Selby Snowbound

For Jillaroo
My bulwark, my ramparts and often my keep.

These are Selby’s stories, not mine. They’re all things that happened to him. He later rang me up and told them to me and I retold them as best I could.

As you probably know, Selby’s real name isn’t Selby and his owners aren’t really called Dr and Mrs Trifle and the town he lives in isn’t called Bogusville. He made all those things up so no one can find him. Because he’s the only talking dog in Australia and, perhaps, the world, he knows that if people knew where he lived it would ruin his life forever. He won’t even tell
me
his real name or where he lives.

You may think that he’s really a person and he only tells me on the telephone that he’s a dog. But it’s not true — I actually met him and we even had dinner together in a restaurant. Of course he didn’t want to give away his secret so he wore a disguise: a dog suit. The other people in the restaurant thought that he was a
person
wearing a dog suit (which isn’t that unusual) but, of course, he was really a talking dog in a dog suit.

How could I be sure it was him? Once, during the meal, he reached for the salt and suddenly the glove part of the dog suit separated slightly from the sleeve part — and guess what? Fur! A furry dog leg inside the dog suit. Oh yes, it was him all right.

As he munched his way through three platters of peanut prawns, he told me more stories about himself. Some of them are in this book. I hope you like them.

‘I’m sorry, Selby, but you’ll have to stay right here,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘They don’t allow dogs in hospitals. But don’t worry, I won’t be long.’

Selby watched as Mrs Trifle went inside to inspect the new wing of Bogusville Hospital.

‘It’s not fair,’ he thought. ‘Why can’t I go in too? I watch all those hospital shows on TV but I’ve never been inside a real live hospital. I’m sooooo curious. Curiosity is about to kill this dog.’

Selby curled up under a park bench. Next to him was an old copy of the
Bogusville Banner
that he’d found. He began secretly reading it for something to do.

‘This is silly. I’m going to go in there anyway. Seeing me will be good for the patients. Pets cheer people up and sick people need cheering
up. Anyway, what can happen if I get caught? They’ll only kick me out, that’s all. I’m out right now so if they catch me I’ll be right back where I am.

‘Hmmm,’ Selby hmmmed. ‘I wonder how I can sneak in?’

Suddenly an ambulance with its siren screaming tore up to the door marked CASUALTY and screeched to a stop.

‘This is my chance,’ Selby thought as the ambulance attendants wheeled the patient through the door. ‘While they’re busy I’ll just nip through the door and no one will notice.’

Selby crept around the bushes beside the hospital wall and then trotted in through the open door.

‘So far, so good,’ he thought as he rounded the corner into a ward. ‘Now for a look at a real hospital. It certainly does look like the ones on TV.’

Selby trotted around looking at all the people in the beds. A man in a wheelchair stopped in the corridor and gave him a pat and a little girl climbed out of bed to give him a cuddle.

‘Oh, that’s nice,’ he thought. ‘And it’s good for
me too. It makes me feel wanted. Everyone likes to feel wanted — and so does everydog.’

Selby went along from room to room looking at everything. Until suddenly he saw Mrs Trifle coming towards him. She was walking down through a ward with a group of doctors and nurses.

‘Ooops!’ he thought, ducking into a storeroom. ‘I’ll just hide in here till they go by.’

Selby waited for a minute until he noticed another door at the back of the storeroom with a round window in it.

‘Maybe I can nip out that way,’ he thought. ‘I wonder where it goes.’

Selby put his paws up on the door and peered through the glass.

‘It’s an operating theatre!’ Selby thought. ‘This is great! And look
they’re actually operating on someone in there. Oh wow, now I can see a real operation!’

Selby watched as a surgeon gave last minute instructions to her operating team.

‘Maybe if I just open the door a little I can hear what she’s saying,’ Selby thought, pushing the door open a crack.

‘As you know, the patient has lost all function in his left orbital
glandula solletico
— or tickle gland, as we know it, ‘the surgeon said. ‘Tickle him under the left arm and nothing happens. Today we are going to attempt the impossible — we’re going to make him ticklish again. If this operation works, Bogusville Hospital could become the worldwide centre for tickle research. The patient is now unconscious so let’s get started.’

‘Oh, boy!’ Selby thought as the surgeon started cutting into the patient. ‘I wish I could get closer. I can’t see properly.’

