by Duncan Ball
“A one and a two and a one and a two,” Ronald sang, “love your body and your body loves you.”
Dr Trifle dropped his spanner and he and Mrs Trifle joined in as Ronald Ringlets and the Slim-Slam Dancers began running on the spot. The pounding on the floor woke Selby.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so fit,” Dr Trifle said as the sweat poured from his forehead.
“Neither have I,” Mrs Trifle said. “Three days and I’m sure we’ve both lost kilos already. Another week and we’ll have to stand twice in the same spot just to cast a shadow, as my father used to say.”
“A one and a two and a one two three!” Ronald Ringlets yelled, pumping his knees up to his chest. “You love you and I love me!”
“The (puff) other (puff) thing,” Mrs Trifle said, lifting her knees higher and higher, “is that exercise is supposed to give you energy. If I can get in shape I won’t need to take a holiday.”
“I’ve got an idea!” Dr Trifle said, suddenly turning off the TV set. “Let’s go for a real jog around Bogusville and get some fresh air and sunshine.”
“Exercise,” Selby muttered as soon as the Trifles were safely out of the house. “What a waste of time. They’re such wonderful people just the way they are. Why don’t they sit back quietly and enjoy life the way I do? They could read books or newspapers,” Selby said, suddenly remembering something. “Come to think of it, I missed the last episode of my favourite comic strip, Wonderful Wanda, Maker of Music. I wonder what happened to the latest copy of the Bogusville Banner. It must be with the old newspapers in the garden shed.”
Selby went out the back door and across the lawn to the shed.
“Hmmmmmmmm,” he hmmmmmmmmed as he looked at the lock on the door. “I’ll have to squeeze through the hole in the back where the broken boards are.”
“Oooooooomph!” he said, getting stuck halfway through. “Either this hole is smaller or no! It can’t be! I don’t believe it! I’ve been eating the same amounts of the same old food except for one order of peanut prawns from The Spicy Onion — how could I have put on weight?”
Selby struggled to get through the hole, but it was hopeless. Finally he pulled himself back and lay panting on the grass.
“This is a disaster! What will I do? The old newspapers will be collected on Thursday. I’ll miss Wonderful Wanda!”
Selby ran back to the house and turned on the TV. Ronald Ringlets was slicing the air with his arms and touching his toes.
“This is just what all you Slim-Slammers need to keep your tum tums trim,” he squealed. “A one and a two and a one and a two.”
“If Mrs Trifle can lose kilos in a few days at the speed she goes,” Selby said, standing on his hind feet and swooping down touching paw to paw, “I’ll go at double speed and, by Wednesday, I’ll be slipping in and out of the garden shed like a ferret after rabbits.”
“And now the Slim-Slam shuffle!” Ronald Ringlets screamed, and his curly hair bounced up and down like a hundred springs. “Put your hands on your hips and shuffle your shoes around the carpet. Bend your whole body while you do it. To the music now,” he sang. “Let’s do that slip-slap hip-happy Slim-Slam shoeshine shuffle! And a one and a one and a one two three, I can see you but you can’t see me!”
“This had better work,” Selby said, shuffling along at lightning speed and then throwing open the door to get some fresh air, “because it’s (puff puff) painful!”
“All right all you beautiful Slim-Slam slimmers!” Ronald Ringlets yelled as he jumped on his exerciser bicycle. “If you want to take pounds off your paunch and years off your age, just remember: one two three five six five four, pedal that bike now, more more more!”
Selby grabbed Dr Trifle’s exerciser bicycle and propped up the back of it with two stacks of books to keep the back wheel off the ground. He jumped on it and started pedalling furiously.
“I may be a little out of shape,” he said, trying to keep up with Ronald Ringlets, “but an out-of-shape dog can beat an in-shape human any day of the week.”
Selby pedalled faster and faster till the back wheel made a whooshing sound as it sped through the air. Then, suddenly, the bicycle lurched and fell off the books and when the speeding wheel hit the carpet, Selby and the bike shot out the open door and down Bunya-Bunya Crescent.
