Cressida Cowell_How to Train Your Dragon_04 (4 page)

Hiccup dragged open the door, and the day outside was still as dark as nighttime and very, very cold, so cold that the air was like an icy bucket of water being thrown in your face.

Toothless flew out, still shrieking, "Right now! Right now!" and squatted down on the snow a meter out of the front door.

"Well done for hanging on, Toothless," said Hiccup, banging his hands together to warm them up. Toothless squatted down, a look of pretend concentration furrowing his horns, but nothing seemed to be happening.

After a while Toothless got up. "Toothless NOT need p-p-pee-pee after all ...," he said decidedly.

Hiccup clapped his mittened hand to his forehead in frustration.

Sometimes being the owner of a dragon was VERY HARD WORK.

There was no point going back to bed now that he'd gotten up, so Hiccup fixed himself breakfast; and while he did this he had plenty of time to think.

Hiccup was worried about Fishlegs. Why had Fishlegs attacked those Hysterics? It was very out of character. Normally Fishlegs would only have to get a
sniff of
something like a Hysteric and he would snowplow as quickly as possible in the opposite direction. OK, maybe all that falling over had set off his Berserk tendencies, but still, it was a bit peculiar ...

And Fishlegs hadn't been looking too well, lately, either. Lots of sneezing and shivering, and
that
couldn't be caused by being a Berserk. It was almost like there was something WRONG WITH HIM ...

An hour or so later, the door was flung open so wildly it nearly fell off its hinges, and Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast, stomped into the room looking for his breakfast, like a six-and-a-half-foot earthquake, yawning so wide you could see his tonsils. Stoick the Vast was exactly what you might expect a Viking to be -- loads of beard and not a lot of neck, masses of muscles but not a lot going on in the BRAIN department.

"Made some porridge, have you, son?" he roared. "Excellent, excellent." Stoick didn't bother putting the porridge into a bowl. He simply removed the cauldron from the fire, sat down at the table, and drank the porridge straight from the pot.

"Father?" said Hiccup.

"Mmm?" said Stoick absentmindedly, as he tipped his great head back and drank the last dregs of porridge, a lot of it running down his beard in a sticky, lumpy river.

"I wonder if you can help me.... I've been worrying about Fishlegs ...," said Hiccup.

Stoick finished the porridge with a great smacking of the lips and threw the cauldron into the fireplace with cheery violence.

"Is Fisheggs your odd little friend with the face like a depressed haddock?" boomed Stoick, grabbing a mackerel off the table and swallowing it, tail and head and eyes and all, in one gulp like a sword swallower swallowing swords.

"That's right," said Hiccup, "and his name isn't Fisheggs, it's
Fishlegs
..."

"Well, there's a coinci-thingamajigy" bellowed Stoick.

"Do you mean coincidence?" asked Hiccup politely.

"Whatever" roared Stoick. "I'VE been worrying about Fisheggs too."

"You have?" asked Hiccup in surprise. It wasn't like Stoick to worry about
anything.

"I have," said Stoick solemnly. ''And I need to talk to you about something VERY SERIOUSLY. Come here, Hiccup."

Hiccup went and stood in front of his father. Chief Stoick put his hands on his son's shoulders and looked into his eyes very seriously. Hiccup tried to look serious too, but it is quite hard to take your father
totally
seriously when he seems to have a beard made entirely out of porridge.

"Son," said Stoick the Vast, "you are the son of a Chief, and the Heir to the Hooligan Tribe. A man is judged by the company he keeps, and I am sorry to have to tell you, but Fisheggs is the weirdest little weirdo I have ever seen.
You
must give him up, Hiccup, give him up ..."

"But, Father," protested Hiccup. "Fishlegs is my
friend."

"SILENCE.'" roared Stoick. And then more gently, "I know it is hard, son, but a Chief is a public figure. We Hooligans need to be FEARED by the other Tribes, so they don't start thinking they can 
sneak along and invade us....Fisheggs is a ... well, let's face it, son, he's a bit ODD. You stand too near Fisheggs, son, and the Meatheads, and the Visithugs, and the Bog-Burglars and the Hysterics will start thinking YOU'RE a bit odd too ... a bit soft, a bit WEAK, and then you're putting the whole Tribe in peril."

"Yes, Father," said Hiccup miserably.

"You need to start working on being TERRIFYING, Hiccup." Stoick patted his son on the shoulder, peering sympathetically at his sad face. This was hard, but it was for Hiccup's own good. "And Fisheggs isn't helping. Give him up, son. Your cousin, Snotlout, now,
there's
a suitable friend for you. Got an air of terrible danger about him. You stand shoulder to shoulder with Snotlout and you'll be feared throughout the Archipelago. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, Father," said Hiccup very sadly.

