Toad Away

by Morris Gleitzman

  The birds all laughed.

  “What's so funny?” said Goliath indignantly. “Can you see up my bottom?”

  “I think they're telling us there aren't any cane toads up this tree,” said Limpy.

  The birds sniggered.

  “If you're laughing at my cousin's leg,” yelled Goliath, “I'll do you.”

  One of the birds managed to stop tittering.

  “Sorry,” it said. “We don't mean to be rude. It's just that we've got little parasites in our heads that are eating our brains.”

  “Oh,” said Goliath gruffly. “That's OK then.”

  The birds flew off.

  Poor things, thought Limpy.

  He pulled himself up onto a branch and had a good look round. From up here, near the forest roof, he could see over a much bigger area than down on the ground.

  But he couldn't see a single cane toad.

  All he could see, on the forest floor and on all the tree trunks and above him in the green canopy, were thousands of creatures trying to hurt and maim and kill each other and eat one another's brains.

  Limpy felt sick.

  “Charm!” he yelled desperately.

  A thousand voices replied, none of them Charm's.

  “Come on, Goliath,” said Limpy. “We might as well go back down.”

  “I can't,” said Goliath.

  Limpy saw that Goliath was clinging to a branch, warts pale with fear.

  “Don't make me look down,” said Goliath. “I can climb up without looking down, but I can't climb down without looking down.”

  Limpy hopped onto Goliath's branch, trying to think of something to say to relax him. He saw it wasn't going to be easy. Goliath was showing serious signs of panic. He was chewing his mouthful of rubber sap so fast his jaw was a blur. When Goliath got stressed at home, he did the same with human bubblegum he found on the highway.

  “Perhaps,” said Limpy, “you could hang on to me and climb down with your eyes closed.”

  Goliath shook his head. His eyes were already closed.

  Limpy tried to think of another plan. Then he felt something strange under his feet. He realized the branch they were standing on didn't feel like the other branches, it felt smooth and scaly.

  Where narrow beams of sunlight hit the branch, it was glinting with different colors.

  And moving.

  Goliath grabbed Limpy and hung on to him, whimpering. Limpy would have whimpered too if he hadn't been distracted by the sight of a huge head uncoiling from the next tree and glowering at them.

  The branch wasn't a branch, it was the biggest snake Limpy had ever seen.

  The snake rippled its massive body.

  Limpy fought to keep his footing.

  He could feel Goliath struggling to do the same.

  Unsuccessfully.

  Suddenly they were falling, plummeting down through the moist green gloom, the rush of air dragging Limpy's face out of shape.

  He gripped Goliath's hand tighter in case it was the last time he had a chance to do it, and prayed that by some miracle they'd land in another human poo farm.

  He didn't think they would.

  Far below was the forest floor.

  Limpy prayed it was bouncy enough to stop two falling toads from being splatted into oblivion.

  He didn't think it was.

  While Limpy waited for the fall to end and the forest floor to bash his brains out and probably his spleen as well, he made a wish.

  He wished there was another Amazon a bit further down the track. One with a bit less violence and killing. And a bit more ancient knowledge about being friendly.

  He wished Charm had gone to that one instead.

  Limpy was so busy making his wish that he didn't notice at first that he and Goliath weren't falling so fast. It was only when his face went back into shape he realized they were slowing down.

  Now he could feel it in his arm too. He was still gripping Goliath's hand, but he wasn't falling anymore, he was dangling.

  Limpy looked up at Goliath and his face went back out of shape with amazement.

  Goliath's eyes were bulging with alarm and his mouth was open in terror. But it wasn't a yell of fear coming out of his mouth, it was a huge rubbery bubble.

  Stack me, thought Limpy. Goliath's Amazon bubblegum.

  They weren't falling anymore, they were floating.

  It felt great.

  As they drifted down between the mighty trees, Limpy waved to the other floating and gliding creatures around them. They didn't wave back, but Limpy could see that was because they were busy.

  A giant long-legged fly with slow-beating silvery wings was busy snatching large spiders off webs and biting them in half.

