Vulgar the Viking and the Rock Cake Raiders

by Odin Redbeard

  “Please fall over, please fall over, please fall over,” whispered Vulgar. But today wasn’t his lucky day. Ivar stumbled, but it didn’t look like he was going to fall.

  At least, he wasn’t going to fall until a flea-bitten bundle of fur appeared behind him and flopped down at his feet. As Ivar staggered back, his heels bumped into the furry lump. His arms flailed around wildly for a few seconds before he toppled backwards like a falling tree, and hit the ground with a thud.

  “Good boy, Grunt!” cried Vulgar, as the furry bundle stood up. Grunt gave a very brief wag of his tail, then picked up the rock cake Vulgar had thrown at the baker. He held the cake in his jaws and looked up at his master.

  “It’s all yours,” Vulgar told him, and the dog swallowed the cake in two gulps. “You earned it!”

  “Get back here,” roared Ivar, as Vulgar hopped over him and ran, as fast as he could, back to the barrel-boat. Grunt raced along behind, and in no time they reached Freya. She was still on the shore, surrounded by concerned adults, who were trying to find out why she had been screaming.

  Vulgar pushed through the crowd and grabbed the princess by the arm.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Unhand me!”

  “We have to go,” said Vulgar.

  “You can’t tell me what to do—” began Freya, before an angry shout cut her off.

  “Thieves! Looters! Plunderers!” cried Ivar, as he stomped towards them, swinging his rolling pin like a club. “I’ll roll you in flour and fry up the lot of you!”

  Freya swallowed nervously. “We have to go,” she muttered.

  “Yeah,” agreed Vulgar, dragging Freya towards the shore. “That’s what I said.”

  The crowd began to mutter as Ivar drew closer. “Stop ’em!” he barked. “They’re dirty no-good cake-nappers!”

  “Cake-nappers?” cried someone in the crowd who was particularly fond of Ivar’s cakes. “How dare they? Get them!”

  Vulgar and Freya bounded down the embankment then splashed through the water, racing for the barrel. There was no sign of Knut anywhere.

  “Knut?” cried Vulgar. “Knut, where are you?”

  There was a loud snore from within the barrel, then a wonky horned helmet appeared above the rim. “Wha—?” muttered Knut. “What’s the matter?” He spotted the crowd of angry villagers, who were now plunging into the water right behind Vulgar and Freya. “Ooh, heck,” gulped Knut.

  “Start rowing, start rowing!” shrieked Vulgar, as he and Freya scrabbled into the barrel.

  As they clambered inside, something wet and heavy leapt on to Freya’s back. The princess screamed and turned around. “Keep that mutt under control,” she snapped, as Grunt dropped down inside the barrel and curled up on the floor.

  “He is under control,” said Vulgar, with a grin. “I told him to do that.”

  “They’re coming!” warned Knut. He wasn’t kidding. The edge of the pond had been churned into a foam by the crowd of angry villagers as they gave chase. Ivar was right at the front, hurling abuse and brandishing his rolling pin in a very threatening way.

  “Well, start rowing then,” barked Freya. Knut hesitated for a second, then began madly digging at the water with the oar.

  Slowly, and with a lot of unnecessary splashing, the barrel-boat began to pull away from the crowd.

  “Thrud’s buttocks,” said Vulgar. “That was close!”

  “Well?” snapped Freya. Vulgar and Knut looked at her, blankly. Down below, Grunt chuffed noisily in his sleep.

  “Well what?”

  “Did you get them?” asked Freya, sighing.

  A wide grin spread across Vulgar’s face. He rummaged under his tunic and pulled out four rock cakes. “Of course I got them.”

  “All thanks to me,” said Freya.

  “What? You didn’t do anything!” argued Vulgar. “I did all the hard work.”

  “If it weren’t for me, you’d never have got near them,” replied Freya.

  “Yeah, well, who’s the one holding the cakes?” asked Vulgar, waving the cakes in front of her face.

  “I am,” snapped Freya, snatching two of the cakes away from him.

  “Hey, give them back!” cried Vulgar. He tried to take the cakes back, but Freya poked him sharply in the eye.

  “No, they’re mine,” she said, before adding, “Ow!” when Vulgar pulled one of her braids. “You want the cakes?” she shouted. “Have them!”

  There was a clank as a cake bounced off Vulgar’s helmet. It dropped down into the barrel, and was swallowed almost immediately by Grunt.

  “No, you have them,” said Vulgar, hurling one of his cakes at the princess.

  She ducked and the cake landed with a plop in the water.

  “Hey, stop it,” said Knut. “You’re going to tip us over.”

  But Vulgar and Freya were too busy fighting to hear what Knut said. Freya kicked Vulgar’s shins just as he tried to ram one of the cakes up her delicate royal nose.

  The barrel gave a sudden lurch to the side, and dirty pond water spilled inside it. It was up to their knees before Vulgar and Freya noticed what was happening.

  “Oh, great,” muttered Freya.

  “Aegir’s toenails, we’re going under!” cried Vulgar as the barrel-boat sank, dragging all four of them down with it.

