Toad Rage

  “What would you know?” the girl was saying to the man through her tears. “All you publicity people care about is ticket sales and TV ratings. You don't know anything about being an athlete.”

  She ran off and the man banged his clipboard angrily against the truck and followed her.

  Disappointed, Limpy watched the man go. So much for that plan. The man looked much too cross and distracted to be paying attention to Games mascot volunteers.

  Limpy wondered where he could find a less angry Games official. It wouldn't be easy. He didn't know the first thing about the natural territory or feeding habits of Games officials.

  Then he looked up at the truck and the answer popped into his mind.

  A scary, dangerous answer.

  But a good one.

  Of course, thought Limpy. That's where Games officials must hang out. Down south, at the Games.

  Limpy went over to the back of the truck and looked at the brake light. He wondered how far away the Games were, and whether he could hang on to a lump of plastic for that long. Then he noticed some other passengers sitting on the rear number plate.

  Two fruit flies.

  “G'day,” said Limpy. “Do you know if this truck's heading south to the Games?”

  The fruit flies looked at Limpy nervously.

  Limpy smiled at them and tried to look like a cane toad who'd just had a large lunch and wouldn't be eating any insects for several hours.

  The fruit flies still looked nervous.

  “We think it's heading south,” one said.

  “We hope so,” said the other. “We're planning to try our luck in the fruit industry down there.”

  “Thanks,” said Limpy. “Hope it goes well for you.”

  At that moment a shadow fell over Limpy.

  A big grinning human face appeared close to his.

  Limpy realized why the fruit flies were still looking nervous.

  The teenagers were back.

  Limpy looked up at the grinning teenagers and hoped with all his strength that the truck would start up and head off for the Games so he could jump on the back and be whisked away.

  It didn't.

  One of the teenagers had a sweatshirt over his hands like a big glove.

  With a sudden movement, he picked Limpy up.

  Limpy felt faint. He'd never been picked up before and he found he hated it even more than swamp spinach.

  He kicked as hard as he could.

  “Quit it,” said the teenager, and started stroking Limpy's head.

  Limpy stopped kicking. His warts began to tingle with …

  He couldn't believe it.

  Pleasure.

  Suddenly he felt confused.

  Perhaps he'd misjudged these particular humans.

  The stroking continued, and Limpy's whole body started to feel relaxed and sort of glowing. Perhaps, he thought dreamily, these fine humans work for a wildlife refuge at a gas station and they've decided to add a cane toad to their collection and they've chosen me….

  Except if they had, why was one of them taking the dust cap off one of the truck tires?

  “This'll be great,” sniggered the one with the dust cap. “When you put compressed air in 'em, they swell up like a balloon and explode.”

  Limpy wished desperately that humans didn't have their own language. Why couldn't they speak normally like everyone else? Then he could understand what they were planning to do and decide if it was an emergency. He didn't want to be spraying poison around if it wasn't.

  Limpy looked at the way the air-valve teenager was grinning cruelly at him. Then he felt something unpleasant between his legs. The one holding him had started fiddling with his bottom.

  Limpy decided it was an emergency.

  He flexed his glands and let them have it.

  Except no poison came out.

  Oh no, he remembered with a jolt of despair, I used it all up on the rats. My glands haven't refilled yet.

  Limpy felt himself being lowered, bottom first, toward the air valve on the tire. He tried to struggle and kick, but he was being held too tight. He closed his eyes and wished he was back at home in the swamp playing mud slides with Charm. At least they could have a few more happy days together before she went food collecting and a truck got her.

  Suddenly another human voice rang out.

  “Stop that!”

  Limpy twisted round to see. It was the girl. She strode over and snatched him from the teenagers.

  “Hey,” they shouted. “Rack off, freak.”

  Limpy, trembling with relief in her hands, was amazed at their stupidity. The girl was younger than them, but she was taller and her muscles were quite a bit bigger. Where he came from, if you were rude to someone with bigger muscles, you got eaten or at least heavily chewed.

  The girl grabbed one of the teenagers by the ear and squeezed.

  He squealed.

  “You rack off,” she said.

  Limpy saw the teenagers wondering whether to fight her.

  She pulled out a mobile phone and started dialing.

  The teenagers glanced at each other, then ran out of the loading dock and down the street.

  “Freak,” they yelled back at the girl.

  Limpy looked up at her. She was trembling too as she put the phone away.

  He wished he could thank her, but he couldn't, so he just tried to look grateful.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let's get you back to your natural habitat.”

  Limpy hoped she'd said, “Let's get you back on the truck.”

  He liked her face. It had freckles all over it, which, he decided, if she was a cane toad, would probably be the most beautiful warts.

  Then he realized she wasn't putting him on the truck. She was carrying him across the street to a park.

  “No,” he yelled. “The truck. I've got to get on the truck.”

  She didn't even look down.

  This is hopeless, thought Limpy. She can't understand a word I'm saying.

  That didn't stop him from yelling all the way into the park.

  “Poor thing,” she murmured. “You're scared.”

  Limpy didn't want to do what he did next, but this was an emergency.

  He started kicking.

  “Ow!” said the girl, and put Limpy down on the grass.

  He saw she was sucking her hand. He must have scratched her with his toenail. He wished he could say sorry, and thanks again, but he didn't have the language.

  Or, he remembered in panic, the time.

  Frantically he tried to hop back toward the loading dock, but just went round in circles.

  The girl laughed, gave him a friendly wave, and left.

  Oh well, he thought, at least I haven't hurt her.