  A furry rat with skin stretched between its back legs was busy gliding into a cloud of poisonous fungus fog.

  A shimmering spiral of butterflies floating on the warm air were busy experiencing stomach cramps and wondering if they should be making wills.

  Suddenly Limpy didn't feel so great anymore.

  Even when he and Goliath had landed safely and they'd popped the bubble on a handy twig and Limpy was helping scrape the rubber off Goliath's face, he still didn't feel so great.

  The Amazon was a war zone.

  “That was fantastic,” said Goliath. “I feel great.”

  “You saved our lives,” said Limpy. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, that was nothing,” said Goliath. “Saliva and rubber sap. Old commando trick. You can make a tent if you blow hard enough. No, I mean I feel great about this place.”

  Goliath gazed around at the forest. He stopped and peered excitedly at something. For a moment Limpy thought Goliath had seen some Amazon rellies, but it was just a battle on a big leaf between an army of ants and an army of termites.

  “Look around you,” said Goliath. “Ancient wisdom all over the place. You can't duck behind a tree for a personal moment without tripping over ancient wisdom. And do you know what this ancient wisdom is saying?”

  Limpy had a horrible feeling he did.

  “Kill or be killed,” said Goliath, biting the head off a slug so big that even Goliath could only just swallow it. “Fight or die. Might is right. Survival of the fittest. Strike first and ask questions later. A rolling stone gathers no moss.” Goliath frowned. “I think that last one might be wrong.”

  Limpy didn't reply.

  He wanted to tell Goliath the whole thing was wrong. But he couldn't find the words, because everything they'd seen since they arrived in the Amazon was saying that Goliath was right.

  Limpy made another wish.

  That the Amazon rellies would appear now, with Charm, and explain to Goliath why it was much better to live in peace, and how to do it.

  They didn't.

  “This'd be the place to get an army together,” Goliath was saying. “They know how to fight around here.”

  He pointed to a tiny beetle on his leg who was trying to crack his shin with its tiny head.

  “You're dead, amigo,” said the beetle. “You're dinner. Just give me a moment.”

  “An army from this place would be unstoppable,” said Goliath, eyes shining as he ate the beetle. “The humans back home wouldn't stand a chance.”

  Limpy sighed.

  “I suppose that's one good thing about this place,” he said. “At least we haven't run into any humans.”

  “Of course not,” chortled Goliath. “No humans could survive here.”

  A little while later, they ran into some humans.

  Or rather the humans ran into them.

  Limpy was yelling out Charm's name, hoping perhaps she'd been sleeping and would wake up and hear it. Goliath was chatting to a sloth, admiring the algae growing on its fur.

  “Great camouflage,” said Goliath.

  The sloth yawned.

  “Were you born with it?” asked Goliath. “Or did you have to plant seeds?”

  The sloth yawned again.

  Suddenly all the noises of the forest stoppe
d. Limpy's last yell echoed through the trees for a moment, then there was silence.

  Except for a faint roaring in the distance.

  The sloth went into a panic and clambered up its tree several more centimeters an hour faster than usual.

  The roaring was getting louder.

  Limpy and Goliath looked at each other. There was something horribly familiar about the sound.

  “Big cat,” said Goliath glumly. “Do we go back up the tree?”

  “That's not a cat,” said Limpy. “That noise is mechanical. Bulldozer mechanical.”

  It was so loud now, the forest was trembling.

  Limpy grabbed Goliath and dragged him into a bog hole, desperately hoping that Amazon bog holes didn't have worms in them that got inside you and opened holiday resorts.

  The bulldozers roared and trees crashed down and the ground shook.

  Limpy thought it would never stop.

  “They work really long shifts around here,” said one of the worms in the bog hole. The other worms agreed. Limpy nodded to show he understood, and that he was grateful the worms were vegetarian.

  He stared at the bulldozers and the toppling trees, his warts droopy with despair. So much for peace and friendship. So much for ancient wisdom.

