Free Selby Surfs by Duncan Ball

the Trifles were out, Selby just had to try out the marvellous machine. So he turned it on, and jumped on the conveyor belt.
    ‘This is as much fun as a water slide!’ Selby cried as he was catapulted into the water and then dragged through the drying rollers. ‘But hang on, I’m not getting squozen dry. The rollers are too far apart for a little dog like me. I’ll have to squeeze them in.’
    Selby came out dripping wet, ran around to the side of the machine, and began twiddling dials and pulling on all the levers to adjust the rollers.
    ‘That should do it,’ he thought. ‘Now I’ll turn up the air so that my fur gets perfectly dry.’
    After two more goes and more twiddling and levering Selby came out sparkling clean and perfectly dry.
    ‘Perfect,’ Selby thought. ‘If the whole world was run by people like Dr Trifle it would be a wonderful place. Come to think of it, it’s not so bad the way it is.’
    The next morning the Peep-Dipper was loaded on a council truck and unloaded at the front door of Bogusville Town Hall.
    That night, as the guests arrived for the Charity Ball in their fancy dress, a dusty andsweaty Mrs Trifle explained about the problems with the dance floor and showed them the Peep-Dipper.
    At first they were quiet and then a woman yelled out, ‘Come on, you pikers, after me!’
    Dr Trifle turned on the machine and one by one the farmers lined up and went through it into the hall. Just to be good sports, Dr and Mrs Trifle went through last. Suddenly the machine was turned off and there was total silence.
    ‘I wonder if it worked?’ Selby thought. ‘Why is everyone so quiet? I have a feeling that something’s gone dreadfully wrong.’
    Selby ran around the machine and into the hall only to be greeted by the strangest sight he’d ever seen: there in the hall were Dr and Mrs Trifle and a hundred and fifty others standing silently in nothing but their underwear.
    ‘I-I don’t know how this could have happened,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘The rollers were much too tight. They weren’t supposed to pull our clothes off.’
    ‘Oh, no!’ Selby screamed in his brain. ‘I forgot to un-twiddle the diddles and un-lever the levers! The rollers were too tight and the air was too blasty! It’s pulled off everyone’s shoes and clothes! Oh, woe, it’s all my fault and now everyone’s going to blame Dr Trifle!’

    ‘I am terribly terribly sorry,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘My husband’s inventions don’t always work perfectly but—’
    Suddenly there was a burst of applause.
    ‘This is brilliant!’ someone cried. ‘I feel so fresh and cool and clean. And who needs all those hot clothes on a warm night like this?!’
    ‘And our feet can’t scratch the dance floor!’ someone yelled as the music began. ‘Because we don’t even have our shoes on.’
    ‘Well it’s not exactly the way I’d planned it,’ Dr Trifle said with a blush. ‘But it seems to have solved the scratched floor problem.’
    ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ Mrs Trifle said with a laugh. ‘We’ll just rename it the Farmers’
Casual
Dress Charity Ball. May I have the pleasure of this dance?’
    ‘Certainly,’ Dr Trifle said.
    ‘And I’ll bet that this year,’ Selby thought as he peeked into the DIRT box at the piles of shoes, clothing and lots and lots of loose money from people’s pockets, ‘the Charity Ball raises more money than ever before!’

SELBY’S DOZE CODE
    ‘These child-proof medicine bottles are getting harder and harder to open,’ Mrs Trifle said, struggling with the top of an aspirin bottle. ‘This one’s not just
child
-proof, it’s absolutely
adult-proof
.’
    ‘The problem is that little kids are getting smarter and smarter and medicine bottle makers have to come up with trickier and trickier tops to keep ahead of them,’ Dr Trifle said.
    ‘Come to think of it, you invented a better medicine bottle top not long ago.’
    ‘Yes. The Tricky Twist Medicine Bottle Company asked me to come up with a new