Toad Rage

by Morris Gleitzman

  Then Limpy realized what must have happened.

  Of course, he thought. She didn't trick us. She just hasn't understood. She hasn't got it. She hasn't grasped that I want to be a mascot.

  On a shelf above the telly, Limpy saw, was a set of the fluffy mascot toys.

  He decided it was worth one more try.

  He hopped up onto the shelf and sat between the platypus and the echidna, trying to look as much as possible like a mascot.

  The girl laughed, lifted him back down, and offered him another grasshopper.

  “Give up,” mumbled Goliath with his mouth full.

  Limpy ignored him, hopped back up, and took his position again with the other mascots.

  This time the girl didn't laugh.

  She stared at him and the other mascots for a long time, frowning.

  I think she's getting it, thought Limpy. I think she understands.

  He decided she was.

  What was it Uncle Roly had been saying just before he was flattened by that caravan?

  “Life's a long, hard journey, young Limpy,” he'd said. “But you'll get more out of it if you look on the bright side.”

  Limpy looked on the bright side for the rest of that evening, and all night in front of the telly, and most of the next morning, right up until the girl put him and Goliath back into her bag, put the bag back under the bed, and left without them.

  Limpy managed to open the bag zip from the inside and scramble out from under the bed just in time to hear a vehicle driving off.

  “What's happening?” said Goliath, appearing next to Limpy with a mouthful of sock fluff.

  “She's left us behind,” said Limpy, numb with disappointment.

  Goliath thought about this.

  “Perhaps she's just gone to get some more grasshoppers,” he said. “Or socks.”

  “Nah,” said a voice.

  Limpy looked up. Sitting on the bedspread was a mosquito.

  “She's gone to the opening,” said the mosquito.

  “What opening?” said Limpy. He thought of all the openings he'd seen on telly. Garage doors. Cats' mouths. Tubs of yogurt. The openings humans got in them when they were shot.

  “The Games,” said the mosquito. “Opening ceremony. Big event. All the athletes'll be there. Huge crowd. Top feed.”

  The mosquito sighed wistfully.

  Limpy sighed mournfully. He couldn't believe it. She still hadn't understood. Here they were, a human and a cane toad who actually cared about each other, and he couldn't get one simple idea across to her.

  It's hopeless, thought Limpy, crook leg aching with despair. I give up.

  Who had he been kidding? How could one slightly squashed cane toad hope to change things that had been going on since the dawn of time?

  Limpy opened his mouth to tell Goliath they were going home.

  Before he could, the mosquito sighed again. “Makes me hungry just thinking about it, a feed like that.”

  Limpy found himself thinking of Charm and what she'd be doing when she got hungry. Going down to the highway and having a feed there. A tiny target fixed in the headlights.

  Suddenly his warts prickled with determination.

  I won't give up, he thought. I can't.

  Limpy saw that he and the mosquito weren't the only ones thinking about food. Goliath was climbing up the bedspread and was almost close enough to reach the mosquito with his tongue.

  Limpy hauled on Goliath's leg with all his strength.

  Goliath crashed to the floor.

  “Ow,” he yelled.

  Limpy gave him a glare.

  The mosquito was buzzing nervously.

  “Don't fly off,” said Limpy. “I promise my cousin won't do that again. He'd forgotten we're trying to save our species from extinction and we need your help.”

  “Funny way of showing it,” said the mosquito.

  “Sorry,” mumbled Goliath.

  “The Games opening,” said Limpy to the mosquito. “Will the mascots be there?”

  “Will they ever,” said the mosquito. “Biggest day for the mascots. They wouldn't miss it. Not with millions of people watching on telly.”

  Limpy felt his glands tingle with excitement.

  “And,” he said, “are you going to the opening?”

  “Nah,” said the mosquito sadly. “Too windy. Take me a week to get there.”

  “We could give you a ride,” said Limpy. “You could hop on my back and hang on to a wart.”

  The mosquito looked doubtfully at Goliath.