Suddenly Selby spied a stack of operating theatre gowns hanging on hooks beside him.

‘I’ll just slip into one of these, ‘he said, putting one on. ‘And now one of those little round caps that I can pull down over my ears, and an operating theatre mask, and then some gloves to cover my paws.’

In a second Selby had his cap pulled down so low and his mask pulled up so high that the
only part of his face you could see was his eyes. Quietly he pushed the door open and walked on his hind legs into the operating theatre.

‘This is so much fun! They’re so busy they won’t notice me,’ Selby thought as, one by one, each of the surgeon’s helpers held clamps inside the patient and pulled tubes this way and that. ‘If I squint a bit the blood and gore won’t bother me.’

Suddenly the surgeon turned to Selby. ‘You’re just in time, nurse, ‘she said. ‘We’re a little short-handed today. Could you pass me the Dweeb-Meyer Impaling Key, please?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Selby said out loud without thinking.

‘Just hand me the Dweeb-Meyer.’

Selby looked at the instruments all laid out in a row on a tray.

‘Quickly, nurse, ‘the surgeon said. ‘The patient’s pulse is dropping. We don’t want to lose him.’

Selby reached down and picked up something that looked like a large corkscrew and handed it to the surgeon.

‘No, no, not the Thurthmail Extractor! I said the Dweeb … Hang on a tick. You’re right! If I use the Thurthmail I can go up through the
osso isterico
— the funny bone. Good thinking, nurse.’

‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought as the surgeon went to work twisting the corkscrew-like instrument into the patient’s elbow. ‘I’ve got to get out of here before I faint!’

‘Capitulatory Ventriculator!’ the surgeon said, holding out her hand.

‘Sorry?’ Selby said.

‘Nurse, could you please hand me the Capitulatory Ventriculator and make it snappy!’

Selby picked up an instrument that looked like a baby’s rattle and handed it to the surgeon.

‘Nurse, don’t you know the difference between a Capitulatory Ventriculator and a Bradwell Bone Splinterer?’ the surgeon demanded.

‘Well yes, but —’ Selby started.

‘Ahah!’ the surgeon said as her eyes lit up. ‘So you’re saying that I should
splinter
instead of
ventriculating.
Maybe you’re right. Okay, here goes.’

Selby edged towards the door.

‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘Now she’s going to splinter when she should be ventriculating — and all because of me! She thinks I’m a real operating theatre nurse! She thinks I know what I’m talking about! Get me out of here!’

‘The Freebuschram, please, ‘the surgeon said. ‘Come on now, nurse, the patient is waking up.’

Selby grabbed something that looked like a gardening trowel on one end and a toilet plunger on the other. The surgeon stood there in shock for a second and then her eyes brightened.

‘Good thinking!’ she cried, snatching the instrument from Selby’s paw. ‘The Fingaloose is a much better choice than a Freebuschram. What’s your name, sister?’

‘I — I — I,’ Selby stammered.

‘Come on, don’t be shy.’

‘Sel —’ Selby started. ‘Selina.’

‘Well, Selina, you certainly have a lot of surgical experience, ‘the surgeon said as she finished with the Fingaloose and stitched up the patient. ‘By the way, have you ever thought of fixing that honker?’

‘That what?’

‘That nose of yours. I could give you a real movie star’s nose if you wanted. And I could also get rid of that facial hair around your eyes. You are a bit furry, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘No, thanks anyway,’ Selby said, backing towards the door,’ but my fur is my best feature.’

‘Well, suit yourself. But if you ever change your mind —’

‘Doctor!’ one of the nurses exclaimed. ‘The patient is coming to.’

‘Oh, good,’ said the surgeon. ‘Let’s give him the tickle test and see how we’ve done. Go ahead, give him a little tiddly diddly under the arm.’

Selby slipped out of the operating theatre and listened to the patient’s screams of laughter. In a minute Selby was out of his gown, out of the hospital, and lying innocently under the bench once again.

‘Boy, I’m glad that’s over,’ he thought as he waited for Mrs Trifle. ‘It was great to see a real operation but it was also a very close call for me. I won’t be doing that again soon. I guess you’d say that the whole thing was
a very ticklish operation
!’