Toad Rage (4 page)

A horrible thought hit him.

Perhaps, a long time ago, just after the dawn of time, a cane toad had done something really nasty to a human. Something so bad that humans had hated cane toads ever since and wanted to squash them at every opportunity.

If I knew what it was, thought Limpy, I could say sorry.

He struggled to think what it could have been.

Perhaps a human had chucked a can out of a car and a cane toad had chucked it back and hit the human on the head.

It didn't seem likely. Cane toads were pretty hopeless throwers.

Perhaps one of Goliath's ancestors had stabbed a car tire with a stick and made the car drive off the highway and crash into a termites' nest.

That didn't seem likely either. If it had happened, humans would be going out of their way to drive over termites as well.

Perhaps humans were just jealous of cane toads because cane toads had much longer tongues, which meant they got to eat all the juiciest insects and humans got left with the scaly centipedes and dust mites.

Limpy frowned.

It didn't seem enough, somehow.

Not for mass murder.

He knew there must be something else, something he hadn't thought of. He thought again till his head hurt, but it was no good, so he stopped worrying about the past.

Instead he worried about the future.

What I need, thought Limpy, is a way to make cane toads more popular with humans.

While he mulled this over, he watched a group of humans in the wildlife enclosure gazing at some big tropical butterflies. The humans had wide eyes and joyful smiles, and the butterflies looked pretty happy too.

Limpy sighed.

I wish I was a butterfly, he thought.

He looked down at his body and wondered if he could pretend to be a butterfly.

No hope. Even if he stretched the saggy skin under his armpits out as far as it would go, it still wouldn't look like wings in a million years.

Plus butterflies didn't have warts.

Limpy sighed again.

Suddenly the ground shook.

Limpy looked up fearfully. A huge truck was rumbling toward him. Limpy was about to turn and run when he saw that the truck was stopping.

He saw something else. Painted on the side of the
truck was a large platypus and a large echidna and a large kookaburra.

Lucky things, thought Limpy. Some creatures are so popular with humans, they even get their own special trucks.

Then Limpy realized the platypus picture wasn't of a real platypus. It was a picture of a platypus costume with a human in it. Limpy could tell it was a human from the way the platypus was standing with its bottom sticking out.

Same for the echidna and the kookaburra.

Limpy stared at the pictures, puzzled.

Why would humans want to disguise themselves as animals and birds?

He didn't get it, but he had to admit they were great disguises. The kookaburra's feathers and the echidna's spikes and the platypus's fur looked so real, they'd even have fooled a kookaburra and an echidna and a platypus.

And, thought Limpy, a human behind a steering wheel.

Then Limpy had an idea that made his warts tingle with excitement.

An idea that made his long journey suddenly seem worth it.

An idea, he thought joyfully, that could keep
Charm safe and bring peace and security to cane toads for countless generations to come.

The underpants were just what Limpy was looking for.

They had purple swirls on them and yellow blobs and green ripples and really bright orange around the edges.

Perfect, thought Limpy.

He had to have them.

The only problem was, they were lying on the floor of a parked caravan, just inside the open door.

Not just any caravan.

The rock throwers' caravan.

Limpy hopped closer, warts prickling with fear, desperately hoping that the humans from the van were over in the enclosure, patting possums or chucking rocks at each other.

He hopped onto the caravan step and listened.

Nothing.

He hopped into the van and crept around a pair of furry slippers and sidled toward the underpants.

Suddenly a human voice boomed out.

Limpy went almost as flat as Uncle Roly, just from fear.

Then he saw something flickering in the gloom.

A human face in a box, speaking.

Other humans were lying in front of the box, asleep.

Limpy stared, relief flooding through his glands. He'd heard older family members talking about this box. Without it, they'd said gratefully, heaps more humans would be out at night driving over cane toads.

It was called “telly.”

Limpy was tempted to look at it for longer, but that would have been too dangerous, plus he had more important things to do.

He grabbed the underpants, leapt out the door, and hopped under the van.

Okay, he thought as he wriggled into the underpants, making sure that his body and head were completely covered, let's see if humans can be friendly to a cane toad if they think he's a tropical butterfly.

L
impy took a while to get into the wildlife enclosure, mostly because he couldn't see properly out of the leg hole of the underpants and kept banging into parked cars.

Finally he found the entrance.

So far so good, he thought.

He hopped over to the group of humans admiring the tropical butterflies and waited for them to notice him.

A horrible thought struck.

What if I've got the underpants on inside out? The colors won't look as bright. They'll think I'm just a drab moth.

He could feel something stabbing him in the forehead. He realized it wasn't anxiety, it was a label.

Everything was okay.

Then a man looked down.

Limpy flapped his arms inside the underpants. He did it slowly so he'd look like a butterfly who'd had a very busy day and was too tired to do any more actual flying.

The man saw him.

Limpy held his breath.

A wonderful thing happened. The man didn't chuck rocks at him or jump into a car and try to run him over.