Stoick the Vast clapped his son heartily on the back. "Good boy," roared Stoick. "I knew you'd see sense. And now, we'd better get ready for the Freya'sday Fete.... We don't want to be late now, do we? Old Wrinkly has given me a tip for the Young 
Heroes Smashsticks-on-Ice Competition.... He's done some soothsaying, and he tells me we Hooligans are going to win ten to two so I've put a bit of a bet on. Run and fetch your stick and skates, quick, boy."

Slowly, Hiccup went and fetched his Smashstick. Sadly, he picked up his ice skates.

"Old Wrinkly isn't very good at looking into the future," he warned his father, but Stoick wasn't listening.

Stoick rarely listened.

[Insert: * soothsaying means Looking into the future]

TOILET TRAINING

You:
Toothless, ta COGLET me wantee ta cack-cack in di greenclaw crapspot...

Toothless, you KNOW I want you to poo in the dragon toilets

Dragon"
O yessee yessee , me coglet
...

Yes, yes, I know

You: (pointing at large poo in the middle of Stoick's bed )
Erg...questa SA?

So what, then, is THIS? PAUSE

Dragon(hopefully):
Ummm...un choclush snik-snak?

Er...a chocolate biscuit?

You:
Snotta chocklush snik-snak, issa CAK-CAK, issa cack-cack di Toothless NA in di greenclaw crapspot, may oopla bang splosh in di middling di sleepy-slab di pappa.

This isn't a chocolate biscuit, it's a POO, it's on of YOUR poos Toothless, and it ISN'T in the dragon toilets, it's right bang splat in the middle of my father's bed.

CELEBRATE THE COMING OF SPRING AT THE

FREYA'SDAY FETE

PROGRAM

OF EVENTS

10:00 Young Heroes Smashsticks-On-Tce competition on the frozen harbor. No rules. No quarter given.

NO survivors. No limits.

11:00 Mud Wrestling. Can Big-Boobied Bertha be the All-In-Snow-Wrestling

Champion for the third year in a row? Will those boobies remain undefeated?

12:00 Have a go at the FROZEN LUCKY DIP We have frozen 500 everyday objects

Into 500 identical lumps of Ice. Can you guess what they are and take something useful home?

5. SMASHSTICKS-ON-ICE

The Freya'sday Fete took place every year on Freya'sday Eve, which was the Viking holiday celebrating the end of winter and the coming of spring.

This year the Fete was being held out in the middle of the frozen sea in Hooligan Harbor. It was strange to think that only six months before the Harbor had been filled with a grey, surly ocean. Now there were red and white striped tents pitched higgledy-piggledy all over the ice. Roaring fires burned high, grilling Semi-Spotted Snowpeckers for the Vikings to munch on as they wandered around stalls selling octopus lollipops, or listened to storytellers telling tall stories, or watched openmouthed as the giants on skates balanced dwarves on their heads.

There was a big area marked out for the Smashsticks-on-Ice Competitions. Smashsticks-on-Ice was a very rough and complicated game played with bats, balls, and ice skates. Nobody was quite sure of the rules, which meant 
that people tended to make them up as they went along, and then anybody who complained would start a fight.

The Young Heroes were supposed to go first, followed later on by the Adult Warriors. They would be playing against another Tribe, the Bog-Burglars, who had been invited over to join in the Celebrations for the day.

The Bog-Burglars were a Tribe of fearsome female Warriors who lived on an island some way to the west. Their Chief, Big-Boobied Bertha, stood nearby, gulping down mugs of beer and scratching her chin stubble.

Her daughter, Camicazi, a very small girl with a swagger and the tangiest hair in the Inner Isles, was practicing swinging her Smashstick.

Camicazi was a friend of Hiccup's, and he wandered over to ask her if she had seen Fishlegs that morning.

"Nope," said Camicazi cheerily. "But I hope you Hooligan boys are feeling lucky. We Bog-Burglars are going to MURDER you weedy little BOYS in the Smashsticks. I bet you Hooligans are hopeless at it -- 
apart from you, of course, Hiccup," she added. Camicazi had a great admiration for Hiccup, ever since he had rescued her from being eaten by Sharkworms in Fort Sinister.

Snotlout happened to be skating past at that 
Big-Boobied Bertha in holiday mood...moment and he nearly fell over, he laughed so much at this. "Hiccup???" jeered Snotlout.
"Hiccup
will get as many goals as he shot Semi-Spotted Snow peckers yesterday.
I
shot more than two hundred. How many did you shoot, again, Hiccup? What was it -- none??"

