Selby Supersnoop (2 page)

‘Now to ring the police,’ Selby said, getting up and shaking off a dozen model soldiers.

In a second, he was speaking to Sergeant Short.

‘I have some important information about the Amery case,’ Selby said, putting on a deep detective-like voice. ‘Emery is innocent.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. His sister, Eve, planted those soldiers on him. She hid the others in the
ceiling of their house. She was going to sell them and keep all the money for herself.’

‘Who are you?’ Sergeant Short asked.

‘Never mind who I am,’ Selby said. ‘Just get over to the Amerys’ house straight away and you’ll find Eve asleep on the floor.’

‘We’re on our way,’ the policeman said. ‘But tell us how you found all this out.’

‘I listened in to a telephone conversation she was having,’ Selby said. ‘That’s what tipped me off.’

‘You were listening in? You mean you eavesdropped?’

‘You can bet your boots I did,’ Selby laughed. ‘You should have seen me — I dropped right on top of Eve!’

‘Talk to me, you dummy dodo dog!’ Willy demanded. ‘You talk to me! I know you can talk so you’d better do it now!’

Selby was dangling upside down, suspended by a rope tied around his foot. Willy pointed his new video camera at Selby’s face.

‘You talk to me or else!’ Willy said. ‘Then I’m going to show the video to everyone. They’ll know I’m not lying.’

Selby sighed a dog-like sigh and rolled his eyes.

‘The brat must think I’m a complete idiot,’ Selby thought. ‘There’s no way I’m ever going to talk to him again no matter what he does to me. I’ll just dangle here from his stupid booby
trap till the Trifles find out what’s happening. Then Willy will be in big, big trouble. How did I ever get myself into this mess?’

Getting into the mess had been easy: Selby knew that Aunt Jetty was going to leave her dreadful son, Willy, with the Trifles while she
went shopping. But Selby was on the lookout and ready to hide at a moment’s notice. As soon as they pulled up in front of the house, he was going to head for his favourite hiding bush in the backyard. Willy would never find him there.

That was the plan — but then Dr Trifle came out of his workroom with another brilliant new invention.

‘I call it Breath-Away Miracle Window Cleaner,’ Dr Trifle said, proudly holding the spray bottle next to the front window.

‘Window cleaner has already been invented,’ Mrs Trifle pointed out.

‘Yes, but I hate all that rubbing and scrubbing. There are always streaks when you finish and you can never get into the corners. Breath-Away is different — watch,’ Dr Trifle said, spraying the inside of the front window.

‘It’s gone all cloudy and white,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I can’t see a thing.’

‘Just stand back and watch.’

Sure enough, soon the window cleared and was cleaner than Selby had ever seen it before.

‘That’s brilliant!’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But where did the dirt go?’

‘It fell down onto the windowsill,’ Dr Trifle explained. ‘Now all you have to do is blow it away. That’s why I call it Breath-Away. I also called it that because it’s such a brilliant invention that it takes your breath away.’

‘I’m not sure about this blowing the dirt away business,’ Mrs Trifle said, wiping the specks of dirt from the windowsill with a rag. ‘But it certainly does work. How about going outside and cleaning the other side of the window?’

Selby stayed inside the house and saw the doctor suddenly disappear as he sprayed the window.

‘He’s so clever,’ Selby thought. ‘I wish I was good at inventing inventions.’

Suddenly the glass cleared and there, standing next to Dr Trifle, was the hideous sight of Aunt Jetty.

‘They’re here!’ Selby thought as he ran into the garage and then shot through the hole in the wall and into the backyard. ‘I’ve got to get away before that crazy kid catches me.’

Just then there was a sproing! and a whizzang! as Selby’s foot landed right in Willy’s booby
trap. In a microsecond, Selby was pulled up into the air like a rocket.

‘Got you this time!’ Willy giggled, pointing his video camera at Selby. ‘Now you talk, mister stink-face stupi-bottom dog! Talk right now!’

‘No way,’ Selby thought. ‘Fat chance. Not on your life! You’ve got to be dreaming. This kid must think I’m a total idiot. I’ll hang here till the cows come home but I’m never ever going to say a word.’

Selby could hear Dr Trifle talking to Aunt Jetty inside the house.

‘Be nice to Willy,’ Aunt Jetty was saying. ‘The poor darling is feeling a bit sad ever since his goldfish died.’

‘His goldfish died?’ Dr Trifle said.

‘Willy put him in the washing machine. He wanted to watch him surf. Apparently the little fellow wasn’t much of a swimmer because he drowned or something.’

‘Don’t you worry about Willy,’ Dr Trifle said as Aunt Jetty drove away. ‘Hmmm, I wonder where he’s got to?’

Just before Dr Trifle came around the corner of the garage, Willy pulled the release string on
his booby trap and Selby came crashing to the ground.

‘Oh, there you are, Willy,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Having a little play with Selby, are you?’

‘He doesn’t like me,’ Willy whined. ‘Look! He just lies there like a dumb-head!’

‘He’s probably having a rest,’ Dr Trifle said, spraying some Breath-Away Miracle Window Cleaner on the lens of Willy’s video camera. ‘Come and play with the computer.’

