by Duncan Ball
‘Apparently it’s imported by DMDB Bottling Company over in Poshfield. It’s being sold all over Australia,’ Mrs Trifle said.
‘DMDB!’ Selby thought. ‘That’s the Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits Company that Denis Dorset owns! I wouldn’t trust that guy as far as I could throw him! Swiss mineral water? There’s something fishy about this.’
‘Anyway, it’s great to see you again, Mayor Trifle,’ Ella said. ‘I’ve got to get back to the city. I hope my boss will let me do a story about Bogusville’s baby boom.’
It was something Selby overheard a few days later that set the gears of his brain in motion. He was in the kitchen, munching a Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuit, when he heard Dr Trifle say to Mrs Trifle, ‘Maybe you should start being a bit more careful about what you eat.’
‘Yes, I guess so,’ Mrs Trifle said, smoothing her chubby tummy with one hand. ‘It certainly has grown in the past month.’
And if the gears in Selby’s brain were in motion now, something else that Mrs Trifle said started them whirring like a salad spinner.
‘Darling,’ she said to her husband, ‘remember you’ll have to clear everything out of the study in time for the delivery.’
‘When are you expecting it?’
‘In a few months’ time.’
‘It’ll be ready by then,’ Dr Trifle assured her. ‘Just watch what you eat in the meantime.’
‘Watch what she eats?’ Selby thought. ‘Expecting? Clearing out the study for the delivery? A few months’ time? Hey, I get it! Mrs Trifle is going to have a baby! Oh, this is the best news ever! I’m going to have a baby brother — or sister! Well, sort of.’
All day Selby thought about what life would be like with a baby in the house.
‘Another pair of hands to pat me and arms to cuddle me,’ he thought. ‘Another little being to love me and feed me and, when it grows up a bit, to throw sticks for me to chase. I’ll tell it my secret but make it promise not to tell. We’ll go on walks together and talk about everything. I’ll help with its homework — especially if it has anything to do with dogs. Oh joy, oh joy, oh wonderful world!’
But it wasn’t long before Selby’s spinning brain-gears went into reverse.
‘Hang on a tick,’ he thought. ‘Do I really want this baby in the house? Babies pull dogs’ fur. This bub will be crawling around everywhere and pulling things off tables and spilling my food and breaking things. And the whole house will smell of nappies! Mrs Trifle will have to quit her job as mayor, and Dr Trifle won’t get any time to make his inventions any more. And, besides, I could never trust it to keep my secret. And I hate chasing sticks! What am I going to do? What can I do?’
Selby started thinking of what Bogusville would soon be like. ‘Babies everywhere!’ he screamed in his brain. ‘No one will get enough sleep! Everyone will be cranky! And I’ll have to dodge prams every time I go for a walk. And some of those prams are as big as cars! And the kids will all want pets. There will be dogs everywhere! We’ve got enough dogs! Maybe Mrs Trifle was right — there’s something in the water. And I’ll bet that sneaky Denis Dorset put it there! He wants more kids so he can sell more water! He wants kids to get dogs so he can sell more dog biscuits! There should be a warning on every bottle of his mineral water that says “Danger! This water could cause …” Cause what? “Cause life.” Somebody’s got to stop this before it gets any worse. And that somebody has to be me.’
That night Selby crept out of the house and made a dash for Poshfield. Soon he was outside the DMDB Enterprises building. There were lights on all around the building and trucks coming and going.
The sign over the door had a huge photograph of a woman holding up a glass of water and smiling. It said:
YODELLING SPRING SWISS MINERAL WATER,
THE ALPINE CHAMPAGNE WITH THAT LITTLE
ADDED EXTRA FOR HEALTHY LIVING
‘Okay, so the water comes from Switzerland, and Denis’s company just puts it in bottles and sells it — but not before he adds “that little added extra”. Hmmm, I wonder what it could be.’
Selby peeked in through a dusty window. Inside there were people working through the night. He could see bottles on the production line.
‘I need a closer look,’ he thought.
