Toad Away - Morris Gleitzman [27]
That's if they haven't already been wiped out.
“Mongrels,” growled Goliath, glaring at the bulldozers. “Give me a battalion of giant bloodsucking butterflies and I could take them on.”
The worms moved to the other side of the hole.
Finally the bulldozers finished their work and rumbled away.
The forest sounds slowly returned, most of them indignant.
“Go and have a look,” said the worms, pointing to the fallen trees and the scar of dirt the bulldozers had scraped clear. “It's a disgrace.”
Limpy and Goliath hopped warily over to the clear patch. And saw that it was part of a much bigger bare strip.
They stood in the blinding sunlight, squinting at a massive pipeline that ran along the middle of the strip. The pipeline stretched away to the horizon and, Limpy guessed, beyond. With bare dirt on either side of it all the way.
Goliath hopped over to the pipeline. He wiped up a black smudge with his finger and tasted it.
“Oil,” he called back to Limpy. “It's a bit spicier than we get on the highway back home, but I'd know the taste anywhere.”
Limpy heard him, but barely took it in.
He'd just seen something on the ground, half-buried in the freshly gouged dirt, tangled up with the tree roots and creepers and tiny creatures that had been crushed and mangled to death.
Limpy's blood went even colder than usual.
He dragged the thing out and started to brush the dirt off it, making the most desperate wish he'd ever made in his life.
That it would just be a thin length of root, or a very slim dead snake.
But it wasn't.
It was woven from spiderwebs, with dried mouse eyes threaded on it.
Charm's necklace.
The sun burned into Limpy's back as he searched for Charm's body.
He didn't care.
It was nowhere near as painful as the anger he felt inside when he pictured those humans in their bulldozers crushing poor little Charm.
“Is this a bit of her?” asked Goliath miserably.
He held up a scrap of warty skin.
Limpy looked.
It wasn't Charm.
For an angry moment he thought it might be human skin. A bulldozer driver who'd been to a beauty parlor to get some warts. And then fallen under his own bulldozer while he admired himself in the side mirror.
But it wasn't that either.
“It's a lizard,” said Limpy. “Those aren't warts, they're wheel track marks.”
“Mongrel humans,” muttered Goliath. “When I get my hands on them, they're dead.”
Limpy didn't argue.
They kept on searching until the sun started to sink behind the trees.
“This is hopeless,” said Goliath. “I don't reckon we're ever gunna find her.”
Limpy knew Goliath was right. They'd have no chance in the dark.
“I can smell water over there,” said Goliath. “Come on, let's get some mud on our sunburn.”
As Limpy followed, the air started to feel cooler on his aching body.
But inside him nothing felt cooler at all.
Limpy sat on the riverbank, staring at the blood-red water.
As the sunset faded, night creatures started to appear.
A moth sat trembling on a branch overhanging the river. At first Limpy assumed the moth had heard about Charm and was in a rage too. Then he remembered that moths had to shiver for a while to get their wing muscles warm enough to fly.
Before the moth could take off, a fish leapt out of the water and gulped it down.
Limpy watched as the fish sped away, sending ripples out across the surface of the water.
A shadow passed over Limpy. A large bat had spotted the ripples and was swinging round in midflight. It came in low over the river, dipped its claws into the water, snatched up the fish, and disappeared into the dark treetops.
Soon, in the moonlight, the water was a frenzy of activity.
Shoals of fish with gleaming razor teeth tore into eels, crabs, prawns, and, if they couldn't find anything else, each other.
Stingrays grappled with giant turtles.
Otters bigger than human coolers took chunks out of catfish bigger than humans.
Limpy watched it all and nodded grimly.
Goliath's right, he thought.