“Cripes!” Selby yelled when he realised that there were no brakes and that he was headed straight down the steepest part of Mulga Hill towards town. “I think I remember doing this before! Somebody save me!”
Selby went faster and faster till — when he passed the exhausted Trifles who were puffing their way up the hill — he was nothing more than a brown streak.
“That’s funny,” Dr Trifle said, slowing down to a walk. “Did you feel that breeze?”
“Yes,” Mrs Trifle said, wiping her brow and sitting down by the side of the road. “And did you hear it?”
“Hear it, dear?”
“Why, yes. It made a sound that sounded curiously like someone saying ‘Heeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!’.”
“Yoooooooowwwwwwweeeee!” Selby screamed, barely making the corner at the bottom of the hill and then tearing out of control through two of the longest flowerbeds in the Bogusville Memorial Rose Garden.
Later, Selby sneaked back into the Trifle house with the bicycle just ahead of the Trifles. The three of them lay back on the lounge-room floor watching The Lucky Millions Quiz Quest.
“I don’t know if all this puffing and panting is worth it,” Dr Trifle said, barely able to keep his eyes open. “I’m so tired all the time I can’t get anything done. Yesterday I started filling in the hole in the back of the garden shed and now I don’t know when I’ll have the energy to finish the job.”
“I know what you mean,” Mrs Trifle said. “Somehow it’s no substitute for a good holiday. I only wish we had the money to get away from Bogusville for a while. But just a minute,” she said suddenly, “don’t fix that hole in the shed. Put it back the way it was. Selby likes to go in there for a snooze.”
“Crumbs, the hole was getting smaller after all. And I thought I was getting fat,” Selby thought as he pulled another rose thorn out of his leg. “But I’ll say one thing for Ronald Ringlets and his Slim-Slammers, he said that exercise would take years off my age and he was nearly right. I almost lost all my years at once!”
Lucky Millions
“Poor Mrs Trifle,” Selby thought as he lay alone in the house curled up in the bean bag watching The Lucky Millions Quiz Quest. “It really isn’t fair. She works so hard. If only I could earn a lot of money and give it to her. Then she could have a proper holiday.”
No sooner were these words out of his mouth than Larry Limelight, the compere of The Lucky Millions Quiz Quest said something that made Selby leap to his feet: “And now,” Larry screamed, flashing a set of teeth that looked like the keys of a concert grand piano, “we have a super-duper special for all you folks at home. This new feature is called the Special Viewers’ Phone-in Holiday History Question. The first person to phone in the correct answer to this question will win a holiday for two on a yacht on the Barrier Reef. Listen carefully now,” Larry said, lowering his voice nearly to a whisper. “The question is: what country did Napoleon crown himself king of in 1804?”
“I know it! I know it!” Selby yelled as he ran to the phone and dialled Lucky Millions, thinking all the while about the TV program he had seen three weeks before called Napoleon: the Long and the Short of Him.
Selby listened as the phone rang and he watched Larry Limelight on TV picking up the receiver.
“The answer,” Selby said coolly before Larry Limelight could open his mouth, “is … nothing.”
Selby watched the compere’s smile fade.
“I’m terribly sorry,” the man said, “your answer is incorrect. But thank you for being a sport. We’d like to send you a special Lucky Millions T-shirt —”
“Hold your T-shirt, Larry,” Selby said. “Napoleon didn’t become king of anything in 1804. He bec
ame emperor of France in 1804 and king of Italy in 1805.”
Larry Limelight read the card in his hand and flashed a blinding smile.
“Yes!” he screamed. “You’ve got it! You’ve just won a glorious trip for two to the fabulous Barrier Reef on the yacht of your dreams. Now could I please have your name?”
“Name (gulp) … ah, er … let’s see now,” Selby said.
“We have to have your name to send you the tickets,” Larry Limelight said with a laugh.
“Well … of course,” Selby said. “This is Dr Trifle of number five Bunya-Bunya Crescent, Bogusville.”
“Way out there in Bogusville!” the compere said. “That’s great!”
