Selby Supersnoop (8 page)

But before these thoughts were out of Selby’s brain a few people dashed up to the stage and began buying the perfume.

‘It would almost be worth giving away my secret just to be able to shout out, “Don’t buy that muck; it’s a waste of money!” Hey, now wait a minute! Hold the show! I know what I’ll do.’

Selby crept down under the seats till he was under Dr Trifle’s seat. Very slowly, and without the doctor noticing, Selby put his snout down into Dr Trifle’s jacket pocket and grabbed the bottle of Smell-O-Surf gently in his teeth. In a minute he had placed the bottle on a table at the back of the theatre and had the cap off.

‘Now all I have to do is move the table over in front of the air conditioner,’ Selby said, pushing the table, ‘and I’ll give them a whiff of something really good.’

Selby stepped outside the door again as the smell of tropical islands spread through the theatre. Suddenly there were ooooohs and aaaaaahs all around.

‘What is that heavenly smell?’ someone cried.

‘It reminds me of ocean breezes and coral reefs,’ someone else said. ‘I feel like I’ve just gone on holidays.’

‘Forget the Composure stuff, Mr Pierre,’ a woman said. ‘Where can we buy some of this?’

Dr Trifle searched his pockets for the bottle. Soon one of Pierre’s assistants located the bottle of Smell-O-Surf, sniffed it and put the lid back on.

‘Whose perfume is this?’ Pierre demanded.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I’m afraid this one’s mine.’

‘Yours?’ Pierre said. ‘Why did you want to ruin my beautiful launch?!’

‘I-I didn’t,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I don’t know how it got there. Honestly, I don’t.’

Selby chuckled to himself as everyone crowded around Dr Trifle.

‘Where can we buy this beautiful fragrance?’ they demanded.

‘I don’t have any more,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Only what’s in that bottle. I guess I could make some more though. It’s really not difficult to make.’

‘Get out of here, all of you ungrateful people!’ Pierre screamed. ‘You are stupid, uncouth country people! You know nothing! I have wasted my time with you! Out! Out!’

Everyone filed out of the theatre. Pierre was standing stiffly in the doorway as Dr and Mrs Trifle went out.

‘We’re terribly sorry,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘We really don’t know what happened.’

‘I will tell you one thing,’ Pierre said. ‘I am never coming back to this terrible town!’

‘I quite understand,’ Dr Trifle said politely, adding, ‘Oh, by the way, may I have my perfume back?’

‘I don’t know where it is,’ Pierre said.

‘But one of your assistants had it,’ Mrs Trifle said.

‘Then it is a mystery,’ Pierre said, blowing his nose in his silk handkerchief. ‘He must have thrown it away.’

‘Never mind,’ Dr Trifle said, ‘I can make some more.’

‘That guy’s lying,’ Selby thought. ‘One of these guys has Dr Trifle’s perfume. Now they’ll take it back to their laboratory and figure out how to make it. He’s just stolen Dr Trifle’s formula! And now Pierre will make grillions of dollars from it! Crumbs — and it’s all my fault.’

Just then, Selby smelled a faint smell of Smell-O-Surf. For a second he was back in the tropics lying on the beach. In his daydream he
got up, stretched, and looked up at the coconuts in the palms above him.

‘I’d love a nice sip of coconut milk,’ he thought. ‘Maybe I’ll just climb up and pick a coconut.’

In his mind, Selby leapt halfway up a palm, only to have it fall to the ground under his weight.

Selby came back to reality with a start.

‘Get that savage dog off me!’ a voice cried. ‘He’s trying to kill me!’

Selby opened his eyes and there was Pierre lying on his back on the floor under him.

‘Goodness, Selby,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Get off that man. What’s got into you?’

Mrs Trifle was pulling Selby back by the collar when suddenly Dr Trifle’s perfume bottle rolled out of Pierre’s pocket.

‘Just as I suspected,’ Selby thought. ‘That scoundrel had it all the time!’

‘I believe we’ve just located the bottle,’ Dr Trifle said, picking it up. ‘Come along, Selby. I think you’ve solved our little mystery.’

‘So I have,’ Selby thought. ‘Come to think of it, maybe I’m not such a bad sniffer-dog, after all.’

‘Look! Come quickly!’ Mrs Trifle cried.

Dr Trifle came dashing into the study with Selby right behind him.

‘What is it, dear?’ the doctor asked. ‘A great discovery!’ Mrs Trifle said, holding up an old postcard. ‘I found this in the middle of that book about Canada. I suspect that your great, great, great-grandfather, Fred Trifle, wrote it to your great, great, great-grandmother, Matilda, before they were married.’

Dr Trifle held up the postcard and read it:

September 15, 1857

     Dear Matilda,

     The weather is here, wish you were beautiful. Ha, ha. Great joke, isn’t it? See you soon.

Love, Fred

Dr Trifle looked puzzled as he re-read the card.

‘Yes, very interesting,’ he said, finally, ‘but that’s the oldest, corniest postcard joke in the world. Instead of writing, “The weather is beautiful, wish you were here,” he wrote “The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.” Get it?’

‘Of course I get it,’ Mrs Trifle sighed. ‘You used to write it on every postcard you sent me before we were married, remember?’ ‘Did I?’

‘You did.’

‘Come to think of it, I did,’ the doctor chuckled.

