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  For Melanie and Nick

  G'DAY FROM THE AUTHOR

  You might notice a few strange and exotic words in this book. Fear not! They won't hurt you, they're just Australian. To find out what they mean, choose one of the following options.

  Put the book down, fly to Australia, ask a local, fly back, pick up the book, resume reading.

  Have a squiz at the glossary on page 191.

  Happy reading,

  Morris Gleitzman

  “Stack me,” said Limpy. “This is my lucky day.”

  He hopped closer through the long grass for a better squiz.

  There were three of them. Big ones. Fully grown, by the look of it.

  Perfect, thought Limpy.

  He had to admit they were magnificent creatures.

  Their picnic rug was pretty nice too.

  “They're called humans,” said a grasshopper. “You can tell from their smooth skin and fat bottoms and unwise choice of shorts. I'd watch out. They hate you dopey cane toads even more than runny poo.”

  “I know,” said Limpy quietly.

  He tried not to be scared.

  This was the chance he'd been looking for. Three humans relaxing on a picnic. Three humans exactly where he wanted them.

  “Sorry, Uncle Ian,” whispered Limpy. “I'll have to put you down. I can't tackle these humans with a dead rellie on my back.”

  Limpy slid Uncle Ian off his shoulders and laid him on a soft patch of moss. He knew what he was about to do was very dangerous, but the sight of Uncle Ian's poor flat body, crisscrossed with tire tracks and baked hard in the sun, made something inside Limpy harden too.

  With determination.

  Limpy thought of all the other poor rellies he'd seen squashed by humans on the highway. All those poor startled eyes glaring out of flat tummies and poor tragic ears poking out of even flatter bottoms.

  “Those humans over there are so busy eating,” he whispered to Uncle Ian, “they won't notice me. I can creep up and get really close without them seeing me, and then I can …”

  “Stab them with their own cutlery,” said the grasshopper. “In the buttocks.”

  Limpy looked at the grasshopper, shocked.

  “I'm not going to stab them,” said Limpy. “I'm going to make friends with them.”

  The grasshopper stared back, looking just as shocked.

  “Make friends with humans?” it said. “Why would you want to do that? Especially hairy ones with tattoos and big boots.”

  “If I can make friends with them, this won't happen anymore,” said Limpy, pointing to poor flat Uncle Ian. “Friends respect each other. They don't bash each other with rocks and drive over each other in vehicles.”

  The grasshopper snorted. “You haven't seen humans after a few beers.”

  Limpy sighed.

  “Aunty Pru reckons friendship is possible between all species,” he said. “Except the ones that eat each other. Humans and cane toads don't eat each other, so we can be friends if we want to.”

  “Yeah,” said the grasshopper. “And sludge worms might fly.”

  Limpy decided to ignore the grasshopper.

  If I'm going to pay those humans a social call, he thought, I should take them a gift. Something nice for their picnic.

  He peered over at the men. He could see pies in their fists, and sausage rolls in their lunchboxes, but no sauce.

  Perfect, thought Limpy. I'll whip them up a batch of Mum's slug sauce. That'll get the friendship off to a great start.

  While Limpy rummaged through the stinkweed looking for slugs, he had a wonderful vision of humans and cane toads being the best of friends. Going on bushwalks together. Playing mud slides. Swapping recipes.

  He plucked a fat slug off a stalk.

  “Ow,” said a muffled voice.

  At first Limpy thought it was the slug.

  “Do you mind,” said the muffled voice.

  Then Limpy recognized the complaining tone. Goliath.

  Limpy looked around, but couldn't see his cousin anywhere.

  “You're standing on him,” said the slug.

  Limpy looked down. Under his feet was a big clump of stinkweed.

  “Get off,” said the stinkweed.

  Limpy hopped back, startled.

  The stinkweed rose slowly into the air. Under it, glaring at Limpy from a bog hole, was a familiar warty face.

  “Goliath,” said Limpy. “What are you doing?” Goliath clambered out of the hole, the stinkweed still on his head.

  “At the moment,” said Goliath, “I'm getting a headache.”

  “Sorry,” murmured Limpy.

  He saw there was mud all over Goliath's big body and face. Usually when Goliath had mud on him it was in splotches. This was different.

  “That mud,” said Limpy. “Why's it in wavy lines?”

  “Commando camouflage,” said Goliath.

  Limpy was impressed. Usually when Goliath played commandos he made do with swamp slime on his face and a sprig of wattle in his bottom. These wavy lines must have taken ages.

  “I'm on a military operation,” said Goliath.

  There was something in Goliath's growl that made Limpy's warts start to prickle with concern.

  “Goliath,” said Limpy. “I'm in the middle of something pretty important myself. Would you mind playing your commando game somewhere else?”

  “It's not a game,” said Goliath, glaring at the men on the picnic rug and flexing his poison glands. “I've declared war on humans.”

  Limpy stared at him, horrified.

  Goliath gripped a sharp stick between his teeth, threw himself on the ground, and started wriggling on his stomach through the long grass toward the humans.