“Yes, and while you’re about it, could you please include my dog on these tickets. Mrs Trifle and I never travel without our dog,” Selby said, adding, “he’s a wonderful dog and we just wouldn’t know what to do —”
“No worries,” Larry Limelight said, putting the phone down. “The man never travels without his dog. Isn’t that great? Now let’s get on with the show!”
“I did it!” Selby screamed as he danced around the room. “I blinkin’ well did it!” and then he started singing the Lucky Millions theme song:
“Love that money madness,
See those dollars drifting down,
Sing away your troubles,
Hang upside down.”
The next day Selby looked out the front window in time to see a man with the Lucky Millions crest on his blazer tramp through a bed of petunias on the way to the house.
“Uh-oh, what’s this?” Selby said, feeling lucky that Mrs Trifle was out at a council meeting and Dr Trifle was at the Bogusville Memorial Rose Garden working on the floral clock. “Why is he coming here? I thought they were going to send the tickets.”
“Dr Trifle!” the man called out, pounding his fist on the front door. “Open up! I have your holiday tickets.”
“Slide them under the door,” Selby called back.
“You can’t have the tickets till you sign the form.”
“What form?” Selby asked. “Nobody said anything about a form.”
“It’s the one that says that Lucky Millions isn’t responsible if the yacht sinks and you drown. Just a formality, of course. Now open up please, I’ve got to get back to the city.”
“I can’t open the door,” Selby said, searching the corners of his brain for reasons why he couldn’t open the door.
“Why not?”
“The house is under quarantine,” Selby said, putting on a raspy voice. “I have (mumble mumble) fever and no one’s allowed to come near me.”
“What kind of fever?” the man asked.
“I have,” Selby shouted and then he let his voice drop again and he put a paw over his mouth, “(mumble mumble) fever.”
“I still can’t hear you. It sounds like mumble mumble fever.”
“It’s doodlyboop fever,” Selby said, “and it’s very catching.”
“I’ve never heard of doodlyboop fever.”
“Most people who hear of it are dead by dinnertime,” Selby said. “Just push the blinkin’ paper under the door and I’ll sign it.”
“I can’t get it under,” the man said, crumpling the paper as he tried. “There’s not enough room.”
“Okay. I’ll open the door and go into my study. Just give the paper to my dog and he’ll bring it to me,” Selby said. “But I warn you, don’t set foot in the house if you know what’s good for you.”
Selby unlocked the door and let the breeze blow it slowly open.
“Here you go, mutt,” the man said, thrusting the paper into Selby’s mouth and giving him a good slap on the behind as he turned to go. “Get that stupid man to sign the thing. I’ve got to get cracking. It’s a long way back to civilisation.”
Selby dashed into the darkened study, hopped on the chair and turned on the desk lamp to read the small print on the form.
“Mutt, schmutt,” Selby said, angry at the slap on the behind and at the man calling Dr Trifle stupid. “Well the form seems all right. I’ll just sign it and get rid of him.”
Selby signed the paper using his best imitation of the doctor’s handwriting. He had folded it and put it in his mouth when suddenly the shadow of the Lucky Millions man fell across the desk.
“Hey!” the man said. “What’s going on here? Where’s Dr Trifle?”
Selby turned his head slowly and looked at the man.
“In a second,” he thought, “he’ll know that Dr Trifle isn’t here. In another second he’ll know the horrible truth: that I’m the only reading, writing and talking dog in all of Australia and — as far as I know — in the world. This could be my last second of freedom. I’ve got to act fast.”
The man snatched the paper from Selby’s mouth just as Selby’s paw hit the button on the desk lamp and cast the room into darkness. Before the man’s eyes could adjust to the dark, Selby yelled, “Get out of here, you fool! Get out before my dog rips you to pieces!”
Selby growled and sank his teeth into the man’s leg as he ran out of the study and straight out the front door and through the petunias.
“Help! Call off your dog!” the man cried as he leaped into his car, throwing the envelope with the tickets in it out the window as he sped away.
“Silly man,” Selby said, spitting out a piece of pants and picking up the envelope. “Why do people insist on making life so difficult?”
