Selby Shattered Read Online Free Page B

understand everything you say and that’s why you talk to him.’
    There was a long silence as the Search for Selby Society dog-people stared at Selby.
    ‘Stop doing that!’ Selby thought. ‘You’re going to make me blush!’
    ‘Well then,’ Mrs Trifle said, changing the subject. ‘What happens at your meetings?’
    ‘Mostly we talk about the clues in the Selby books,’ BeoWoof said.
    ‘Yes,’ Candy agreed. ‘We study the books to see if there are any clues as to what Selby’s real name might be and where he lives and who his owners are. The author of the books says that Selby’s a real dog and that he knows how to talk, and we have no reason to doubt that.’
    ‘And sooner or later he will give himself away and we’ll find him,’ Fang added. ‘Isn’t that right, Selby?’
    ‘Oh, no!’ Selby screamed in his brain. ‘I wish they’d stop staring at me and go to their silly meeting. Come to think of it, I’m the one who should go to their meeting. I should go and see if they’re about to spring me. But how can I be there without being noticed?’
    It was a secretive dog that crept under the house and quietly put on the dog-suit disguise that he kept hidden there. And it was a nervous dog-suited dog that walked into the Convention Centre.
    Selby sat and listened to one speaker after another talking about the clues they’d found in the Selby books.
    ‘I had no idea I gave away that much!’ Selby thought. ‘I’m going to have to stop telling Duncan my stories. These people have almost enough clues to find me! This is awful. (
Sniff)
I’ll have to leave home and never come back.’
    Selby felt the tears running down his cheeks inside his dog suit at the thought of never seeing the Trifles again.
    ‘Well, that ends our meeting for this year,’ a man named Bazooka said. ‘Bit by bit we’ve found out where he
can’t
be. One good clue and we could find exactly where he is. We’ll see you all next year. Keep in touch by email.’
    ‘Excuse me,’ Tofu said, ‘but haven’t we forgotten to look in the most obvious place of all?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘We chose to have our meeting in Bogusville because it’s one of the nineteen towns around Australia that could be Selby’s home. What if he actually does live here?’
    ‘Yes, we know that’s possible.’
    ‘Well, if you were Selby and we came to your town, where would you be?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’
    ‘You’d come to the meeting, wouldn’t you? You’d want to see what was going on. And we know from the Selby books that the first thing he’d do is to put on his dog suit so that people would think that he’s a person in a dog suit. They wouldn’t suspect that he’s a
dog
in a dog suit.
    ‘You mean that he could be here right now?’
    An excited murmur passed through the audience.
    ‘Yes,’ Tofu said. ‘In fact, he could be you! Or you! Or you!’ he said, pointing around the room, and finally pointing to Selby. ‘Or you!’ he added.
    ‘Yeah, well he could be you, too!’ Selby said, pointing back at him.
    ‘He’s right!’ someone yelled. ‘Let’s take off our dog suits and see if there’s a dog in here.’
    ‘Take your own off,’ someone else yelled back. ‘You’re not touching mine!’
    ‘Oh, so you’re him!’ another person yelled. ‘Grab him and take off his head!’
    ‘Oh no you don’t!’
    Soon there were people crash-tackling other people and pulling off their dog heads.
    ‘Kirsty Karpenter!’ a man’s voice said. ‘You’re on that TV show about home renovations.’
    ‘And who are you?’ Kirsty said, grabbing the man’s dog head and pulling it off. ‘Hey! Aren’t you the weatherman on Channel 8?’
    ‘Don’t you dare tell anyone that I’m here!’ the man said.
    One by one, heads were removed until finally they were down to the last dog suit. A dog suit that was running for the door.
    ‘Hey! Stop that dog!’ someone yelled. ‘Stop him, Fang!’
    ‘Oh no you don’t!’ a voice yelled