Toad Delight

by Morris Gleitzman

  About the Book

  The jaw-dropping details of one slightly squashed cane toad’s adventures on TV. And his shock when he discovers what’s cooking.

  Another hilarious wart-tingling story from Morris Gleitzman

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  About the Author

  For Pam

  The early morning sun twinkled cheerfully through the swamp.

  Limpy tried to ignore it.

  Dopey sun. This wasn’t the time for cheerful twinkling. Didn’t the sun know a very sad moment when it saw one?

  Clearly not.

  Limpy hopped onto the highway and over to Uncle Spencer.

  ‘Oo-roo, Uncle Spencer,’ said Limpy quietly.

  Uncle Spencer didn’t reply.

  Limpy wasn’t surprised.

  He’d been saying goodbye to rellies for most of his life, and not once had an uncle replied, ‘And oo-roo to you too, young Limpy.’

  Limpy didn’t take it personally. Uncle Spencer and the others couldn’t help it. They weren’t unfriendly. Or grumpy.

  Just flat.

  With a sigh, Limpy hopped slowly along the highway to his next squashed rellie.

  ‘Bye, Aunty Sasha,’ he said.

  ‘Tragic,’ croaked a voice.

  Limpy peered more closely at Aunty Sasha in case she was a bit less squashed and a bit less dead than she looked.

  But Aunty Sasha, who’d loved a chat when she was alive, wasn’t moving a wart or making a sound. Her chatting days, Limpy saw sadly, were behind her. Along with her mouth, which was squished into her own bottom.

  Limpy turned and squinted back at Uncle Spencer. Uncle Spencer wasn’t saying anything either. He couldn’t, not with tyre tracks across his vocal chords, which were poking out of his ears.

  ‘Still,’ said the voice. ‘Could be worse. At least they died happy.’

  The voice, Limpy realised, belonged to a goanna who was perched on a branch, looking down at the dead rellies thoughtfully.

  Limpy glared at the goanna.

  Rude reptile, butting in and making comments about somebody else’s family tragedies.

  Except, Limpy had to admit, the goanna was right. Uncle Spencer did look like he’d died happy.

  Part of a roadside ants’ nest was poking out of Uncle Spencer’s mouth, and Uncle Spencer always said there was nothing as delicious as ants in their own home. Except stinkweed with mould on it, and in both of Uncle Spencer’s fists were bunches of stinkweed dotted with mould and dazed ants not able to believe their luck.

  Oh well, thought Limpy, at least Uncle Spencer’s last meal was his favourite.

  There were clues that Aunty Sasha had died happy too. Limpy could see traces of honey, which she loved, in her armpits. And an entire wild honey-bees’ nest, with its roadside branch still attached, clutched to her chest.

  Limpy was glad for both of them.

  But at the same time he wasn’t.

  ‘I’ve been watching you, young fella,’ said the goanna to Limpy. ‘Don’t miss a morning down here at wart central, do you? Oo-rooing the placemats and trying to figure out why humans hate you lot so much. Have you worked it out yet?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Limpy.

  He didn’t mean to sound unfriendly, but it was a very sensitive subject.

  ‘Wish you’d hurry up and find out,’ said the goanna. ‘Those humans are a menace to the rest of us, ignoring the road rules and swerving all over the place trying to flatten you lot. Number of times I’ve nearly been hit myself. Mostly by flying cane toad parts.’

  Limpy took a deep breath through his skin pores and tried not to get cross.

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ he said to the goanna. ‘It’s not easy.’

  ‘Let’s see if I can give you a few hints,’ said the goanna, settling back on the branch. ‘OK, off the top of my head, just tossing it in for what it’s worth, I reckon humans hate you lot on account of you’re so revoltingly ugly.’

  Limpy gave the goanna a look.

  The goanna was deep in thought.

  ‘And slimy,’ it said.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Limpy. ‘Lucky for you my cousin Goliath isn’t here. If Goliath heard suggestions like that, he’d lose his temper and eat you and half your tree.’

