Selby Speaks Read Online Free Page A

said. “And he doesn’t go out and howl at night. He stays right in my house and sleeps like any normal dog. In the past three weeks you’ve brought me seventeen perfectly innocent dogs, three cats and a possum and eachtime you said you’d caught this mysterious dog of yours. Forget the phantom pooch and buy a decent pair of glasses so you can see properly.”
    “Er … ah … yes, Mrs Mayor,” Dudley said, backing out the door and pushing the Sleeve Net up his sleeve again as he listened to a distant sound that could have been the unmistakable baying of the phantom pooch but was really Dr Trifle’s new invention, a talking floral clock in the Bogusville Memorial Rose Garden screaming out,
“It’s twenty past twooooooooooooo!”
    “Poor Selby,” Mrs Trifle said. “I hope the silly man didn’t hurt you.”
    “Hurt, schmurt,” thought Selby, whose pride — but nothing much else — was hurt as anyone’s might have been if they were netted and dumped on the mayor’s carpet. “If that near-sighted ninny catches me again I’ll bite him into next week.”
    All of which he thought too soon because the next day every man and his dog (which included Selby) was at Gumboot Gorge waiting to see Awful Knoffle make his death-defying leap.
    “This is great!” said Selby, who loved anything death-defying as long as his own life wasn’t at stake, and he climbed a tall tree away from the crowd.
    “What a view!” Selby thought as he grabbed thinner and thinner branches near the top of the tree. “From here I’ll be able to see Awful tear all the way up the mountain and then leap the gorge.”
    All of which would have been okay if Selby hadn’t spied an even thinner branch at the very top of the tree where the view was even better — which still would have been okay if he hadn’t sat on the branch — and which still would have been okay if the branch hadn’t decided at that very moment to break off, sending Selby plummeting downward, hitting branch after branch on the way.
    “Ooooooooooooh!      Nooooooooooo!” Selby screamed, as he landed, slightly bruised, on the ground. Dudley Dewmop, who was innocently admiring Awful Knoffle’s roaring motorcycle, heard Selby’s scream and mistook it for the unmistakable baying of the phantom pooch.
    “It’s him! It’s the diabolical disappearing dog!” Dudley screamed as he knocked Awful from the motorcycle and hopped on. “I’ve got to get him!”
    Dudley put the big bike in gear and tore up the steep slope towards Selby.
    “Gimme my bike back, numbskull!” Awful screamed, chasing after Dudley.
    In a flash Selby was on his feet and running, with the motorcycle just behind.
    “I’ve got you now!” yelled the short-sighted part-time dog-catcher.
    “Help!” thought Selby as the puzzled crowd watched him tear up and down the steep sides of Gumboot Mountain with the mad motorcyclist hot on his heels. “Somebody’s got to stop this
(puff)
madman before he runs me over!”
    The answer came to Selby in a flash: “I’ll
(puff)
run to the edge of the gorge
(puff)
and he’ll have to stop and get off the bike
(puff puff).
Then I’ll climb down to where he can’t get to me!”
    Selby dashed to the edge of the gorge as fast as he could and then dug in his heels for a quick sliding stop.
    “Oh, no!” Selby thought as he skidded towards the top of the cliff with the shortsighted motorcyclist just behind. “I’m not going to stop in time! This time I’m really a done dog!”
    The crowd screamed as Selby flew out into the middle of the gorge with the motorcycle soaring through the air above him.
    “I’ve got you now, phantom pooch!” Dudley yelled, seeing the blur that was Selby dropping into the gorge and wondering why the ground was suddenly so smooth.
    With this, Dudley shot out his Telescoping Sleeve Net and scooped up the airborne dog. Together they tore over the gorge, landing safely on the other side, and screeched to a halt.
    “I’m not going to