Toad Rage (7 page)

“L
impy,” croaked Goliath's voice. “Down here.”

Limpy clambered frantically across the bull bar, heart thudding louder than the tires, trying to hear if it really was Goliath, straining to catch a glimpse of him.

How could it be after Goliath had been flattened by the same speeding ten-wheeler Limpy was clinging to the front of now?

Squinting in the glare of the headlights, Limpy searched the radiator grille, the indicator housings, even the fog-light brackets.

No Goliath.

I must be hearing things, thought Limpy. I've over-stressed my digestive system and my blood's rushing to my stomach and starving my brain.

“Limpy,” wheezed the voice. “Underneath.”

For a second Limpy thought the voice meant
underneath the fog-light bracket, but he quickly realized that couldn't be it. There wasn't even enough room under a fog-light bracket for a fruit fly on a vegetable juice diet.

Limpy realized the voice meant underneath the truck.

He wrapped his arms round the bottom rung of the bull bar and peered down between the front wheels.

And gasped.

There—wedged between the front axle cover and the main chassis of the truck, smeared with oil, covered in dust, and spitting road gravel out through dry lips—was Goliath.

Limpy blinked and swung his head round to use his other eye, just in case he was seeing things.

He wasn't.

“Goliath,” yelled Limpy. “Are you okay?”

“No,” croaked Goliath, “I'm not. I'm a hit-and-run victim.”

Limpy decided not to point out that hit-and-run victims didn't usually threaten trucks with sticks.

“I've been yelling for ages,” complained Goliath, “but you were more interested in hanging off the side of the truck.”

“Sorry,” said Limpy. “Are you hurt?”

Goliath didn't answer.

Limpy didn't like the look of him. The way his arms and legs were just hanging loose and his face was pushed into his own bottom. He could have broken bones and internal injuries.

“Help me out of here,” croaked Goliath. “I'm gunna rip this bloke's doors off and shove his engine up his nose.”

Then again, perhaps not.

Limpy scraped a handful of grasshopper bits off the radiator grille and swung himself under the front of the truck.

The roadway hissed past his head, hungry for his brains.

Limpy ignored it.

Upside down, careful to keep his crook leg off the road, he clambered across to Goliath.

“Hang on,” he said.

“Don't need to,” said Goliath gloomily. “It'll take a crowbar to get me out of here.”

Limpy swung onto the axle cover next to his cousin. For a skinny cane toad there was plenty of room. Now that he was close, Limpy winced. For a cane toad the size of Goliath it was a tragically tight fit.

Limpy moistened Goliath's lips with grasshopper juice, then fed him the bits.

Goliath gulped them down.

“Thanks,” he said. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Lubrication,” said Limpy, scooping up handfuls of truck oil from the axle cover and rubbing them into Goliath's warty skin. “It's a concept I learned from a slug.”

When Goliath was covered with oil, Limpy clambered round to the other side of the axle and started pushing.

Goliath didn't budge.

Limpy braced himself against a brake-fluid hose and pushed till his warts felt like they'd pop.

Still Goliath didn't shift.

This is hopeless, thought Limpy. I'll have to starve him till he gets thin. Which could take weeks. Meanwhile, if a rock flies up from the road …

Then Limpy remembered something.

Goliath was scared of dust mites.

Giant lizards didn't fluster him a bit, enraged funnel-web spiders usually copped an earful if they tried it on with Goliath, but dust mites sent him into a panic.

Limpy took a deep breath. It was risky, but he didn't have any choice.

“Sorry I'm not pushing very hard,” he said in a loud voice behind Goliath. “I keep slipping on all the dust mites.”

Goliath gave a scream louder than all the air brakes going on at once, and disappeared.

Limpy stared around in panic.

Oh no, Goliath must have wrenched himself free and leapt straight onto the road.

I shouldn't have done it, thought Limpy, distraught. I should have just tickled him.

Then he saw something moving up ahead.

Something large and hanging upside down from the truck chassis.

It was Goliath, wide-eyed with terror, scrabbling his way toward the front of the truck.

By the time Limpy caught up, Goliath was on the bull bar gobbling insect fragments. Now that he had a mouthful of grasshopper, locust, midge, moth, gnat, and cicada, he seemed to have forgotten about the dust mites.

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.

T
he 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 ground 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.