Selby Speaks by Duncan Ball

suppose you’re right,” Mrs Trifle said. “He’s stopped eating before. In fact he did it on my last birthday and on the birthday before, too.”
    “Come to think of it, it’s very odd. Every time you have a birthday we get takeaway food from The Spicy Onion Restaurant, just as we’re going to do tonight,” Dr Trifle said mentioning their favourite fancy food restaurant. “And whenever we get takeaway food from The Spicy Onion, we get an order of prawns cooked in peanut sauce just for Selby. And Selby
loves
peanut prawns. He’ll eat them. You just wait and see.”
    “Hmmmmmmmm,” Mrs Trifle said as she looked over Dr Trifle’s shoulder at her portrait. “It’s almost as though he knew he was going to get peanut prawns and he stopped eating so that he’d enjoy them more.”
    “Too right,” Selby thought as he closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see the Chunk-O-Gravy Hunks and Dry-Mouth Dog Biscuits in his bowl. “It’s the only decent food I get all year. I just can’t wait till dinnertime.”
    “My goodness! I’m cross-eyed,” Mrs Trifle said suddenly.
    “There, there,” Dr Trifle said not listening to Mrs Trifle. “I love you just the same and that’s all that matters.”
    “I don’t mean my
real
eyes, silly.”
    “You don’t?”
    “Of course not,” Mrs Trifle said. “My eyes in the painting are crossed.”
    “My word. So they are,” Dr Trifle said, quickly painting them out and repainting them so that now they looked off in different directions.
    “I don’t think they’re quite right, dear.”
    “Maybe I could paint you with sunglasses on,” Dr Trifle said thoughtfully as he changed the eyes again and made them cross-eyed once more. “But it might look a bit odd, I mean all those portraits of mayors of Bogusville hung side by side in the council chambers and you the only one wearing sunglasses.”
    “Isn’t it time for you to pick up the order from The Spicy Onion, dear?” Mrs Trifle said. “You can work on the painting tomorrow.”

    An hour later, the Trifles were about to eat. Before them on the table were some of their favourite fancy foods: barbecued oysters in mango sauce, pickled baby bamboo shoots with bacon rinds and, of course, prawns in peanut sauce for Selby. Just then there was a knock at the door.
    “Thornie!” Dr Trifle said, welcoming his cousin Thornton. “What brings you to Bogusville?”
    “I’ve just been to the launching of my new healthy eating book,
Eat For Goodness Sake
, at the third annual Healthy Eating Book Convention and I thought I’d drop in on my way back to the city and bring you some healthy foods,” Thornton said, dashing in and putting a bag of food on the dining table.
    “Won’t you join us?” Mrs Trifle said, raising a forkful of barbecued oysters in mango sauce to her lips.
    “What a wonderful idea,” said Thornton who had thought of it two hours before. “But wait a minute? What’s that muck you’re about to eat?”
    “That’s — that’s —” Mrs Trifle began.
    Thornton grabbed Mrs Trifle’s plate and began poking at it with a finger.
    “It looks like barbecued oysters in mango sauce!” he screeched.
    “It is,” Mrs Trifle said. “Would you like some?”
    “I’ve never seen such an unhealthy combination!” Thornton said, dumping it in the garbage. “And what’s that?” he said, grabbing Dr Trifle’s plate just as Dr Trifle was trying to rescue it.
    “It’s — it’s —” Dr Trifle started.
    “It looks to me like pickled baby bamboo shoots with bacon rinds,” Thornton said, throwing the contents of the plate out the window and into the flowerbed. “That’s not food, it’s fertiliser! It’s worse than what your wife was about to eat.”
    “But — but — but —” Dr Trifle stammered as Thornton filled his plate with wheat germ and buttermilk.
    “Now that’s good for you. Eat up,” Thornton said, filling Mrs Trifle’s plate with yoghurt and sultanas. “Remember that Bogusville has an