Selby Snaps by Duncan Ball Read Free Book Online

had chosen me
I really wouldn’t have a clue
It was a bolt straight from the blue.
    I couldn’t wait to blab it out
I’d whisper it, I’d yell, I’d shout.
Of course they’d be surprised to see
A talking thinking dog - like me.
    They’d say, ‘Did you hear what he said?’
“Why goodness me!’ and ‘Strike me dead!’ ‘
That thought makes thinking obsolete!’
And then they’d bow and kiss my feet.
    They’d quote my brilliant thought a lot
The phones would all be running hot
Teachers would be specially taught
To teach my extra-special thought.
    The thought had knocked me upside down
I scratched the words upon the ground.
But then it rained, to my dismay,
And washed my brilliant thought away.
    But still I kept it in my head
Hanging from a slender thread.
I knew that any thought you think
Can disappear within a blink.
    I shouted it, I spoke, I said,
My thought - to keep it in my head.
I did this on and on and on
But then I sneezed - and it was gone!
    It wafted off into the air
Right now it could be anywhere.
Today I thought a brilliant thought
But now, alas, my thought’s forgot.

SELBY SOLD
    Selby was very careful about most things. So making a major slip-up, like talking out loud and in plain English in public, was very unusual. But the shock of looking into a pet shop and seeing himself in a cage had been too much.
    ‘That’s me!’ he cried. ‘It’s my spitting image! A perfect copy! Oh, no,
I’ve been cloned!’
Selby had a closer look at the dog in the cage. ‘Well I guess he doesn’t look exactly like me,’ he said. ‘He has a little white spot on his chest. But he certainly looks similar.’ ‘I beg your pardon?’
    Selby wheeled around to see Kitty Littaire, the owner of Mutts & Moggies, standing behind him on the footpath.
    ‘You just talked,’ she said. ‘I heard you.’
    ‘Crumbs,’ Selby thought. ‘She heard me! I’d better stay absolutely quiet. If I do it long enough she’ll just think she was hearing things.’
    ‘Don’t think you can fool me,’ Kitty said. ‘I know that I heard what I heard. And
you
are coming with
me!’
    Selby struggled against the woman’s steely grip but it was no use. The hands that had grappled with some of the roughest pets in the world soon had Selby locked in a cage with the dog that looked like him. The dog was so happy that he began licking Selby’s face.
    Kitty Littaire quickly locked the pet shop door, turned the sign to ‘Closed’ and drew the curtains.
    ‘Goodness, you certainly do look like Bubbles here — except for the white spot, that is,’ Kitty — who had a very keen eye for pet differences — said. ‘Now why don’t you and I have a little conversation?’
    ‘Not on your life,’ Selby thought.
    ‘I know you!’ Kitty said. ‘You’re the mayor’s dog! You’re Selby, aren’t you?’
    ‘Maybe I am and maybe I’m not,’ Selby thought.
    The pet shop owner paced the floor for a moment.
    ‘You don’t really understand me, do you Selby?’
    ‘ ? ‘
    ‘And right now I know you hate me.’
    ‘!’
    ‘Well let me explain about pet shop owners,’ she said. ‘You think that we just sell puppies and kittens and goldfish. Of course we do. And we all love animals. But none of us wants to spend the rest of our lives selling little packs of fish food and birdseed and guinea pig pellets. No, not us. We are all waiting for that very special pet to come along, the one that will make us fabulously rich. It could be a two-headed cobra. Or it may be a rat that can learn to play
Jingle Bells
on a set of tiny bells. Or, Selby, it could even be a talking dog —
the only talking dog in Australia!
Maybe even in the whole world.’
    ‘I’ll ignore her,’ Selby thought. ‘Sooner or later she’ll have to let me go.’
    ‘All my life I’ve been looking for something like you and now I’ve got you!’ the woman said. ‘Now I
own
you and your life has changedforever. So it’s no good playing Mister