Selby Santa (9 page)
Authors: Duncan Ball
Seconds later he was standing in a hallway.
‘The study is straight ahead. The book will be in there,’ he thought. ‘I’ll grab it, read the last page, and then I’m out of here.’
From upstairs came the slight sound of a light clicking off, followed by a man’s snores.
‘Good,’ Selby thought, ‘he’s fast asleep. I’ll just make my way down the hallway and —’
Selby suddenly stopped as he remembered a scene in
Code of Betrayal
.
Blake scanned the corridor. The only sound was the slow ticking of a grandfather clock. He dropped to his knees and shook the carpet, sending up a cloud of dust.
‘Just as I thought,’ he murmured, ‘trip-wire laser beams.’
Selby grabbed the hall carpet and shook it.
‘Sure enough,’ Selby thought, as he watched the dust rise, ‘lasers! I’ve got to get through them before the dust settles.’
Selby leaped and danced down the hallway, making his way through the criss-crossed laser beams like a ballet dancer on opening night. In a minute he was past them, standing in front of a doorway.
‘I’m here,’ he thought. ‘The study.’
Something held Selby back. It was his memory of a scene in
Shadow of Silence
.
Blake saw the tiny pearl dome of the motion detector. Then, moving as slowly as the minute hand of a clock, he worked his way forward through the doorway.
‘There it is,’ Selby thought, spotting the detector in the doorway. ‘He’s got one, too. I should have known.’
Selby inched forward even slower than the minute hand of a clock. One quick movement would set off the alarms.
Finally he was in the study.
‘I made it!’ he screamed in his brain. ‘And look! All of his books!
Fear Factor Zero
,
The Serpent’s Claw
,
Scream of Angels
,
Code of Betrayal
,
Shadow of Silence
,
The Conspiracy Files
,
Harvest of
Waves
,
Beyond Identity
,
Night of Darkness
,
Dare Twice to Die
,
Flight of the Turtle
,
Race Against Midnight
,
Hidden Agenda
and yes
Escape Into Doom
!’
Selby listened again to the snoring and then quickly grabbed the book and turned to the second-last page, where it said:
Then, with the speed of lightning, Blake
And then, on the last page:
pulled the Laser-Guided Sling of Achilles from his pocket, letting it fly on its terrible course, killing everyone.
‘Goodbye, Monsolet,’ he sneered. ‘Your kind is finished forever.’
Blake stepped out into the sunlight. There was Sheila, standing waiting. Across the street was the little girl, holding a new teddy.
Blake smiled. It was all worth it and he knew it.
THE END
‘He got away!’ Selby thought. ‘He didn’t get killed!’
‘Stay right where you are!’ a voice said.
Selby looked up to see an old man holding a pistol. He could still hear the slight sound of snoring from upstairs.
‘
Gulp
,’ Selby thought. ‘He caught me with the old recorded-snoring trick! I should have remembered that from
Harvest of Waves
.’
‘Where are you?’ the man demanded. ‘Come out and show yourself.’
‘I’m right in front of you, you nong,’ Selby thought. (He didn’t say it; he only thought it.)
‘I know you’re here somewhere,’ the man said, looking around. ‘Come out or I’ll shoot your dog! I’ll count to three! One …’
‘He doesn’t know that it’s just me in here!’ Selby thought.
‘… two …’
‘He can’t believe that a dog could have done what Blake did!’
‘… and …
three
!’
‘Oh no! He’s going to shoot me!’ Selby whimpered in his brain. ‘I have to talk! I have to tell him it’s me who broke in!’
Selby was about to say, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bookman but I broke in here all by myself. You see, I’m a talking dog and I —’ when suddenly the old man’s hand reached out and patted him.
‘Hi, little guy,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’d never shoot a dog.’
Selby remembered the scene in
The Conspiracy Files
where Blake couldn’t kill the watchdog.
‘I’ve got to hand it to your owner,’ the author went on. ‘He must be a very clever guy to get past my security and then get away again. Unless …’ Bookman said, ‘unless
you’re
the secret agent. Hey, what a great idea that would be! A talking dog who’s as smart as a secret agent! Well, run along, little guy. Your owner will be waiting for you.’
Selby turned and ran for home.
When you get to the end of this book, you’ll see that one of the Christmas presents Mrs Trifle gave Dr Trifle was a book.
‘A new book by Lionel O’Neill!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh, thank you, dear.’
‘Yes, apparently he’s started writing again,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘This is a whole new series about Blake Romano and his secret-agent dog.’
‘I can’t wait to read it. And I’ve got the perfect bookmark,’ Dr Trifle said, pulling another book off the shelf and taking out a piece of paper.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a page that fell out of one of the other Blake Romano books. I’ve been using it as a bookmark.’
‘Oh no!’ Selby groaned. ‘The missing page was here all along!’
Dr Trifle opened up his new book.
‘And look at the dedication. It says, “This book is for a certain very clever dog. (I think you know who you are.)” I wonder what he means by that.’
‘I wonder,’ Selby thought as he smiled a tiny secret-agent smile.
‘Don’t tell me what it is,’ Mrs Trifle said as she looked at Dr Trifle’s new invention. ‘I know, it’s a robot wombat. You probably call it a Ro-Bat.’
