Toad Away - Morris Gleitzman [2]
“Make friends with them?” croaked Goliath. “Are you mad?”
“Got it in one,” muttered the grasshopper. Goliath snatched up poor flat sunbaked Uncle Ian and waved him under Limpy's nose.
“You can't make friends with monsters who do this!” yelled Goliath. “All you can do is try and wipe them out, or at the very least force them back to the car parks they came from. And that's what I'm going to do.”
Limpy tried to stay calm. He loved Goliath very much, but sometimes, he thought, Goliath is like one of those forms of swamp life that are so stupid they don't even know when a lizard is eating their brains.
Perhaps it's not so bad, Limpy told himself. Perhaps Goliath will come to his senses and realize he's not going to win a war with an attack force of one cane toad and a few insects.
“Actually,” said the slug to Goliath, “those three humans look pretty tough. I don't think we'll be able to wipe them out on our own.”
Limpy, relieved, could see that Goliath was thinking the same thing.
Goliath glared at the slug.
“Leave the military planning to me, private,” he said. “We won't have to wipe them out on our own, because I've got an army.”
Limpy's throat sac bulged with alarm.
“An army?” he croaked. “What army?”
“I'll show you my army on one condition,” said Goliath. “No blabbing about it to the enemy.”
Limpy sighed.
“Goliath,” he said. “Humans won't want to be friends with us if you keep calling them the enemy.”
But Goliath wasn't listening. He was hopping away down a bush track.
Limpy struggled to keep up. He wished he had big muscly legs like Goliath. He also wished his crook leg didn't make him hop in circles. But most of all he wished his dopey cousin wasn't putting all cane toads everywhere in serious danger.
A hopeful thought struck Limpy. Perhaps the army was only in Goliath's imagination, like the self-peeling snails Goliath daydreamed about quite often.
“Atten-shun!”
Limpy jumped, startled. Then he realized it was Goliath's voice, booming from the other side of a clump of bushes.
Perhaps Goliath's just yelling at some grasshoppers he's eaten, thought Limpy even more hopefully. Telling them not to jump around so much in his tummy.
Limpy scrambled through the bushes and found himself in a small clearing ringed by trees.
He stared in horror.
At the edge of the clearing stood Goliath, wavy mud stripes gleaming in the sunlight, holding the biggest sharp stick Limpy had ever seen. Lined up in front of Goliath were quite a few other cane toads, including Mum and Dad and Charm. They were also covered in wavy mud stripes and holding sharp sticks.
Limpy felt dizzy with panic.
“Mum,” he croaked. “What are you all doing?”
Mum and Dad gave Limpy guilty looks, but Charm didn't even look up. She was staring hard at a soft-drink can some distance away on a log. Suddenly she flexed her glands and two little globs of poison pus flew across the clearing and pinged into the can.
Several of the cane toads applauded. Mum and Dad looked proud.
Limpy stared, gobsmacked. He'd always assumed the pollution that had stunted Charm's growth had also stopped her poison glands from developing to full power.
Obviously not.
Stack me, thought Limpy. My little sister's in the army and she's a crack shot.
“I said atten-shun!” yelled Goliath.
The cane toads all stood at attention.
“Charge!” yelled Goliath.
The cane toads charged.
For a sickening heartbeat Limpy thought they were attacking the human picnickers. He hopped forward to fling himself at them. There were too many for him to stop them all, but at least he could grab Mum and Dad and Charm and save them from being stabbed with pie crusts.
Then Limpy realized the cane toads weren't charging at humans, they were charging around a homemade military training course.
Charm was wading through a pit full of those fat bog leeches that explode if you tread on them.
Dad was wriggling on his tummy under low-slung strands of barbed creeper and stinging nettles.
Mum was trying to