It's working, thought Limpy delightedly.

Then the man's face went red.

“Arghhhh,” he yelled. “A cane toad. In me undies.”

Other humans shouted and screamed.

The man lunged at Limpy.

Limpy leapt out of the underpants and flung himself at the fence. Luckily he was small enough to fit through the wire.

He hopped frantically across the parking lot, trying to get over to a row of parked cars to hide underneath. To his horror he realized he was going too fast and his crook leg wasn't touching the ground properly and he was veering round in the beginnings of a circle.

The man was yelling behind him and the yells were getting closer.

Then Limpy saw that his circular hopping had brought him close to the big painted truck, which was revving its engine and starting to move off.

Limpy didn't hesitate.

He hopped higher than he'd ever hopped before and leapt onto the back of the truck and clung on to a brake light with both hands and his good foot.

With a shuddering roar, the truck surged forward into the sunset.

Limpy didn't look back.

He hung on with all his strength while the shouting behind him got fainter and fainter.

Okay, he said to himself as he hurtled down the highway, I admit it. Pretending to be a butterfly was a dopey idea.

He sighed.

He should have taken one of the furry slippers and pretended to be a wombat.

The highway was soon dark, but Limpy didn't mind because he knew exactly where he was going.

To the same place the truck was going, wherever that was.

A place where he could learn about disguises that actually worked. Disguises as good as the ones painted on the side of the truck.

Limpy hung on tight and had exciting visions of arriving back home with a pile of wonderful costumes. The cane toads would put them on and the
humans driving on the highway would think the creatures in their headlights were echidnas and platypuses and kookaburras and butterflies and they'd drive past waving happily.

Suddenly the truck slowed down for a sharp bend in the highway.

Limpy realized it looked sort of familiar.

He peered round the back of the truck.

Ahead, lit up by the truck headlights and an overhead light that also looked sort of familiar, was a railway crossing that looked very familiar.

And on the other side of it, sitting in the middle of the road, glaring at them and waving a stick, was a figure he recognized immediately.

Goliath.

The truck was accelerating over the crossing.

“Goliath,” yelled Limpy. “Get out of the way.”

They were heading straight for him.

“Jump,” screamed Limpy. “Jump to one side.”

Goliath jumped.

Too late.

The truck, with Limpy hanging on to the back frozen with horror, thundered over the top of Goliath.

“No!” cried Limpy.

He spun round, staring back at the circle of light on the road, desperately hoping to see Goliath still standing there waving his stick.

Or even tottering around, dazed.

Nothing.

Not even a blob of squashed skin and warts.

Limpy turned back and put his anguished face against the back of the truck. Goliath must have been hit so hard he'd been pressed into the surface of the road.

Limpy felt sadness draining the strength out of his arms and his good leg. As the truck thundered into the night, one thought helped him hang on.

At least Charm hadn't been there.

This time.

B
y the next morning, Limpy was the world's biggest fan of brake lights.

Not only were they really useful to hang on to, but when you were spending a long night in the freezing slipstream at the back of a truck, they kept you alive.

Every time the truck hit its brakes, the brake light bulb glowed and sent a beautiful burst of warmth through your aching body.

Mmmmm.

Except now that the sun was up and climbing fast, Limpy was starting to feel a bit too warm.

He was particularly worried about his armpits.

The problem with hanging on to a brake light was that your armpits were exposed, and as the sun got higher, that could be a real problem.

Toast, thought Limpy anxiously. Fairly soon my pits'll be toast.

The brake light came on again and stayed on for a long time while the truck slowed down.

Limpy felt himself overheating and becoming not quite such a big fan of brake lights.

Then he realized the truck was turning off the highway.

Phew, thought Limpy. At last. We're here.

The truck drove into a town.

Limpy knew it was a town because he'd seen photos of towns in the magazines people chucked out of cars.

The truck drove into the center of the town and parked in a loading dock.

Limpy didn't know it was a loading dock because magazines don't have many photos of loading docks. All Limpy cared about was that he'd arrived at the place where he could get good disguises.

And then, thought Limpy happily, no more flat rellies.

He tensed.

The driver's door had just slammed and he could hear the driver coming round to the back of the truck.

Limpy let go of the brake light and dropped to the floor.

His arms and legs were stiff and numb and he could hardly move, but he managed to hobble behind some trolleys.

Peering out, he saw the driver fiddling with the back doors of the truck. A man in a suit appeared and pointed to his watch and pointed to his clipboard and said angry things to the driver. The driver scratched himself under his singlet and shrugged. He opened the truck doors and started lifting out big cardboard boxes. The man in the suit started opening the boxes.

Limpy stared.

Inside the boxes were huge numbers of small furry toys.

Limpy knew they were small furry toys because kids sometimes threw small furry toys out of cars, usually with sick on them.

Limpy gaped as the man in the suit opened still more boxes.

These weren't just any small furry toys.