  The goanna glanced around, saw that Goliath wasn’t there, and went back to being thoughtful.

  ‘My theory is it’s the warts,’ said the goanna. ‘Humans hate you lot because you’re revoltingly warty and they’re scared you’ll cuddle their babies and give them warts too.’

  ‘Nice talking to you,’ said Limpy. ‘Please don’t think I’m being rude, but my family needs me.’

  He headed off along the highway to see if any other rellies had been run over.

  ‘Plus,’ called out the goanna, ‘there’s the whole pet thing. Humans have had a gutful of you lot eating their pets. And their washing.’

  Limpy hurried away, wishing the goanna would be quiet.

  ‘Hang on,’ yelled the goanna. ‘I’ve got another theory. Humans hate you cane toads because you’re greedy and cold-blooded without a warm sensitive feeling or emotion in your whole body. Just tossing it in for what it’s worth.’

  Limpy sighed.

  That was ridiculous.

  The goanna was totally and completely wrong about cane toads not having sensitive feelings.

  Mum and Dad and the others had heaps of sensitive feelings. That was the problem.

  If it wasn’t for their sensitive and easily hurt feelings, Limpy could come out with it. Tell them he knew exactly why humans hated them.

  For weeks he’d been trying to squeeze up the courage to blurt it out, but he hadn’t been able to.

  It was bad enough that fourteen-tonne trucks wanted to flatten Mum and Dad and the others, without him doing it as well.

  After Limpy had finished saying goodbye to the squashed rellies, he went to do his other regular morning chore.

  Stopping Goliath from getting himself killed.

  Each morning, first thing, Goliath liked to spend a bit of time on his favourite hobby.

  Threatening traffic.

  It was a simple hobby but, as Limpy was always trying to tell Goliath, a very dangerous one.

  ‘Goliath,’ he often pleaded. ‘Why don’t you get a safer hobby, like collecting gumnuts.’

  Collecting gumnuts was safer because it didn’t involve going onto the highway with a sharpened stick and yelling at human drivers that they were fat bums and poo brains and you were going to stab their petrol tanks and rip their tyres off and stuff their catalytic converters up their turbo pipes.

  ‘He’s very brave,’ some of the toads murmured now and again about Goliath.

  ‘No he’s not,’ muttered others. ‘He’s an idiot.’

  Limpy tried to stay somewhere in the middle. But it was hard when the stick-jabber was your favourite cousin.

  Sometimes in moments of stress Limpy got a bit exasperated.

  ‘When nature was handing out brains,’ he’d yelled at Goliath a few times, ‘there must have been a mix-up and you must have got a double-serve of arm muscles and thick skull bones instead.’

  Other times he stayed quiet and hoped for Goliath’s sake that Mum was right, that it was possible to get smarter if you ate those bugs whose brains were on the outside of their heads.

  So far, amazingly, Goliath hadn
’t been squashed flat even the slightest bit. But Limpy feared it was only a matter of time.

  This morning, Limpy was surprised to see that Goliath wasn’t at his usual stick-sharpening spot in the swamp clearing.

  Strange.

  The stick-sharpening rock was still mossy, so Goliath hadn’t sharpened any sticks yet. Plus there were no piles of swamp pebbles with the slime sucked off, so Goliath must be having his breakfast somewhere else.

  Not, Limpy hoped, in the middle of the highway.

  The creepers behind him rustled.

  Limpy turned.

  It wasn’t Goliath.

  Limpy was only disappointed for a blink.

  ‘There you are,’ said Charm.

  Her dear warty face was glowing with pleasure.

  Limpy felt the same way. When nature had handed out little sisters, he’d been the luckiest toad in the whole swamp. In the whole northern half of Australia, probably.

  They hugged, then Limpy saw that Charm’s face was creased with concern.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

  ‘Limpy,’ she said. ‘There’s something I want to say. I’ve been trying to get brave enough to say it for a while, and now I have to. It’s about your hobby.’

  ‘Hobby?’ said Limpy, puzzled.

  ‘The thing you do every morning,’ said Charm. ‘Going onto the highway and getting sad about the squashed rellies.’

