby, turn to the next page and read Gary’s (and Selby’s) play,
Sam Shovel Cracks a Case
.

Paw note: See ‘The Teeth of a Vampire’ in the book
Selby’s Selection.

S

B
y
G
ARY
G
AGGS
(
AND
S
ELBY
)

FIRST PERFORMED BY THE

BOGUSVILLE STAGE STOMPERS

Characters

Sam Shovel

(Played by Gary Gaggs in the original production.)

Liz Dizzy

(Played by Melanie Mildew in the original production.)

Scene

A private detective’s messy office.

T
HE
P
LAY

(SAM SHOVEL is in his office alone.)

Sam:
    (
With great drama
.) This is the way it happened: I was lying in bed, sound asleep, when a big noise woke me up. It must have been the
crack
of dawn. (
Pause
.) Or maybe it was the
break
of day. (
Pause
.) I went outside. The weather was cloudy. I couldn’t tell if it was going to rain or snow so I
hailed
a taxi. (
Pause
.) When I got to my office, it was raining cats and dogs. Just my luck: I stepped in a poodle. (
Pause
.) I went inside and dusted off the telephone (
he dusts the telephone with a handkerchief
), which hadn’t rung for a week. I hadn’t felt so bad since I was shipwrecked off the coast of Zanzibar
as a baby and I had to live on a tin of biscuits — which would have been okay but I kept falling off the tin. (
Pause
.) I needed a case to work on and I needed it soon. The last case I had was a case of the chickenpox (
short pause
) — and I still hadn’t swept up all the feathers. (
Pause
.) If I didn’t pay my landlady the rent money I owed her soon, I’d be sleeping under my car again. The last time I did that, the gearbox fell on me. You might say it was raining
Datsun cogs
. (
Pause
.) And I hate getting up oily in the morning! (
Pause
.) Anyway, there I was in my office standing in front of my mirror,
reflecting
(
short pause
), when there was a knock at the door. (
SOUND FX: A knock at the door
.) I quickly drew the curtains. Then I drew my gun and drew my breath. Finally, I put my sketch pad away (
short pause
) and opened the door. And in walks this dizzy blonde. (LIZ DIZZY
enters
.)

Liz:
     Good afternoon. I’m Liz Dizzy. Are you Sam Shovel, the detective?

Sam:
    That’s me.
(LIZ DIZZY
sits
.)

Liz:
    Are you a
real
detective?

Sam:
    Yes, of course I’m a real detective. I’ll have you know that I was once an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Liz:
    Why, that’s … the
FBI
.

Sam:
    That’s right. And I was also an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Liz:
    Oh … the
CIA
.

Sam:
    Yes. And I was also an agent for Electronic International External Investigations Organisation.

Liz:
    (
A pause and then she suddenly gets it
.) I see … the
E I E I O
. (
Pause
.) (
To SAM
.) The reason I am here, Mr Shovel, is that I’d like you to dig up some information for me.

Sam:
    Shovel’s the name, digging’s the game. I’ll dig up the information until you have the
whole
story. (
Pause
.) Then I’ll
fill you in
. What do you want to know?

Liz:
    There’s a man I want you to find.

Sam:
    Nothing to it. How much can you pay?

Liz:
    Well, what do you charge for finding people?

Sam:
    That depends. For sixty dollars a week — cash in advance, of course — I’ll do my Super Cheap Search.

Liz:
    What do you do for that?

Sam:
    Simple: I just wait till he walks in here by mistake.

Liz:
    Walks in here by mistake?! But you don’t understand, Mr Shovel: he might be living anywhere in the world. For all I know, he’s living in one of those houses made of ice in Alaska: an
ig
.

Sam:
    An
ig
? Don’t you mean an ig
loo
?

Liz:
    No, I mean one of those tiny ones that doesn’t even
have
a loo. (
Pause
.)

Sam:
    I see. Then let me recommend my Super-Duper-Extra-Special-All-Expenses-Paid-to-the-Ends-of-the-Earth Search with
guaranteed
results.

Liz:
    How much will that cost?

Sam:
    (
Dramatically
.) That’ll be ten thousand dollars if I find him and five thousand if I don’t.

Liz:
    Hang on: five thousand dollars if you
don’t
find him?! Didn’t you just say it was guaranteed?

Sam:
    Well, it is. It’s guaranteed that either I’ll find him or I won’t. (
Pause
.) So don’t be a cheapskate. Do you want to find him or don’t you?

Liz:
    Okay, Mr Shovel, it’s a deal.

Sam:
    Good. Now give me all the details. Start at the beginning.