With all the people around, no one noticed the not-too-big and not-too-small dog trot into the factory. There he saw the chemist, Bartleby Boffin, talking to Denis Dorset himself. Selby crept under a bench to listen.
‘I don’t feel good about this,’ Bartleby said.
‘Stop worrying, Bart,’ Denis said. ‘You don’t like putting sawdust in our dog biscuits either, but that’s a different story. This new mineral water is fantastic! We bottle it and sell it. Simple.’
‘What worries me is saying that it has something extra when it doesn’t.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Denis Dorset said with a grin. ‘Keep the production line going! Run it all night, Bart! I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘We’re going to run out of water in an hour,’ Bartleby said. ‘We need another tanker load.’
‘There’s an empty truck out back,’ said Denis. ‘Drive it yourself, Bart.’
‘But —’
‘Do it or you’re sacked.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What’s going on?’ Selby thought. ‘Are they adding the baby thing here? Or is it already in the water?’
After Denis Dorset left, Selby crept towards the exit.
‘Hi, little guy,’ Bartleby said. ‘I remember you. You’re the peanut prawns dog, aren’t you? How’d you get in here? I guess, if you could talk, you’d tell me that you came right in the open door, wouldn’t you.’
‘That’s exactly what I’d say,’ Selby thought.
‘You’re a great little pooch,’ the man continued. ‘I love dogs.’
‘I like you, too,’ Selby thought. ‘Poor Bart. He’s such a lovely guy. How can he stand to work for slimy old Denis?’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ Bartleby said. ‘Why don’t you keep me company while I get some more of this silly water?’
‘Hang on,’ Selby thought, ‘I wonder where he’s going to get the water from? I guess I’ll see.’
Soon Bartleby was at the wheel of the tanker truck with Selby sitting next to him.
‘This won’t take long,’ the man said. ‘So how have you been?’
Selby was tempted to answer, when the truck turned down a dirt road.
‘Very strange,’ Selby thought. ‘We’re heading for Gumboot Mountain! There’s no Swiss water there!’
And so it was that Selby found himself at the river right in back of Gumboot Mountain, which was known as the Right-in-Back River. Bartleby Boffin stopped at the river’s edge and started pumping water into the tank of the truck.
‘So that’s it!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s not water from a spring in Switzerland after all! It’s just plain old muddy water from here! It’s a rip-off! It’s a fraud! And it’s against the law! I’m going straight to the police about Denis Dorset’s phony baloney spring water! I don’t care if everyone finds out I can talk.’
Selby paused. ‘Hang on a tick. I have a better idea.’
It was a very careful dog that waited till the Trifles were safely out of the house the next day and made a secret telephone call.
‘Is this Ella? Ella Taylor?’ he said.
‘Yes, who is this?’ the young woman answered.
‘I can’t tell you who I am, but have I got a scoop for you …’
‘This week has been exhausting,’ Mrs Trifle said to Dr Trifle. ‘I’ve hardly had a moment to sit down, with all the preparations for the Bogusville Festival. I’ve spent half the week on the phone trying to get sponsors ever since Denis Dorset dropped out.’
‘Dropped out?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Went to jail is more like it. Who would have thought he was so dishonest?’
‘I would have,’ Selby thought. ‘That guy is so crooked he can’t even walk straight.’
‘Wasn’t that clever
of little Ella to find out about it?’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Apparently someone phoned her and tipped her off. She doesn’t know who he was. She told me that she thought it might have been you.’
‘Me?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Why would she think that?’
‘She says that the call came from our telephone.’
‘Gulp,’ Selby gulped.
‘And as far as I know, you and I are the only ones who ever use this phone.’
Dr and Mrs Trifle looked at each other and then looked down at Selby.
‘Double gulp,’ Selby gulped again.
‘And she told me something else,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘She said that her mum was wrong about the number of pregnant women in Bogusville. There aren’t over a hundred. There are only ten.’
‘That’s more like it. Why did her mum think there were so many?’
‘I guess it’s just one of those things. When women are pregnant, they notice other pregnant women. She must have been counting the same women over and over again,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Oh, and by the way, I cancelled my delivery.’
‘She what?’ Selby thought. ‘Cancelled? What does she mean by that?’
