Hiccup knew that if he skied down the gorge, he would never make it. The Hysterics were so close behind him now they would shoot him or catch him before he reached the bottom.
He had to make a split-second decision.
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Instead of heading toward the gorge, he set his teeth grimly and pointed his skis to the right, down the slope that led directly to the clifftop.
[Image: A man.]
"What are you d-d-doing?" shrieked Toothless. "This w-w-way Issa two-hundred-meter cliff! You going to d-d-die!!"
Behind him, the Hysterics burst out of the woods. When they saw where Hiccup was going, they didn't even bother to start shooting. They just swooped after him, shouting out jeeringly:
"Where do you think you're going, Hooligan
SCUM?"
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"Say hello to Valhalla for me, because that's where you'll end up!"
They could see the edge of the cliff now, where the snow ended, and it was just an endless drop into nothingness.
"Stop!" shrieked Toothless. "S-s-stop!!"
"Why?" asked Hiccup. "I haven't got any choice you think those Hysteries are going to give me a big warm hug and let me go?"
"N-n-no!" screamed Toothless." But you can't ski off a c-c-cliff! Issa long way D-D-DOWN!"
"That's why I need your help, One Eye," said Hiccup to the great Saber-Toothed Dragon, who was bounding alongside.
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"And what makes you think," sneered One Eye, " that I WANT to help you? I hate Humans. One less of you little pink slave drivers isn't going to trouble ME." "That's true," said Hiccup, "but if I die, the next Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe will be ..."
Hiccup had run out of slope. He launched himself off the cliff, throwing his weight forward, skis wide apart. One Eye followed, unfolding his great wings.
"Will be who?" said One Eye urgently. "Will be who?" For one moment Hiccup soared up into that glorious infinity of blue sky like a bird.
[Image: A man.]
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And then he plunged DOWN.
[Insert: SNOTFACE.]
yelled Hiccup as he fell Hiccup screamed toward the ice at a hundred and fifty miles per hour.
Gobber the Belch, watching from below as the precious son of his Boss was about to fall to his death, screamed as well.
In three seconds Hiccup would smash into the ground and that would be the end of him.
After one second Hiccup was pretty sure One Eye would save him. After two seconds he wasn't so sure.
[Image: A dragon.]
And in fact the great Saber-Toothed Driver Dragon was only just in time. For vital milliseconds his hatred of humans held him back ...
But then he folded back his wings and dived after Hiccup.
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A Saber-Tooth can dive more swiftly and beautifully than a peregrine falcon. One Eye caught Hiccup around the waist with his great talons in the nick of time, and then swept upward, wings stretched out like a great white kite. Hiccup gave a whoop of joy.
Down below, the watching boys cheered, and started the Hooligan Hurrah. Gobber practically fainted, such was his relief.
"Snotface Snotlout," said One Eye, as he spread his wing wide. "Is he the tall red-headed by with a face like a pig?"
"That's the one," crowed Hiccup happily.
"Then you're right," replied One Eye, soaring even higher "perhaps you are on Human worth saving..."
Up on the clifftops, the Big Brute of a Hysteric with the Axe was so angry he snapped his ski poles like twigs. His furious voice floated up to them: "YOU'RE WOT SAFE YET! YOU'RE NOT SAFE EVER!" screamed the Big Brute, completely beside himself. "WHEREVER YOU GO I SHALL FIND YOU!
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I SHALL FOLLOW YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, IN THE GOD-LIKE HEIGHTS OF THE SKY! I PROMISE YOU, YOU HOOLIGAN COCKROACH, THAT YOU WILL REGRET THE DAY YOU SHOT AN ARROW IN THE BOTTOM OF NORBERT THE NUT JOB!!" And then the sound became too faint for them to hear any more.
"Remind me" Hiccup said to Toothless as they flew along, "not to come back to Hysteria anytime in the next twenty year ..."
"E-e-ever," replied Toothless passionately. "Not come back EVER."
