Toad Away - Morris Gleitzman [26]
Suddenly Limpy didn't feel so great anymore.
Even when he and Goliath had landed safely and they'd popped the bubble on a handy twig and Limpy was helping scrape the rubber off Goliath's face, he still didn't feel so great.
The Amazon was a war zone.
“That was fantastic,” said Goliath. “I feel great.”
“You saved our lives,” said Limpy. “Thank you.”
“Oh, that was nothing,” said Goliath. “Saliva and rubber sap. Old commando trick. You can make a tent if you blow hard enough. No, I mean I feel great about this place.”
Goliath gazed around at the forest. He stopped and peered excitedly at something. For a moment Limpy thought Goliath had seen some Amazon rellies, but it was just a battle on a big leaf between an army of ants and an army of termites.
“Look around you,” said Goliath. “Ancient wisdom all over the place. You can't duck behind a tree for a personal moment without tripping over ancient wisdom. And do you know what this ancient wisdom is saying?”
Limpy had a horrible feeling he did.
“Kill or be killed,” said Goliath, biting the head off a slug so big that even Goliath could only just swallow it. “Fight or die. Might is right. Survival of the fittest. Strike first and ask questions later. A rolling stone gathers no moss.” Goliath frowned. “I think that last one might be wrong.”
Limpy didn't reply.
He wanted to tell Goliath the whole thing was wrong. But he couldn't find the words, because everything they'd seen since they arrived in the Amazon was saying that Goliath was right.
Limpy made another wish.
That the Amazon rellies would appear now, with Charm, and explain to Goliath why it was much better to live in peace, and how to do it.
They didn't.
“This'd be the place to get an army together,” Goliath was saying. “They know how to fight around here.”
He pointed to a tiny beetle on his leg who was trying to crack his shin with its tiny head.
“You're dead, amigo,” said the beetle. “You're dinner. Just give me a moment.”
“An army from this place would be unstoppable,” said Goliath, eyes shining as he ate the beetle. “The humans back home wouldn't stand a chance.”
Limpy sighed.
“I suppose that's one good thing about this place,” he said. “At least we haven't run into any humans.”
“Of course not,” chortled Goliath. “No humans could survive here.”
A little while later, they ran into some humans.
Or rather the humans ran into them.
Limpy was yelling out Charm's name, hoping perhaps she'd been sleeping and would wake up and hear it. Goliath was chatting to a sloth, admiring the algae growing on its fur.
“Great camouflage,” said Goliath.
The sloth yawned.
“Were you born with it?” asked Goliath. “Or did you have to plant seeds?”
The sloth yawned again.
Suddenly all the noises of the forest stopped. Limpy's last yell echoed through the trees for a moment, then there was silence.
Except for a faint roaring in the distance.
The sloth went into a panic and clambered up its tree several more centimeters an hour faster than usual.
The roaring was getting louder.
Limpy and Goliath looked at each other. There was something horribly familiar about the sound.
“Big cat,” said Goliath glumly. “Do we go back up the tree?”
“That's not a cat,” said Limpy. “That noise is mechanical. Bulldozer mechanical.”
It was so loud now, the forest was trembling.
Limpy grabbed Goliath and dragged him into a bog hole, desperately hoping that Amazon bog holes didn't have worms in them that got inside you and opened holiday resorts.
The bulldozers roared and trees crashed down and the ground shook.
Limpy thought it would never stop.
“They work really long shifts around here,” said one of the worms in the bog hole. The other worms agreed. Limpy nodded to show he understood, and that he was grateful the worms were vegetarian.
He stared at the bulldozers and the toppling trees, his warts droopy with despair. So much for peace and friendship. So much for ancient wisdom.
We've come all this way, thought Limpy miserably, and everything's the same. Even the humans