‘You what?’ Dr Trifle asked.
‘I’ve lost enough weight just by being careful with what I eat,’ Mrs Trifle said, smoothing her hand over her smaller tummy. ‘So I won’t need all the gym equipment I ordered, after all. You can put the things back in the office again.’
Selby sighed a silent secret sigh.
‘I guess I’m not going to have a baby sister — or brother — after all,’ he thought. ‘I’ll just have to continue to be the centre of attention. Oh, well.’
‘I want to walk to town,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘but it’s about to rain and I can’t find my umbrella.’
Mrs Trifle was standing in the doorway, looking up at the dark clouds that gathered above Bogusville.
‘Your umbrella?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I threw it away. I got rid of all our umbrellas and our raincoats.’
‘He did what?’ Selby thought.
‘You did what?’ Mrs Trifle asked.
‘I chucked them out. I turfed them, tossed them, flung them away, disposed of them, cast them off, gave them the old heave-ho and out you go.’
‘I get the idea,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But why?’
‘They were just gathering dust. Useless things.’
‘Useless? They were quite useful when it was raining.’
‘Yes, but this is better,’ Dr Trifle said, holding up a small spray bottle with clear liquid in it.
‘What’s that?’ Mrs Trifle asked. ‘It looks like a small spray bottle with clear liquid in it.’
‘This is RRGA, my new anti-rain invention.’
‘An anti-rain invention? Do you seriously think you can spray that at the clouds and stop it from raining? If it works, the farmers are going to be very cross.’
‘It won’t stop it from raining,’ Dr Trifle said, spraying a cloud of mist all over his wife and Selby, who just happened to be standing next to her. ‘There. Now you can walk through the heaviest downpour and you’ll stay as dry as a bone. No more of those silly umbrellas that turn inside out in the wind and poke people in the eye. Soon everyone will be using my RRGA. The only umbrellas you’ll see will be in the Umbrella Museum.’
‘Is there such a thing?’
‘There soon will be.’
Just then the clouds opened and rain began pelting down.
‘Go ahead,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Mrs Trifle stepped slowly out into the downpour.
‘My goodness!’ she gasped. ‘The rain just rolls right off me! I’m getting rained on but I’m not getting wet! This is wonderful!’
Selby followed Mrs Trifle into the front yard.
‘I’m not getting wet either!’ he thought. ‘Dr Trifle is the smartest inventor in the whole world!’
‘I do like the names you give your inventions,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I’ll bet RRGA stands for Rain Restrain Globulizing Activator or something like that, doesn’t it?’
‘No, it’s just Rain, Rain Go Away. But I like the Rain Restrain part of what you just said. From now on I’ll call it Rain Restrain or maybe just RR.’
‘This is fantastic!’ Selby thought. ‘What a great invention, especially for dogs. People expect us to just go out in the rain and get wet. But not any more. And I don’t even have to shake myself dry, because the rain never even gets into my fur!’
‘Goodness me!’ Mrs Trifle exclaimed. ‘Look at Selby! He got sprayed, too! He’s running around in circles and not even getting wet. He’s leaping into the air! I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this excited!’
Soon Selby was racing through Bogusville Reserve and along Bogusville Creek.
‘Yiiipppeee!’ he yelled as he dashed through long grass and brushed against branches heavy with raindrops. ‘It makes me want to sing and dance. I’m singin’ in the rain,’ he sang out loud as he danced along on his hind legs. ‘Just singin’ in the rain. This is wonderful! I’m never going to stay inside just because of rain ever again!’
And if Selby felt a chill run through him just then, it wasn’t because of the rain. He didn’t know it at the time, but what he felt was the cool gaze of an invisible eye — an automatic spy-satellite-mounted, cloud-piercing sensor beaming his image back to Control Centre Selby. On the other side of the world, computers were whirring and beeping and the spies of Morrie Artie, the all-powerful Evil Genius, were watching his every move.
‘It’s got to be him!’ the old man said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’ve found him! I’m a genius! I’ve finally found Selby, the talking dog!’