  Viking children were not taught many things, but they were taught how to swim. Vulgar, Freya and Knut front-crawled their way through the murky pond water, with Grunt doggy-paddling along behind.

  Vulgar had dropped the cakes he was holding, and with every kick he made he could feel another one falling out through the leg of his seal-skin shorts.

  Ordinary cakes, being light and spongy, may have floated. But not Ivar’s rock cakes. They sank to the bottom of the pond, and then, quite probably, sank through the bottom of the pond, before coming to a rest somewhere near the Earth’s core.

  The children and Grunt were shivering with cold and covered from head to toe in slimy green pond scum when they eventually crawled up on to the shore. Several pairs of feet were there to meet them.

  The children looked up into the angry faces of a group of villagers. Right at the front stood Ivar, the baker. His eyes blazed as he growled, “Gotcha.”

  Vulgar looked back at the opposite shore, from where they had just made their daring escape. “But … but how?” he gasped. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “It’s a pond, not the North Sea,” Ivar told him. “We just walked around it.”

  “What’s going on here?” demanded an angry voice. King Olaf pushed through the crowd, with Harrumf hobbling along behind him.

  “’Is Majesticalness wants to know wot’s going on ’ere,” said Harrumf. “I suggests someone tells him, right flippin’ now.”

  “Yes, thank you, Harrumf,” sighed King Olaf. He stopped right at the front of the crowd, spotted his slime-covered daughter, and almost passed out from the shock. “Freya?” he wheezed. “What’s going on?”

  “He made me do it,” said Freya, pointing an accusing finger at Vulgar. “He kidnapped me and made him help him.”

  “You little liar!” protested Vulgar. “I didn’t even want you to come, but you said I’d go to the dungeon if I didn’t let you.”

  “They were robbing my shop,” said Ivar.

  “No we weren’t,” protested Vulgar. “We were pillaging it. There’s a big difference.”

  The next voice that Vulgar heard chilled him to the bone. “You. Did. WHAT?”

  Vulgar looked up to find his mum glaring down at him. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth was fixed in a snarl, and if he looked closely enough, he was sure he could see steam coming from her ears. He had never seen her so angry.

  “Hi, Mum,” he whimpered, just as a carved wooden face floated on to the shore beside him. “Um, I made you this, look. It’s a carving of you.”

  “He said it would scare sea monsters away,” added Freya. She stuck her tongue out at Vulgar as he shot her a dirty look.

&nb
sp; “Oh, he did, did he?” growled Vulgar’s mum. One of her huge hands clamped down around her son’s arm. With a sudden jerk she hoisted him up into the air. “We’ll talk about this at home,” she said.

  “Ha,” said Freya. “Serves you right!”

  “Not so fast, young lady,” said King Olaf. He clapped his hands. “Harrumf,” he cried, before realising that Harrumf was standing directly behind him. “Oh, there you are,” he said. “Get the princess scrubbed up, then take her to the royal kitchens. I believe she owes Ivar here a new batch of rock cakes.”

  Vulgar saw Knut edging away from the crowd but unfortunately so did Harrumf.

  “Oi, where do you think you’re going?” said Harrumf, grabbing Knut by the ear. “You ain’t done basket-weaving yet.”

  Vulgar yelped as his mum slung him over her broad shoulder. He heard Freya and Knut complaining as Helga marched back to their hut. Vulgar wondered what fate awaited him.

  Would his mum launch him from a catapult? Tie him to a whale?

  Make him help his dad clean the village toilets?

  In the end, his punishment turned out to be something worse. Much worse.

  “A bath?” he wailed. “You can’t be serious! I’ve already been wet today!”

  “Flapping around in mud and pond scum doesn’t count,” his mum told him. She dumped him down next to the basin in the kitchen. As far as Vulgar could see, the water in it was even dirtier than the water in the pond.

  “Now, strip off while I go and find that dog of yours,” said Helga. “And don’t forget to scrub behind your ears. I’ll be checking when I get back.”

  The door to the hut slammed closed. Vulgar thought about making a run for it, but he knew that would only make things worse. He had to take his punishment, like a real Viking would.

  He sighed sadly as he began to peel off his wet clothes. He wasn’t a proper Viking, though. He had gone off, looting and pillaging, and he had come back empty-handed. Real Vikings never came back empty-handed. They always brought back at least—

  There was a thud as something heavy rolled out from inside his shorts. Vulgar looked down at the scum-coated lump on the floor, and began to smile.

  One cake. Just one. It was soggy and slimy, but it was there. He had done it. He had sailed to foreign shores, pillaged their supplies, and returned home, all in the space of an afternoon.

  Vulgar slipped into the murky water, took a bite of the rock cake, and sighed happily. Maybe he would be a proper Viking, after all.

  Copyright

  With special thanks to Barry Hutchinson

  First published in the UK in 2012 by Nosy Crow Ltd

  The Crow’s Nest, 10a Lant Street

  London, SE1 1QR, UK

  This ebook edition first published 2012

  Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and / or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd

  Text copyright © Hothouse Fiction, 2012

  Illustrations copyright © Sarah Horne, 2012

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblence to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978 0 85763 057 5

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