‘It’s not a robot,’ Dr Trifle said, ‘because it doesn’t move. Do you give up?’
Selby studied the invention. ‘It looks like a real wombat to me,’ he thought. ‘A big wombat with its mouth wide open.’
Dr Trifle crumpled a piece of paper and put it in the wombat’s mouth.
‘There, you see? It’s a rubbish bin shaped like a wombat. The idea is to make throwing things away fun. I call it a Wom-Bin.’
‘Very clever,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘but, if you ask me, it looks too realistic. I don’t think I’d want to put anything in its mouth.’
‘Oh, of course you would. Anyway, I’m going to make a dozen more just like this one. Postie Paterson
wants them for Bogusville Zoo.’
‘You’d better hurry up,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘The zoo’s re-opening next week, in time for the Christmas school holidays.’
‘I can’t wait to see the zoo now that it’s been all fixed up!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s going to be fantastic!’
A week later, Selby, the Trifles, and everyone else in Bogusville were at the zoo for the Grand Re-opening. Postie Paterson led people around, talking about the animals. Dr Trifle’s Wom-Bins were everywhere.
‘We’re very lucky. Most towns our size don’t even have a zoo,’ Postie said. ‘Now, on your right you’ll see some of our new animals — a family of African Porcupines.’
‘I can’t see! I can’t see!’ a boy screamed. ‘I want to see a pork pies! I never seen one!’
‘Me neither!’ another voice yelled. ‘Show me! Show me! Show me! It’s not fair! I can’t see!’
‘Oh no,’ Selby sighed. ‘My day is spoiled already. It’s those awful brats, Willy and Billy! Why did Aunt Jetty have to bring them?’
‘Up you go,’ Postie said, lifting Willy onto a bench so he could see over the wall. ‘Look down and you’ll see the porcupines.’
‘Hey, me too!’ Billy said, pushing a little girl off the bench and jumping up next to his brother. ‘Hey, can I pat one? Can I? Can I? Can I? I gotta pat a pork pie!’
‘That would be a big mistake,’ Postie said. ‘They’re covered in very sharp quills that would stick into your hand. We’d have to take you to a doctor to get them out. It would be very painful. Now, follow me everyone, and I’ll show you our new Three-Banded Armadillo. This little fellow was born wearing his very own suit of armour.’
‘I love this place!’ Selby thought. ‘I could spend my whole life watching animals.’
For the next hour, people followed Postie Paterson while Willy and Billy ran around screaming and bashing and kicking everything, including Dr Trifle’s Wom-Bins.
‘I’ll just stay close to the Trifles,’ Selby thought. ‘Maybe Willy and Billy won’t notice me.’
‘Now we come to the Nocturnal House,’ Postie said. ‘This is where we keep the animals that hunt at night. We keep it dark in the daytime so the animals will think it’s night-time. At night we turn on the lights and they go to sleep.’
Selby followed the crowd into the darkened room.
‘Dark places give me the creeps,’ he thought, as he stood still waiting for his eyes to get used to the dark. ‘I know it’s silly but it’s true.’
While Postie talked about the possums, the quolls, the bats and other night animals, Selby pressed his face to the glass front of a case in the corner.
‘I can’t see anything,’ he thought. ‘All I can see is a big thick coil of black hose. Postie must be using this case for storage.’
Suddenly the big thick coil of black hose moved. It seemed to be moving slowly in all directions, part of it going one way and part going another. That was when Selby noticed two cold eyes staring into his.
‘Oh no!’ Selby thought. ‘That’s no big thick coil of black hose — it’s a gi-normous snake! And he’s watching me! Oh yuck! I hate snakes! I hate little snakes, I hate medium-sized snakes, and I hate big snakes! This is a
monster
snake!
Sheeeesh!
And double
sheeeesh!
Get me out of here!’
Selby shuddered a nervous shudder and was about to turn and dash for the door. In his own mind he was already halfway out the door when he realised that his feet weren’t moving. Nothing of him was moving.
‘I’m frozen!’ he screamed in his brain. ‘I’m frozen with fear! It’s like when I drank Dr Trifle’s Nice water!Help! This snake has got me hypnotised!’
Selby still had his eyes glued to the case when Postie and the others gathered round.
‘Goodness,’ Postie said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog as fascinated by a snake as Selby is.’
‘I’m not
fascinated
,’ Selby thought. ‘I’m
fastened
! To the floor!’
‘This is Midnight,’ Postie said. ‘He’s our King Black Python. Like the others in here, he hunts at night. His eyesight isn’t very good but he can sense his prey blinking from twenty metres.’
‘He’s about to sense me wet my pants!’ Selby thought. ‘Only I’m not even wearing pants!’
‘As soon as the sun hits him,’ Postie went on, ‘he falls fast asleep. He’ll sleep all day in the light, soaking up energy for the next night’s hunting. It’s like charging his batteries. Pythons swallow their prey whole. A python like this can swallow an animal the size of Selby.’
‘That’s all I needed to hear,’ Selby thought.
‘Is his mouth really big enough to swallow Selby?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
‘Absolutely. First he wraps himself around his prey and squeezes it so it can’t get away.’