  Limpy forced himself to slow down. He hopped out of the park and back up the street, anxiously watching out for the teenagers.

  As he got closer to the loading dock, he heard the one sound he didn't want to hear.

  The truck engine revving.

  “Wait,” he shouted as he hopped frantically toward the loading dock. “Wait for me. Games mascot coming through. It's a matter of life and death.”

  Just as he got to the loading dock entrance, the truck roared out into the street.

  Limpy flung himself into the air and grabbed hold of the brake light as it went past. He hung on, weak with relief, as the truck rumbled down the street.

  The fruit flies, still sitting on the number plate, looked at him nervously.

  “Hello again,” said one. “Are you going to try for a better life down south too?”

  “Yes,” panted Limpy. “You could say that.”

  The worst part of the trip wasn't the sun, even though it blazed down onto the back of the truck all afternoon and Limpy was soon feeling like one of those oven-baked crinkle-cut chips, the burnt ones that humans were always tossing out of cars.

  This is ridiculous, he thought weakly. They'll never let me be a Games mascot if I'm cooked.

  Then
he had an idea.

  Slowly, painfully, he eased himself away from the brake light and down toward the rear bumper bar. All he had to hang on to were the rivets holding the truck together. He gripped them with both hands and his good foot to stop himself from being blown away by the slipstream or jolted onto the highway each time the truck hit a pothole. Finally, he slid in behind the bumper bar. He was blistered and bruised, and the metal bumper bar was hot, but at least he was in the shade.

  The worst part of the trip wasn't the fruit flies either, even though they joined Limpy behind the bumper bar and wouldn't stop yakking about fruit.

  “Plums,” said one. “You can't beat a good Queen Victoria.”

  “How would you know?” said the other. “When have you had a plum?”

  “Don't need to. I can tell from the look.”

  “Bull. Apples are better than plums any day.”

  “Get lost, you've never even seen an apple.”

  “Have so. Beautiful orange color. Long and thin. Green foliage growing out the top.”

  Limpy sighed.

  He was very hungry, and even though two fruit flies wouldn't make much difference to the emptiness in his stomach, he was very tempted.

  He resisted the temptation. They were all bouncing southward on the same truck, and it just didn't seem right to be eating folk you were sharing an adventure with.

  The worst part of the trip came after the sun had set and the bumper bar had cooled down and the fruit flies had fallen asleep and there was a blissful silence except for the rumble of the tires on the highway and the bumping and squeaking of the rear suspension.

  As they sped through the last of the subtropical flatlands, Limpy heard faint sounds in the distance that made his warts prickle.

  Cane toads, calling to each other in the dusk.

  Limpy listened to the far-off voices arguing about whether stink beetles were better-looking insects than meat maggots, and he felt a sudden pang of loneliness.

  He thought about Mum and Dad and hoped they weren't worrying about him too much.

  He thought about Charm and hoped she was staying away from the road.

  He thought about Goliath, and even though he'd never had that much in common with Goliath, specially Goliath's favorite game of swallowing mud worms and placing bets on which one would crawl out of his bottom first, Limpy realized he missed him.

  Limpy listened again to the voices of the distant cane toads and thought about his hundreds of brothers and sisters. He hadn't seen any of them since they were tadpoles and a rainstorm had swept them all away, leaving only him and Charm.

  Some of them could be out there now, thought Limpy, arguing about whether a slimy lugworm tasted better than a shovel-nosed centipede.

  He was doing this for them as well.

  Even as he had the thought, another pang shot through him.

  It was partly love, but mostly hunger.

  Suddenly Limpy felt weak and dizzy from lack of food. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. He stuck his head over the rim of the bumper bar. The air was rushing past much too quickly for even the lightning-fast tongue of a cane toad to pluck insects out of it.

  His empty stomach sank as he realized what he must do.

  Go to the front of the truck.

  It took half the night.

  Luckily there were rivets along the side of the truck for Limpy to cling to, but his progress was painfully slow. The air was ripping past so fast and the truck was bouncing so much that he could only go forward in tiny, sliding movements.

  Several times he slipped and the black howling highway rushed up at him, but somehow he managed to hang on and drag himself back.

  Several other times waves of tiredness and hunger swept through him and he felt like just letting go and sleeping forever. Except he knew he wouldn't just be sleeping, he'd be smeared over half a kilometer of highway and having nightmares for years to come as his family got flattened.

  Finally, with a last desperate effort, Limpy dragged himself around the driver's-side door hinge, across the front wheel arch, and onto the bull bar.

  He blinked in the glare from the headlights.

  It was better than he'd dared hope.

  There were insects everywhere. Grasshoppers, mosquitoes, locusts, beetles, midges, moths, gnats, flying ants, cicadas, all splattered across the front of the truck in a juicy, mouthwatering smorgasbord.

  Limpy ate like he'd never eaten before.

  He'd have eaten even faster if the air hadn't been battering against him so hard that he had to hang on with at least one hand and his good foot.

  Then he discovered that if he turned round to face the onrushing air and just opened his mouth, an endless stream of insects were flung into it.

  Weak with relief, he let himself be filled.

  It wasn't till afterward he realized that what happened next probably saved him from exploding, or at least getting a serious tummy ache.

  At first he thought he was hearing things, but when he listened more carefully, he knew he wasn't.

  It was definitely a voice, feebly calling out.

  “Limpy. Help.”

  A voice he recognized.

  Limpy nearly fell off the bull bar in shock.

  It couldn't be.

  Goliath?

  “Limpy,” 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.