  “Don't worry about me,” said Goliath. “I'm full. I've eaten a sock.”

  The mosquito buzzed down and landed on Limpy's back.

  “Great,” said Limpy. “Now, I'm okay till we get out the bathroom window, but after that you'll have to give me directions.”

  Limpy stuck his head up out of the stormwater drain in the middle of the stadium and nearly fainted with shock.

  He'd never seen so many humans.

  The stadium was full of them.

  Humans in tracksuits.

  Humans in blazers.

  Humans in security guard uniforms.

  Marching. Waving huge flags. Directing crowds.

  And behind them, towering into the sky on all sides, vast paddocks of seated humans cheering and waving small fluffy mascots and throwing streamers at the parade.

  The whole spectacle was noisier than a truckload of chooks going over a railway crossing.

  A hundred truckloads.

  Stack me, thought Limpy, I didn't know there were this many humans in the whole world, including Tasmania.

  “Yum,” said the mosquito. “Just as well I'm hungry.”

  Limpy saw that Goliath was looking pretty stunned too, and Goliath was used to big crowds, because sometimes when he got hungry, he just stuck his head into a termite's nest. He was looking like he wished he had his head in one now.

  “Limpy,” said Goliath nervously. “I don't reckon we should be here.”

  “Relax,” said Limpy, trying to ignore his pounding heart and the roaring crowd. “This is exactly where we should be.”

  He peered around, trying to spot the mascots.

  At first he couldn't see them among all the athletes and officials and security guards and TV cameras.

  Then the mosquito pointed and Limpy looked up and there they were, huge on a giant screen at one end of the stadium, the kookaburra and the platypus and the echidna, waving to the crowd from the back of a massive fake rock on wheels.

  Limpy looked around the stadium again and saw the rock at the head of the parade, surrounded by TV cameras, trundling slowly toward him along the running track.

  He decided not to risk leaving Goliath on his own. No point winning the hearts and minds of the human race if your cousin was nearby threatening them with sticks.

  “Thanks for your help,” Limpy said to the mosquito. He turned to Goliath. “Come on.”

  Limpy set off toward the running track, desperately trying not to hop in circles or get crushed by human feet. Shoes, boots, trainers, sandals, and thongs thudded down, sometimes a flea's whisker from his head.

  Please, begged Limpy silently. I survived being hit by a truck. Please don't let my quest be ended now by a tennis shoe.

  Limpy reached the running track with just enough time to glance back, drag Goliath out from under a TV cable, and leap for the float.

  He clambered up the side of the rock, Goliath at his side.

  “Okay,” he said to Goliath when they were at the top between the kookaburra and the platypus. “You're a mascot. Look appealing.”

  Goliath looked puzzled.

  Limpy sighed, then turned to the crowd and smiled and waved.

  He hoped the other mascots wouldn't mind. Luckily they were too tall to have noticed yet, but they would once the crowd started cheering for the cane toads.

  Which they weren't doing so far.

  Not even now that Goliath was smiling and waving too.

  We're to
o small, thought Limpy in despair. The crowd can't see us.

  He was about to climb onto Goliath's shoulders when the crowd started making a different noise.

  Suddenly, instead of cheering, they were booing and making strange gurgles in their throats. It sounded to Limpy like a stadium full of humans about to be sick.

  Then he saw himself, huge, on the giant screen.

  Which is where all the humans were looking.

  Limpy felt cold dread seep through his glands.

  “Smile,” said a cheery voice. “You're on telly.”

  The mosquito, buzzing overhead, was pointing to a nearby TV camera that was pointing at Limpy.

  “What's happening?” said Limpy. “Why is the crowd making that noise?”

  The mosquito rolled its eyes. “Why do you think?”

  Goliath took a menacing step toward the mosquito, which made Goliath appear on the big screen too.

  The crowd made even louder gagging noises.

  “Answer the question,” said Goliath.

