Selby Speaks Read Free

reasonable! Can’t we talk this over?!”
    “Undesirable,” Howard said as he lifted the struggling Selby over the shredder.
    “I’m gone!” Selby screamed as he fell towards the blades of the machine, expecting them to whirr into action. But instead the shredder shook, lurched — made a noise thatsounded something like a mechanical burp — and then spat him out onto the ground.
    “You’re right, Howard,” the shredder said slowly. “Undesirable.”
    The bewildered Selby looked up just in time to see Howard slowly come to a stop as he ran out of petrol. Blinking his red eyes, the GOTE said, “Undesirablllllllllll,” and then was silent.
    “As for those minor adjustments Dr Trifle was talking about, Howard,” Selby muttered as he dashed around picking up clothes and hanging them back on the clothes line. “If you and that silly shredder can’t tell the difference between an undesirable weed and yours truly, the most desirable dog in the world, then you’re going to need more than just minor adjustments.”

The Incredible Shrinking Dog
    “Help! I’m shrinking!” Selby thought. “I’m getting littler by the minute!”
    It had all started the night before when Selby went to the Bogusville Bijou Theatre to see a film called
The Incredible Shrinking Teenager.
    “It’s my birthday tomorrow,” he thought as he snaked past the queue and hid behind a seat till the lights went out, “and I’m going to see a movie as a special birthday treat. I might as wellgive myself a present in case Dr and Mrs Trifle forget. Oh, boy!” Selby thought as he munched a mouthful of popcorn he found on the seat beside him. “I can’t wait to see the teenager start shrinking!”
    The film was about a boy who ate too much junk food and suddenly began shrinking and shrinking until he was so small that the cat mistook him for a mouse and chased him. All through the film the teenager got smaller until he was so little that he climbed through a keyhole to escape from a hungry spider.
    “What a great film!” Selby thought and he felt his heart beating against his tight collar. “I wonder how he’s going to get big again?”
    Selby munched three chocolate bars that he’d been saving and then sucked a lolly as he watched the Incredible Shrinking Teenager grow big again by forcing himself to eat fresh vegetables.
    When it was over, Selby ran home and curled up on the little round cushion he used for a bed — a cushion so small that one of his legs always dangled on the floor. In his sleep he had a terrible nightmare about being so smallthat an ant chased him round and round the kitchen floor mistaking him for a bit of leftover sausage.
    “No! No!” Selby screamed in his dream. “Leave me alone, you six-legged savage! I’m not a sausage. I’m only a medium-sized talking dog!”
    Selby woke up suddenly and sprang to his feet, looking around in the darkness for the giant ant.
    “I must have been dreaming,” he thought as he turned around three times (as he always did before getting settled) and lay down only to notice that his leg didn’t dangle out onto the floor the way it usually did. And, what was worse, his collar, which had always been too tight, was suddenly loose!
    Selby trotted to the kitchen as his brain began to wake up. He was just about to get a Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuit from his bowl when he noticed that the bowl had grown big in the night!
    “Help!” Selby thought as the inescapable and terrifying thought shot through his brain. “I’m shrinking! I’m getting littler by the minute! I’mthe Incredible Shrinking Dog! It’s just like in the movie! I’m being punished for eating a few chocolate bars and some popcorn. It’s not fair! I don’t deserve to shrink!” he added, staring angrily at an ant that crawled across his bowl.
    Selby ran around the kitchen, opening cupboards and searching through the fridge.
    “I’ve got to have fresh vegies quick before I shrink any more!” he thought. “But the