Toad Away - Morris Gleitzman [12]
The bird didn't say anything.
Limpy pressed on. “I'm trying to find someone who's been to the Amazon,” he said. “Have you been to the Amazon?”
“Might have,” said the bird.
Limpy looked at the other birds. They were all staring at him expressionlessly too.
“When you fly back to wherever you come from,” said Limpy as slowly and clearly as he could, “do you go to or near the Amazon?”
“Might do,” said the bird.
Suddenly Limpy couldn't stand it any longer.
“Stack me!” he exploded. “This is ridiculous. I give up.”
He turned to go. The birds all burst out laughing.
“Don't mind him,” said another bird to Limpy.“He's just tugging your tail feathers.”
Limpy stared at them, wondering if it was true that birds’ brains were smaller than their beaks.
“Sorry,” chuckled the first bird, wiping his eyes with a wing. “It's my wicked sense of humor. Only thing that gets me through those long boring flights. Yes, we have been to the Amazon. Top place. We always drop in there for lunch when we're passing.”
Limpy felt like doing cartwheels around the swamp. He controlled himself, except for his mucus, which wobbled with excitement.
“Are you going near the Amazon any time in the near future?” he asked.
“Might be,” said the bird.
The other birds all tried to stifle their laughter. One of them swiped the first bird round the head.
“Who wants to know?” chuckled the first bird.
Limpy struggled to stay calm. This was too important to lose your temper over and try to eat birds that were much too big to fit into your mouth.
“Come with me,” said Limpy. “There's something I want to show you.”
Limpy's room wasn't very big and it was a squash fitting all the birds in, but Limpy managed.
The birds kept on with their jokes, right up until they saw the piles of flat dead rellies.
Then they went very quiet.
“These are uncles,” said Limpy, pointing to a stack in the corner. “And these are aunties, and these are cousins.”
One of the birds had been leaning its wing on the cousin stack. It hopped away, looking embarrassed.
“You poor bloke,” said the bird. “We have casualties, but nothing like this. This is like a war.”
Limpy was glad Goliath wasn't around to hear this. It was the day each month that Mum and Dad took Goliath to the waterfall to flush his insides out.
“Have you ever seen anything like this in the Amazon?” Limpy asked the birds.
He half-expected them to say “who wants to know” but they didn't.
“No,” they said quietly. “We haven't.”
“So humans in the Amazon don't kill cane toads,” said Limpy.
“Don't think so,” said the birds. “We've never seen any sign of it.”
It was exactly what Limpy was hoping they'd say.
“I need to go to the Amazon really urgently,” he said. “My ancestors have been living there since time began, and I need to visit them to learn the ancient secret of how to live in peace with humans.” He took a deep breath. “Any chance of a lift, please?”
The biggest bird's beak fell open.
He stared at Limpy.
“You're asking me,” he said, “to carry you halfway round the world, across plains and mountains and cities and oceans, risking wing strain and leg rupture and claw cramp, just so a bunch of your family and friends won't get squashed by humans?”
“Yes,” said Limpy.
The bird stared silently at the piles of rellies.
“OK,” said the bird. “We're leaving first thing tomorrow.”
After Limpy finished thanking the birds, and they left, he started packing for the trip.
His one worry now was how to tell Mum and Dad.
He was pretty sure the journey to the Amazon would be long and dangerous. What if Mum and Dad got upset and tried to stop him from going? Or, even worse, wanted to come themselves? Crossing plains and mountains and cities and oceans was much too risky for a couple their age.
But he had to let them know he was going so they wouldn't think he'd just disappeared or been arrested by an angry supermarket company.
Suddenly he knew what to do. Once he was airborne, and it was too