  Limpy flung himself after Goliath, grabbing on to one of his cousin's big feet. For a while he was dragged along behind Goliath, grass stems jabbing him under the arms.

  Then Goliath stopped.

  “Limpy,” he said. “Let go and that's an order. I can't go into battle with you hanging off my foot. It's not good for your crook leg.”

  Limpy clung on tight.

  “I know how you feel, Goliath,” he said. “But war isn't the answer.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Goliath, glaring over at the picnickers.“Let's see how humans like having their brains poking out of their ears and wee coming out of their noses.”

  Limpy let go of Goliath's foot and grabbed one of his big brawny legs. He knew that beneath Goliath's tough, scowling, mud-streaked exterior, in among the half-chewed swamp rats and car accessories, lay a gentle heart.

  “War will just make things worse,” said Limpy.

  “Sorry, haven't got time to chat,” said Goliath, pulling his leg away. “Got a battle plan to follow. Fourteen hundred hours, attack humans, kick their buckets of chips over, stab them in the shins with sharp bits of pie crust.”

  “The buttocks,” said the grasshopper. “Hurts more.”

  Limpy realized one of Goliath's fists was buzzing.
>
  Goliath opened it. A cluster of dazed bush flies sat on his palm.

  “Aerial attack force, prepare for action,” commanded Goliath.

  The flies looked unhappy.

  “You can't send us over there without artillery support,” said one. “Those humans might have insect spray.”

  “Be quiet!” roared Goliath. “You're in the military now.”

  “Sorry, sir,” muttered the fly.

  “You two,” said Goliath to the grasshopper and the slug. “Form a platoon and prepare to follow me into battle.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the slug. “Does this mean I'm relieved from sauce duty, sir?”

  “Silence in the ranks,” said Goliath. “Stand by to attack.”

  Stack me, thought Limpy. This is worse than I thought.

  He had a horrible vision of Goliath starting a huge war and being crushed by a human tank, or even a human lunchbox. And then Mum and Dad and Charm and cane toads everywhere being wiped out.

  “Goliath,” he said. “Listen. Let's try my way first.”

  Goliath looked at him thoughtfully. “What, you mean jump on the enemy out of trees and stuff swamp slime up their nostrils?”

  “Not exactly,” said Limpy. “I mean try and make friends with them.”

  Goliath's eyes bulged so much that for a moment Limpy thought Goliath was going to explode and spray warts in all directions.

  “Make friends with them?” croaked Goliath. “Are you mad?”

  “Got it in one,” muttered the grasshopper. Goliath snatched up poor flat sunbaked Uncle Ian and waved him under Limpy's nose.

  “You can't make friends with monsters who do this!” yelled Goliath. “All you can do is try and wipe them out, or at the very least force them back to the car parks they came from. And that's what I'm going to do.”

  Limpy tried to stay calm. He loved Goliath very much, but sometimes, he thought, Goliath is like one of those forms of swamp life that are so stupid they don't even know when a lizard is eating their brains.

  Perhaps it's not so bad, Limpy told himself. Perhaps Goliath will come to his senses and realize he's not going to win a war with an attack force of one cane toad and a few insects.

  “Actually,” said the slug to Goliath, “those three humans look pretty tough. I don't think we'll be able to wipe them out on our own.”

  Limpy, relieved, could see that Goliath was thinking the same thing.

  Goliath glared at the slug.

  “Leave the military planning to me, private,” he said. “We won't have to wipe them out on our own, because I've got an army.”

  Limpy's throat sac bulged with alarm.

  “An army?” he croaked. “What army?”

  “I'll show you my army on one condition,” said Goliath. “No blabbing about it to the enemy.”

  Limpy sighed.

  “Goliath,” he said. “Humans won't want to be friends with us if you keep calling them the enemy.”

  But Goliath wasn't listening. He was hopping away down a bush track.

  Limpy struggled to keep up. He wished he had big muscly legs like Goliath. He also wished his crook leg didn't make him hop in circles. But most of all he wished his dopey cousin wasn't putting all cane toads everywhere in serious danger.

  A hopeful thought struck Limpy. Perhaps the army was only in Goliath's imagination, like the self-peeling snails Goliath daydreamed about quite often.

  “Atten-shun!”

  Limpy jumped, startled. Then he realized it was Goliath's voice, booming from the other side of a clump of bushes.

  Perhaps Goliath's just yelling at some grasshoppers he's eaten, thought Limpy even more hopefully. Telling them not to jump around so much in his tummy.

  Limpy scrambled through the bushes and found himself in a small clearing ringed by trees.

  He stared in horror.

  At the edge of the clearing stood Goliath, wavy mud stripes gleaming in the sunlight, holding the biggest sharp stick Limpy had ever seen. Lined up in front of Goliath were quite a few other cane toads, including Mum and Dad and Charm. They were also covered in wavy mud stripes and holding sharp sticks.

  Limpy felt dizzy with panic.

  “Mum,” he croaked. “What are you all doing?”

