The Joke's on Selby Read online

  ‘It’s a strange thing, being a comedian,’ Gary explained. ‘Sometimes you’re telling a joke and your mouth takes over. It’s like it has a mind of its own.’

  ‘A mind of its own?’

  ‘Yes. I’d told that joke lots of times before, but this time, just when I was about to say the punchline, I found myself saying something that was a thousand times funnier. It turned into a killer joke. For weeks afterwards I laughed every time I thought of it. In the end I had to make a recording of the joke and just listen to it over and over again till it wore off.’

  ‘I’m so glad I didn’t hear it,’ said Mrs Trifle. ‘Speaking of your new show — are you going to tell that elephant and mouse joke? You told it to us once at dinner, remember?’

  ‘No, I’ve never been able to make that joke work. I’ve changed it and changed it but it’s still not funny enough.’

  ‘Well, I thought it was sweet. Will you tell it now?’

  ‘Tell it, Gary,’ Selby thought. ‘I liked it too.’

  ‘Okay. An elephant and a mouse are walking down the street. The mouse says, “I hate being small. I’d love to be big like you.” And the elephant says, “You could be big like me if you wanted to. Here’s what you do. First find the nut of the jub-jub tree and bring it to me.” “Is that all I have to do?” “Yes, but the nearest jub-jub tree is a long way away and the nuts are very heavy.” “No problem,” says the mouse, “I’ll roll it back.” And the elephant says, “You’ll have to go through lion country.” “I’ll do it,” says the mouse. “And you’ll have to cross a river full of crocodiles.” “No problem,” the mouse says. So off the mouse goes …’

  Selby listened as the elephant and mouse joke went on and on. Finally Gary got to the punchline: ‘"Okay,” the elephant says, “so now we’re both nuts but I’m still tall."’

  ‘That’s a lovely joke,’ Mrs Trifle said.

  ‘Thanks. But it didn’t make you laugh.’

  ‘It’s just me. I’m not in a laughing mood. I’m too worried about the speech I have to give on the radio tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘I have to tell the people of Bogusville that the Health Department is going to close our hospital.’

  ‘That’s awful!’

  ‘I know. The department says that Bogusville is too small to have its own hospital. From now on, if anyone gets sick they’ll have to go to Poshfield Hospital.’

  ‘So why are you worried about your speech? It’s not your fault they’re closing the hospital.’

  ‘I always get nervous when I talk on the radio. And when I get nervous I make mistakes.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Gary said, putting a blank tape into the tape player, ‘record your speech till you get it right. Then give it to the radio station to play.’

  ‘Gary, you’re a genius!’ said Mrs Trifle.

  That afternoon, Mrs Trifle recorded her speech over and over again.

  ‘She’s almost got it right,’ Selby thought, ‘but listening to it is driving me nuts. I’ve got to get out of here.’

  Selby left the house and went walking along Bogusville Creek, practising some of Gary’s jokes in his best Gary Gaggs voice: ‘But seriously, folks,’ he said. ‘A guy in a restaurant says to the waiter, “I can’t eat this soup.” The waiter says, “I’ll get the manager.” So the guy says to the manager, “I can’t eat this soup.” The manager says, “I’ll get the owner.” So the guy says to the owner, “I can’t eat this soup.” The owner says, “I’ll get the cook.” The guy says to the cook, “I can’t eat this soup.” The cook says, “Why not?” So the guy says, “Because I don’t have a spoon.” Woo woo woo!’

  ‘It was funnier when Gary told it,’ Selby thought. ‘Now how did that elephant and mouse joke go? “An elephant and a mouse are walking down the street. The mouse says …"’

  When Selby got to the end of the joke and was about to say Gary’s punchline, something strange happened. It was as if Selby’s mouth had a mind of its own. Suddenly a completely different punchline came out.

  Selby stopped in his tracks. ‘That is so incredibly funny,’ he thought in the split second before he started laughing uncontrollably.

  He doubled up and fell to the ground, pounding his paws in the dirt.

  ‘That is sooooooo funny!’ he cried. ‘That’s the funniest joke I’ve ever heard — and I made it up myself! I’m a real comedian! Oh! Oh! Oh! My tummy is hurting from laughing.’

