Selby Surfs (3 page)

Selby worked frantically all day and through the night making hundreds of lamingtons. First he baked dozens of sponge cakes. Then he sliced them into little squares and put them in the fridge. When they were cool he dipped them in chocolate and rolled them in dried coconut.

‘Wow! These are fantabulous! They’re just like real lammos,’ Selby thought as he gobbled one and then another. ‘What am I talking about? They
are
real lammos,’ he added, scoffing down a third one. ‘Lammo bammo! Yummo bummo! These are delicious!’

Selby was just finishing his baking when he caught sight of himself in a mirror.

‘Is that me?’ he wondered. ‘I can hardly recognise myself. I’m covered from head to toe in chocolate and coconut! I look like a big lamington with ears and a tail! I’d better get cleaned up before Aunt Jetty catches me. How did I ever get myself into this mess?!’

Getting into the mess had been simple: it all began the day he overheard Mrs Trifle telling Dr Trifle about a letter she was waiting for that never arrived. Someone had put the wrong address on it.

‘The problem is that no one ever remembers the name of our street,’ she explained. ‘Bunya-Bunya Crescent is such a strange name. It’s hard to spell and easy to forget. People are always writing things like Bunions Crescent or Bumpkin Crescent or even Bungle Bungle Crescent. Who decided to name the street Bunya-Bunya Crescent anyway?’

‘You can blame my great-grandfather, Terfle Trifle, for that,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘He built this very house back when the street was just a dirt road and there weren’t any other houses on it. Then
he named the street after that beautiful old Bunya-Bunya tree down the road. He loved Bunya-Bunyas.’

‘It’s a pity he didn’t like oaks or wattles or bluegums instead,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘We could be living on Oak Crescent or Wattle Drive or Bluegum Street. They would be so much easier for people to spell — and for people to remember. I’ve got an idea: why don’t we rename the street?’

‘But what would we name it? Bogusville already has a Wattle Street and an Oak Avenue and even a Bluegum Lane,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘So we couldn’t use those names. Besides, street names are street names — you can’t change them.’

‘Of course you can.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I am the mayor of Bogusville, remember,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘I ought to know.’

‘So how would we do it?’

‘Simple, all we’d have to do is choose a name and get our neighbours to sign a petition saying that they all agree. Then give it to the council for approval.’

‘That sounds easy.’

‘You have to fill out a form, of course,’ Mrs Trifle added.

‘I hate council forms,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘They’re always so complicated. They use so many big words that I have to look up in the dictionary.’

‘We’ve just changed all the council’s forms. They’re now written very simply and clearly. They’re absolutely idiot-proof.’

‘You mean even I could fill one out?’

‘Of course you could, dear.’

‘Okay, then let’s do it,’ Dr Trifle said, getting excited. ‘What’s a good name for our street? Think of one.’

‘Oh, I forgot to say that there’s a street renaming fee of one hundred dollars,’ Mrs Trifle said.

‘One hundred dollars?
Why so much?’ asked Dr Trifle, as he suddenly thought of all the things he could buy if he had a hundred dollars.

‘Someone has to pay for the new street signs,’ Mrs Trifle explained. ‘And if we’re the ones who want to change the name, we’re the ones who should pay for it. It’s only fair.’

‘Bunya-Bunya Crescent is beginning to sound good again,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Let’s just leave it the way it is.’

Selby had been lying on the floor listening to all this but it was later that day, when the Trifles were away, that he got his idea — an idea so brilliant that it took his breath away.

‘I’ve just thought of the perfect street name!’ he gasped. ‘Why not call it
Trifle Terrace
after the Trifles?! They’re such dear sweet wonderful people. It would be lovely to name the street after them. Besides, Trifle is easier to remember than Bunya-Bunya. I am so clever. Sometimes I scare myself.’

Selby scratched his head and looked out the window.

‘Of course I’ll have to get the name changed without the Trifles knowing. They’d be too embarrassed to change it to their own name themselves. But I think they’ll love it once it’s done.’

Selby jumped to his feet and began pacing the floor.

‘Hmmm. How will I get the neighbours to agree to this? They may not be so keen on
naming the street after the Trifles. Hey, now! Hold the show! I’ll tell everyone that we’re
not
naming it after the Trifles. We’re naming it after the first person to live in the street — Terfle Trifle. And because
Terfle Trifle Terrace
is too long I’ll tell them that we decided to shorten it to Trifle Terrace. Oh, Selby, you are a brilliant dog! Now how will I come up with the hundred smackeroos?’

Selby paced faster and faster, his mind racing like a jet engine.

‘I know!’ he cried, trying to snap his toes the way people snap their fingers when they have a brilliant idea. ‘I’ll use the oldest money-raising trick there is — I’ll sell lamingtons! I’ll have a lamington drive!’

