Toad Rage

by Morris Gleitzman

Limpy showed him how to turn round and get a fresh supply of dinner.

  After a very long time, Goliath burped and gave Limpy a grin. Limpy beamed back. His crook leg was twitching with happiness to see Goliath. He gave Goliath a delighted punch on the arm. Goliath gave him a slap on the back that nearly knocked him off the truck.

  “Thanks, old mate,” said Goliath. He glared up at the driver's cabin. “Now I'm gunna teach this mongrel a lesson, starting with ripping his wheels off and peeing in his fuel tank.”

  “Actually,” said Limpy, “I'd like this truck to get to where it's going.”

  He told Goliath about the Games and being a mascot.

  Goliath stared at him. “Have you been frying your brains in the sun?”

  Limpy sighed. New ideas always took a while to sink in with Goliath.

  “We'll both be frying our brains in the sun if we stay out here much longer,” said Limpy. “Come on, follow me.”

  He led Goliath across the wheel arch and over the door hinge to the side of the truck. Halfway along was a rip in the aluminum cladding he'd spotted earlier where the truck must have scraped something.

  It was just big enough for Limpy to squeeze through.

  Goliath was another matter, but thanks to the axle grease on his skin, and after a lot of hard work by Limpy, he flopped through too.

  They looked around at the boxes of fluffy toys.

  “This'll be us once I'm a mascot,” said Limpy happily. “Fluffy cane toads, and humans going gaga over us.

  Goliath stared at him again. “Limpy,” he said, “do you know how much competition there is to be a Games mascot? I met a spider under the truck who'd traveled across the country to be one and it didn't even get an audition.”

  Limpy felt his spirits droop.

  “Gee,” he said. “It must have been disappointed.”

  Goliath frowned and thought about this. “Possibly,” he said. “I forgot to ask before I swallowed it.”

  Limpy stared at the fluffy toys, his glands heavy with worry.

  Then he had a thought that made him tingle with relief.

  “Must have been a furry spider,” he said.

  Goliath looked impressed. “Yeah,” he said. “It tickled as it went down. How did you know?”

  “That's why it didn't get the job,” said Limpy happily. “There's already a mascot with fur, and one with feathers, and one with spikes. But not one with warts. Not yet.”

  “Good thought,” said Goliath. He sat pondering for a while, then he broke into a grin. “Here's another good thought,” he said. “When we get down south, let's find some humans and stuff these fluffy toys up the mongrels' exhaust pipes so their cars blow up.”

  Limpy sighed.

  He decided not to ask Goliath if he wanted to be a mascot too.

  The air brakes squealed on and Limpy found himself rolling across the floor in a flock of fluffy echidnas.

  He sat up and listened.

  The truck had stopped moving. It gave a shudder as the engine died.

  “I think we've arrived,” said Limpy.

  “Water,” croaked Goliath. “Slime. Anything.”

  Limpy went over and pulled a handful of fluff out of Goliath's mouth.

  “It doesn't help,” said Limpy, “when you try and eat a brushed-polyester platypus.”

  “I thought it might have some moisture in it,” croaked Goliath.

  Limpy knew how he felt. They'd been in the back of the truck for a whole day without a drop of liquid. Since early morning, all Limpy had been thinking about was a drink. He'd have drunk anything. Which why he was so glad Goliath hadn't done a pee.

  A loud clang echoed through the truck.

  “Arghh!” yelled Goliath. “What's that?”

  “They're opening the doors,” said Limpy. “Quick, before they find us.”

  He pushed Goliath through the hole in the side of the truck and squeezed through himself. As he dropped onto the road, a barrage of sights and sounds hit him.

  Traffic everywhere.

  Humans all over the place.

  The night sky almost as bright as day.

  Limpy huddled with Goliath under the truck and tried to take it all in.

  Stack me, he thought, so this is a city.

  He'd seen pictures of cities on beer cartons, but he had no idea they were so noisy. Or smelly. He could smell car fumes and animals cooking and a hundred other weird aromas. One of them, he thought with a shudder, could easily be the stuff he'd heard humans sprayed on their armpits.

