Toad Heaven - Morris Gleitzman [13]
“Now that,” said a voice, “is bad luck.”
Limpy looked around.
“You reckon you're unlucky,” said the voice. “Just because your folks think you're dead and you're not. That's not unlucky. This is unlucky.”
Limpy felt something tickling him and looked down and saw that the voice belonged to a flying beetle that had got stuck to the back of his hand.
“One cane toad in fifty million square kilometers with sticky sap on his fist,” said the beetle, “and I fly into it. Okay. That much bad luck you can't beat. I give up. Eat me.”
Limpy stared at the beetle. Suddenly he had an idea that made his warts light up.
“Tell you what,” said Limpy.“If you'll do something for me, I won't eat you.”
“Anything,” said the beetle. “As long as it doesn't involve selling cigarettes to children.”
Limpy pointed across the clearing at Goliath. “See that big cane toad?” he said. “Not the really big one with the smug expression, the fairly big one sobbing and trying to console himself with a mouthful of bog worms. I want you to give him a message.”
The beetle nodded.
“Tell him,” said Limpy, “that all cane toads are in great danger and that he must get everybody away from Malcolm and head east and find the national park as quickly as possible.”
“Right,” said the beetle. “Danger, away from Malcolm, east, national park. Shall I say who the message is from?”
“Tell him it's from Limpy,” said Limpy quietly. “Say I gave you the message just before I died.”
The beetle gave Limpy a strange look.
“Okeydoke,” said the beetle. “You're the one not eating me.”
Limpy carefully unstuck the beetle from his hand. The beetle hovered in front of Limpy's face for a moment, beaming with gratitude.
“Boy,” he said. “This is my lucky day.”
Limpy didn't take his eyes off the beetle as it flew across the clearing. For a brief moment he thought it was going to Malcolm by mistake, but it veered away and hovered in front of Goliath.
“Give him the message,” whispered Limpy. “Give him the message.”
He saw Goliath spot the beetle and look pleasantly surprised and lean forward close enough to hear what the beetle was about to say.
Limpy sighed with relief.
Then Goliath's tongue shot out and the beetle vanished into his mouth.
Limpy didn't take his eyes off the twenty-sixth beetle as it flew across the clearing.
The beetle reached Goliath and hovered in front of him.
Limpy whispered the words he'd whispered twenty-five times before.
“Give him the message.”
Before the beetle could speak, Goliath looked amazed at his own repeated good fortune and his tongue shot out for the twenty-sixth time.
“No,” groaned Limpy.
He gave up trying to get a message to his family.
For a while he slumped dejectedly, his back throbbing painfully against the sticky bark of the tree. Then he noticed something else happening across the clearing. Malcolm was unfolding a map and holding it up in front of the assembled cane toads.
Limpy stared. It looked like one of the scientist's maps. How had Malcolm got it?
“Attention, everyone!” said Malcolm. “We will be leaving for our new home at sunset.”
Limpy's mouth fell open. What was going on? Had Malcolm heard about the national park? Was he going to lead the cane toads there?
Glands twitching hopefully, Limpy squinted across the clearing, trying to see exactly where Malcolm was pointing on the map. It was no good. Goliath kept pulling big creepers down in front of the map and sucking leeches off them.
“I will lead you to a place,” Malcolm was saying, “where cane toads can live in peace and safety forever.”
Yes, thought Limpy, warts tingling with relief.
He watched the assembled rellies discuss this among themselves. Most of them still looked numb from the shock of the four-wheel drive and the sadness of the funerals. Even so, they seemed pretty keen on the idea. All except Goliath, but he probably just had indigestion.
A voice rang out. “What direction are we going, Mighty Malcolm?”
Limpy smiled sadly. It was Dad.
“East,