Toad Rage - Morris Gleitzman [10]
Limpy froze, desperately hoping the driver wouldn't look down.
He didn't.
As soon as the driver had turned back to the truck, Limpy hurried out of the loading dock into the street.
The sun was so bright, Limpy was dazzled.
For a while he couldn't see a thing.
Then his eyes started working again and to his horror he found he was looking up at a circle of sneering human faces.
Teenagers.
He'd seen them in magazines, but rarely looking as cross as these ones.
“Yuk,” said one, “a canie.”
“Let's get it,” said another.
Limpy didn't understand what they were saying.
He didn't need to.
The hands lunging at him and the feet swinging at him told him all he needed to know.
Ducking, weaving, and hopping in a semicircle, he managed to get across the footpath to the gutter. Ahead he saw the opening to a stormwater drain. Desperately hoping the teenagers wouldn't be able to squeeze in after him, he dived into it.
Limpy found himself sitting in a cool, dark tunnel with water trickling over his feet.
His skin started drinking in the water.
He told it to stop. There was no time for that. The angry faces of the teenagers were glaring down at him. They were kicking at the crumbling concrete, trying to make the opening to the drain bigger.
Limpy hopped for his life.
The tunnel was too narrow for him to hop in circles, so he was able to splash along at speed, bouncing from wall to wall.
He turned a corner, and then another, and the shouting of the kids faded into silence.
Not quite silence.
As he moved forward, Limpy could hear another sound above his head.
The buzz of other human voices.
Heaps of them.
Then the voices started cheering.
Limpy saw a shaft of light coming from another opening up ahead.
Weak with fear but tingling with curiosity, he climbed up the side of the drain and peered out.
He was under the main street of the town. Masses of humans were standing on both sides of the street, grinning and cheering as if something wonderful was going to happen.
Limpy couldn't believe it. Surely this many humans wouldn't gather this quickly just to see a gang of teenagers trying to kill a cane toad?
Boy, humans really do hate us, he thought sadly.
Then the cheering got louder and the people started waving at something. Limpy saw what it was. An open-topped car, driving slowly along the street. Standing in it, waving to the crowd, was a girl wearing a sports singlet and holding a really long stick.
Limpy stared at the stick nervously.
He hoped it wasn't a special stick for poking down drains to stab cane toads.
Then the crowd started cheering even more loudly and Limpy saw something that made him forget even that horrible possibility.
In another open-topped car, following the girl's, stood three figures he recognized.
A big platypus, a big echidna, and a big kookaburra.
Not real ones. Three humans in costumes. Just like on the side of the truck.
The crowd was ecstatic. Limpy watched them cheering and whistling and blowing kisses to the kookaburra and the echidna and the platypus. A lot of people were holding up the fluffy toys from the truck.
The whole town was in love with kookaburras, echidnas, and platypuses.
Why? thought Limpy. What have they got that cane toads haven't? Apart from zips down their backs?
“Bloomin' show-offs,” said a voice next to his ear.
Limpy jumped, startled.
“Cloggin' up the whole town with their bloomin' parade,” said the voice.
Limpy saw that the voice belonged to a cockroach sitting next to him on the wall of the drain.
The cockroach saw Limpy and leapt back in alarm. Then its shiny brown shoulders slumped and it plodded toward Limpy with a weary sigh.
“I don't care,” it said morosely. “Go on, eat me. What's the point of clingin' on to life down here in the sewers when mongrels like them up there get all the attention?”
“Don't worry,” said Limpy, “I'm not going to eat you.” He meant it, even though he was ravenous. He needed information