Selby Splits by Duncan Ball Page B

now, you poo poo … you stink-face … you …’Willy began.
    Selby could see the boys’ angry faces turn to surprise. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a crash in the bushes behind him. Suddenly the hideous shape of their mother, Aunt Jetty, towered over them.
    ‘Put that filthy dog down!’ she boomed.
    ‘He he he’s … pretty, Mummy,’ Willy said, hugging Selby.
    ‘Can I have him, Mummy?’ Billy said, clutching Selby’s legs.‘I want him!’
    ‘You can’t have him, stinky!’Willy said, pulling Selby by the collar.‘He’s mine! I love him!’
    ‘He
loves
me?!’ Selby thought.‘Did he say he loves me?! This passion potion
is
potent! Help! They’re choking me!’
    In a second the two boys were screaming and crying and pulling Selby in different directions.
    ‘Boys! Stop that! Let go of him!’ Aunt Jetty screamed. Suddenly she sniffed the air. ‘Goodness! I see what you mean. Who would have believed that such an ugly mutt could turn into a gorgeous hunk. Let me at him, boys.’
    Before Selby knew it Aunt Jetty’s lips were burrowing into his fur.
    ‘Moo-ah! Moo-ah! Moooooooo-ah!’ she said, kissing him all around his head. ‘You gorgeous creature you! Get away, boys! He’s mine!’
    Aunt Jetty lifted Selby into the air with Willy and Billy still clinging to him.
    ‘They’re going to pull me to pieces!’ Selby screamed in his brain.‘I’ve got to get loose even if I have to —’
    Selby didn’t finish his thought. Instead he opened his jaws as wide as he could and clamped them down on Aunt Jetty’s ear.
    ‘Yowch!’ she screamed, grabbing her ear and letting Selby fall to the ground.‘How could you do this?, you great big beautiful thing you! Or was that a love bite? Bite me again, gorgeous!’
    Selby quickly shook Willy and Billy free and was off and running again.
    ‘There it is! — the sportsground!’ he thought. ‘And the girls hockey team is out on the field so I can nip into the shower block and wash this glurp off me.’
    In a second Selby was standing in the shower and had started seriously soaping.
    ‘This just has to work,’ he thought. ‘It’s my only chance.’
    Selby turned off the shower and gave himself a big shake. Just then he heard the unmistakable tiny voice of Prunella Weedy saying,‘Selby?’
    Selby looked around to see the whole girls’ hockey team standing and watching him, their noses sniffing the air.
    ‘I’ve been sprung!’ Selby thought. ‘I may have got rid of the Passion Potion but now they all know that I’m not just an ordinary non-talking, non-showering dog!’
    ‘Selby?’ the shocked girl said a little louder. ‘You’re … you’re the most beautiful being I’ve ever seen.’
    ‘Oh, no! I didn’t get rid of the Passion Potion after all!’ Selby thought as he saw theglazed eyes all around slowly turning to crazed eyes.‘Let me out of here!’
    Suddenly a camera flashed.
    ‘I’m going to rip down all my posters of Todd Delvane and cover my walls with pictures of you, Selby,’ a girl screamed.
    Suddenly Selby was snatched and stroked by seventeen supple pairs of hands.
    ‘You are my true love!’ one of the girls cried.
    ‘Back off!’ another girl said.‘He’s
my
true love!’
    ‘No, he’s not! He’s mine!’ another girl screamed, raising her hockey stick.
    In a second there were punches, and screaming, and much pulling of hair as the girls rolled around in a mass on the ground.
    ‘They’re mad!’ Selby thought as he squiggled through a forest of kicking feet. ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’
    ‘There he goes! After him!’ the girls screamed.
    Selby was running down the street with both hockey teams in hot pursuit along with Willy, Billy, Aunt Jetty, and now the Trifles and Madame Mascara. Everywhere people stopped to stare at them and then joined in.
    ‘What a dog!’ people cried and, ‘Come back here, you wonderful hunk!’ as more and more people joined in the chase.
    ‘How is this going to end?!’