Toad Away - Morris Gleitzman [33]
“Oh,” said Limpy. “I see. And er, do you, um, eat cane toads?”
“No,” said the grumpy voice. “Not eat. Any more questions before we suck your insides out and use your skin for bedding?”
“Not really,” said Limpy.
The question he wanted to ask someone was whether he should spray the snakes to defend himself and risk some of his poison pus falling into the hands of Flatface.
It probably wasn't worth asking the snakes that.
To make conversation, Limpy was about to ask the snakes if by any chance they fancied joining him in a war against humans on bulldozers, when something prodded him in the back.
It was a stick.
A very long stick, held by someone leaning over the edge of the pit.
Limpy stared up.
It was a human kid, one of the boys he'd seen playing in the village. He recognized the colored stripes painted on the boy's chest.
Trembling, Limpy waited for the boy to stab him.
It was what some human boys did; he'd heard about it loads of times around the swamp at home. Either that or blow you up with bike pumps. They did it to pass the time while they were waiting to grow up into bulldozer drivers.
Bye, Goliath, thought Limpy sadly. I'm glad you're not here.
But the boy didn't stab him, he just prodded Limpy gently and gestured until Limpy realized the boy wanted him to hang on to the stick so he could lift him out of the pit.
Limpy hung on.
Probably wants to stab me up top where he can see better, thought Limpy as he traveled upward and the snakes muttered bitterly below.
Perhaps Flatface was right about humans after all.
But the boy didn't stab Limpy up top.
He spoke gently to Limpy in a language Limpy didn't understand, then carried him through the forest, put him down at the edge of the swamp, grinned, waved goodbye, and disappeared into the bushes, leaving Limpy feeling very confused.
While Limpy dug a grave on the riverbank, he had a long think.
He thought about humans, and how cruel some of them were, and how kind others of them were, and how confusing that was.
He thought about Flatface, and wondered if Flatface ever got confused.
But mostly he thought about Charm and all her special qualities.
The way she could make slugs laugh, even while Goliath was eating them.
The way she let smaller kids go before her on the mud slide, even though at least one of them always did a poo in the mud from excitement.
The way she always said sorry if she lost her temper and tried to stab you with a mosquito.
“Oh, Charm,” whispered Limpy. “I miss you.”
He wished he could do that thing humans did with their eyes when they were sad, because it seemed to make them feel better.
Instead he picked up Charm's necklace and looked at it sorrowfully. After a while, he noticed that the dried mouse eyes seemed to be looking back at him just as sorrowfully.
“You got a bit carried away back there, didn't you?” they seemed to be saying. They seemed to be saying it in Aunty Pru's voice.
Limpy nodded.
“You're right,” he said. “I did. I wanted to kill every human in the world. And that was a mistake. I should have just tried to kill every human that has ever driven a bulldozer or built a bulldozer or sold a bulldozer or repaired a bulldozer or cleaned the condensation off the inside of the windscreen of a bulldozer.”
“And how would that have made you feel?” asked Aunty Pru's voice in Limpy's head.
“Great,” said Limpy. “Even better than beating Uncle George at mucus-twirling.”
Inside Limpy, Aunty Pru seemed to sigh.
Limpy realized it wasn't her, it was him.
“But I wouldn't have felt great for long,” said Limpy quietly. “Because Charm would still be dead. And so would you, Aunty Pru.”
Aunty Pru's voice didn't say anything.
It didn't have to.
Limpy knew that if she was here, she'd be smiling at him sadly and nodding.
He held the necklace for a moment more, then kissed it and dropped it into the empty grave. He covered it over and