‘Oh, joy, oh joy,’ Selby thought as he raced across a log over Bogusville Creek and tore off towards Gumboot Mountain. ‘This is Dr Trifle’s best invention ever!’
It was Mrs Trifle who noticed it first. As she walked, she sensed that she was walking slower than normal. And when she swung her arms, they didn’t bend as easily as they used to.
‘This is strange,’ she thought. ‘It’s as though my clothes are getting stiff. Maybe I’m imagining it.’
But she wasn’t. The Rain Restrain had made her clothes stiffer, and it wasn’t long before Mrs Trifle’s walk had slowed so much that she could only waddle like a duck.
‘I’d better turn around now or I’ll never get home. It’s going to take hours. My clothes have hardened into one big lump. How am I ever going to get them off? Why did I let him spray me with that stuff?’
Selby had raced to the far side of Gumboot Mountain, kilometres from home, when his walking became slower and slower.
‘What’s happening to me?!’ he thought. ‘I can hardly bend my legs! It must be the stuff that Dr Trifle sprayed on me!’
The fur on Selby’s neck was now so stiff that he couldn’t look up when he heard a faint whoosh overhead. If he had, he might have seen the nearly invisible, cloud-coloured, hyper-super-sonic stealth jet of the Evil Genius gliding quietly down towards Bogusville Airport. And if he hadn’t been so concerned about moving his legs he might have noticed something else — a bush was following him.
Selby crept along with tiny steps.
‘I can’t bend my legs! It’s going to take me years to get back to Bogusville! Oh, Dr Trifle, why do you do these things to me?!’
Hearing a hopping sound, Selby saw, out of the corner of his eye, a strange-looking kangaroo coming from one side. Selby started, then stopped and turned again.
‘That bush,’ he thought. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t there a minute ago. Neither was that one or that one. This is soooo weird!’
Selby struggled on for the next half-hour as bushes, clumps of grass, boulders and more strange-looking kangaroos and wombats appeared out of nowhere.
‘I’m going bonkers!’ he thought. ‘I’m being followed by foliage! I’m being stalked by rocks! The Rain Restrain has gone to my brain!’
Eventually Selby came to the Right-in-Back River.
‘I’
ve got to get across or I’ll never get home,’ he thought. ‘But I can’t swim, and the river is really high because of the rain. I’ll just follow it upstream and cross where it’s shallow.’
All around him the camouflaged agents of the Evil Genius were closing in.
Meanwhile, in a tent in another part of Bogusville Reserve, the controllers watched Selby’s every move with satellites and infra-red cameras. The helicopter of Morrie Artie soon landed. Seconds later, the Evil Genius burst into the tent.
‘Where’s that dog?’ he demanded.
The field commander pointed to a bank of monitors that showed Selby from every angle.
‘That’s him,’ the man said. ‘We’ve sprung him.’
‘It can’t be him, you fool! He doesn’t walk like that! The Selby I saw was dancing. This mutt can barely walk! This is a completely different dog!’
‘But it has to be him,’ the commander said. ‘We’ve been watching him from the start.’
‘You can’t see him when he’s under trees. There’s been a dog switch. This dog looks like him but it isn’t him.’
‘Sir, we’re 99.99 percent sure that this is the singing and dancing dog we spotted a few hours ago. It’s got to be.’
‘Got to be? That’s what you said when you found the wrong dog last year, remember? Move your men closer. This dog may look dumb but if he is Selby, he’s onto us. He’s pretending he can’t walk properly but at any minute he’ll disappear down a wombat hole or vanish just like that,’ the Evil Genius said, with a snap of his fingers. ‘We’re dealing with the very slyest of sly dogs. Give me that dog-immobilising gun.’
‘Do you mean the Dazer?’
‘That’s it. I’ll deal with this diabolical dog myself. Take me to him.’
‘Yes, sir!’
It was an exhausted Selby that struggled up the back slopes of Gumboot Mountain, working his way higher and higher till he was just above the towering Right-in-Back Falls.
‘Good,’ he thought, ‘I’ll hop from rock to rock at the edge of the waterfall and get across that way.’