  Selby shrieked with laughter again and rolled on the ground. Tears streamed down his face. For what seemed like hours he shouted and groaned and writhed in helpless laughter. Finally he picked himself up, his throat raw and sore, but he was still laughing faintly.

  ‘I have to go home,’ he gasped, ‘or the Trifles will worry.’

  With weak and wobbly legs, Selby dragged himself back towards home. The sun was setting behind Gumboot Mountain. Finally his laughter stopped — and then …

  ‘Oh, no!’ he thought. ‘It doesn’t look like a gumboot at all! It looks like an elephant! Oh! Oh! Oh! The mouse and the elephant!’

  Once again Selby found himself on the ground screeching with laughter. By the time he got home he’d finally stopped.

  Three times that night Selby woke himself up with his own laughter. In the morning he could hear Mrs Trifle talking on the telephone.

  ‘I don’t know what you heard,’ she was telling someone, ‘but it can’t have been an escaped hyena, because Bogusville Zoo has never had a hyena. But don’t worry, the police are looking into it.’

  ‘It was me!’ Selby thought. ‘I have to get that joke out of my head.’

  As soon as the Trifles left the house, Selby dashed to the tape recorder and turned Mrs Trifle’s tape around.

  ‘I’ll do what Gary did. I’ll record the joke and listen to it till I’m sick of it.’

  Selby recorded the joke using his best Gary Gaggs voice, to make it as funny as possible. Then he played the tape over and over again. After a while his laughter stopped.

  ‘I’m cured!’ Selby thought. ‘And just in time. Here come the Trifles!’

  Selby quickly turned the tape around again and lay down.

  ‘Time to catch up on my sleep,’ he thought.

  Hours later, Selby awoke to the sound of Dr Trifle’s voice.

  ‘You should be on right now,’ Dr Trifle said, turning on the radio.

  ‘And now,’ the radio announcer said, ‘we have the very important message from Mayor Trifle that I’ve been telling you about. Here goes.’

  But the voice that came on the radio wasn’t Mrs Trifle’s.

  ‘An elephant and a mouse are walking down the street,’ it said. ‘The mouse says, “I hate being small. I’d love to be big like you …"’

  ‘That’s not me,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘It’s Gary Gaggs. They’re playing the wrong tape.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Selby groaned in his head. ‘That’s not Gary — it’s me telling Gary’s joke with my killer punchline! They’re playing the wrong side of the tape!’

  ‘Should we ring the radio station?’ asked Dr Trifle.

  ‘No, no,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Not till the joke is over. It’s a cute joke. It’ll put everyone in a good mood for my announcement.’

  ‘I can’t stand it,’ Selby screamed in his brain. ‘Everyone in Bogusville is listening! I’ve got to get out of here!’

  It was a sad and lonely dog who walked along the streets of Bogusville, watching as people staggered, screaming with laughter, from their houses. And all around town there was hideous howling like the sound of a herd of escaped hyenas. Selby watched helplessly as people crawled along the footpaths, gasping for breath, and laughing ambulance officers tried to lift people onto stretchers.

  ‘Oh woe woe woe,’ Selby groaned as a jogger, blinded by his own tears, ran off the side of a bridge and straight into Bogusville Creek. ‘What a shemozzle! And poor Gary is going to get the blame. I’ll never ever think up another joke as long as I live. Oh, this is the saddest day
of my life.’

  Fortunately, no one died because of Selby’s killer joke. A few people tumbled out of bed or off toilets, and Melanie Mildew fell out of a tree while she was picking apples. Postie Paterson laughed so much that he cried, and for days he delivered the wrong mail to the wrong houses. Mrs Trifle laughed so hard that she started hiccupping and couldn’t stop. And Aunt Jetty swallowed her false teeth. But no one was badly hurt — which was lucky, because the doctors and nurses at the hospital were laughing too hard to help anyone.

  A month later, when Selby was still feeling guilty, he heard Mrs Trifle say to Dr Trifle, ‘Good news — they’ve decided not to close Bogusville Hospital after all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it was suddenly very busy. Do you realise that three thousand patients went to hospital last month?’

  ‘Really? Oh yes,’ Dr Trifle said with a laugh, ‘the joke injuries.’

  ‘So they’re keeping the hospital open, after all!’ Selby thought. ‘That’s great! And to think it’s all because of me. I’m a hero!’

