Selby Speaks Read Online Free Page B

suffer the embarrassment of being dumped on Mrs Trifle’s carpet again,” Selby thought as he ripped the net apart with his teeth and jumped into the safety of a nearby bush. “It’s bad enough that he nearly killed me!”
    Dudley threw down the big motorcycle and searched the empty net for his captive as some of the crowd gathered around to congratulate him on the jump he didn’t know he’d made.

    “I had him but he got away!” Dudley screamed looking at the hole in the net. “The diabolical disappearing dog’s done it again! Oh, well, I’d better get this motorcycle back to Awful so he can do his death-defying jump.”
    “And I’m staying home till that twit buys some new glasses,” Selby said, making a Dudley-defying jump out of the bushes and running for town, passing the weeping daredevil as he went.

Selby’s Lucky Star
    “Glenda Glitter my favourite movie star is right here in Bogusville!” Selby said as he read in the
Bogusville Banner
that the Tinsel Trust Film Company was at the Bogusville Timber Mill making a movie called
The Perils of Raelene.
“She’s so beautiful. I just have to go and watch her act.”
    Inside the timber mill the movie crew was busy setting up bright lights, cameras and microphones.
    “There she is!” Selby thought as he trotted in unnoticed and quickly spotted Glenda, standing on one side as someone sprayed her hair and someone else put powder on her face. “How I’d love to talk to her about her movies.”
    In a minute the director lifted his loudspeaker and shouted, “Places everyone!” And then, pointing to a huge log that was ready to be sawed down the middle by an enormous, round saw blade, he said, “Glenda, sweetie. Be a nice girl and hop up on that log.”
    “Log?” Glenda said looking at the gigantic tree trunk. “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not climbing up on that thing. And nobody’s going to make me!”
    “What a voice! What passion!” Selby thought. “I’ve been in love with her ever since I saw her in that dreadful movie,
Kelpie, King of Queensland.
She only had one line to say but she said it beautifully.”
    “You have to. It’s in the script,” the director said. “This is the scene where you’re tied to the log while the saw cuts it down the middle. Preston and Rex fight and you scream your little blonde head off. When Preston wins the fight he runs over and pulls the lever to stop the saw. Got it?”
    “It’s too dangerous and I’m not going to do it!” Glenda said, flashing her lavender eyes and throwing her hair over her shoulder the way movie stars do. “You can get someone else!”
    “Shut up, Glenda!” the director yelled. “Just do as I say!”
    “That’s no way to get the greatest actress in Australia to do what you want,” Selby thought angrily. “She could just walk away and never finish the movie.”
    “What if Preston loses the fight?” Glenda asked, climbing up a ladder and onto the log while two men tied her down with a thick rope. “I mean, he might get knocked down. What if he doesn’t get up in time to stop the saw? What’ll happen to me?”
    “Actors don’t really fight in a movie. You ought to know that. They’ll just pretend to punch each other,” the director said. “Besides, there are plenty of us here to pull the lever and stop the saw if anything goes wrong.”
    “You’d better be right,” Glenda said. “I don’t fancy being sliced down the middle.”
    “Action!” the director yelled and Rex and Preston pretended to fight as the saw sliced its way down the log, throwing up a cloud of sawdust. “Cut! I mean, stop! The fighting looks too phoney. Pull the log back and try it again.”
    Again and again they shot the scene until Glenda was so hoarse from screaming that she could barely talk.
    “This is great!” Selby thought, squeezing through the crowd to get a better view. “What wonderful acting!”
    “Ouch! Stop that!” Preston cried, clutching his jaw. “You’re not supposed