  ‘I’m saying goodbye to them,’ said Limpy quietly.

  ‘You’re doing more than that,’ said Charm. ‘You’re fretting and making yourself miserable.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ said Limpy. But he heard exactly how he said it.

  Miserably.

  Charm put her arms round him again. Or tried to. Limpy knew the main reason she wished she was full-sized was so she could get her arms all the way round each member of the family.

  He knew exactly how she felt.

  If his crook leg wasn’t so crook, he’d be better at protecting each member of the family.

  ‘Limpy,’ said Charm. ‘You’ve tried so hard to find out why humans want to kill us. You’ve been a hero at that. But please stop torturing yourself. Just accept that humans hate us and they always will. I want my happy brother back. We used to have so much fun, remember?’

  Limpy looked at Charm’s earnest loving face.

  He could sort of remember a mud slide and Dad blowing up balloons that were really those slime maggots who have their bladders on the outside. But that was it. Just a few faint memories. He couldn’t even fully remember what fun felt like.

  ‘I think I know why humans hate us,’ he said.

  He hadn’t planned to say that, and when he saw Charm’s eyes get bigger with curiosity and concern, he wished he hadn’t.

  Except part of him wanted to tell her now, just blurt it out.

  He didn’t.

  Before saying something so upsetting, he had to be totally sure.

  ‘I just need a bit more time,’ he said.

  Charm’s face went into a pout.

  ‘That’s what you always say,’ she muttered.

  She wouldn’t be pulling that sulky face, thought Limpy, if she knew what it’ll mean if I’m right. How hard it’ll be. How different we’ll all have to be. How much about ourselves we’ll have to change.

  Limpy tried to imagine Goliath changing even a tiny bit.

  He couldn’t.

  Goliath didn’t even like changing the words he yelled at cars. Fat. Bums. Stab. Turbo pipes. They were the same every time.

  ‘Where is Goliath?’ said Limpy.

  Charm looked at him as if he was a bit dopey.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ she said.

  ‘What?’ said Limpy.

  ‘The whole swamp’s talking about it,’ said Charm. ‘Goliath’s fallen in love.’

  Limpy crouched in the undergrowth and stared into the grotto, stunned.

  ‘Stack me,’ he whispered.

  There weren’t many grottoes in the swamp. Limpy had heard rumours about them, so he guessed this was one. It had a soft carpet of bright green moss and a curved roof of tangled creepers. But it wasn’t the grotto that was making Limpy feel stunned.

  It was Goliath.

  He was sitting on a mound of freshly picked waterlilies. His big muscly arm was round someone else. He was gazing adoringly at her and murmuring softly into her ear.

  Limpy couldn’t believe it.

  Goliath?

  The bloke who usually wiped his mouth on a stinkweed leaf after kissing a relative?

  In love?

  Limpy realised his own mouth was hanging open so wide that the clouds of flying insects hovering in front of his face were staring inside nervously.

  He shut his mouth and peered more closely at the romantic couple.

  Goliath’s girlfriend looked sort of familiar, but Limpy couldn’t quite place her.

  ‘She’s a penguin,’ whispered Charm.

  Limpy nodded. Charm was right. He’d seen pictures of penguins in the human travel brochures that often ended up in campground rubbish bins.

  That’s why the girlfriend’s big dark eyes, shiny black fur and beautiful yellow beak were familiar. It was her blue zip-up pockets and red plastic straps that were confusing.

  Limpy hopped closer, almost into the grotto, to have a better squiz.

  Goliath’s girlfriend didn’t just have pockets and straps, Limpy saw. She also had a drink holder and a place for a name tag.

  He realised why.

  ‘She’s a backpack,’ Limpy whispered to Charm, horrified. ‘Goliath’s fallen in love with a penguin backpack.’

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ said Charm. ‘I’m so glad for Goliath. Look how much they adore each other.’

  Limpy could barely speak.

  ‘Backpacks can’t adore anyone,’ he croaked. ‘Backpacks don’t have feelings, just zips.’