  ‘And to think,’ said Mrs Trifle, ‘it’s all because of Gary. When he gets back he’ll be a hero.’

  ‘Did you see that?’ Dr Trifle said. ‘Selby was lying there as quiet as a mouse and suddenly his ears went up. It was almost as if he was listening to us.’

  ‘Did you say a mouse?’ Mrs Trifle asked, a smile spreading across her face. ‘That reminds me of the elephant and mouse joke.’

  ‘Me too!’ Dr Trifle hooted with laughter. ‘Oh, the elephant and the mouse! Oh, that’s so funny!’

  ‘I’m getting out of here before I start laughing too,’ Selby thought. ‘This has gone beyond a joke!’

  Author’s note: See the whole of Selby’s killer joke in the Appendix.

  GARY GAGGS AND THE GHOSTLY GAGSTER

  ‘My last comedy show was a disaster!’ cried Gary Gaggs. ‘I’m going to give up being a comedian.’

  Dr and Mrs Trifle both smiled while Selby struggled not to smile.

  ‘I just love this guy,’ Selby thought. ‘He can make anything funny. I can’t wait for the punchline.’

  ‘Well?’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘What’s the punchline?’ ‘There is no punchline,’ Gary said. ‘I’m serious. Every time I do my show, it’s a total disaster.’

  ‘You haven’t been telling your killer joke again, have you?’

  ‘No, someone is coming to all my shows and shouting out my punchlines before I can say them.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s a heckler,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘But you’ve got all those great put-down lines to make hecklers feel silly.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dr Trifle agreed. ‘Remember the heckler with the big nose and you said, Excuse me, sir, but is that your nose or are you eating a banana? And another time when there was a heckler with big ears and you said, Are those your ears or is there an elephant standing behind you? That was very funny.’

  ‘I remember a heckler who was wearing a shirt with wide stripes,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘He started yelling things out and you said, Excuse me, sir, but is that a striped shirt or am I looking through the bars of your cage?’

  ‘I’ve got lots of heckler busters,’ Gary said, ‘but they’re no good because I can’t see who’s heckling. It’s like he’s a phantom heckler. He’s a ghostly gagster. He knows all my jokes and he’s following me around.’

  ‘Sheeesh!’ Selby thought, as a shiver shot up his spine. ‘A phantom heckler. A ghostly gagster. That gives me the creeps.’

  ‘It happened in Brisbane and then in Sydney just last week,’ Gary said. ‘Someone must really hate me.’

  ‘That’s silly,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Everybody loves a comedian.’

  ‘Everyone except another comedian,’ Gary said.

  ‘I reckon he’s right,’ Selby thought. ‘I’ll bet it’s a jealous comedian turning up to his shows and ruining them.’

  ‘You could make up new jokes for every show,’ Dr Trifle suggested. ‘That way he wouldn’t know the punchlines.’

  ‘That would be impossible. Do you know how long it takes to make up a whole show full of jokes?’ Gary sighed. ‘Will you guys do me a favour? Would you come to my show this afternoon and see if you can spot the heckler and point him out to me? It’s hard for me to see because of the spotlights on stage shining in my eyes.’

  ‘You can count on us, Gary,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘We’ll be there.’

  ‘And so will I,’ thought Selby. ‘But I’ll have to sneak in.’

  That afternoon, Dr and Mrs Trifle and Gary drove to the theatre together. Selby ran after them.

  ‘I’ve never been this nervous in my life,’ Gary admitted.

  ‘Relax,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘We’ll find your phantom heckler for you and then you can give him your best heckler busters.’

  Selby crept into the theatre and hid behind the curtain so that he could peek out at everyone in the audience.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies and germs,’ Gary said, starting the show. ‘It’s great to be back in Bogusville. This is where I did my very first comedy show. You may not know this but I wasn’t always a comedian. No, I wasn’t. I used to be a tailor but I had to quit. It didn’t suit me. Woo woo woo!’

  ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Selby gasped. ‘It didn’t suit him. That’s great!’

  ‘But seriously, folks, then I got a job in a bag factory but they gave me the sack.’

  ‘The bag factory gave him the sack!’ Selby thought, as he struggled not to laugh.

  ‘Then I worked in a fruit-juice factory but they canned me. I just couldn’t concentrate. Woo woo woo!’

