Selby's Secret
Authors: Duncan Ball
For my parents,
Donald and Theodora Ball
Selby's secret was that he was the only talking dog in Australia and â for all he knew â in the world. It wasn't a gift that he was born with. When he was young he was a perfectly ordinary barking dog. And it wasn't something that someone taught him. It just seemed to happen gradually until one day he realised that something fantastic had happened to him. Something that would change his life forever â or would it?
It all happened one evening when Selby and the Trifles were watching a TV program called
Hearthwarm Heath.
It was the story of a butler
who worked in a huge mansion. Selby loved the old man because he was so polite and because he knew more about everything than the lord and lady of the house. That night's episode was about an orphan girl who Basil the butler found dying in the snow. He took her into Hearthwarm Hall and looked after her but she kept stealing things and Basil had to pretend that he'd sent her away to the poorhouse â when he really had her hidden in the linen press.
Selby had watched television for years. There was never any trouble understanding what was happening. He could always figure it out just from watching. But suddenly, as he blinked back a tear for Basil and the orphan girl, he realised that he understood every word that was being said. He wasn't just looking at the pictures â he knew all the words.
Selby was so shocked that he jumped up and raced around the room saying, “Bow wow wow woof woof yip yipe yip!” â which in dog-talk meant, “I understand every word that is being said! I'm the smartest dog in the world!” â and quickly forgot about the television program.
“For heaven's sake, Selby,” Mrs Trifle said. “It isn't time to eat yet. If you make so much noise, how can we hear the end of
Hearthwarm Heath?”
“Yipe yipe bow yip yip arrrrrr grrrrrr!” Selby said, meaning, “Eat schmeat, I'll show you! I'll show everyone that I understand people-talk! All I have to do is learn to speak it. You'll see!”
From that moment on Selby did everything he could to learn to talk. Whenever the Trifles were out he would sit in front of the TV set repeating everything that was said. His problem was that his mouth just didn't work like a people-mouth. After a lifetime of eating dog food from a bowl and chewing Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits, Selby's lips simply wouldn't do the things that people-lips did when they spoke. When he tried to say, “Oh bother, Basil, pass me the pepper,” it came out, “Oh, gother Gasil, gas gee the gecker.”
“I'm going to speak this language,” Selby thought, pressing his lips against the spinning clothes drier to give himself a lip massage after practising to speak for hours, “even if it kills me.
Youch! That's hot!” he yelled, plunging his burning lips into a bucket of water. “I don't know who thought up this dreadful language but you can be sure he didn't eat Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits. It was probably someone who could drink through a straw and do a proper pucker. In fact if I could just
say
proper pucker I'd be home and hosed.”
“Proper pucker, proper pucker, proper pucker,” Selby said, but it came out “hocker hucker” every time.
Gradually Selby taught himself to use his lips when he spoke and his dog-accent disappeared. When the Trifles were out of the house he spent hours in front of the hall mirror rattling off the most difficult lip-twisters he knew until, finally, he could say, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” so smoothly that it sounded like the rattle of a distant machine-gun.
“Oh, you perfect pooch,” Selby said, and then he did a proper pucker and kissed himself in the mirror. “You're my kind of dog.”
Selby's plan was simple. He would give the Trifles a Christmas present that they'd never
forget. What better present could he give than to tell them his secret? His heart was bursting with joy as he pictured the wonderful scene that would follow as they stood around the fireplace, drinking egg-nog, leaning against the wall on one elbow and talking about old times and the wonderful times to come.
And what better way to spring the surprise on them than to wait till they walked in the front door on their way back from the Bogusville Christmas Dinner Charity Appeal on Christmas Eve? There, standing just inside the front door and dressed in a suit would be the new Selby; not the old throw-him-a-stick-and-see-if-he-goes-for-it Selby the pet, but the all-new talking friend-of-the-family Selby.
At last it was Christmas Eve and the Trifles were about to return from their dinner. Selby sneaked into Dr Trifle's wardrobe and got out a white shirt, a tie and one of the doctor's finest suits. With great difficulty he slipped the shirt over his head and wrapped the tie once around the collar. Then he put on the top part of the suit.
“I'll skip the dacks,” Selby said, seeing that the jacket covered him from neck to tail and putting the pants back in the wardrobe. “They're a bit lacking in the number-of-legs department and, besides, the coat already covers me like a tent.”
Selby stood at Mrs Trifle's dressing-table and did his hair with her hairbrush.
“If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing right,” Selby said, quoting Basil. “I could just look up from my dog-dish one day and say, âG'day. How's it goin'?' but it really wouldn't be the same, would it?”
