Toad Rage (5 page)

They were platypuses and echidnas and kookaburras.

Limpy wondered why humans were so keen on platypuses, echidnas, and kookaburras. He'd met a few and they'd seemed pretty average. Nice enough, but nothing to paint a truck about.

Then Limpy noticed something else about the fluffy toys.

Not only did they not have sick on them, they were
exactly the right size, if you pulled the stuffing out, for a cane toad to climb inside.

Perfect disguises.

Yes, thought Limpy ecstatically. All I've got to figure out now is how to get heaps of these toys back home without the man in the suit flattening me with his clipboard.

Limpy was still trying to figure out exactly how to do it when the driver suddenly came over and grabbed the trolley Limpy was hiding behind.

Limpy froze, desperately hoping the driver wouldn't look down.

He didn't.

As soon as the driver had turned back to the truck, Limpy hurried out of the loading dock into the street.

The sun was so bright, Limpy was dazzled.

For a while he couldn't see a thing.

Then his eyes started working again and to his horror he found he was looking up at a circle of sneering human faces.

Teenagers.

He'd seen them in magazines, but rarely looking as cross as these ones.

“Yuk,” said one, “a canie.”

“Let's get it,” said another.

Limpy didn't understand what they were saying.

He didn't need to.

The hands lunging at him and the feet swinging at him told him all he needed to know.

Ducking, weaving, and hopping in a semicircle, he managed to get across the footpath to the gutter. Ahead he saw the opening to a stormwater drain. Desperately hoping the teenagers wouldn't be able to squeeze in after him, he dived into it.

L
impy found himself sitting in a cool, dark tunnel with water trickling over his feet.

His skin started drinking in the water.

He told it to stop. There was no time for that. The angry faces of the teenagers were glaring down at him. They were kicking at the crumbling concrete, trying to make the opening to the drain bigger.

Limpy hopped for his life.

The tunnel was too narrow for him to hop in circles, so he was able to splash along at speed, bouncing from wall to wall.

He turned a corner, and then another, and the shouting of the kids faded into silence.

Not quite silence.

As he moved forward, Limpy could hear another sound above his head.

The buzz of other human voices.

Heaps of them.

Then the voices started cheering.

Limpy saw a shaft of light coming from another opening up ahead.

Weak with fear but tingling with curiosity, he climbed up the side of the drain and peered out.

He was under the main street of the town. Masses of humans were standing on both sides of the street, grinning and cheering as if something wonderful was going to happen.

Limpy couldn't believe it. Surely this many humans wouldn't gather this quickly just to see a gang of teenagers trying to kill a cane toad?

Boy, humans really do hate us, he thought sadly.

Then the cheering got louder and the people started waving at something. Limpy saw what it was. An open-topped car, driving slowly along the street. Standing in it, waving to the crowd, was a girl wearing a sports singlet and holding a really long stick.

Limpy stared at the stick nervously.

He hoped it wasn't a special stick for poking down drains to stab cane toads.

Then the crowd started cheering even more loudly and Limpy saw something that made him forget even that horrible possibility.

In another open-topped car, following the girl's, stood three figures he recognized.

A big platypus, a big echidna, and a big kookaburra.

Not real ones. Three humans in costumes. Just like on the side of the truck.

The crowd was ecstatic. Limpy watched them cheering and whistling and blowing kisses to the kookaburra and the echidna and the platypus. A lot of people were holding up the fluffy toys from the truck.

The whole town was in love with kookaburras, echidnas, and platypuses.

Why? thought Limpy. What have they got that cane toads haven't? Apart from zips down their backs?

“Bloomin' show-offs,” said a voice next to his ear.

Limpy jumped, startled.

“Cloggin' up the whole town with their bloomin' parade,” said the voice.

Limpy saw that the voice belonged to a cockroach sitting next to him on the wall of the drain.

The cockroach saw Limpy and leapt back in alarm. Then its shiny brown shoulders slumped and it plodded toward Limpy with a weary sigh.

“I don't care,” it said morosely. “Go on, eat me. What's the point of clingin' on to life down here in the sewers when mongrels like them up there get all the attention?”

“Don't worry,” said Limpy, “I'm not going to eat
you.” He meant it, even though he was ravenous. He needed information more than food. “Those three up there,” he went on, “why are they so popular with humans?”

“Games mascots, lucky buggers,” muttered the cockroach.

“Eh?” said Limpy. “What do you mean, 'games'?”

The cockroach gave him an incredulous look. “What log have you been living under? The Games. Down south. Where humans from different countries do running and jumping against each other. Starts in a couple of days.”

