Selby Snaps Read Online Free PDF Page A

all right?’ Mrs Trifle asked, pulling her sister from the sugary mess.
    ‘I think I am,’ Aunt Jetty said as she wiped pavlova out of her eyes. ‘No thanks to that stupid toilet of yours!’
    ‘We’re terribly sorry,’ Mrs Trifle said.
    ‘And so you should be!’ Aunt Jetty said, snatching the Wacky Wheels trophy from her hands. ‘Give me that thing! I won it fair and square!’
    ‘And so she did,’ Selby thought, giggling to himself, ‘with a little bit of help from little old me.’
    Paw note: The word ‘TOOT’ rhymes with ‘soot’.
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    Paw note: If you want to read about when I bit Aunt Jetty on the bum read the story ‘Selby Bites Back’ in the book
Selby Supersnoop.
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    Paw note: This is my invention, an exclamation comma (). Look for other exclamation commas and question commas () in this book.
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BOMBS AWAY (AGAIN)!
    ‘The war has begun,’ Mrs Trifle said as an aeroplane swooped low over the Trifles’ rooftop. Selby’s eyes opened.
    ‘War?! What war?!’ he thought, his brain still muddled from a deep sleep. ‘Where am I?’
    The night before, while the Trifles were out, Selby had watched one of his favourite videos. It was an old film called
Bomb Brigade
about the soldiers who take apart unexploded bombs.
    ‘It can’t be a
real
war,’ Dr Trifle said as another plane zoomed overhead.
    ‘No, of course not,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘It’s just war games.’
    ‘War games? Don’t you play them on a computer?’
    ‘Not this sort. The army has war games to practise in case there’s a real war. They’re having a make-believe battle out near Gumboot Mountain all day today.’
    More planes screamed overhead.
    ‘That was close!’ Dr Trifle said, dropping his toast.
    ‘It’s only make-believe,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But did you know they used to make bombs in Bogusville?’
    ‘Really? When was that?’
    ‘A long long time ago, during a real war, there was a bomb factory outside town. The building’s gone now. The bombs were sent overseas to where the war was.’
    Selby remembered the scariest scene in
Bomb Brigade.
In it, Captain Colin ‘Chip’ Halloway crouched in a big hole next to an unexploded bomb. Bit by bit he took the bomb apart. Soldiers, hiding behind sandbags nearby, talked to him on an army telephone. They were following a drawing of the inside of a bomb.
    ‘I say, Chip,’ the major said. ‘Where are we with the old girl?’
    Chip picked up the phone and held it between his shoulder and his ear.
    ‘I’m down to the clock,’ he answered. ‘She’s still ticking. One last wire to snip and we’ll all be home for tea. Got a black wire and a white wire here. You chaps have any idea which one to cut?’
    The major studied the drawing.
    ‘Sorry, old man,’ he said. ‘Haven’t a clue.’
    Chip put his wire-cutters on the white wire. His hand shook. Sweat poured down Selby’s face as he watched. The telephone suddenly slipped off Chip’s shoulder and banged against the bomb.
    ‘Sheeeeshh!’ Selby gasped. ‘That gave me a start! I’m as jumpy as a kangaroo!’
    Chip left the phone on the ground but kept talking into it.
    ‘I’m going for the black,’ he said, taking the wire-cutters off the white wire and placing them around the black.
    He squeezed the handle but his hand was shaking violently. He paused to catch his breath.
    Meanwhile, one of the soldiers pointed to something in the drawing of the bomb.
    ‘Hold on!’ the major cried. ‘We think it’s the white wire! The white! Do you hear me, Chip?!’
    But the telephone was on the ground. There was only a little squeaking sound coming out of it.
    ‘Pick up the phone!’ Selby yelled. He was on his feet now, staring at the television. ‘The white wire, Chip! Cut the white wire!’
    ‘Don’t cut the black wire or it will set the bomb off!’ the major yelled into the telephone. ‘Listen to me, Chip!’
    But Chip couldn’t hear. Suddenly, he took his wire-cutters off the black wire and quickly snipped the