Selby Speaks Read Free Page B

there for a while but finally escaped one night and attacked a piper who was playing
Scotland the Brave
on his bagpipes. When they found him the next day his dress was badly torn.”
    “Kilt,” interrupted Mrs Trifle.
    “No, he was very much alive,” Aunt Jetty continued. “When Tina finally noticed his dress she thought he was a woman, so she left him alone. Anyway, the locals, knowing my reputation as a big game hunter,” Aunt Jetty said, polishing her fingernails on her safari jacket, “called me in. All I had to do was to throw a net over the old girl,” Aunt Jetty said, throwing her net over Selby and yanking him upside down in the air, “like that! It was dead easy.”
    “Easy, schmeasy,” Selby thought, struggling to stand up in the net but with his feet poking out everywhere. “If she doesn’t watch her step she’ll meet the world’s first woman-eating dog.”
    Aunt Jetty dumped Selby onto the carpet and watched him jump through the front window and tear away down Bunya-Bunya Crescent.
    “I brought old Tina back here when I caught her,” she said. “It’s finders keepers I reckon. I’ve just put her in the Bogusville Zoo. She should be happy there.”
    Selby went for a walk through Bogusville Reserve till dark and then took his usual shortcut back through the zoo, squeezing between the bars of the closed front gate.
    “There’s nothing more peaceful than a zoo at night, when there are no crowds and the animals can relax,” Selby said as he made the rounds of the cages, looking at each of his animal friends.
    He stopped for a minute and sang a bit from his favourite opera,
Cleopatra and the Asp
, to Bazza the opera-loving boa constrictor and watched as tears of joy formed in the old snake’s eyes. And then he poked a handful of hay to Terrence Tusk, the one-tusked elephant.
    “How are they treating you, Terry?” Selby asked, not expecting an answer because he, Selby, was the only talking animal in Australia and, for all he knew, the world. “How’s the tusk?”
    Selby was about to take his usual short cut through the empty cage next to Terrence’s when he saw a newly painted sign at the front of it which said:

    “Hmmmmmmmm,” Selby said, looking closely at the sign. “How am I going to take my short cut? The cage isn’t empty any more. They’ve put an animal in it. But what’s an
an eater
? Is it an animal I’ve never heard of before, some woolly beast that eats
ans
? If so, what’s an
an
? Oh, silly me, I know! They must be getting an
anteater
and Postie hasn’t painted the T in yet,” Selby said, referring to Postie Paterson, Bogusville’s postman and part-time helper at the zoo. “Well, anteaters are pretty harmless — at least to dogs. I think I’ll take my usual short cut anyway. It’s a lot quicker than going all the way back through the front gate.”
    Selby barged in through the bars of the cage, little knowing that Postie (a not-very-experienced sign-writer who always painted signs backwards because when he painted them frontwards he always ran off the end of the sign) had written a warning sign to say that Two-Tooth Tina was a MAN EATER. He’d started by painting the R and then the E and so on but he hadn’t got a chance to paint in the M and finish the sign when closingtime came so the sign still only said AN EATER.
    As Selby walked through the cage towards the bars at the back he felt a pair of eyes following him in the darkness.
    “Hmmmmmmmm,” he thought. “There’s something creepy about this place. I feel like there are eyes following me around in the darkness. It must be that new anteater. I wonder where he is?”
    Suddenly there was a great roar and Tina jumped out into the moonlight.
    “Yoooooooooowww!” screamed Selby as he backed into a corner. “You’re no flippin’ anteater! Get away from me! Help!”
    Tina roared again and snapped at Selby’s front paws. Selby quickly stood on his hind legs and put his front legs over his head.
    “It’s