“Oh, right,” pretended Limpy. “The Games.”

He sort of knew what the cockroach was on about. Goliath and some of the kids at home used to have contests to see who could hop the fastest and who could fit the most slugs in their mouth. This sounded pretty similar.

“And what are 'mascots'?” asked Limpy.

The cockroach rolled its eyes. “Because there's heaps of humans coming from overseas for the Games, and millions more watching on telly, the organizers want to show them what a top place Australia is. So they've chosen three examples of our wildlife for everyone to go gaga over. Right now those mascots are the most popular individuals in Australia.” The cockroach looked sourly at the
platypus, echidna, and kookaburra. “Beats me why they chose those three mangy losers.”

Limpy gazed up at the adoration on the faces of the humans as the mascots cruised slowly past.

One thing's for sure, he thought. Humans won't be driving over any platypuses, echidnas, or kookaburras in the foreseeable future.

Suddenly Limpy knew what he had to do.

“Come on,” said the cockroach, “get it over with. Eat me if you're going to.”

“I'm not going to,” said Limpy as he watched the parade come to an end. “Excuse me for dashing, but I've got to make arrangements to be a Games mascot.”

L
impy hurried back along the stormwater drain, ideas bouncing around inside his head almost as fast as his body was bouncing around inside the tunnel.

The bloke with the clipboard who'd been yelling at the truck driver. He obviously had something to do with the Games. He looked pretty important.

I'll volunteer to him, thought Limpy happily. I'll tell him I'm available to be a Games mascot.

Limpy tingled with excitement.

Then he had a less happy thought.

What if the teenagers were waiting for him?

He had to take the risk. There was too much at stake. Once he was a Games mascot and humans adored him, he'd be able to introduce them to the family. And once people saw what kind, lovable, friendly folk Charm and the other cane toads were
and how much fun you could have with them in mud pools, they'd stop trying to kill them.

Limpy bounced happily round a corner in the tunnel, and stopped dead.

Standing there sneering at him with narrow hate-filled eyes was the meanest-looking pack he'd ever seen.

Not teenagers.

Rats.

“So,” said the front rat, “we heard we'd got a visitor.”

“G'day,” said Limpy nervously.

There were a lot of them.

“Excuse us if we seem rude,” said the rat, “but we're going to skip the introductions and get straight on with ripping you to pieces.”

The rats advanced.

Limpy didn't hesitate.

He flexed his glands and sprayed streams of poisonous white pus over them.

It wasn't something he usually did to folk he'd only just met, but Mum was always reminding him to do it in emergencies, and this was certainly an emergency.

Limpy kept spraying till his poison glands were empty.

“Arghhh,” screamed the front rat, clawing at its face. “That really hurts.”

The other rats were howling and rubbing their faces and backing away.

They turned and ran.

“Vicious mongrel,” yelled one as they went.

Limpy ignored that.

When his whole body had stopped shaking, he cautiously poked part of his head out of the drain opening and looked around.

No teenagers.

And there, in the loading dock, was the bloke with the clipboard.

As Limpy hurried across the footpath toward him, he saw that the bloke was still angry. Except this time it wasn't the driver he was angry at, it was the girl in the sports singlet who'd been holding the big stick in the parade.

She looked so unhappy, Limpy felt a pang of sympathy, even though Uncle Bart had told him once it wasn't natural to feel sympathy for another species.

Limpy had never seen a human so miserable, not even kids in the backs of cars when the parents were playing their own music.

He hid behind a box in the loading dock, hoping something would happen to cheer the girl up.

“Why is it always me?” the girl was demanding, her dark ponytail flapping angrily around her head. “There are thousands of other athletes at the Games.

Why can't you get one of them to appear at a dumb shopping center for a change?”

“Because,” said the man, “the public wants to see you. They don't want to see some ugly bloke in his twenties with a prickle haircut and lumpy legs. They want to see Australia's youngest and prettiest Games athlete.”

Limpy couldn't understand what the man was saying, but he could see the girl didn't like it. She threw her can of drink to the ground. The can rolled toward Limpy. It was another of the red ones with brown liquid trickling out of it.

“I'm an athlete, not a soapie star,” the girl said angrily. “I've got training to do.”

“You're in great physical shape,” snapped the man. “And if you stop drinking so much of that stuff, you'll stay that way.”

Suddenly the girl was in tears.

Limpy stared, sympathetic but fascinated. He'd heard about this weird thing humans could do with their eyes. Seeing it made him feel strange inside. Sort of sad.

“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.