Paw note: Read my poem, ‘My Spacewalk’, after this story and you’ll see what happened. (Or what didn’t happen!)
S
MY SPACEWALK
I took a little walk in space
‘Cos I was in the perfect place:
Above the moon, just left of Mars
Beneath the galaxies and stars.
I thought I’d wander for an hour
Bathing in a meteor shower.
Then after that I thought I may
Surf along the Milky Way.
If only I could get an inkling
Why the stars are always twinkling
I’d be the smartest dog alive.
(If I managed to survive.)
I’d be careful (on my stroll)
Not to step in a black hole.
The other thing I would avoid
Was any speeding asteroid.
I took a little walk in space
I didn’t run, I didn’t race.
My feet were moving, treading air,
But I wasn’t getting anywhere.
My tootsies couldn’t get a grip.
I took a little walk in space
But finished in my starting place
Selby
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Anna McFarlane and Laura Harris for hounding the author into writing this book and for their dogged determination to sniff out Selby’s mistakes.
Any similarity between Camilla Bonzer, the bomb-throwing librarian in the story ’Books, Bombs and Book Week’, and any of the wonderful librarians who the author has met in his travels around Australia is purely coincidental.
About the Author
Duncan Ball is an Australian author and scriptwriter, best known for his popular books for children. Among his most-loved works are the Selby books of stories plus the collections Selby’s Selection, Selby’s Joke Book and Selby’s Side-Splitting Joke Book. Some of these books have also been published in New Zealand, Germany, Japan and the USA, and have won countless awards, most of which were voted by the children themselves.
Among Duncan’s other books are the Emily Eyefinger series about the adventures of a girl who was born with an eye on the end of her finger, and the comedy novels Piggott Place and Piggotts in Peril, about the frustrations of twelve-year-old Bert Piggott forever struggling to get his family of ratbags and dreamers out of the trouble they are constantly getting themselves into.
Duncan lives in Sydney with his wife, Jill, and their cat, Jasper. Jasper often keeps Duncan company while he’s writing and has been known to help by walking on the keyboard. Once, returning to his work, Duncan found the following word had mysteriously appeared on screen: lkantawq … … ….
For more information about Duncan and his books, see Selby’s web site at: www.harpercollins.com.au/selby
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Emily Eyefinger
Emily Eyefinger, Secret Agent
Emily Eyefinger and the Lost Treasure
Emily Eyefinger and the Black Volcano
Emily Eyefinger’s Alien Adventure
Emily Eyefinger and the Devil Bones
Emily Eyefinger and the Balloon Bandits
Piggott Place
Piggotts in Peril
Selby Speaks
Selby Screams
Selby Supersnoop
Selby Spacedog
Selby Snowbound
Selby Surfs
Selby Snaps!
Selby’s Joke Book
Selby Splits
Selby’s Selection
Selby’s Stardom
Selby’s Side-splitting Joke Book
Selby Sorcerer
Copyright
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 1996
This edition published in 2011
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
www.harpercollins.com.au
Text copyright © Duncan Ball 1996
The right of Duncan Ball to be identified as the moral rights author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Ball, Duncan, 1941—.
Selby spacedog / Duncan Ball.
ISBN: 978-0-207-20006-9 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9528-4 (ePub)
1. Dogs — Juvenile fiction. I. Stomann,Allan. II.Title.
A823.3
Cover and internal design by Christa Edmonds