Just then Selby heard the Trifles' car pull into the driveway and he dashed to the loungeroom and pulled up a chair just inside the front door. He climbed up, standing on his back legs, and straightened his tie and collar.
“Don't panic, Selby,” he told himself, “just remember what you're going to say and say it with feeling: âGood evening, Madam and Sir',” he said in his best Basil-the-butler voice, “ âand a very merry Christmas to you both'.”
Selby's heart raced with excitement as the Trifles crunched their way along the gravel path.
“It's on nights like this,” he heard Mrs Trifle say, “that I wish we had a butler to give us an after-dinner snack and a pot of tea.”
“Oh, it's so exciting! If this takes much longer I think I'll explode!” Selby squealed, looking in the mirror and deciding that â but for the long ears and hairy face â he looked quite a lot like Basil himself. “Hurry up! I can't wait any longer!”
“It's a pity,” Dr Trifle said, putting his key in the lock and opening the door a crack, “that we couldn't give Selby a few things to do around the house. If he could only understand us he'd be very useful. We might even send him on errands.”
“You do have a wild imagination,” Mrs Trifle laughed. “A talking dog. Fancy Selby actually talking.”
“Hmmmmmm.”
Selby hmmmmmmed and his mind raced like a windmill.
“If we could teach the poor old thing to talk,” Dr Trifle said, “we could get him to answer the telephone and take messages when we're out.”
“Hmmmmmm â¦,” Selby hmmmmmmed again and suddenly his heart skipped a beat. “Poor old thing indeed,” he thought. “They don't want a pet, they want a servant â and I'm about to be it! They'll have me running around like Basil the butler! Help!”
Selby thought of tearing back to the bedroom and hiding the clothes but it was too late. The door swung open and Dr and Mrs Trifle stared at him with their mouths open.
“Selby!” Mrs Trifle screamed. “What's got into you?! What do you think you're doing?!”
Selby stood for an instant, frozen like a statue, and then he jumped down and raced
around the room with Dr Trifle's clothes flying everywhere. And as he ran he gave the only answer he could possibly give: “Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Aroooooooo!” All of which in dog-talk means, “Good evening, Madam and Sir, and a very merry Christmas to you both”
And so Selby's secret remained a secret â at least for the moment.
“Choooooooo!” Selby sneezed as he lay on the floor of the study watching Dr Trifle who was designing a new floral clock for the Bogusville Memorial Rose Garden. “It's not fair,” he thought, “I've had this cold for a month now and it's making life very boring â very, very, extremely boring, in fact.”
“What I think I'll do,” Dr Trifle said absently to himself, not knowing that Selby understood every word he was saying, “is to put a water-wheel in Bogusville Creek and then connect it to the floral clock. That way the water will drive
the hands of the clock! What a good idea! No winding, no electricity.”
“Oh, doctor,” Selby thought, “you've thought of that idea five times before but you keep forgetting it. If only I could talk to you. If only I dared.”
“The mayor will be pleased as punch,” Dr Trifle said, referring to Mrs Trifle, the mayor of Bogusville. “Oooops! I've forgotten to take her lunch to her.”
Just then there was a knock at the door and in barged the doctor's old friend Professor Krakpott from the Department of Old and Crusty Things at the Federal University, carrying a cardboard box.
“Drop everything, Blinky,” Professor Krakpott said, using Dr Trifle's old nickname and tearing the box apart. In the middle of a pile of woodshavings he found an ancient plate with a picture of a monkey on it. “This is urgent,” he said. “This plate was found in the tomb of an ancient warrior in the Shandom of Feeblestan. The Shan himself has sent it to our Minister for C and B as a friendship gift.”
“C and B?” Dr Trifle said, taking the plate and looking at the cracks that ran every which way and showed that the plate had once been broken and had been put back together again.
“Cakes and Biscuits,” Professor Krakpott continued. “It's the Ministry for Baking Resources but everyone calls it the C and B. The Minister is about to do a big lamington deal.”
“Lamington deal?” Dr Trifle said, remembering the mayor's lunch once again.
“Feeblestan is the biggest buyer of Australian lamingtons,” Professor Krakpott said, putting the plate down very gently on Dr Trifle's desk. “In fact they're the only buyers of Australian lamingtons. Now it seems that they want to buy more of the wretched things. They're buttering up the C and B with the ancient plate.”
“And what do you want me to do?” Dr Trifle asked.
“The Minister wants to know just what these squiggles and curlicues on the bottom mean so he can give proper thanks to the Shan.”