Saber-Toothed Drivers are so bulky and muscular, they can only fly short distances, so One Eye dropped right down and placed Hiccup in the sleigh of a very relieved Gobber the Belch. Gobber took one look at the Hysterics on "the clifftops, shaking their fists and howling the Hysterical Howl, and judged it might not be a good idea to stick around. He loaded Fishlegs and the other boys back onto the sleigh and, cheering and singing, they followed the flying Saber-Tooth all the way back to the little Isle of Berk.
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I am the Venomous Vorpent, Deadlier than an a spooked in arsenic, More toxic than toadstool flavored tarantula. Are you enough-y and cold-y and snotty and sneezy?
Are you mad? Are you sad? Do you feel queasy? is your skin so hot it is starting to smoke? is your throat so stiff it is making you choke?
If you fall down DEAD, perhaps you too
Have been stung by the VENOMOUS VORPENT.
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[Image: Norbert the Nutjob finding Hiccup in his dreams*.]]
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4. IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH FISHLEGS?
Hiccup did not sleep well that night. Every time he dropped off, Norbert the Nutjob found him in his dreams, screaming, "I will GRIND YOU INTO SAND!
I WILL CHOP YOU WITH MY CHOPPER!" and Hiccup would wake up again, burningly hot and sweaty.
The following day, Toothless woke up in a furious temper because he still wasn't back in Hibernation Sleep. He'd done everything he should have done the night before. He'd gotten lots of exercise, drunk a milky drink at bedtime; all for nothing. On the dot of five o'clock the next morning, his greengage eyes opened up, SNAP, like a scallop opening its shell, and that was it for the day, no more sleeping.
And that was it for Hiccup too.
Toothless crawled up from his place at Hiccup's feet, like a small, enraged hot-water bottle. He stormed up Hiccup's body, digging his sharp little claws into Hiccup's tummy as he went, up to Hiccup's forehead, where he sat and hissed furiously.
"Toothless a-a-awake AGAIN...'Snot fair...
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'Snot fair .... WHY Toothless awake? Everyone else asleep..."
It is not much fun being woken up at five o'clock in the morning by a dragon sitting on your head and hissing angry smoke rings straight up your nostrils.
"Well I'M awake now too," grumbled Hiccup, coughing sleepily. "Could you blow those smoke ring somewhere else; I've already got a sore throat..."
"Oh you," fumed Toothless, blowing out great clouds of furious smoke. "You're j-j-just a H-h-human, you don't count...Us d-d-dragons s-s-sensitive....we n-n-need our sleep."
our sleep."
"Thank you, Toothless," said Hiccup through a huge bout of coughing, "but we don't have to get up now, you know, we can just doze for a bit..."
Hiccup turned over onto his other side and snuggled the furs more cozily around his shoulders, so he could snooze for a bit longer.
But once Toothless was awake he was AWAKE.
[Image: A man and a dragon.]
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The little dragon made a half-hearted pretense of snuggling down next to his Master, and then he bounced up again.
"Toothless get UP now...," he said, flapping around Hiccup's head, tweaking his hair and blowing raspberries in his ears. "Issa l-l-lovely morning...come on...come on ... Toothless h-h-hungry... Hiccup make Toothless b-b-breakfast...."
And when that didn't work, Toothless stood on Hiccup's shoulder, held his earlobe tenderly with one claw, and shrieked right down his ear hole, "MAYDAY MAYDAY! Toothless need to make p-p-pee-pee RIGHT NOW!"
Hiccup sat bolt upright like he'd been shot with an arrow. "Oh jumping jellyfish, not right now, Toothless, not on the bed again...Hang on there, Toothless, just hang on..."
Hiccup jumped out of the bed in one hop, onto the
freezing cold stone floor, and threw on four layers of furs, with Toothless flapping around his head squawking, "RIGHT NOW, RIGHT SOW, Toothless need pee-pee RIGHT NOW."
"Just hang on!" begged Hiccup. He had to take his mittens off to undo the big bolts on the front door,
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Toothless shrieking, "Right now! Right now! Right now!"
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
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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.
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"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."
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"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
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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
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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]
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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.
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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?
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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.
[Image: A sign.]
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
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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 --
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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.
How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup the Viking) Page 3