  We've come all this way, thought Limpy miserably, and everything's the same. Even the humans’ yellow plastic hats are the same. When I finally meet the local cane toads, they'll probably have piles of flat rellies in their bedrooms too.

  That's if they haven't already been wiped out.

  “Mongrels,” growled Goliath, glaring at the bulldozers. “Give me a battalion of giant bloodsucking butterflies and I could take them on.”

  The worms moved to the other side of the hole.

  Finally the bulldozers finished their work and rumbled away.

  The forest sounds slowly returned, most of them indignant.

  “Go and have a look,” said the worms, pointing to the fallen trees and the scar of dirt the bulldozers had scraped clear. “It's a disgrace.”

  Limpy and Goliath hopped warily over to the clear patch. And saw that it was part of a much bigger bare strip.

  They stood in the blinding sunlight, squinting at a massive pipeline that ran along the middle of the strip. The pipeline stretched away to the horizon and, Limpy guessed, beyond. With bare dirt on either side of it all the way.

  Goliath hopped over to the pipeline. He wiped up a black smudge with his finger and tasted it.

  “Oil,” he called back to Limpy. “It's a bit spicier than we get on the highway back home, but I'd know the taste anywhere.”

  Limpy heard him, but barely took it in.

  He'd just seen something on the ground, half-buried in the freshly gouged dirt, tangled up with the tree roots and creepers and tiny creatures that had been crushed and mangled to death.

  Limpy's blood went even colder than usual.

  He dragged the thing out and started to brush the dirt off it, making the most desperate wish he'd ever made in his life.

  That it would just be a thin length of root, or a very slim dead snake.

  But it wasn't.

  It was woven from spiderwebs, with dried mouse eyes threaded on it.

  Charm's necklace.

  The sun burned into Limpy's back as he searched for Charm's body.

  He didn't care.

  It was nowhere near as painful as the anger he felt inside when he pictured those humans in their bulldozers crushing poor little Charm.

  “Is this a bit of her?” asked Goliath miserably.

  He held up a scrap of warty skin.

  Limpy looked.

  It wasn't Charm.

  For an angry moment he thought it might be human skin. A bulldozer driver who'd been to a beauty parlor to get some warts. And then fallen under his own bulldozer while he admired himself in the side mirror.

  But it wasn't that either.

  “It's a lizard,” said Limpy. “Those aren't warts, they're wheel track marks.”

  “Mongrel humans,” muttered Goliath. “When I get my hands on them, they're dead.”

  Limpy didn't argue.

  They kept on searching until the sun started to sink behind the trees.

  “This is hopeless,” said Goliath. “I don't reckon we're ever gunna find her.”

  Limpy knew Goliath was right. They'd have no chance in the dark.

  “I can smell water over there,” said Goliath. “Come on, let's get some mud on our sunburn.”

  As Limpy followed, the air started to feel cooler on his aching body.

  But inside him nothing felt cooler at all.

  Limpy sat on the riverbank, staring at the blood-red water.

  As the sunset faded, night creatures started to appear.

  A moth sat trembling on a branch overhanging the river. At first Limpy assumed the moth had heard about Charm and was in a rage too. Then he remembered that moths had to shiver for a while to get their wing muscles warm enough to fly.

  Before the moth could take off, a fish leapt out of the water and gulped it down.

  Limpy watched as the fish sped away, sending ripples out across the surface of the water.

  A shadow passed over Limpy. A large bat had spotted the ripples and was swinging round in midflight. It came in low over the river, dipped its claws into the water, snatched up the fish, and disappeared into the dark treetops.

  Soon, in the moonlight, the water was a frenzy of activity.

  Shoals of fish with gleaming razor teeth tore into eels, crabs, prawns, and, if they couldn't find anything else, each other.

  Stingrays grappled with giant turtles.

  Otters bigger than human coolers took chunks out of catfish bigger than humans.

  Limpy watched it all and nodded grimly.

  Goliath's right, he thought. This is the way of the world. Kill or be killed. Fight or perish. An eye for an eye.