‘Well, it wasn’t funny then and it isn’t funny now.’

‘But you used to tell me how funny it was.’

‘I was being polite,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But it isn’t the message on this postcard I wanted you to see; it’s the stamp.’

Dr Trifle looked at the stamp.

‘Hmmm,’ he hmmmed. ‘It’s a triangle with a picture of flying ducks on it and it says “Newfoundland” and “Two Pence” on the bottom. It’s a strange one, all right. It could be worth a fortune.’

‘A double fortune,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘The ducks were printed upside down by mistake. An old stamp with a mistake on it must be very, very rare and very, very valuable. Let’s take it to a stamp expert and see how much it’s worth.’

‘Speaking of corny old jokes,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Our comedian friend Gary Gaggs is a bit of a stamp-nut and we’re going to his comedy show tomorrow night, remember? Maybe he can come back here afterwards and tell us what the stamp is worth.’

‘Good idea.’

That night, when the Trifles were safely in bed, Selby crept into the study and had a good look at the stamp.

‘What a great find!’ he thought. ‘I wonder if the Trifles are going to sell it? I’d sell it in a second! Wow, all that money! Goody, goody! What a great holiday they could have!’

The next day everyone in Bogusville had heard about the rare stamp. Soon there were newspaper people and TV crews knocking at the door to interview the Trifles and to take pictures of the postcard.

‘I don’t like everyone knowing that there’s something so valuable in the house,’ Dr Trifle said that evening. ‘Someone might break in and steal it. And we can’t insure it because we still don’t know how much it’s worth. Maybe we should have kept it secret for a few days.’

‘Don’t worry, dear. I’ll put it in our bank vault tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m sure it’ll be fine right here in this book.’

That evening the Trifles went to Gary Gaggs’ comedy show and Selby stayed at home.

‘This rare stamp business was so exciting at first,’ Selby thought, ‘but now it gives me the shivers. I hope nothing happens while the Trifles are away.’

No sooner did these words trickle through Selby’s brain than there was the crash and tinkle of breaking glass in the other room.

‘What was that?’ Selby wondered. ‘Could it be someone breaking in?’

It could and it was: into the study climbed two men wearing black burglar masks. Selby ducked out of sight around the corner before they noticed him.

‘Is this the place?’ one of the burglars asked the other.

‘Yeah, this is it all right,’ the other said.

‘Okay, let’s get to work and find that stamp.’

Selby heard the burglars pulling books from the shelves.

‘I found the postcard!’ one of the men said, finally. ‘We’re rich! Come on, let’s get out of here!’

‘Oh, no!’ Selby thought. ‘The Trifles are about to lose the stamp! I can’t let this happen!’

Suddenly Selby remembered an article he’d seen about burglaries and burglar alarms.

‘Some of the best burglar alarms are the ones that have recorded voices,’ he remembered. ‘They yell things out and the burglars think that someone’s at home and go running off.’

Just as the burglars turned to go back out the window, Selby yelled out the first thing that popped into his head: ‘All right, you two! This is the police! Come out of that room with your hands up!’

‘The cops!’ one of the burglars whispered.

‘It can’t be!’ the other one whispered.

‘It is. They must be in the lounge room.’

‘Okay, don’t shoot! We give up!’ the first one called out.

Slowly the burglars came into the lounge room with their hands in the air. One of them was holding the postcard.

‘Oops! I did it wrong,’ Selby thought. ‘I should have just told them to drop the postcard and get out! What do I do now?’

The burglars looked around the room and then one of them put his hands down and started laughing. He went over to Selby and patted him on the head.

‘What’s so funny?’ the other one asked.

‘You, you dummy. Can’t you see there’s no one here but this dog?’

‘So where are the cops?’

‘There aren’t any cops. It’s just one of those stupid burglar alarms. Someone put the wrong message on it. They should have said, “Get out before I call the police,” or something like that. What a ninny!’

Suddenly Selby remembered something else from the burglar article.

‘The best burglar alarm is a dog,’ he remembered. ‘Hey, That’s me! I’m a dog! I’m a
burglar alarm! I should be barking and snarling and biting and all those other dog-like things! But wait, if I do that now, they’ll run off with the stamp! Why didn’t I do it before they found the stamp?’

But Selby noticed that the burglar with the postcard was holding it right next to his nose as he patted him. Slowly and secretly Selby’s tongue slid out and touched a corner of the stamp. In a moment he’d wet it through and had a loose corner of the stamp in his teeth. He pulled gently, and then he pulled not so gently, and finally he gave it a yank and a jerk and the stamp slipped into his mouth and was safely hidden under his tongue.

‘Hey! The dog’s got the stamp!’ the burglar yelled. ‘Grab him!’

Selby turned and let out a flurry of barking and growling so ferocious that it even frightened him.

‘Hey! This dog’s going to kill us!’ the other burglar yelled. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

The two men ran back into the study and dived through the window as Selby ripped at their trousers.

‘That was good fun!’ Selby squealed when the burglars were safely out of sight. ‘Now all I have to do is glue the stamp back on the postcard and put the books back on the shelves. The Trifles will know that someone broke their window but at least they’ll have their stamp.’

Selby opened his mouth to spit the stamp out but nothing came out. He moved his tongue around and around searching for it and then went to the mirror, opened his mouth and gazed in.