‘Every bone in my body aches,’ Selby thought as he limped to the back of the yard and curled up in his hiding bush. ‘Some day, somehow I’m going to get that kid and when I do I’ll …’

But before he could think of what he’d do to Willy, Selby fell sound asleep. He slept for a while and then something struck him — it was a big stick.

‘Wake up, stupo,’ Willy said, waving the stick in the air.

Selby jumped to his feet and without so much as a second thought, dived for the hole in the back of the garage. But just as he was flying through the air and thinking of how he was
going to block the hole and lock Willy out, he remembered Willy’s booby trap.

‘Oh, no! It’s probably right inside the garage!’ Selby thought as he sailed through the air. ‘I think he’s tricked me again!’

Sure enough, just as Selby’s head went through the hole he saw the loop of Willy’s rope lying on the floor. But Selby tucked his legs up tight like a broad-jumper trying to jump an extra centimetre, and glided over the rope and onto the floor beyond.

Just then, Willy came scrambling through the hole — right onto the rope.

‘Yike!’ Willy yelled as the booby trap caught his leg and flung him to the ceiling. ‘It’s got me!’

The sight of the tiny torturer swinging from a rope was too much for Selby. He let out a long, un-dog-like laugh.

‘It’s not funny,’ Willy whimpered.

‘If you could see how silly you look,’ Selby said in plain English, ‘you’d laugh too.’

‘You talked! You talked!’

‘Of course I talked,’ Selby sighed. ‘You know perfectly well I can talk. But it won’t do you a bit of good because nobody believes a word you say.’

‘I’m telling!’

‘Tell all you want.’

Just then, Dr and Mrs Trifle opened the door to the garage and found Willy dangling from the rope.

‘I do believe you’ve been caught in your own trap, Willy,’ Mrs Trifle said, untying the rope and lowering him down.

‘That dog talked to me!’ Willy screamed.

‘Come, come now, Willy,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘You’re old enough to know that dogs can’t talk.’

‘He can and he did,’ Willy said, running for a shelf and picking up his video camera. ‘And it’s on my video! It was going all the time! Put it in the TV! You’ll see!’

‘Oh, no,’ Selby thought. ‘The kid tricked me. He wasn’t trying to catch me with the booby trap. He was trying to catch me on his video camera — and he did! I’ve been outwitted by a half-wit nitwit!’

‘I’m sure you’re wrong,’ Mrs Trifle said to Willy.

‘You look!’ Willy cried. ‘Look at the video!’

‘All right,’ Dr Trifle said, taking the tape out of Willy’s hand. ‘If it’ll make you happy.’

Selby followed the Trifles into the lounge room.

Dr Trifle wound the video tape back a bit and then pushed the PLAY button.

‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘This is it. I’m gone. They’ll have to believe Willy now. I can’t stand it! I can’t let that little brat tattle on me. I’d rather tell them myself.’

Selby stepped up next to the Trifles and cleared his throat. He was about to say, ‘Excuse me, but I’m afraid that Willy is right — I can talk,’ when the video began playing.

The first thing Selby heard was his own voice saying, ‘If you could see how silly you look, you’d laugh too.’

‘That’s him talking!’ Willy screamed, pointing at the TV. ‘That’s Selby! He talks! See?’

‘I don’t see anything,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I can hear a strange voice but I can’t see anything. Are you sure that voice isn’t from a TV show?’

‘No, no, it’s him! It’s that dummy dog!’

Selby looked over at the TV, which was all white and snowy. Dr Trifle fast-forwarded the tape and then fast-backwarded it, but it was no use — there was no picture.

‘That’s very odd,’ Mrs Trifle said, suddenly looking over at the window which Dr Trifle had used to test his miracle window cleaner. ‘And look, this is even odder: that window cleaner has made the window go all white. You can’t see through it anymore.’

Selby looked at the window and then at the lens on Willy’s video camera. It, too, had gone white.

‘Oops,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I think that window cleaner isn’t such a miracle, after all. And I think I’ve ruined Willy’s camera.’

By now Mrs Trifle had fast-backwarded the tape to the beginning — the part before Dr Trifle’s lens cleaning, when Selby was hanging upside down by his leg.

‘Willy!’ she cried. ‘You horrible child! No wonder Selby doesn’t like to play with you! Look what you did to him! I’m going to give you a good, hard spanking for being so cruel to Selby!’

‘No, don’t spank me!’ Willy cried as the first blows began to fall on his bottom. ‘My goldfish died and you have to be nice to me! Mum said you have to! Oooooooowwwwww!’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Selby thought as he headed for the backyard again. ‘I guess some things do turn out all right after all. That Breath-Away stuff turned out to be a miracle for me. And it certainly is taking Willy’s breath away right now!

Selby was a very lucky dog. Well at least he thought he was lucky. That is, he would have been lucky if it hadn’t been for a sudden streak of very bad luck just when everything was going so well.

It all happened the day that Dr and Mrs Trifle were going to dinner at Mascara Mansion. The mansion was the huge old house that the fortune-teller, and now cosmetics millionaire, Madame Mascara, had just bought.

‘She’s so proud of that house,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘She’s invited the most important people in Bogusville to dinner — and us, too.’

‘What do you mean, and us, too? We’re
important, aren’t we? Why, you’re the mayor of Bogusville,’ Dr Trifle said.

‘I guess I just don’t think of us as being important,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘We’re just little old Trifle us. We certainly don’t live in a forty-two room mansion.’