Toad Type Thing (Part One)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“Twannocks!” Toad Type Thing groaned when he got up one Saturday morning and discovered what the Pixie Type Things had done to his lovely garden. “I'll get you for this, you midgety, stumpy-legged, pointy-hatted turd-eating tarts!” He was wasting his breath, though, because the little monsters were long gone. They had uprooted or trampled most of his flowers, including the prize chrysanthemums he had been hoping to enter into the village agricultural show that weekend, the Michaelmas daisies that his father had given him a few summers back before he passed away and his favourite flowers of all, which were the Peonies that grew in a huge clump under the window. They had also beheaded his Margaret Thatcher Gnome, but he wasn't too bothered about that because the very sight of the damned thing made his skin crawl. The Thatcher Gnome was a present from an elderly neighbour whose brain was slightly addled, so he felt obliged to give it a place in the shadiest part of the garden along with a Bruce Forsyth Gnome and a particularly nauseating pair of Ant and Deck Gnomes that he also disliked intensely.

“Coo-ee!” a familiar voice called from the back gate. “It's me, Toad, MBLTT. I've got some ice-cold home-made lemonade that Mrs. Mad Bastard Llama Type Thing made this morning, and I wondered if you'd like to share some in return for a couple of your famous strawberry and walnut scones that you make every Tuesday – I'm in a sitting in the sun and idly stuffing my face sort of a mood.”

“Let yourself in, MBLTT, the gate isn't bolted because Baskerville, my huge, ravenous German Shepherd Grizzly Bear Hybrid Type Thing is fast asleep in his basket in the house. I'm afraid I'm a bit pissed off because the sodding Pixies have been wrecking my garden again.”

“Oh dear! I reckon it's about time you started taking evasive action, Toad.”

“What sort of evasive action?”

“For a start you could set up a simple electric fence. It's easy, all you need is a car battery and lots of steel or copper wire – I'll help you to frazzle the nauseating little shits. We could make some miniature land-mines and blow them to bits, lay a few bear traps to chop their stupid feet off and build a siege catapult or an enormous flame-thrower. Or even better, lie in the shrubbery with shotguns and daggers and open razors and frigging cheese wires. Waaah!”

“Steady on, Llama, you're getting unreasonably angry, and if you don't calm down your kapok stuffed brain will explode again and I'll have to spend an hour or so sewing your ruined head back together like I did when that wanker Cameron declared that he was going to introduce the bedroom tax to rob the poorest elements of society, the malicious Dick Turpin lookalike.

Let's get one thing clear - I don't want to slaughter the Pixie Type Things, I just want the little blighters to stop vandalising my bloody garden. Besides, if I start setting up booby-traps sooner or later some innocent critter will get hurt, the squeaky, kissy-faced baby bunnies, the lovely sleepy dormice, the cute-whiskered squirrels that amuse me with their delightfully acrobatic peanut and sunflower seed gathering antics or the sweet little dicky birds that sing so beautifully - or even the poor pensioners and McDonalds employees that my missus feeds at the bottom of the garden. Or maybe I'll forget where I've planted the traps and Mrs. Toad Type Thing, myself or our precious tadpoles and toadlings will get injured..... I think I'm going to ask for a meeting with the King of the Pixie Type Things to find out why his subjects are targeting my garden.”

“No! Kill the sick fucks, I demand it!” Mad Bastard Llama Type Thing growled, his teeth gnashing and a long string of bloody spittle emerging from his lips because he had bitten through his tongue in the midst of his uncontrollable fury. “Kill, maim, burn, slaughter, disembowel! Poke their beady eyes out with a toasting fork, dip them in sulphuric acid, turn them out of their council burrows and make them live in the gutter with Kerry Katona. Aaaaargh!”

“Oh dear. Mrs. Toad, love, would you mind bringing my sewing kit out and making us some tea? I'm afraid Llama has blown a gasket again.”

*************************

“You're the King of the Pixie Type Things?” Toad said the next morning to the scruffy three foot tall individual that knocked on his front door and handed him a bunch of violets, which he guessed was a goodwill gesture.

“Yessir, yessir I am. Whaddaya want of der King? I'm a busy Pixie Type Thing, a very busy Pixie Type Thing indeed, a very very -”

“I'm afraid I need to make a complaint,” Toad said. “Certain Pixie Type Things have been wrecking my garden over the last few weeks - I don't like it and I want it to stop. And I want to know why my garden is being targeted and not anybody else's in the neighbourhood. My friend Mad Bastard Llama Type Thing would have lain in wait and torn the vandals to pieces if he had his way, but I wouldn't allow it because I'm against violence unless there's absolutely no other choice. His kapok stuffed brain exploded during a fit of rage, and we we had to cart him off to the Funny Farm at Hog's End because he was quite loopy – he kept rabbiting on about the Lupin Folk that were coming to get him and muttering something about an Intrinsically Dangerous Interplanetary Harpsichord.”

“Mr. Toad, it's interestin' you should say that, because I've 'ad several complaints over the last few weeks. I've been keepin' a close eye on my band of Pixie Type Things an' I'm pretty sure they're not responsible for any of the 'einous crimes they've been accused of. They ain't angels, don't get me wrong, an' they can be a trifle mischievous, but they 'ave 'earts of gold if you treat 'em right. Rumour 'as it that a ginormous yellow and pink polka dotted flying teapot landed deep in the woods a while back an' a bunch of Lupin People from the dark side of the moon or France or somewhere 'ave been commitin' atrocities disguised as Pixie Type Things, an' they 'ave in their possession an Intrinsically Dangerous Interplanetary 'Arpsichord. This very afternoon I'm leadin' an army of Pixie Type Things to 'unt the bastards down and send 'em packin', and we need to destroy their infernal 'arpsichord ASAP – you're welcome to join us if you ave time, we could do with an extra pair of 'ands.”

“Sounds good to me,” Toad said, vigorously shaking the King of the Pixie Type Things' tiny but surprisingly powerful hand.