  ‘Gary has to be the funniest guy in the whole world!’ Selby thought, as the audience roared with laughter. ‘And they’re loving it!’

  Selby looked all around the audience. Everyone was laughing except one silver-haired old man with a pimple on his nose.

  ‘He isn’t even smiling,’ Selby thought. ‘He might be a bit deaf, poor guy.’

  ‘But seriously, folks,’ Gary went on. ‘Two fish were in a tank. One of the fish said to the other fish, “How do you drive this thing?” Woo woo woo!’

  ‘That’s a great joke!’ Selby thought. ‘It gets funnier every time I hear it! And Gary was worried for nothing. The heckler isn’t even here today.’

  ‘I have this hopeless little brother named Larry,’ Gary continued. ‘One day I saw him carrying a ladder to school. A big, tall ladder. So I said, “Where are you going with that?” And Larry said —’

  Suddenly a voice from the audience yelled out, ‘I need it because I’m starting high school today!’

  ‘It’s him!’ Selby thought. ‘It’s the phantom heckler! He’s here, after all!’

  The audience laughed as they looked around.

  ‘But seriously, folks,’ Gary said, ignoring the heckler. ‘My brother was taking an exam and the teacher said to him, “I hope I didn’t just see you copying Melanie’s answers.” And Larry said —’

  ‘I hope you didn’t either!” the heckler shouted.

  ‘Yes, very good,’ Gary said. ‘You took the words right out of my mouth. Anyway, that evening Mum asked him if the exam questions were hard. And he said, “No, the questions were simple —“’

  ‘It’s just the answers that were hard! the voice yelled out.

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Gary said, pretending to laugh along with the audience.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Selby thought. ‘He’s telling the punchlines to every one of Gary’s jokes. I can’t see who’s doing it and neither can anyone else.’

  ‘But seriously, folks,’ Gary went on. ‘One day my brother rang the principal. He put on a deep voice and said, “Larry is sick today so he can’t go to school.” So the principal said, “Okay, but who is this calling?” And my brother said — ‘

  Once again the phantom heckler yelled out. ‘It’s my father!

  ‘Poor Gary,’ Selby thought. ‘He’s so stressed.’

  After the show, the Trifles met Gary in his dressing ro
om.

  ‘Sorry, Gary,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘We couldn’t figure out where the voice was coming from.’

  ‘Well, he got what he wanted,’ said Gary. ‘Because I quit. I’m never going to do another comedy show.’

  ‘Gary, that’s terrible! And what about tonight’s show? You can’t just not turn up. It’s sold out. Some people will have driven for hours to see you.’

  ‘Then they can have their money back,’ Gary said.

  ‘Gary, please,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Whoever he is, he won’t come back again tonight, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’m sure he will.’

  ‘How long have we known each other?’

  ‘I don’t know. Almost all our lives. Why?’

  ‘Then do us a big friend’s favour,’ Mrs Trifle said. ‘Do your show this one last time and we’ll find the heckler — we promise.’

  Selby was on his way home from the show when it happened. He was passing the old man he’d seen in the theatre, the old man who hadn’t laughed at Gary’s jokes. Only now he was laughing.

  ‘Ha ha ha ha. That was so funny!’ the man said out loud. ‘It was all I could do to keep from laughing.’

  ‘What is it with this guy?’ Selby thought. ‘He doesn’t even smile through the whole show and now he’s laughing like a kookaburra.’

  ‘The more I think about those jokes, the funnier they get,’ the man said. ‘Ha ha ha ha.

  Selby looked back over his shoulder at the man.

  ‘Hey, this guy’s talking and laughing and everything — without moving his lips. Like a ventriloquist.’

  Selby stopped dead in his tracks.

  ‘That’s it!’ he thought. ‘He is a ventriloquist! He’s the ghostly gagster! I’ve got to do something about this!’

  ‘Hello there, old boy,’ the man said to Selby. ‘What are you looking at? Come here. I want to give you a pat.’

  ‘Whoa! He can’t be a ventriloquist,’ Selby thought. ‘His lips didn’t even twitch when he said boy and pat. Even a ventriloquist can’t do that. I’ve got to find out more about this dude.’

  Selby ducked into the bushes and followed the man to the Bogusville Motel. He stood on his hind legs and peered into the man’s window.