And so it was that Selby’s brilliant idea started him off on a road to total disaster. But I won’t spoil the story by jumping ahead …

The next thing Selby did was ring the council offices, put on his best Dr Trifle voice, and ask to be sent a copy of
Street Renaming Form Number 142b/66.
The day it arrived, Selby waited in a bush near the mailbox. When Postie
Paterson dropped off the day’s mail, Selby quickly grabbed the envelope with the form in it and hid it so the Trifles wouldn’t see it.

Then came the Easter long weekend when he knew that the Trifles would be away at the Sunburn Coast delivering another melonboard for Cool Jules to test.

‘Now all I have to do is make sure that Aunt Jetty doesn’t catch me cooking when she pops in to put food in my bowl,’ Selby thought.

Selby cooked all through the night until he was completely exhausted and so covered in chocolate and coconut that he looked like a big lamington with ears and a tail. All of which brings us back to the beginning of this story.

‘So far, so good,’ he thought as he stepped out of the shower looking like a new dog but feeling like he’d been up all night long — which, of course, he had. ‘I’ve got the lammos. Now for the lamington drive.’

Selby crept out of the house just before sunrise and set up a folding table at the end of the street. On it was a huge box with two hundred lamingtons in it, a piece of paper, and a sign that said:

LET’S RENAME THIS STREET TRIFLE TERRACE AFTER TERFLE TRIFLE: THE FIRST PERSON TO LIVE IN THE STREET. SIGN THE PETITION AND BUY SOME LAMMOS FOR ONLY 50 CENTS EACH TO PAY FOR THE NEW STREET SIGNS.

Then Selby sneaked back home before anyone saw him.

Within two hours the lamingtons had all been sold and everyone on Bunya-Bunya Crescent had signed the petition. Selby, now barely able to keep his eyes open, dragged himself out again, grabbed the box — which had exactly one hundred dollars in it.

‘Now to fill in the
Street Renaming Form,’
he said as he sat down at the Trifles’ desk. ‘Let’s see now.
“Old name of street.
“ ”
New name of street.
“
“How was money raised
?” Mrs Trifle was right — this form is so simple that it’s idiot-proof. But I can barely keep my eyes open. Oh, well, here goes.’

Selby filled in the blanks on the form and put it and the money into an envelope before staggering down the street to post it.

When the Trifles returned that afternoon, Selby was sound asleep.

Two weeks later Selby had almost forgotten about the street name when he heard the sound of hammering outside. Mrs Trifle came racing in.

‘You’ll never guess what’s happened?!’ she cried. ‘It’s so exciting! We don’t live on Bunya-Bunya Crescent anymore!’

‘Goodness! Where do we live?’ Dr Trifle said, looking out the window to see if the street looked familiar. ‘I don’t remember moving house — do you?’

‘No, silly, someone must have got the same idea we had: they’ve renamed the street. It’s no longer called Bunya-Bunya Crescent.’

Selby got up and stretched. He could feel the warmth of his achievement flow through him like a cup of hot cocoa. The good deed that he’d wanted to do for the Trifles for so long was now finally done — and no one would ever guess that he was the one who did it.

‘So what street
do
we live in now?’ Dr Trifle asked, squinting to read the street sign in the distance. ‘I can’t quite make out the name.’

‘I’ll give you a hint,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘It’s a kind of food.’

‘Food?’ said Dr Trifle.

‘Food?’ thought Selby as he raced to the window. ‘What is she talking about? Oh, of course! How silly of me! A
trifle
is a kind of dessert. She thinks that Trifle Terrace was named after the food and not after her and Dr Trifle. Isn’t that a laugh?’

Selby rubbed his eyes and looked across the street. The old Bunya-Bunya Crescent sign now lay on the ground and the new one, with bright blue letters, stood on the pole above it. It said:

LAMINGTON DRIVE

‘Lamington Drive?!’ Selby screamed in his brain. ‘It’s supposed to say Trifle Terrace
not Lamington Drive! Someone at the council must have made a mistake!’

‘I guess everyone else in the street was having trouble with the name Bunya-Bunya Crescent,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘so they changed it. Do you like the name?’

‘I like it,’ Dr Trifle said, ‘but it’ll take some getting used to.’

‘Yes,’ Mrs Trifle said, ‘and I’ll get hungry every time I see the sign.’

‘Every time
I
see the sign,’ Selby thought, ‘I’ll get sick to my stomach! I just realised what happened: I must have made a mistake when I filled out the
Street Renaming Form.
I put the bit about
how the money was raised?
in the space for the
new name of the street!
It’s all my fault! Those new forms may have been
idiot-proof
but they weren’t quite
Selby-proof.
‘