  “This is scary,” Goliath was saying, looking around wide-eyed.

  Limpy knew how he felt. There were roads going in all directions with millions of cars and trucks on them. No wonder cane toads didn't live in cities. They wouldn't stand a chance.

  “I'm staying here,” said Goliath, stepping farther back under the truck.

  Then Limpy smelled something else.

  Water.

  He pointed to a large round building across a busy road.

  “I think there's water in there,” said Limpy.

  Goliath lunged forward.

  Limpy grabbed on to him and tried to stop him crashing into cars and colliding with humans in his desperation to get across the road.

  But once they'd hopped frantically between the vehicles and scampered into the concrete tunnel that led into the building, the smell of water was so strong that Limpy let himself be dragged along.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and pretended that at the other end of the tunnel was his own swamp, with Mum and Dad and Charm waiting to hug him and tell him that everything was okay because all humans had decided to stop driving and stay in and watch telly forever.

  Limpy knew it wouldn't be and they hadn't, but it felt good just for a moment.

  What actually happened was almost as good.

  He and Goliath burst out of the tunnel into a huge open space. Lights shimmered in the night sky. Grass glistened. The air sparkled.

  “It's raining!” yelled Goliath, and flung himself into the cascade of shimmering droplets.

  Limpy did the same. He felt his fear and stress start to trickle away with the water that ran blissfully over his parched skin.

  Maybe cities aren't so bad, he thought, if all the big buildings have paddocks in them, and rain.

  But even as he drank in the delicious water, he noticed something strange about the rain.

  It wasn't falling from the sky, it was spurting up out of the grass.

  Stack me, thought Limpy, no wonder humans up our way frown when it rains. They must be really confused seeing it dropping out of the sky.

  Limpy didn't care where it came from.

  He drank and drank.

  After a while he was vaguely aware that Goliath had stopped drinking and grunting happily, and was stretching his big muscles and saying something like “back in a sec.”

  Limpy had been deep in thought about how he'd try and learn human language once he was a Games mascot so he could explain to them about rain. He looked up and saw Goliath striding off across the oval.

  “Where are you going?” he called.

  “Revenge,” replied Goliath.

  Limpy leapt up in alarm.

  Which is when he saw, at the far end of the oval, a lone human figure in a sports singlet doing warm-up exercises.

  Limpy peered through the rain.

  There was something familiar about the human. Its dark hair was in a ponytail, and when Limpy squinted, he was sure he could see freckles on its face. But it wasn't till it picked up a very long stick that Limpy recognized her.

  “Wait, Goliath,” he yelled. “Don't hurt her. She's the one who rescued me.”

  Goliath didn't hear. He strode on toward the girl, his shoulders hunched like they always were when he boasted how one day he'd bash up a human.

  Limpy hurried after him.

  Just before Goliath reached the girl, she suddenly held the stick over her head, sprinted for a while, then jammed one end of the stick into the gr
ound and pivoted herself with it high into the air.

  Very high.

  Limpy gaped.

  He'd seen creatures with some pretty spectacular ways of escaping predators, but nothing like this.

  He watched the girl turn gracefully in the air, then plummet down onto what looked like a very large car-seat cushion. By the time she sat up, Goliath was next to her, grabbing at her stick where it had fallen.

  Spectacular, thought Limpy anxiously, but not that effective with predators who were maniacs.

  “Goliath,” he yelled, hurrying over. “Don't.”

  “I'm gunna whack her one with this,” said Goliath, muscles and eyes bulging as he tried to pick up the stick. It didn't budge.

  The girl looked over and saw Goliath. Her eyes bulged too, in amazement.

  “A cane toad?” she said. “You're a bit far south, aren't you?”

  Goliath glared at her.

  Limpy flung himself forward. Suddenly he didn't know if he was trying to rescue Goliath or the girl. Then he realized it didn't matter because he was going round in circles.

  The girl saw him.

  Her mouth fell open. She stared for a long time.

  “Don't I know you?” she said at last.