A Busman’s Holiday
“This is all very odd,” Dr Trifle said to Mrs Trifle as they stood on the pier waiting for the yacht to come and take them out to the Barrier Reef. “I still don’t see how we won these tickets.”
“I told you. It was just luck,” Mrs Trifle said, feeling a little tired after the long flight from Bogusville. “I found a note in the letterbox with the tickets telling us all about it. Apparently they picked our names out of a hat. The point is,” she said, patting the smiling Selby, “when you need things, somehow they happen. We both needed a holiday and here we are.”
“My heavens,” Dr Trifle said, watching as a beat-up boat pulled into the pier. “What a funny-looking old thing that is. I wonder when our dream yacht will be along.”
“At your command,” the captain said, jumping ashore and saluting Mrs Trifle as she tried to shake his hand. “This is the Golden Doldrum and I’m your driver, Slick Slipway.”
“But … but … but,” said Dr Trifle, wondering why the deck was filled with rows of seats just like a city bus, “we’re waiting for the yacht of our dreams. Surely this can’t be it. This is rather more like a … er … nightmare, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“If you’re the people who won The Lucky Millions Quiz Quest Magic Dream Cruise then I’m your man and this is your yacht,” Captain Slipway said, shaking the hand of Dr Trifle who, in his confusion, was trying to salute.
“But where are the other passengers?” Mrs Trifle asked. “And where’s the crew?”
“There aren’t any, and you’re looking at him,” Captain Slipway said, answering both questions in one sentence and polishing the metal part on the front of his cap — which wasn’t a captain’s hat but the one he used to wear when he drove the 275 bus. “Now hop on and move to the rear of the boat. Next stop Nothing Lagoon,” he added as Selby jumped aboard.
“All right,” Dr Trifle said. “You are going to take us to the Dolphin Research Station on Dolphin Island, I trust. My old friend Dr Septimus C. Squirt is expecting us.”
“All in good time,” said Slick. “My instructions are to take you to Nothing Lagoon first. That’s the route and there’ll be no arguments. Leave the brain work to me. Just sit back and have a rest.”
Nothing Lagoon was a pond in the middle of a tiny island shaped like a doughnut with a bite out of it. The island was called Nothing Atoll. Captain Slipway steered the Golden Doldrum into the middle of the lagoon and turned around and started out.
“Hold on, just a minute,” Mrs Trifle said. “Aren’t we going to d
ock?”
“You mean stop?” Slick said, making no attempt to do so. “I’m sorry. You didn’t pull the cord so we didn’t stop. Those are the rules,” he said, pointing to a long list of rules that hung from the back of his driver’s seat.
“You mean we’re just going to sail in and sail out?” Dr Trifle asked.
“I’m just the driver. I don’t make the rules,” said Slick. “Next stop Pipe Dream Island. Next stop, that is, if you remember to pull the cord.”
No sooner were they away from Nothing Atoll than the engine of the Golden Doldrum suddenly gave out and wouldn’t start again.
“What do we do now?” asked Dr Trifle who was feeling slightly seasick as well as angry.
“We rig the sails,” said Slick.
“Who, exactly, is we?” asked Mrs Trifle.
“Well it’s not me,” said the captain, trying once again to start the engine.
“Well it’s not us either,” Dr Trifle said. “We’re the passengers. We don’t work.”
“I’m the driver. I don’t work either,” Slick said, remembering how easy it used to be when the 275 bus broke down and he called the depot for another bus. “Now hop to it, we’re falling behind schedule.”
For the next three hours Dr and Mrs Trifle dashed about hauling halyards and lacing lanyards while Captain Slipway called out orders and the Golden Doldrum sailed towards Pipe Dream Island.
“If that old sea-dog yells at me one more time,” Dr Trifle said to Mrs Trifle, wondering whether it had been good luck or bad luck to win the Magic Dream Cruise (and not knowing that it was neither), “we’ll just have to tell him to turn around and take us back to port.”
“Sea-dog, schmee-dog,” muttered Selby as he crawled under a copy of the Bogusville Banner and secretly read the weather report. “Hmmmmmmmm. If this weather map means what I think it does we’re in for a storm any minute now.”