Read Selby Snowbound for Free Online Page B

course it’s an old house, as you can see,’ Mrs Poshbody said, ‘but the plumbing is all brand spanking new.’
    ‘Brand spanking nothing,’ Selby said, looking at the pipes next to his head. ‘These pipes are so old that only the rust is holding them together. There she goes, lying again! No more Mr Nice Dog. Nomore Mr Slightly-Sneaky Dog either. Now she’s going to learn what a down-and-dirty dog can do!’
    ‘Have a look how beautifully the water flows out of these lovely taps,’ Mrs Poshbody said, reaching to turn on the water.
    ‘We’ll see about that,’ Selby thought.
    The moment he heard the agent turn the water on, Selby began banging a pot against a water pipe.
    ‘What’s that?’ Dr Trifle asked. ‘The plumbing must be wonky if it makes that banging noise every time you turn on the taps.’
    ‘Banging noise?’ Mrs Poshbody asked, quickly turning off the water. Selby stopped banging. ‘What banging noise?’ the woman added.
    She turned the water on again and this time Selby banged even harder.
    ‘That
banging noise,’ Mrs Trifle said.
    ‘Oh,
that
banging noise. That’s — well — that’s —’
    ‘Wonky plumbing,’ Mrs Trifle cut in.
    ‘No, no, it’s the latest thing in plumbing. It’s a special feature that makes sure you don’t leave the water running by mistake. That’s what it is.Yes. You see, the banging reminds you to turn it off.’
    ‘What a clever invention,’ said Dr Trifle. ‘I wish I’d thought of it first.’
    ‘Crumbs,’ Selby thought. ‘The problem with the Trifles is that they’re too trusting. They’re so honest that they think that everyone else is honest too. I’ve got to protect them from this awful woman! This calls for the old faulty wiring trick.’
    From where Selby was hiding no one could see the paw that reached up and switched the lights quickly off and on.
    ‘Goodness!’ Dr Trifle said. ‘There’s something wrong with the wiring.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ the woman said.
    ‘The wiring,’ Mrs Trifle sighed. ‘There must be a short-circuit somewhere which is making the lights flicker. Why the whole house could catch fire.’
    ‘No, no, that’s not true. This house could never burn down,’ the real-estate agent said. ‘That flickering is a new service from the electricity company.’
    ‘A new service?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Who would want their lights flickering all day?’
    ‘It doesn’t happen every day. They do it to tell you when it’s time to pay the bill. You just phone them and they tell you how much you owe. That way they don’t have to send you a notice or anything. It saves time and it saves postage and think of all the trees they don’t have to cut down to make paper to print all those electricity bills. It is very good for the environment.’
    ‘Another brilliant idea,’ Dr Trifle said. ‘There are people out there thinking all the time.’
    ‘Now follow me, there’s lots more to see,’ the real-estate agent said, leading the Trifles out of the kitchen.
    ‘Well, the cracks trick and the puddle trick and the noisy pipes and faulty wiring tricks didn’t work — at least this cunning little dog still has one last card up his sleeve,’ Selby thought as he crept up the back stairs and then climbed through the hole that went into the roof. ‘I saw a program on TV recently about rats getting into roofs. I’ll give them the old rats in the roof trick.’
    With this he scampered lightly back and forth across the ceiling.
    ‘Bush rats!’ he heard Dr Trifle say. ‘The roof is full of rats! There could be hundreds of them. I saw a program on TV recently about rats getting into roofs. They’re lovely little creatures but when they make nests in your house, they can do terrible damage. And they’re so hard to get rid of. No matter what you do they just keep coming back.’
    ‘They’re not rats,’ the real-estate agent said. ‘What you hear is the gentle sound of gumnuts bumping together in the breeze in that