  Charm was looking at him sternly.

  ‘You’re being very negative,’ she said. ‘I think you’ve been spending too much time on the highway.’

  Limpy wanted to be glad for Goliath, but it was impossible. All he could think of was Goliath with a broken heart and possibly a finger caught in a zip.

  Before Charm could stop him, Limpy hopped into the grotto.

  ‘Goliath,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

  Goliath looked up and his big warty face beamed.

  ‘Limpy,’ he said. ‘Great to see you. Penny, this is my cousin Limpy. Limpy, this is Penny.’

  Goliath leaned forward.

  ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ he whispered to Limpy. ‘She’s the most beautiful fully insulated school lunch backpack I’ve ever met.’

  Limpy wasn’t sure what to say.

  He didn’t want to be rude.

  ‘Hello, Penny,’ he mumbled. ‘Goliath, can we have a little chat?’

  Goliath, glowing with love, didn’t seem to hear.

  ‘And she’s so generous,’ he said, kissing Penny’s plastic cheek. ‘All she wants to do is make me happy.’

  He unzipped her main section, reached inside, pulled out a cheese stick and munched it happily.

  ‘Goliath,’ hissed Limpy.

  Goliath leaned towards him again.

  ‘She loves me just as much as I love her,’ whispered Goliath. ‘When I told her I can fit four lizards and a section of brake lining in my mouth all at once, she was so impressed.’

  Limpy grabbed Goliath’s big shoulders.

  ‘Goliath,’ he said. ‘She’s a backpack.’

  ‘I know,’ said Goliath dreamily. ‘I still can’t believe how lucky I am.’

  ‘Limpy,’ hissed another voice urgently.

  It was Charm. Limpy assumed she was going to give him a lecture on being negative.

  Until he turned and saw her fearful face, and what she was pointing at.

  Striding towards them, crashing through the undergrowth, were three humans.

  Two of the humans were adults, a male and a fem
ale. The female was filming Goliath with her mobile phone.

  For a fleeting moment, Limpy thought this might be a good thing. A chance for humans to see cane toads at their best. Romantic, loving and very good at arranging waterlilies.

  He quickly realised it wasn’t a good thing.

  Both the human adults had red scrunched-up faces, which Limpy knew meant they were angry. Plus he could see their teeth, which he knew meant they were very angry.

  The male was clutching a cricket bat in one hand and the hand of a little human girl in the other. The girl was making sad noises and doing the watery thing with her eyes that humans did when they were upset.

  The female, still filming, reached up and broke a dead branch off a tree and gripped it like a weapon.

  Limpy’s warts trembled.

  The humans were almost at the grotto, glaring at Goliath and Penny.

  ‘Hop for it,’ croaked Limpy.

  Too late.

  The adult female swung the branch and flattened the grotto.

  ‘Goliath,’ croaked Limpy.

  But the tangled wreckage started to move, and Goliath struggled out of it, glaring at the humans, his arm still round Penny.

  ‘Mongrels,’ croaked Goliath.

  Limpy saw this wasn’t going to end in a good way.

  He grabbed Charm, who was already on her way to rescue Goliath, and pushed her into the undergrowth, out of sight.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘Goliath needs us.’

  Limpy agreed. But little sisters tragically kept half-sized by pollution were no match for angry humans with full-sized cricket bats.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Limpy. ‘You and me are all that Mum and Dad have got left. One of us has to be around for them.’

  Charm frowned, but she didn’t argue. Limpy was grateful. Usually at moments like this they had arguments about which would get them in the poo quickest, her size or his leg.

  Limpy went to save Goliath.

  Goliath didn’t look interested in being saved.

  He was hanging on to Penny’s strap with all his strength while the female adult human waved Penny over her head, trying to fling him off.

  ‘You nasty mean selfish brute,’ the female adult was yelling. ‘Upsetting an innocent child. Let go, you greedy selfish monster.’

  Limpy couldn’t understand the words, but he could see that the female adult wasn’t falling in love with Goliath, not even a little bit.