Selby Spacedog (7 page)

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’.

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:

‘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 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:

‘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!’