  Mum and Dad gave Limpy guilty looks, but Charm didn't even look up. She was staring hard at a soft-drink can some distance away on a log. Suddenly she flexed her glands and two little globs of poison pus flew across the clearing and pinged into the can.

  Several of the cane toads applauded. Mum and Dad looked proud.

  Limpy stared, gobsmacked. He'd always assumed the pollution that had stunted Charm's growth had also stopped her poison glands from developing to full power.

  Obviously not.

  Stack me, thought Limpy. My little sister's in the army and she's a crack shot.

  “I said atten-shun!” yelled Goliath.

  The cane toads all stood at attention.

  “Charge!” yelled Goliath.

  The cane toads charged.

  For a sickening heartbeat Limpy thought they were attacking the human picnickers. He hopped forward to fling himself at them. There were too many for him to stop them all, but at least he could grab Mum and Dad and Charm and save them from being stabbed with pie crusts.

  Then Limpy realized the cane toads weren't charging at humans, they were charging around a homemade military training course.

  Charm was wading through a pit full of those fat bog leeches that explode if you tread on them.

  Dad was wriggling on his tummy under low-slung strands of barbed creeper and stinging nettles.

  Mum was trying to clamber up a high wall of car hubcaps with the engine grease still on them. She was almost at the top, but was slipping off, waving her arms wildly.

  Limpy hurled himself forward and managed to give her something soft to land on.

  Him.

  “Sorry, love,” panted Mum as she helped him up and pumped air back into his chest. “I'm not a very good commando.”

  “What are you doing here?” wheezed Limpy.

  Mum looked at the ground. “I thought if we defeated the humans in a war,” she said quietly, “our relatives would stop being squashed on the highway and your room wouldn't get so cluttered.”

  Limpy sighed. Mum was always going on about the dead rellies stacked up in his room. He didn't know why. He kept them tidy and dusted.

  Dad hobbled over, wincing as he pulled creeper barbs out of his shoulders. “I just want a little respect,” he said. “Humans don't have to stop killing us completely, but I just want them to respect us a little more.”

  “I want them to stop killing us completely,” said Charm, scowling through the bits of bog leech splattered on her face. “If they don't, I'll squirt them.”

  Limpy stared at his family. He felt weak with shock—and from the impact of Mum's bottom.

  “I thought it was a real battle,” he said. “I thought you were going to be killed.”

  Mum patted Limpy's hand.

  “Sorry we didn't tell you about all this,” she said.“Goliath reckoned you'd chuck a wobbly if you knew we were doing military training, you being a peace lover and all.”

  “Actually,” said Dad, “I think it's Goliath who's chucking the wobbly.”

  Goliath was storming toward them, waving his stick in fury.

  “This is not good enough!” he roared. “An army without training and discipline isn't an army, it's a pathetic rabble.”

  “Accept it, love,” said Mum to Goliath. “That's what we are.”

  The other cane toads gathered round, nodding.

  Suddenly Limpy didn't feel weak anymore. He pulled himself up to his full height, hoping his crook leg wasn't making him tilt over too much, and looked around at the other cane toads.

  “I know how you feel,” he said. “I want to make things better for us too. But starting a war isn't the answer.”

  “Why?” demanded Goliath. “Are you scared we'd lose?”


  “Partly,” said Limpy. “Humans are bigger than us and they have guns and bombs and many other weapons of mass destruction, including pies. But there's a more important reason. If we start trying to hurt and kill humans, that makes us as bad as them.”

  The other cane toads thought about this. After a while, quite a few of them croaked their agreement.

  Goliath threw his stick away and slumped down into the mud.

  “You always spoil my plans,” he complained to Limpy. “It was the same when I had that great idea about training worms to crawl down our throats and into our tummies while we're asleep.”

  Limpy gave one of Goliath's big warts a sympathetic squeeze. Then he looked around at the other cane toads again. “There's only one way we can survive,” he said. “We've got to find a way to live in peace with humans.”

  He was just about to say “and I think we can do it” when the air was filled with a loud mechanical roar.

  It was coming from some distance away, but getting closer.

  And louder.

  Limpy had a horrible thought. The humans must have found out about Goliath's war plans and were attacking first.

  “Take cover!” he yelled. “Watch out for truck tires and sausage rolls!”

  The cane toads scattered. Limpy grabbed Charm. Goliath grabbed Mum and Dad. They all dived into a bog hole at the edge of the clearing.

  The engine roar was deafening now and the mud under Limpy's chin was vibrating.

  Suddenly trees on the other side of the clearing started to topple. Something huge was pushing them over. Limpy saw it was a bulldozer driven by one of the human picnickers, who was now wearing a yellow plastic helmet. Two other bulldozers roared into view.

  “You mongrels!” yelled Goliath.“Some of my friends live in those trees! And some of my meals!”

  Limpy dragged Goliath back down into the hole. They all huddled together, deafened by the noise of the bulldozers and the crash of falling timber. Limpy could see Mum and Dad and Charm were glad they weren't out there fighting the bulldozers in a battle.

  “Let go of me,” muttered Goliath. “I'm gunna rip their front bits off and use them to make great big dents in their back bits.”