Toad Away - Morris Gleitzman [15]
“Get your mucus into lumps, everyone!” yelled Goliath. “We'll bomb the mongrels!”
“Or, alternatively,” said Goliath's bird, “some of us could use our mucus to block our mouths up so we can have some peace and quiet.”
Limpy didn't join in this discussion. He was too busy staring ahead, excitement surging through him about what he could suddenly see in the distance. Several birds, wheeling in a circle. Birds like the ones he and Goliath were traveling with.
Dangling from the claws of one was a tiny figure.
Limpy couldn't see her face, but he recognized the determined shape of her shoulders and the way her legs were flapping behind her just like they did when Dad spun her round by her poison glands.
“Charm!” screamed Limpy.
He tugged frantically at his bird's ankles.
“We've got to catch up with her!” he yelled.
“Excuse me,” said Limpy's bird.“I do distance. If you wanted speed, you should have waited for a sparrow.”
Suddenly Limpy stopped listening. He almost stopped breathing. He stared helplessly at the awful, horrible, terrible thing that was happening up ahead.
Charm wasn't dangling from her bird's claws anymore.
She was falling, tumbling, plummeting toward the ground.
“Charm!” yelled Limpy.
“He's dropped her!” screamed Goliath.
“Excuse me,” said Goliath's bird. “We don't drop passengers. If she's finishing her flight here, it's because she wants to.”
Limpy had never heard such rubbish. This wasn't the Amazon. They hadn't traveled nearly far enough. And anyway, who would want to end a journey falling from this height onto a big area of concrete?
“No,” croaked Limpy.
He couldn't take his eyes off his dear plummeting sister. He didn't want to look, but he couldn't stop himself.
Poor thing. She'd come all this way only to end up as flat and dead as if she'd stayed at home.
Unless …
“She's gunna hit that bus!” screamed Goliath.
Limpy's bird was swooping low now and Limpy could see Charm tumbling toward a big tourist bus parked next to a building. But she didn't hit the bus, she disappeared behind it. For a brief moment Limpy couldn't see her. Then the swoop carried him up again and there she was, on the other side of the bus, lying facedown on top of a big pile of human tourist bags.
Arms and legs stuck out straight.
Not moving.
“Drop us!” yelled Limpy.
“Excuse me,” said his bird. “You heard what my colleague said. We don't drop.”
“That's an airport down there,” said Goliath's bird.“Airports are made of concrete. You're made of squishy stuff. You do the sums.”
“I don't care,” said Limpy. “Drop us.”
He saw it was too late. They were already flying past the airport. He twisted round, desperately trying to see a landmark he could use to find his way back to Charm.
That tower with the windows in the top.
“My cousin said drop us,” yelled Goliath, “and he meant it!”
“Read my beak,” said Limpy's bird. “We don't drop.”
“If you don't drop us now,” roared Goliath, “I'm gunna bite through your ankles!”
“For you two,” said Goliath's bird, “we'll make an exception.”
The fall was scary.
Limpy took his mind off it by thinking about Charm. Her sweet face. Her kind nature. The way she could scare off wild bush pigs just by giving them math problems.
The landing was fairly soft. And very smelly.
“Yuck,” said Goliath, spitting and rubbing his eyes.
“Human poo.”
It was. Once Limpy's head stopped spinning, he looked around in amazement. He'd never seen so much in one place. Swamp-loads of it.
“It's a sewage farm,” said a blowfly sunbathing nearby.
“A farm?” said Goliath, amazed. “You mean humans don't produce enough of this stuff themselves, so they grow more?”
Limpy remembered they were in the middle of a family tragedy.
“Goliath,” he said, trembling. “We have to find Charm.”
Goliath's face fell.
“I know,” he said sadly. “I was trying not to think about it.” He smacked a big fist into a warty palm. “I hate those mongrel humans with their vicious pies and poo farms. When I get my army together I'm gunna flatten those mongrels