Toad Heaven - Morris Gleitzman [16]
Stack me, thought Limpy. I'm still toad-shaped.
Gradually he realized the deafening noise wasn't broken bones rattling around inside him, it was the wheels of the train clattering along the tracks just below his head.
He was clinging, he saw in the moonlight flickering through the train above him, to a rusty metal beam at the bottom of one of the carriages.
But not for long.
As he and the train hurtled forward, the rush of air was tearing him off the beam. Even though he was clinging on as hard as he could with both arms and his good leg, he could feel himself sliding painfully across the rust.
The sticky sap was useless. The wind had already turned it into a dry, flaky film on his chest. It was crumbling faster than the rust.
I've got to get off this beam, thought Limpy desperately.
He looked around. Above him and a bit behind him was a gap between the floorboards of the carriage.
It wasn't a big gap.
It was more of an Uncle Nick–sized gap.
But it was all there was.
Limpy let go of the beam, flinging his arms upward.
The wind slammed him backward.
As he became airborne, he rammed his hands through the gap and grabbed the edge of a floorboard. Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself up into the carriage. He could feel the wind tearing at his legs and lower body. As he wriggled through the gap, the rough wood scraped flakes of sap off his skin. Then it scraped off flakes of skin.
Finally he was inside, lying trembling and exhausted on the floor of the carriage.
Safe.
Limpy gave a weary sigh of relief.
And saw, above him, about a hundred pairs of eyes, white and unblinking in the darkness.
Limpy froze. Even his trembling bits stopped moving.
Too late. The eyes were all looking at him.
“Hmmm,” said a voice. “We seem to have a traveling companion.”
I'm done for, thought Limpy. It's a packed tourist train. There's nothing humans on holiday like more than practicing their golf or tennis on a cane toad.
He waited for the swish of a club or a racquet, or a trail bike if the human was into motorcross.
It didn't come.
The only thing that struck Limpy was a thought.
Wait a minute! he said to himself. I understood the voice, so these can't be humans.
At that moment the train swung round a curve and moonlight spilled into the carriage.
Limpy looked around nervously.
Staring down at him were a large number of sheep.
“G'day,” said Limpy, desperately trying to remember if he'd ever heard stories of sheep savaging cane toads.
He didn't think he had. Not unless some of the four-wheel drives on the highway with dark tinted windows had sheep driving them.
“Evening,” said the nearest sheep. “Going far?”
“To the national park,” said Limpy. “If I can find it. I know it's in this direction.”
The sheep turned to the other sheep. “Any of you know where the national park is?”
The other sheep shook their heads.
“Sorry we can't be more help,” said the sheep to Limpy. “Hope you find it.”
“Thanks,” said Limpy. “What about you? Are you on holiday?”
“Not really,” said the sheep. “We're on our way to the slaughterhouse. To be killed and eaten by humans.”
Limpy stared.
That was awful.
“Come with me,” he said. “To the national park. All living things are protected there. Nobody will be able to eat you there, not if you don't want them to.”
“Thanks,” said the sheep. “But it wouldn't work. This is a locked carriage. At the other end we're put into a locked truck. And taken to a locked slaughterhouse. Anyway, we've always known this is what would happen. We're, I dunno, sort of used to the idea.”
Limpy looked around at their placid faces with only a hint of sadness in their big soft eyes.
Stack me! he thought angrily.
As the train raced through the night, Limpy tried to persuade the sheep to let him rescue them and take them to a life of freedom and frolic in the national park.
It was no good. They were polite but firm.
Finally, sadly, Limpy gave up.
The conversation sort of petered out after that. Limpy didn't think it was fair to keep on about the wonders of life in the national park, the brilliant