Toad Away (12 page)

“Goliath,” hissed Limpy.“Get over here. The Amazon rellies aren't watching. You don't need a special rescue unit.”

But Goliath had slipped away into the jungle, leaving only a trembling leaf and a glob of mucus with half a maggot in it to show he'd ever been there.

Limpy's warts felt like they were about to explode with frustration.

He glared back over at the Amazon rellies, still busy blasting wasps.

Goliath could have used a chain saw to cut the knots and they wouldn't have noticed.

“Look at that lot,” hissed a voice from somewhere very close. “Are we Amazon toads good squirters, or what?”

Limpy looked round, startled. It wasn't Goliath's voice.

A cane toad appeared from behind a clump of reeds.

Limpy tried not to stare. The cane toad was about the same size as him, and about the same age, and had exactly the same squashed leg.

Stack me, thought Limpy.

He'd seen plenty of cane toads with squashed bits, including squashed heads, which this bloke had as well. But he'd never seen anyone with exactly the same squashed leg.

“Do you agree?” said the cane toad. “That Amazon toads are good fighters?”

He gave Limpy either a smile or a scowl. Limpy couldn't be sure because the poor bloke's face was almost flat on one side.

Limpy nodded, partly because it was true and partly because he felt sorry for a person who couldn't even let other people know if he was happy or angry.

“You're right, we are good fighters,” said the cane toad. “Trouble is, we're fighting the wrong enemy. We should be fighting the slimy murderous black-hearted pimply humans.”

Limpy stared at him.

The other cane toad's expression was still hard to work out. Except for his eyes. They were glinting with so much dark hatred they made Limpy shiver.

With delight.

“I agree,” said Limpy.

“I know you do,” said the cane toad. “Wait here. I've got something that will help us do it.”

Limpy strained hopelessly against the creeper knotted around him.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he said.

The very squashed cane toad hopped away into the undergrowth, leaning over a bit so he didn't go into a curve.

Amazing, thought Limpy. He even hops like me.

Soon he reappeared.

Limpy saw he was holding something wet wrapped in a leaf.

The cane toad looked around furtively, checking that the other cane toads were still busy in the distance, and sidled over to Limpy.

“My name is Flatface,” he said. “Do you know why?”

Limpy didn't want to hurt his feelings.

“Um … because … because you always face the street, like a block of flats?”

As soon as Limpy said it, he felt like kicking himself in the bum. An Amazon cane toad probably wouldn't even know what a street was. Or a block of flats.

Flatface didn't seem to have noticed.

“When I was little, a human bulldozer did this,” he said, pointing to his face and leg. “If I hadn't seen the bulldozer at the last moment, it would have killed me.”

“Murdering mongrels,” said Limpy.

“I lay in the mud,” continued Flatface. “Crushed,
broken, with insects laughing at me. That's when I vowed revenge on the human species.”

Limpy felt his throat sac tighten.

“I've spent my life planning that revenge,” continued Flatface. “And now I'm ready. Except those fools over there won't give me the help I need.”

Flatface glared across the swamp at the other cane toads, then held the leaf parcel out to Limpy.

“This is the sap of three different jungle vines,” he said. “Mixed together it makes a powerful poison. A tiny amount will kill many humans.”

Limpy stared at the parcel. This was it. Precious ancient knowledge. And it was being handed to him on a leaf.

“It needs one more ingredient,” said Flatface. “Our poison, from our glands. But my glands were crushed. And those idiots won't give me any poison because they're too gutless and wartless to start a war with humans.”

Limpy felt his own glands tingling.

Flatface was staring at him, dark eyes big with hatred.

“You and I,” said Flatface, “working together, can kill many, many humans.”

He started undoing the knots that were holding Limpy.

“Do you like that idea?” he asked softly.

Limpy thought of poor Charm lying under a human bulldozer. Maybe even suffering insect jeers before she died.

He nodded.

He did like that idea.

He liked it very much.

D
espite his crook leg, Flatface was a fast hopper. By the time they arrived at the ditch, Limpy was out of breath. So when Flatface pointed out the first lot of humans they were going to kill, Limpy knew why he wasn't feeling quite as joyful about it as he should.

It's because I'm pooped, thought Limpy.

He gasped in some more air through his pores. Then he peered over the edge of the ditch again at the humans in the village.

No, he still wasn't tingling with delight and revenge. In fact, he was starting to have a bad feeling.

Limpy looked at Flatface, wondering how he was going to break the news.

“They're the wrong ones,” he said.

“What do you mean?” said Flatface.

“The wrong humans,” said Limpy.

“No, they're not,” said Flatface. “We're here to kill humans and these are humans. Look, two legs, horrible smooth skin, runny noses most of them. But not for long. When we add our little surprise to their drinking water, they won't be doing any more running, not them or their noses.”

“There's been a misunderstanding,” said Limpy.

“This isn't what I was expecting.”

These humans weren't on bulldozers. There wasn't a single one wearing a hard hat or overalls. Most of them weren't wearing anything at all. They were strolling around the village chatting, or sitting playing with children.

Limpy stared at a mum and dad dangling their little kid upside down by his feet.

Mum and Dad used to do that to me, thought Limpy. When I swallowed a snail without peeling it first.

Deep in his guts the bad feeling got bigger.

