Selby Sorcerer
Authors: Duncan Ball
To all the gorgeous, handsome, intelligent,
dedicated and discerning librarians who have
chosen this book for their libraries.
These stories truly are unbelievable. But I, for one, believe them — every last one of them including the truly amazing last one of them. Every time Selby rings me to tell me another story it leaves my head spinning. What a life he leads! Magic wands. Flying jets all by himself. Lost in the Sahara Desert.
Imagine how I felt when the phone rang in the middle of the night and Selby said, ‘Guess where I’ve been?’
I began guessing the most exotic places I could imagine from far-off galaxies to a trip to the bottom of the loo. Finally he interrupted me.
‘I’ve been to a place where no dog has gone before.’
‘To a flea circus?’ I said.
‘Very funny,’ he said. ‘No, I’ve been to another universe.’
‘You. Are. Kidding!’ I said.
‘No. I’m. Not!’ he insisted. And that’s when he told me the most fantastic — and creepy — story yet. (It’s in the middle of this book somewhere.)
Of all Selby’s stories in this book, the one that touched me most deeply was the one about his kangaroo poem. Just between you and me, Selby’s poetry isn’t the greatest. But in the heart-warming story, ‘The Poem that Stopped Bogusville', you’ll see that it isn’t the poetry but the story in the poem that really matters.
I hope the stories in this book matter to you.
P.S. Look out for my cool inventions — the exclamation-comma (
) and the question-comma (
). They can be used in the middle of a sentence.
‘Oh, no!’ Selby gasped. ‘I’m flying a jumbo jet all by myself! And I don’t know how to fly! Come to think of it this never would have happened if it hadn’t been for that stupid fly! And we’re all going to die. We’re going to die because of a fly! Oh woe woe woe.What am I going to do?!’
Selby glanced back at the pilot, lying unconscious on the floor of the cockpit.
‘I’d better say something to the passengers,’ he thought. ‘Let’s see now …’
Selby turned on his microphone.
‘Your attention, please,’ he said. ‘This is your captain speaking. We are now cruising at an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet. Sorry about the take-off. It should be a smooth flight from now on.’
Selby swivelled around in the pilot’s seat and opened the door a crack. He looked back at all the passengers sitting happily in their seats.
‘Oh, and by the way,’ he added, ‘if there’s anyone who knows how to fly this thing could you please raise your hand.’
There was a loud gasp but no hands went up. Suddenly people were screaming and stampeding to the back of the plane.
‘Ooops, that may have been a mistake,’ he thought. And then he said, ‘Just kidding, folks. A little pilot joke. Kindly return to your seats and sit back and enjoy the rest of the flight.’
The flight attendant popped into the cockpit and closed the door.
‘Gavin! That wasn’t funny!’ she said, looking down at the pilot. ‘Gavin? Get up!’
The woman bent down and shook the unconscious man.
‘Gavin? Gavin?’ She looked up at Selby. ‘What on earth is wrong with Gavin?’
Maybe it was the terror gripping Selby’s brain that caused what happened next. Or maybe it was the flight attendant’s searching eyes. Or maybe Selby realised that his secret
didn’t really matter anymore. For whatever reason Selby said, ‘He bumped his head.’
‘He what?’
Selby steered the plane between two huge clouds.
‘There was this fly on the computer screen,’ he said. ‘But never mind about that. You wouldn’t happen to know how to fly this thing, would you? It’s just that I didn’t go to pilot school or anything.’
‘Hang on, you’re a dog!’ the woman gasped. ‘And you’re flying the plane!’
‘No, I mean yes,’ Selby stammered. ‘I
am
a dog but I’m not really flying the plane. I’m just sort of pointing it this way and that.’
A look of horror spread across the flight attendant’s face and she opened her mouth to scream. But just as the first part of the scream was passing her lipstick, Selby unclipped his seatbelt, jumped up and slapped her.
‘Get a grip, Sharene!’ he said. ‘Screaming isn’t going to help!’
Selby sat down again, quickly pulling on the steering wheel and bringing the plane under control. He told the dazed woman about how, years ago, he’d learned to talk while watching
TV
and how he’d been keeping it a secret from everyone ever since.
Then he told her exactly what had happened that day …
Only a short while before, he’d been standing at Bogusville Airport with the Trifles, waiting for the Airpocket Airways jet to touch down. He shook the flies off himself as he listened to Dr and Mrs Trifle.
‘How did you convince Airpocket to fly to Bogusville?’ Mrs Trifle asked her husband. ‘Every other airline has gone out of business. Bogusville people just don’t go to the city very often. And when they do, they drive.’
‘They drive because it costs too much to fly,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I heard that Airpocket had just bought some of those new AutoJet aeroplanes. That gave me an idea.’
‘AutoJets? Aren’t they huge? They won’t get enough passengers here to fill them up and make it worthwhile for the airline.’
‘Yes, but what I suggested is that they hop from one airport to another all around this area, pick people up and then fly back to the city. The other airlines used tiny planes and just came to Bogusville and then went back. This will be much more economical so the airline can charge less but still make more money.’
‘I see,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘And that’s why they’ve called it their Kangaroo Service — lots of hopping around.’
‘Yes, and these AutoJets are cheap as chips to run because they’re completely computer controlled.’
‘Computer controlled? Do you mean there’s no pilot and co-pilot?’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘What if something happens to the computer?’
‘Don’t worry, they always have a pilot on board just in case. But with these new touchscreen computers, all he or she does is touch where it says
TAKE-OFF
on the computer screen and the computer does the rest. It won’t be long before there are no more pilots. Getting on an aeroplane will be just like getting into a lift. The last one in pushes a button and off it goes to the next town.’
‘Well, it’s nice of them to let us fly for free on the first day of the Kangaroo Service. And it was very clever of them to let pets sit in the passenger seats. Country people don’t like their pets put in cages and shoved in the hold with the baggage.’
‘Their pets don’t like it much either,’ Selby thought, shaking himself again. ‘Oh, these flies are terrible!’
Suddenly something appeared on the horizon.
‘Here it comes!’ he thought. ‘Gosh, how will it ever land on this tiny runway?’
‘Here it comes!’ Mrs Trifle exclaimed. ‘How can it possibly land on this tiny runway?’
‘You’ll see,’ Dr Trifle said.
The enormous aeroplane suddenly dived to the end of the runway. Then with a screech it skidded, leaving long ribbons of rubber and filling the air with smoke.
‘Computerised brakes,’ Dr Trifle explained. ‘It could land on a postage stamp.’
In a moment everyone was on the plane and in their seats. A young man and woman stepped into the aisle in front of them.
‘Hi, guys,’ the man said. ‘I’m Gavin, and this
is Sharene. I’m your fly-guy and she’s the trolley-dolly
he he he.
So buckle up and let’s take this baby for a spin.
He he.
‘
‘He’s very young to be a pilot,’ Mrs Trifle whispered as the man disappeared into the cockpit. ‘And he doesn’t look very pilot-like.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His cap’s on backwards, he’s not wearing a captain’s jacket and his shirt is out. I’m sort of used to pilots having grey hair, stripes on their shoulders, and who don’t snort and giggle. Gavin looks like the sort of teenager who spends all his free time playing computer games.’
‘He probably does. And that’s who they need to fly these computer-controlled aeroplanes,’ Dr Trifle said.
‘Fly,’ Selby thought. ‘There’s that word again. And there’s one buzzing around my head right now! I wish it’d just leave me alone!’
The fly landed on Selby’s nose and started up into his left nostril. Selby blew some air out, along with the fly.
‘Is he okay?’ the flight attendant asked.