  Limpy didn't understand what she was saying, but he hoped she was pleased to see him.

  The girl looked over to where the truck was being noisily unloaded at the edge of the stadium.

  “Stack me,” she said. “Did you hitch a ride?”

  Limpy still couldn't understand, but the sparkle in her eyes and the size of her grin gave him hope, and then a brilliant idea.

  Perhaps she could help him apply to be a mascot. If he could just find a way of asking.

  Behind her, he saw, on a post holding up a roof over a hillside covered in seats, was a big picture of the other mascots. Limpy went over to it, hopped up, and clung to the picture so he was between the kookaburra and the platypus.

  He waited for the girl to understand.

  He could see she was thinking hard.

  Finally she spoke. “I'm really glad to see you guys,” she said. “You can be a big help to me tomorrow.”

  Limpy was pretty sure he understood. “Yes,” he was pretty sure she'd said, “I can definitely help you apply to be a mascot.”

  So, unlike Goliath, he wasn't at all worried when she picked them both up and put them in her sports bag.

  “Yum,” said Goliath, “shoes.”

  Limpy sighed.

  He took a deep breath and tried to explain to Goliath that when a person has let you spend the night in her bath at the Games village, and shared her mushrooms on toast with you, and let you sit up late watching telly with her, and is now taking you in her bag to meet the Games Mascot Committee, it's pretty ungrateful to eat her shoes.

  Goliath spat out a lace and thought about this.

  “You're right,” he said after a bit. “I'll eat her socks.”

  Limpy was about to snatch the sock from him when the bag tilted violently and they both went sprawling into a damp towel.

  From the way the bag was moving, Limpy guessed the girl was carrying them up some steps.

  The Games Mascot Committee is probably so important, he thought, they have their meetings up on a roof where snakes can't get them.

  He'd seen the committee on telly the night before. They'd certainly looked important, sitting behind a long table showing off kookaburra pencil cases and echidna bath mats and platypus car-seat covers to a big crowd of people with cameras and notebooks.

  Limpy felt his warts tingling with excitement. He hoped when he met the committee his mouth didn't get so dry with nervousness that his mucus dried up. Mum always reckoned a cane toad didn't look his best unless he had a bit of mucus on his lips.

  Suddenly Limpy heard the muffled sound of applause and the chatter of human voices and the clicking of cameras.

  He felt the girl unzip the bag.

  Stack me, he thought. She must be going to introduce me to the Mascot Committee in front of the people with the cameras and notebooks.

  Limpy hurriedly practiced his smile. He needed one that would win the hearts of humans everywhere. It wasn't easy in a dark bag without a swamp to check your reflection in.

  Then suddenly the bag wasn't dark anymore. The girl had opened it and was reaching in. Heart thumping, Limpy pushed himself toward her groping hand.

  But her hand slid past him and grabbed Goliath.

  “Uh?” grunted Goliath, spitting out a mouthful of towel.

  Limpy watched in horror as the girl lifted Goliath out of the bag. Through the open zip he could see lights on tall poles and human faces gawking. On a stage the girl held Goliath close to her cheek and smiled sweetly at the cameras.

  Please, Limpy begged Goliath silently. Don't blow it. Don't attack anyone with a stick. Not today.

  Limpy's view out of the bag was suddenly blocked by a human body. Limpy stood on tiptoe and saw it was the bloke in the suit with the clipboard. He was looking cross, as usual, and trying to grab Goliath from the girl.

  He and the girl said some angry things to each other.

  Limpy couldn't see a Games Mascot Committee anywhere.

  The bloke was pulling Goliath's legs. The girl was hanging on to his arms. “Hey,” yelled Goliath indignantly. “Take it easy. Watch my back.”

  Limpy was about to leap out of the bag and try and explain to them that just because Goliath looked tough, that didn't mean he was made of steel-belted rubber.

  Then the bag began to fall.

  Limpy hung on to the towel but it didn't do any good.

  The bag hit the ground with a thud and Limpy's head bashed into his knee and suddenly he was out in the glaring lights, skidding across a shiny surface.