It wasn't an unpeeled snail, it was something else.

“What were you expecting?” said Flatface. “Oh, I get it. Larger numbers, right? Look, don't worry, we're starting small to test the dosage, but then we'll move on to bigger groups.”

Limpy tried to nod. He wanted to agree, for Charm's sake, but something inside him was saying no.

“Look at them,” said Flatface, scowling at the humans. “Innocent laughing faces. You wouldn't guess how murderous their brains are, would you? Nature can be very dishonest sometimes.”

Limpy tried to imagine each one of these humans on a bulldozer, ruthlessly destroying trees, making sandwich-spread out of the forest, driving over Charm.

He couldn't.

“Come on,” said Flatface, unwrapping the leaf parcel. “Let's have a squirt of your pus in here and we're in business.”

Limpy stared at the houses around the edge of the village. They were made from twigs and dried leaves and looked small and friendly compared to the human houses back home. Limpy tried to persuade himself that inside each one was a bulldozer or a truck or a pile of really sharp pie crusts.

He couldn't.

“I can't,” he said.

Before Flatface could stop him, Limpy flung himself out of the ditch and hopped back into the forest as fast as he could.

He just wanted to be on his own, to think about Charm and trucks and bulldozers, to smash through the undergrowth like this with thorny vines slashing his face.

To feel angry again.

It didn't happen.

Flatface grabbed him from behind.

“That's not fair!” yelled Limpy as he struggled in Flatface's grasp. “Your leg is just as crook as mine. How come you can hop faster? How come you're stronger?”

“Ancient Amazon health diet,” said a nearby scorpion. “And he broods a lot.”

Then something even more unfair happened.

Flatface dragged Limpy over to a large pit dug deep into the forest floor and pushed him in.

Luckily the damp leaves on the bottom were soft, and as Limpy thudded into them his warts were only dented rather than completely flattened.

When Limpy's head stopped thumping, he squinted up. Flatface was glaring down at him over the edge of the pit. He looked pretty small, and Limpy knew that meant one of two things.

Either Flatface had shrunk, or the mouth of the pit was a long way up.

Limpy wished he'd paid a bit more attention in the math lessons Dad had tried to give him, instead of spending most of the time gazing longingly at the mud slide. He had a horrible feeling the correct answer was the second one.

“Gone shy about squirting pus, eh?” said Flatface.“I think you'll change your mind when you meet your
new friends down there. I'll be back later to collect it. Bye.”

He disappeared.

I wonder what he means by new friends, thought Limpy. Probably not cane toads who like mud slides.

The answer came from the other end of the pit. It started with some loud hissing, followed by quite a lot of slithering and the sudden appearance of several pairs of red and yellow eyes staring at Limpy.

“G'day,” said Limpy. “Um, are you those giant caterpillars Raoul was telling me about? The ones that can inflate your bodies to look like big snakes?”

“No,” said a grumpy voice. “We're snakes who can fluff our scales out to look like very poisonous giant caterpillars. That's why humans dig pits to catch us. They like to watch us do it.”

“Oh,” said Limpy. “I see. And er, do you, um, eat cane toads?”

“No,” said the grumpy voice. “Not eat. Any more questions before we suck your insides out and use your skin for bedding?”

“Not really,” said Limpy.

The question he wanted to ask someone was whether he should spray the snakes to defend himself and risk some of his poison pus falling into the hands of Flatface.

It probably wasn't worth asking the snakes that.

To make conversation, Limpy was about to ask the snakes if by any chance they fancied joining him in a war against humans on bulldozers, when something prodded him in the back.

It was a stick.

A very long stick, held by someone leaning over the edge of the pit.

Limpy stared up.

It was a human kid, one of the boys he'd seen playing in the village. He recognized the colored stripes painted on the boy's chest.

Trembling, Limpy waited for the boy to stab him.

It was what some human boys did; he'd heard about it loads of times around the swamp at home. Either that or blow you up with bike pumps. They did it to pass the time while they were waiting to grow up into bulldozer drivers.

Bye, Goliath, thought Limpy sadly. I'm glad you're not here.

But the boy didn't stab him, he just prodded Limpy gently and gestured until Limpy realized the boy wanted him to hang on to the stick so he could lift him out of the pit.

Limpy hung on.

Probably wants to stab me up top where he can see better, thought Limpy as he traveled upward and the snakes muttered bitterly below.

Perhaps Flatface was right about humans after all.

But the boy didn't stab Limpy up top.

He spoke gently to Limpy in a language Limpy didn't understand, then carried him through the forest, put him down at the edge of the swamp, grinned, waved goodbye, and disappeared into the bushes, leaving Limpy feeling very confused.

W
hile Limpy dug a grave on the riverbank, he had a long think.

He thought about humans, and how cruel some of them were, and how kind others of them were, and how confusing that was.

He thought about Flatface, and wondered if Flatface ever got confused.

But mostly he thought about Charm and all her special qualities.

The way she could make slugs laugh, even while Goliath was eating them.

The way she let smaller kids go before her on the mud slide, even though at least one of them always did a poo in the mud from excitement.

The way she always said sorry if she lost her temper and tried to stab you with a mosquito.

“Oh, Charm,” whispered Limpy. “I miss you.”