Hiccup blushed. Camicazi looked very surprised.

"P-P-ARP! The Young Heroes Smashsticks-on-Ice Match is about to begin! Please could both teams make their way to the ice ... ," shouted Gobber the Belch from the center of the ice. Gobber had changed into his shortest shorts to be the referee. The Bog-Burglars (apart from Camicazi, 
of course) were big, rough, mean-looking girls with wild hair, broken noses, and thighs like tree trunks.

Fishlegs staggered onto the ice at the last minute. He looked even more terrible than the last time Hiccup saw him. He was sneezing and shivering hard, and he could hardly stand, and was using his Smashstick to hold himself up. He had put his ice skates on the wrong feet.

Hiccup put up his hand to try and get Gobber's attention. "Sir, I think Fishlegs isn't well," he said.

"NONSENSE!" roared Gobber. "Vikings don't get SICK! Flu is for softies! Colds are for babies! Plagues are for girlies! I'VE never had a day's sickness in all my life, not even a sore throat. I don't want to hear ANOTHER WORD."

Hiccup and Fishlegs skated out onto the ice, Hiccup supporting Fishlegs, who could hardly put one skate in front of the other.

"You ought to be at home," worried Hiccup, "You look awful."

Fishlegs laughed sarcastically. "Didn't you hear Gobber? Vikings don't get SICK.... I'm not ill, I'm just shivering with EXCITEMENT to be out here on this frost bitingly cold day..."

Gobber blew the whistle, threw the puck into the Smashstick Scrum, and all hell broke loose.

Ten boys and girls fell on top of one another in an untidy hairy mess, clonking each other on the head with their wooden sticks. Within two minutes Wartihog, Clueless, Lovethug, and Deadly Doris were lying stretched out on the ice, and Camicazi had somehow broken free of the scrum and was skating toward Hiccup and Fishlegs at breakneck speed. Fishlegs moved in to tackle her, and she pulled his helmet over his eyes so he couldn't see anything, before skillfully shooting the puck between the goalposts. And as the Bog-Burglars merrily cried out,

"G-O-A-L!!"
an extraordinary change came over Fishlegs.

He tore off his helmet and he snorted like a bull about to charge.

"Uh-oh," said Hiccup. He had seen that look somewhere before. "Now hang on a second, Fishlegs, don't do anything rash ..."

"FOUL!" bellowed Fishlegs.

Fishlegs skated toward the gigantic figure of the referee, Gobber the Belch, like a crab slipping on soap.

"GOBBER, YOU BIG, STUPID, BARBARIAN BABOON, ARE YOU
BLIND?
SHE FOULED ME!"

Gobber started, as surprised as if a small pink prawn on a plate had suddenly leapt up and bit him.

"WHAT did you say, Fishlegs????" roared Gobber in astonishment.

"SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR EARS AS WELL AS YOUR EYES?" screamed Fishlegs. "I'VE MET
SHEEP
MORE INTELLIGENT THAN YOU ARE! I'VE MET
JELLYFISH
WHO COULD OUTPLAY YOU IN A GAME OF CHESS!"

Gobber swelled up like a balloon about to explode.

"I'LL DEAL WITH THIS, BELCH!" yelled Stoick the Vast, skating ponderously over to this extraordinary scene.

Stoick the Vast looked down at Fishlegs from the giant height of six and half feet. "YOUNG MAN," he roared, 
"YOUR CHIEFTAIN IS SPEAKING TO YOU, THIS IS A SPECIAL OCCASION...THERE ARE BOG-BURGLARS

PRESENT," Stoick pointed to the Bog-Burglars, who were killing themselves laughing.

Fishlegs was silent for a second, looking up at his Chieftain. And then...

"FATTY!" shrieked Fishlegs.

Stoick the Vast started.

"LARDY-BUM!" shouted Fishlegs. "WHO'S

BEEN HAVING TOO MANY SECOND HELPINGS, CHIEF GREEDIGUTS OF THE JELLY-BELLIES??"

Stoick the Vast turned as red as a lobster.

"HOW
DARE
YOU TALK TO YOUR CHIEF IN THIS RUDE AND IMPERTINENT MANNER?"

Fishlegs opened his mouth to scream some more insults, but Hiccup interrupted.

"He's not well, Father," whispered Hiccup urgently. "I think his Berserk thingy has gone wrong....
Please,
Father ... I'll take him home, he's not well..."

"Take him home, then," growled Stoick to Hiccup. "But I'm warning you, son, that boy isn't fit to be a Hooligan, let alone a friend to the son of the Chief."