Toad Rage - Morris Gleitzman [11]
“Games mascots, lucky buggers,” muttered the cockroach.
“Eh?” said Limpy. “What do you mean, 'games'?”
The cockroach gave him an incredulous look. “What log have you been living under? The Games. Down south. Where humans from different countries do running and jumping against each other. Starts in a couple of days.”
“Oh, right,” pretended Limpy. “The Games.”
He sort of knew what the cockroach was on about. Goliath and some of the kids at home used to have contests to see who could hop the fastest and who could fit the most slugs in their mouth. This sounded pretty similar.
“And what are 'mascots'?” asked Limpy.
The cockroach rolled its eyes. “Because there's heaps of humans coming from overseas for the Games, and millions more watching on telly, the organizers want to show them what a top place Australia is. So they've chosen three examples of our wildlife for everyone to go gaga over. Right now those mascots are the most popular individuals in Australia.” The cockroach looked sourly at the platypus, echidna, and kookaburra. “Beats me why they chose those three mangy losers.”
Limpy gazed up at the adoration on the faces of the humans as the mascots cruised slowly past.
One thing's for sure, he thought. Humans won't be driving over any platypuses, echidnas, or kookaburras in the foreseeable future.
Suddenly Limpy knew what he had to do.
“Come on,” said the cockroach, “get it over with. Eat me if you're going to.”
“I'm not going to,” said Limpy as he watched the parade come to an end. “Excuse me for dashing, but I've got to make arrangements to be a Games mascot.”
Limpy hurried back along the stormwater drain, ideas bouncing around inside his head almost as fast as his body was bouncing around inside the tunnel.
The bloke with the clipboard who'd been yelling at the truck driver. He obviously had something to do with the Games. He looked pretty important.
I'll volunteer to him, thought Limpy happily. I'll tell him I'm available to be a Games mascot.
Limpy tingled with excitement.
Then he had a less happy thought.
What if the teenagers were waiting for him?
He had to take the risk. There was too much at stake. Once he was a Games mascot and humans adored him, he'd be able to introduce them to the family. And once people saw what kind, lovable, friendly folk Charm and the other cane toads were and how much fun you could have with them in mud pools, they'd stop trying to kill them.
Limpy bounced happily round a corner in the tunnel, and stopped dead.
Standing there sneering at him with narrow hate-filled eyes was the meanest-looking pack he'd ever seen.
Not teenagers.
Rats.
“So,” said the front rat, “we heard we'd got a visitor.”
“G'day,” said Limpy nervously.
There were a lot of them.
“Excuse us if we seem rude,” said the rat, “but we're going to skip the introductions and get straight on with ripping you to pieces.”
The rats advanced.
Limpy didn't hesitate.
He flexed his glands and sprayed streams of poisonous white pus over them.
It wasn't something he usually did to folk he'd only just met, but Mum was always reminding him to do it in emergencies, and this was certainly an emergency.
Limpy kept spraying till his poison glands were empty.
“Arghhh,” screamed the front rat, clawing at its face. “That really hurts.”
The other rats were howling and rubbing their faces and backing away.
They turned and ran.
“Vicious mongrel,” yelled one as they went.
Limpy ignored that.
When his whole body had stopped shaking, he cautiously poked part of his head out of the drain opening and looked around.
No teenagers.
And there, in the loading dock, was the bloke with the clipboard.
As Limpy hurried across the footpath toward him, he saw that the bloke was still angry. Except this time it wasn't the driver he was angry at, it was the girl in the sports singlet who'd been holding the big stick in the parade.
She looked so unhappy, Limpy felt a pang of sympathy, even though Uncle Bart had told him once it wasn't