Liz:
    It all started when I was a child.

Sam:
    What did?

Liz:
    My life. (
Pause
.)

Sam:
    Could we get down to the
case
, Mrs Dizzy?

Liz:
    Yes, of course. I’ll be brief.

Sam:
    (
Aside.
) Oh, so this is a
brief
case, is it? (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    Many years ago, I read a marvellous
book
about an island in the Indian Ocean.

Sam:
    (
Aside
.) Wouldn’t you know, it’s a
book
case, too. (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    I desperately wanted to go there, so I grabbed my baby and I quickly packed a bag.

Sam:
    (
Aside
.) So now it’s a
packing
case! (
Pause
.)
(
To LIZ.
) What did you pack?

Liz:
    Well, two things: first of all, my good tweed suit.

Sam:
    (
Aside
.) Now it’s a
suit
case! (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    And some biscuits.

Sam:
    Biscuits?! Why biscuits?!

Liz:
    Because I knew I’d be
a wafer
… a while. (
Pause
.)

Sam:
    I see.

Liz:
    I also packed some nuts.

Sam:
    (
Aside
.) This woman’s turning into a
nut
case! (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    Then I bought a coat.

Sam:
    What do you mean, you bought a coat? What does that have to do with anything?

Liz:
    I’m sorry, I mean I caught a boat.

Sam:
    What kind of boat was it?

Liz:
    It was a deep-
she
fishing boat.

Sam:
    A deep-
she
fishing boat?

Liz:
    Yes. They were fishing for
mermaids
. (
Pause
.)

Sam:
    (
Aside
.) I might have guessed.

Liz:
    Halfway to Zanzibar, we were surrounded by sharks.

Sam:
    Did you say, (
with special emphasis
)
Zanzibar
?

Liz:
    Yes, Zanzibar. The sharks circled round and round, and finally the captain reached out to hook one but it bit off his arm.

Sam:
    Which one?

Liz:
    I don’t know, they all looked alike. (
Pause
.) There was blood everywhere. Blood, blood, blood! The decks were covered in blood! It was awful!

Sam:
    (
Aside
.) This ship was turning into a
blood vessel
! (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    But I wasn’t scared of the sharks.

Sam:
    You weren’t? Why not?

Liz:
    Because they were
man
-eating sharks and I’m not a man. (
Pause
.) We were in a terrible storm. I had
acute
seasickness.

Sam:
    Never mind what it
looked
like. (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    My baby was sound asleep.

Sam:
    (
Aside
.) Oh, so there was a
kid
napping, too! (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    We were making about twelve knots an hour … and then we ran out of rope. (
Pause
.) Suddenly a whale came up under the ship and threw it twenty metres into the air with its enormous back fin.

Sam:
    (Aside.) That sounds like a
tall tail
. (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    The ship was thrown onto some rocks and wrecked. It began shaking all over.

Sam:
    (Aside.) It must have been a
nervous wreck
. (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    That all happened many years ago, off the coast of Zanzibar. That’s when I lost my baby. The last I saw of him, he was drifting out to sea. He had to live on a tin of biscuits — (
aside
) which would have been okay but he kept falling off the tin. (
Pause
.)

Sam:
    Off the coast of Zanzibar?

Liz:
    Yes. And now I want you to find him. I’m sure he survived. Don’t you see, Mr Shovel? Somewhere out there, my baby is a thinking, feeling man living under a new name and wondering where his mother is.

Sam:
    (
Dramatically
.) Hold on a minute. How old would your baby be now?

Liz:
    Well, about your age.

Sam:
    What colour hair did he have?

Liz:
    Same as yours.

Sam:
    What colour eyes did he have?

Liz:
    The same as yours, too. Why do you ask?

Sam:
    Because
I, too
, was cast adrift off the coast of Zanzibar when
I
was a baby. And
I, too
, had to live on a tin of biscuits — (
aside
) which would have been okay but I kept falling off the tin. (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    Did you say, (
with special emphasis
)
Zanzibar
?
(
They stare at each other for a second and then throw their arms around each other
.)

Sam:
    Mum!

Liz:
    Son! I’ve found you at last! It is you, isn’t it? You are my baby, aren’t you?

Sam:
    Yes, Mother, it’s me! (
He releases her. Then he holds out his hand
.) That’ll be ten thousand dollars, please. (
Pause
.)

Liz:
    Ten thousand dollars?! You would charge your own
mother
ten thousand dollars for finding yourself when you didn’t even have to look?!

Sam:
     No, Mum, the ten thousand isn’t for finding me. (
Short pause
.) It’s the pocket money you owe me.

C
URTAIN