  “Help,” he yelled. “New mascot over here.”

  Nobody heard him, and when he'd stopped sliding and his head had stopped spinning, he realized why. The bag had fallen off the back of the stage and he was lying among some potted plants out of sight of the crowd.

  In the distance, he could hear the girl and the clipboard bloke still arguing. And another voice, much closer.

  “Fog,” it said.

  Limpy looked up.

  A human toddler in a nappy and a T-shirt was looking down at him, wide-eyed.

  Oh no, thought Limpy. That's all I need. A kid getting terrified and everyone blaming me. I'll never get to be a mascot if they think I'm cruel to kids.

  “It's okay,” he said to the toddler. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

  The toddler grinned, dropped the teddy bear it was holding by one leg, grabbed Limpy's leg, and toddled off, dragging Limpy behind it.

  “Fog,” chortled the toddler.

  Limpy sighed.

  He resisted the temptation to give the toddler a tiny little spray.

  Instead, as he was sliding along on his back, he looked around.

  He was in a huge space, almost as big as the stadium but with a roof. There were shops everywhere on many different levels. It didn't look like the committee meeting place he'd seen on telly.

  Why did she bring us here, Limpy wondered, if it wasn't to meet the Games Mascot Committee?

  He didn't understand.

  As the toddler dragged him into a shop, Limpy waited anxiously for the girl to come and rescue him again.

  A thought nagged at him.

  What had his Uncle Preston's last words been? The ones he'd said just before he was flattened by a funeral procession?

  That's right.

  “Never trust a human.”

  “Yuk,” said Goliath, “toothpaste.”

  Limpy sighed.

  He took a deep breath and tried to explain to Goliath that when a young athlete has paid a lot of money to a shopping center security guard for your freedom and then smuggled you back to the Games village in her bag and hidden you under her bed so an angry bloke with a clipboard can't get his hands on you, it's pretty ungrateful to eat her antiseptic foot cream.

 
Goliath spat out a Band-Aid and thought about this.

  “Why should we be grateful?” he said. “She was meant to be taking us to meet the Games Mascot Committee and all we ended up with was sore backs.”

  “It wasn't all bad,” said Limpy. “That shop the toddler dragged me into was full of tellies. I was there for ages before the security guard found me. You can learn a lot of useful stuff about humans from telly, even if you don't speak their language. Did you know there's a very famous person on telly named after one of our dead uncles?”

  “Who?” said Goliath. “Roly?”

  “No,” said Limpy. “Bart.”

  Goliath looked impressed. He stopped eating the stuff in the bag. Limpy took the foot cream away from him in case he got hungry again.

  “But she still didn't take us to the committee,” said Goliath, “did she?”

  Limpy sighed again.

  Goliath was right.

  Why hadn't she?

  Limpy was still puzzling it over when the bag was pulled out from under the bed. The girl lifted him and Goliath out and offered them dinner.

  “Here,” she said. “I got you these from the parking lot.”

  Limpy wasn't hungry, not even for the radiator-grilled grasshoppers she held out to him.

  Then he noticed the telly was on and saw what was on the screen. The girl and the clipboard bloke fighting over Goliath at the shopping center.

  “That's me,” yelled Goliath through a mouthful of grasshopper.

  Limpy stared.

  Not at his cousin being stretched on the screen. At the expression on the girl's face in the room now as she watched. Everyone on the screen looked angry or shocked or upset, including Goliath. But the girl's expression now, as she watched the chaos, was delighted, gleeful, ecstatic.

  Suddenly Limpy understood.

  She'd planned the whole thing. She'd taken him and Goliath to the shopping center on purpose to upset the bloke with the clipboard. To pay him back, probably for making her do something she didn't want to do.

  She hadn't been doing them a favor; they'd been doing her one.

  Boy, thought Limpy, perhaps Uncle Preston was right about not trusting humans.

  The shopping center bit finished on the telly and Limpy saw the girl smiling down at him fondly. She didn't look selfish or dishonest. She just looked like a friendly human who'd rescued him twice.