Selby Speaks Read Free Page A

Trifles haven’t done the weekly shopping! Where am I going to find vegies at this time of night? Except
(gulp
), except … from Dr Trifle’s vegetable garden.”
    Selby tore out of the house, yanked up a carrot and gobbled it without even bothering to clean off the dirt. Then he ate two radishes and, before his mouth even had a chance to cool down, he ate three Zucchinis, a small lettuce and a couple of onions.
    “It worked for the Incredible Shrinking Teenager,” Selby said, feeling his stomach filling up and remembering how much he hated vegetables. “I only hope it works for me.”
    Selby ran along a row of tomatoes, snatching them right and left in his teeth, and then downa row of rhubarb, leaving behind nothing but a carpet of green leaves. In another minute he’d eaten five cucumbers and a cabbage and was staring greedily at a pumpkin.

    “Suddenly I don’t feel so well,” Selby said, clutching his swollen stomach. “I’ve never eaten this much of anything in my life — not even when I gobbled the whole chocolate-cream layer cake with hundreds and thousands that Mrs Trifle made on my birthday last year.”
    Selby staggered back into the house and lay down again on the cushion that was still too big and drifted off to sleep only to be wakened by singing voices coming closer and closer.
    “Happy birthday to you,” Dr and Mrs Trifle sang. “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Selby. Happy birthday to you.”
    Selby opened his eyes and there were Dr and Mrs Trifle bending over him.
    “Poor Selby,” Mrs Trifle said, patting him on the head. “I don’t suppose he knows it’s his birthday. I’m sure he doesn’t realise that we finally gave him a bigger sleeping cushion, one that fits him properly.”
    “And a nice big bowl that fits lots of those lovely Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits that he likes so much,” Dr Trifle added.
    “Oh, well,” Mrs Trifle said, looking at the new collar she’d put on him when he was sleeping, “here’s something he always loves: a chocolate-cream layer cake with hundreds and thousands!”
    “Yikes!” thought Selby as he put a paw to his mouth to keep from gagging.
    “My goodness!” Dr Trifle said. “Did you see that? One look at that cake and he’s gone all green in the face. I do think he’s sick of sweets. Maybe we’d better give him a bowl full of fresh vegetables for a change. I’m sure he’d like that.”
    “What a good idea,” Mrs Trifle said. “I’ll go and pick some right now. I hope that possum hasn’t got into the garden again.”

Terrible Tina, Two-Tooth Tiger
    Selby was just dozing off when Mrs Trifle’s dreadful sister, Aunt Jetty, burst into the house having just returned from a tiger hunt in darkest Scotland.
    “Darkest Scotland?” Mrs Trifle asked politely, spreading more marmalade on her toast. “You mean to say you were hunting a person eating tiger in Scotland?”
    “Not a
person eater,”
Aunt Jetty said, thumping her walking-stick on the floor but hitting Selby’s tail by mistake. “Tina is quite specifically a
man eater.
She hates men. Or, putting it differently, sheloves them — for dinner. Tina was first captured in India many years ago when she terrorised villages and attacked only the men. She never ate a
whole
man, though, because of a shortage in the tooth department —”
    “A shortage in the tooth department?” Dr Trifle said, looking up from the plans he was making for a talking floral clock for the Bogusville Memorial Rose Garden.
    “A severe shortage. She only has two teeth: an upper and a lower. With only two teeth she couldn’t actually kill anyone but you can be sure there are a goodly number of blokes in India with shortages in the finger and toe departments.”
    “I see,” Dr Trifle said, doing a quick count of his fingers and wondering when he’d last cut his fingernails.
    “When they finally caught her,” Aunt Jetty went on, “they sent her to the Haggis Highland Zoo in Scotland. She loved it