  “Well,” said the mosquito, choosing his words carefully, “it's because humans think cane toads are the ugliest, most revolting-looking creatures they've ever seen.”

  Limpy struggled to digest this.

  “They think you're even uglier and more revolting,” said the mosquito, “than hairy spiders and smelly dung beetles and those slugs that sleep in their own snot.”

  Limpy looked around the stadium at all the humans gazing up at the screen pretending to stick their fingers down their throats.

  He could understand them doing that if it was just him up there with his crook leg. But Goliath, the handsomest cane toad he'd ever seen, was up there too.

  It must be true.

  Limpy felt sick himself.

  It's hopeless, he thought miserably. Nobody wants revolting mascot. I'll never win the hearts and minds of humans now. They'll carry on hating us and killing us forever.

  Limpy turned away so he wouldn't have to see the revulsion and hatred on the faces of the crowd.

  Instead he found himself staring at the revulsion and hatred on the faces of the security guards advancing toward him.

  For a fleeting moment Limpy was tempted to let the security guards grab him.

  What did it matter now if he was arrested and locked up for impersonating a Games mascot and making a stadium full of humans feel sick?

  Now that I know the truth, thought Limpy miserably, I might as well rot in a human jail for all the good I can do anyone.

  Then he saw what was happening to Goliath.

  Goliath was hopping from side to side on the rock, dodging blows from the kookaburra mascot, who'd taken off his kookaburra head and was trying to bash Goliath with the big plastic beak. The rock, which was also made of plastic, was splintering under the blows. Goliath's poison glands were bulging with fury.

  “No,” Limpy yelled at Goliath. “Don't.”

  He threw himself at his cousin and they both tumbled off the rock and crashed down onto the running track.

  Goliath yelped with surprise and pain.

  “What are you doing?” he protested. “You're supposed to be on my side.”

  “The security guards have got guns,” panted Limpy. “They'll use them if you fire first.”

  Goliath sighed. “Spoilsport!” he muttered.

  As Limpy dragged himself out from under the complaining Goliath, he saw that the boots of the nearest security guard were getting very close.

  Slightly closer, but only just, was the entrance to a stormwater drain.

  “Hop for it!” yelled Limpy.

  He pushed Goliath toward the drain, and together they scrambled into it with the dust from the security guards' boots stinging their backs.

  “Let me spray the mongrels,” panted Goliath. “Please. Just a quick one up their trouser legs.”

  “No,” said Limpy. “Keep moving.”

  But after they'd splashed along the drain only a short distance, Limpy suddenly couldn't keep moving himself. Suddenly his body felt too heavy with despair to take another step.

  “If you're stopping, I'm stopping,” said Goliath, sitting down heavily in the trickle of water.

  Limpy hardly noticed.

  All he could hear was the distant sound of the jeering humans in the stadium.

  Millions of humans, all thinking him and Goliath and Mum and Dad and Charm were ugly and revolting. Mum with her kind smile and beautiful yellow eyes. Dad with his sense of humor and the funny tricks he could do with mucus. Charm with her gorgeous warty eyelids and her loving nature and the cute way the corners of her mouth crinkled when she was eating a mouse.

  I was the only one who could save them, thought Limpy miserably, and I've failed.

  Even now, huge trucks could be thundering down the wrong side of the highway, aiming straight for them.

  And station wagons towing huge caravans.

  And buses full of fat toddlers.

  Limpy wished his eyes could do that wet thing that humans' eyes did. It seemed to help them when they were full of misery and despair.

  All he could do was sit there, aching.

  “Pssst.”

  Limpy looked up, thinking Goliath's poison was leaking.

  It wasn't.

  A large slug was beckoning to them from farther along the drain.

  “Move yourselves,” said the slug. “You're too close to the drain entrance. They could get you with chemical sprays.”

  Dully, Limpy realized the slug was right.

  “Follow me,” said the slug.

  They followed it.

  After they'd all traveled along the drain for a while, and turned off into another drain, Goliath cleared his throat.