  Limpy flexed his glands as a flying beetle with razor-sharp jaws hurtled toward him.

  I wish I'd understood this before, thought Limpy as he hit the beetle full in the face with a perfectly aimed droplet of poison pus.

  But I do now.

  Limpy found Goliath nearby in the forest, trying to train an army.

  “Atten-shun!” yelled Goliath.

  Several rows of termites stood to attention in the thin streams of moonlight, but a large column of ants ignored him and started eating the termites.

  “At ease!” yelled Goliath.

  A platoon of ticks stood at ease on the belly of a small furry animal, but a squadron of bats swooped down and the ticks dived for cover.

  “Face the front!” yelled Goliath.

  The bats formed a wobbly line. Limpy could see Goliath's problem. As well as trying to stay in parade-ground formation, the bats were also sucking the furry animal's blood out through the tick bites.

  “No!” yelled Goliath. “Hopeless. What was I saying before about discipline? It's not enough being perfectly formed killing machines. If you lot are gunna wipe humans off the face of the planet, you need discipline. And bombs, but we'll talk about that later.”

  Limpy tapped Goliath on the shoulder.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “I need some military advice.”

  “Shoot,” said Goliath.

  A raiding party of highly toxic caterpillars raised their barb-bristling thoraxes into firing position.

  “Not you,” said Goliath.

  “Make up your mind,” said the caterpillars, lowering their thoraxes.

  “Goliath,” said Limpy. “If an individual was going to do a commando attack against the humans, inflicting as much damage as possible, where would be the best place to do it?”

  “You mean,” said Goliath, “what's their weak spot?”

  Limpy nodded.

  “Oil,” said Goliath. “They can't exist without it. You've seen them on the highway at home. Without oil they'd be carrying those cars on their backs.”

  A platoon of turtles thought this w
as hilarious.

  “Silence!” yelled Goliath.

  The turtles ignored him.

  “The great thing about oil,” said Goliath, glaring at the turtles, “is that if you set fire to it, it burns really well. If you're lucky, it explodes.”

  Limpy remembered the oil pipeline they'd seen earlier that day.

  “Thanks,” he said. “That's exactly what I wanted to know.”

  “You're welcome,” said Goliath. “Sharing information and working together, that's the way to win a war.”

  He looked meaningfully at the bats, who were still sucking.

  Goliath's right, thought Limpy grimly as he hopped away.

  That's exactly what this is.

  War.

  Limpy had to wait until morning before he could attack because he needed the sun to blow up the oil pipeline.

  “Ow,” said the butterfly who was helping him.“That sun's hot.”

  “Sorry,” said Limpy. “But that's the whole point.”

  “Explain it again,” said the butterfly.

  Limpy explained again how if there was a highway nearby with broken headlights on it like at home, he could use the glass to focus the sun's rays and ignite the oil. But because there wasn't, the transparent wings of a butterfly were the next best thing.

  “Why do you have to fold them?” complained the butterfly. “When I agreed to help you, you didn't say anything about folding.”

  “Doubles the magnification,” said Limpy. “Won't be long now. Just think of your poor dead family members, crushed by those bulldozers.”

  The butterfly did that.

  “Heartless brutes,” it sobbed.

  Limpy thought about his poor dead family member and her lovely smile that he'd never see again.

  It helped him concentrate on focusing the sun's rays onto the oil stains. They were seeping out of what he was pretty sure was a pumping station. He could hear a rhythmic wheezing under the cracked metal cover that sounded exactly like Goliath's chest when Goliath tried to suck the petrol out of parked cars through their exhaust pipes.

  “How are we doing?” said the butterfly.

  “Nearly there,” said Limpy.

  The oil under the sunny spot was starting to smoke. Once it burst into flames, Limpy planned to dive for cover with the butterfly while fire roared down the inside of the pipeline all the way to some distant city. Where hopefully it would set off a huge explosion destroying everything around it and teaching those mongrel humans to think twice before they killed any more innocent little sisters.