“They're writing,” Dr Trifle said, running his finger gently over them. “It's written in ancient Feeblestani.”
“We know that, Blinky,” Professor Krakpott said, slapping the doctor's wrist, forgetting for a minute that he wasn't at home and the doctor wasn't one of his children playing with his mashed potatoes. “The question is: what does it say?”
“I think it says, âthe great monkey of wisdom smiles on the leader',” Dr Trifle said, rubbing his wrist.
“That's what we think too, Blinky,” the professor said. “But we have to make absolutely certain. We're not sure about some of these scribbly bits over here. I've got to run now so could you check the writing? I'll be back in a couple of hours.”
With this, Professor Krakpott dashed out the door, nearly tripping over the sniffing Selby, and was gone as fast as he'd come.
“Yessssssss,” Dr Trifle said, slowly running his finger around the plate and remembering the way he used to play with his mashed potatoes when he was a boy. “I think I'd better check my notes on this one. But the affairs of state will just have to wait a few minutes while I run the mayor's lunch down to the council chambers.”
“I can't (sniff) stand it!” Selby said, holding back a sneeze when the doctor had left the house. “This is so ex-(sniff)-citing! I can't (sniff) wait to find out what the squiggles mean! I've got to know (sniff) now!”
With this Selby jumped up on the desk and climbed up the tall bookcase that stretched above it. He grabbed the box that said
Notes on Ancient Feeblestani
and was just about to climb back down when the sneeze he had held back suddenly broke loose.
“Choooooooo!” he sneezed, and the box tumbled out of his paw hitting the ancient plate and smashing it to bits. “Oh no!” he screamed. “I've savaged the saucer! I've scattered the platter! I'm a done dog. Unless ⦠unless ⦔
Selby grabbed a tube of Snap-O-Grip Pottery Plastic and quickly started gluing the pieces back together.
“This is like a jig-saw puzzle,” Selby said as he finished putting the plate back together and wondered why it wasn't quite as round as it used to be. “And what's (sniff) this? I'm sure the (sniff) monkey didn't have a (sniff sniff) moustache before.”
Just then Selby heard Dr Trifle returning and he quickly put the box of notes back on the bookshelf and the glue back in the desk drawer.
“Humdy hum,” Dr Trifle said, running his finger around the plate again. “But what's this?
That moustachioed monkey looks just like the Minister. It's funny I didn't notice it before. And what's this? If I don't miss my guess that writing doesn't say âthe great monkey of wisdom smiles on the leader' it says âthe wise leader is a great smiling monkey'! This is an insult to the government! The Shan of Feeblestan is trying to make a monkey out of the Minister for C and B â a bigger monkey than he already is! I'd better ring the Minister and tell him to cancel his trip to Feeblestan and to stop all exports of lamingtons! But first I'll check my notes just to make sure I'm right about the translation.”
“It's all my (sniff) fault,” Selby thought. “I've put the plate back together wrong. This could mean war! Worse, this could mean no more lamington shipments to Feeblestan. Help!” he thought, holding back another great sneeze. “What can I do?”
Dr Trifle climbed onto the desk and stretched up on his tip-toes to reach the box of notes. And just then Selby, who was leaning against the leg of the desk for support, sneezed his great sneeze.
“Choooooooo!” Selby chooooooooed, and the desk shook so hard that Dr Trifle lost his grip on the box of notes and it tumbled down, smashing the plate into as many pieces as before and maybe even a few more.
“Oh no!” Dr Trifle screamed as he grabbed the Snap-O-Grip from the drawer. “I've pulverised the pot! What will I tell Professor Krakpott? He's due at any minute!”
Selby watched patiently as Dr Trifle glued the bits back together so perfectly that there weren't any cracks showing, not even the original ones.
“Well I'll be a monkey's uncle,” Dr Trifle said, looking at his notes and studying the plate. “That's funny.”
“What's funny?” Professor Krakpott asked as he burst into the room. “What does it say?”
“It says, âthe great monkey of wisdom smiles on the leader',” Dr Trifle said. “And the monkey doesn't have a moustache after all.”
“A monkey with a moustache?” Professor Krakpott said. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Now give me that plate before you break it or something. I have to get back to the Minister straight away.”
With this, Professor Krakpott snatched the plate and tore out the door.
“That was a close call,” Dr Trifle said, patting Selby on the head.
“Choooooooo!” Selby sneezed as he curled up on the carpet for a snooze. “What did I (sniff) say,” he thought, “about this cold making life boring?”