Toad Rage - Morris Gleitzman [3]
Then Charm looked up, saw him, and hopped over, eyes bright with pleasure.
“G'night, Limpy,” she said, smiling up at him. “How's it going?”
Limpy stared at her weakly.
“You could have been killed,” he said. “What were you doing?”
“Goliath's got a plan,” she replied. “He said he wants to show the humans that we're not going to take them running us over lying down.”
Limpy sighed. When they were handing out brains, Goliath must have swapped his for extra warts.
Limpy could feel the vehicle getting closer.
Goliath was facing the direction it was coming from, gripping his stick like a spear.
“Goliath,” yelled Limpy. “Don't be a dope.”
Goliath ignored him.
Headlights swung round the bend in the highway and came toward them, bathing Goliath in dazzling white. Goliath rose unsteadily on his back legs.
“Mongrels,” he yelled, waving his stick at the oncoming lights. “Big bums.”
Limpy started hopping toward Goliath.
Not too fast, he told himself. Stay in a straight line.
He got to Goliath with only a couple of wobbles, reached up, grabbed Goliath's big warty shoulders, and tried to drag him off the road.
It was no good. Goliath was too much of a lump.
Then Limpy realized Charm was next to him and she was yanking at Goliath's leg.
“I was trying to tell him this was dopey when you arrived,” she panted.
Together they managed to drag the protesting Goliath across the bitumen.
“Hey,” yelled Goliath indignantly. “You're spoiling my ambush.”
“Ambush?” puffed Limpy. “You can't ambush a vehicle.”
“Yes I can,” retorted Goliath. “I've planned it all out. At the last minute I'm gunna hop to one side and smash the windscreen and rip the doors off and demolish the engine.”
“Goliath,” wheezed Limpy as they all collapsed in the grass, “you're a cane toad. That's a stick. A vehicle's about a thousand times bigger than you.”
Goliath, his warts glowing with determination, glared at Limpy.
“I can still give the duco a really nasty scratch.”
“Not,” said Limpy, “if you're being flattened by a large number of radial tires.”
“Limpy's right, Goliath,” said Charm. “You should have thought about that.”
Goliath, frowning, thought about it now.
“I'll stab the tires with the stick till they explode,” he said, “and then those mongrels'll drive off the road and get smothered by their own air bags.”
The vehicle, a car, roared past. It swerved slightly and thumped over an aunt in the exact spot where Goliath had been sitting.
They all stared at the flat aunt.
Limpy gave a sad sigh.
There was a long silence.
“Yeah, well, she didn't have a stick, did she?” Goliath muttered finally.
His bulging shoulders sagged.
“Poor Aunty Violet,” said Charm.
Limpy looked at his little sister's sad face and felt his warts tingle with love and then prickle with worry.
It could have been Charm.
Limpy had an awful vision of her out on the tarmac night after night, proudly collecting her own food while huge trucks and convoys of holidaymakers swerved across the road and aimed straight at her.
Unless, thought Limpy, I can find a way to stop humans from hating us.
Suddenly he knew he couldn't put it off any longer.
Not till next month, not till next week, not till he'd had time to get braver and make a will.
He had to start tonight.
Limpy found Ancient Eric at the far end of the swamp, eating a snake.
“Go away,” said Ancient Eric, “I'm having my tea.”
Limpy had expected something like that. Ancient Eric, as well as being the oldest and wisest cane toad in the district, was also the grumpiest.
It must be hard to stay cheerful when you look like that, thought Limpy sympathetically.
Even though the moon was behind a cloud, Limpy could see just how unkind age had been to Ancient Eric. His poor old body was a disaster. The years had shrunk his skin and turned it tragically smooth. You could see his muscles rippling when he moved. He didn't have a wrinkle or a crease or a decent-sized wart on him.
Poor thing, thought