Free Selby Sorcerer by Duncan Ball

had cried.
    The next thing Selby knew he was on the telephone to Hamish …
    ‘I’ve got to see Dr Barking!’ Selby shouted. ‘Come on, Dr and Mrs Trifle, into the car. We have work to do.’
    Selby drove and drove and drove, through the night and then through half the next day till he finally reached the university. He opened the boot of the car and took out the PPR.
    ‘Follow me,’ he said to the Trifles.
    In a minute, Selby was placing the machine onto a low bench in a laboratory. A surprised Professor Barking put down the sandwich he was eating and wheeled his wheelchair around to have a better look at it.>
    ‘Who are you and what in heaven’s name is that?’ the dog-genius asked, wheeling his wheelchair over to Selby.
    ‘My name is Selby and that’s a PPR,’ Selby said. ‘A Potato Peel Replacer.’
    ‘A Potato Peel Replacer? What a ridiculous invention. What does it do?’
    ‘Do you know when you peel too many potatoes and then you wish you hadn’t? Never mind. Let me tell you what happened to me about a month ago.’
    As Selby talked, he saw a smile come to the professor’s lips. In no time at all the wise dog was grinning from ear to ear.
    >‘Ahah!’ the professor said, finally. ‘You flipped. That’s what you did.’
    ‘You bet I did,’ Selby said. ‘I thought I’d gone bonkers.’
    ‘No,’ the professor said. ‘You flipped out of your universe and into ours. And this PPR is what flipped you. It’s hard to believe that it was invented by a
person
,’ the professor said, looking over at Dr Trifle who was eating the sandwich from the professor’s desk. ‘He got the shape of the chamber just right. Then you put your pawin it and turned the thing on causing gammaray bursters to make a hole in the membrane of your universe which flipped you into ours.’
    Selby nodded.
    ‘You see, according to M-Theory,’ the professor went on, ‘there are ten dimensions of space and one of time. The universe you were in is probably the quantum parallel one to ours, maybe the next higher vibration on the super-string.’
    Selby nodded again.
    ‘Do you understand the implications of this?’ the professor said excitedly. ‘It means that Plank energy could be a constant in hyper-universes?’
    Selby nodded and then shook his head.
    >‘You don’t? Then why did you nod?’
    ‘Because I didn’t want you to think I was stupid,’ Selby explained. ‘Oh, woe, right now I just want to go back to my universe.’
    ‘Don’t you like it here?’
    ‘No. I just want to be a pet again.’
    ‘But you weren’t just a pet. You said that you were the only talking dog in a place called Australia and, perhaps, the world. If you were the only talking, feeling, thinking dog thenmaybe you didn’t belong there either. Maybe you’d already been flipped before.’
    ‘Professor Barking,’ Selby said, ‘I just want to go home. To Bogusville. To the Trifles. I want them to be the bosses again.’
    ‘Have you tried putting a potato in the PPR and then putting in your paw and turning it on again?’
    ‘You mean it might be that easy?’
    ‘It’s worth a try.’
    ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Selby said. ‘Oh, Professor, thank you so much.’
    Selby peeled a potato he’d brought with him and put it in the chamber of the machine. Then he put his paw in it and held his breath as the professor turned on the machine.
    No one moved for the longest time.
    ‘It didn’t work,’ the professor said, finally. ‘Nothing happened.’
    Dr Trifle looked down at the peeled potato in the chamber.
    ‘That’s strange,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it worked before.’
    ‘Yes, I thought it did, too,’ Mrs Trifle agreed.
    ‘I guess I’ll have to throw it out,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.’
    The professor wheeled over to Selby and gave him a pat.
    ‘Don’t even think about it,’ the professor said. ‘It’s always interesting to see new inventions — especially ones that are as different as