  “Is it true,” he asked the slug, “that you blokes sleep in your own snot?”

  Normally Limpy would have told Goliath off and apologized to the slug, but right now he just didn't care.

  The slug sighed.

  “Do you mind?” it said to Goliath. “I'm feeling a bit emotionally fragile myself at the moment. You cane toads aren't the only ones having a bad week.”

  “Sorry,” said Goliath.

  Limpy frowned at the slug.

  “What do you mean,” he said, “we're not the only ones?”

  “You'll see,” said the slug.

  While the three of them trudged through the maze of drains, Limpy peered into the gloom and wondered what the slug had meant by “you'll see.”

  He didn't really care because nothing mattered now that Charm and the others were doomed, but at least being curious kept his mind off the pain of thinking about them.

  Sort of.

  Except he couldn't see anything but drains.

  Then they turned a corner and Limpy realized they were approaching what looked like a wider section of drain. An eerie light flickered from above.

  “Where are we?” Limpy asked the slug.

  “This section of drain runs under a pub,” replied the slug. “That's a place where humans drink beer and forget their troubles and where they live.”

  Limpy looked up.

  His warts prickled.

  Through a grating he could see shapes in a room above them. Human shapes, drinking, silhouetted against the flickering screen of a telly.

  “Don't worry,” said the slug. “They can't see us.”

  Limpy hoped the slug was right.

  “The tissues are over here,” said a gloomy voice.

  Limpy looked around.

  It wasn't a human voice.

  Suddenly Limpy realized that all around him were animals and insects sitting slumped against the walls of the drain. They all looked as sad and depressed as he felt. Several of them were swigging from bottles with the dull-eyed expressions of folk who weren't really that thirsty.

  “Go on,” said the voice. “Don't be embarrassed.”

  A kangaroo was dabbing its eyes with a tissue and holding a couple more out to Limpy and Goliath.

  “No thanks,” said Goliath.
>
  “It's okay to be upset,” said the kangaroo. “I would be if I'd just discovered I was an unloved species.”

  “We're not upset,” said Goliath menacingly to the kangaroo. “And we're not unloved. I love my cousin Limpy and he loves me.”

  Limpy nodded. But only for a moment because he was feeling so upset.

  The kangaroo was right.

  How could I have been so stupid, thought Limpy miserably. How could I have imagined I could have a real friendship with a human? How could I think humans would want to make a fluffy toy out of me?

  “Sorry,” the kangaroo was saying. “Didn't mean to rub it in. If it makes you feel any better, imagine what it's like for me. Humans love me. I'm on the Australian coat of arms. And every travel show ever made about this country. Plus most of the cooking shows. Imagine how I felt when the Games Mascot Committee gave me the thumbs-down.”

  The kangaroo blew its nose loudly on a tissue.

  A koala put its arm round the kangaroo. “I know how you feel, mate,” it said, and took a swig from a bottle.

  “At least they didn't try and swat you,” said a blowfly indignantly.

  “Or rush out of the room screaming,” said a diamond-bellied black snake sadly.

  “Or scratch you off the list,” said a flea bitterly.

  “I wouldn't be a mascot now if they came on their hands and knees and begged,” said a funnel-web spider. “Not after all the unkind things they said about me in that committee room.”

  “At least they said them to your face,” said a crocodile. “All I got was a letter.”

  “I wouldn't be a mascot now if they offered me a million dollars,” said a wombat.

  “I wouldn't be one,” said a blue-tongued lizard, “if they offered me a million carports with cracks in the foundations big enough to raise a family in.”

  “I wouldn't be one if they offered me a million sticks of sugarcane,” said a cane beetle.

  “Or a million sticks,” said Goliath, snatching a tissue and blowing his nose.

  Limpy listened to the hurt, indignant voices of the animals and insects around him, and suddenly he felt his warts prickling with anger.

  “What I reckon,” he said, “is that we've all been treated shabbily by our country.”

  The other animals and insects fell silent.