"Yes," said Stoick, holding up a hairy hand. "I have. A Chief has to be big enough to admit it when he is wrong. You are a little weirdo, it is true, but you are a LOYAL little weirdo, and one day when my son is Chief I have a feeling he will need some loyal people about him."
Meanwhile, Toothless, who really couldn't stand all this soppy hugging and apologizing, flapped away to find a nice warm spot by the fire.
"Hiccup," Toothless called out sleepily, when he had found himself a particularly cozy position, "issa anyone else gonna d-d-die innanext f-f-five minutes?"
Hiccup laughed, and he asked Old Wrinkly.
"No," said Old Wrinkly solemnly. "I have examined the fire very carefully, and I can say, absolutely DEFINITELY, that NOBODY is going to die in the next five minutes. However, Gobber the Belch, I'm afraid, will catch Fishlegs's cold, and it's a nasty one."
247
"OK, then," yawned Toothless. "Iffa no one need T-t-toothless, Toothless go back to sleep."
So just when the Inner Isles were waking up from the coldest, longest winter in a hundred years, when the snow was melting, when all the other hunting dragons were opening their eyes underground preparing to burrow upward, and spring was eventually deciding it was time to arrive, just at this moment, Toothless FINALLY relaxed and went back into Hibernation Sleep.
One Eye settled down next to him, snoring like a dinosaur with sinus problems.
Old Wrinkly began to explain to Stoick some of the finer points of soothsaying.
And Hiccup and his good friends Fishlegs and Camicazi wandered outside to spend the rest of the day not doing very much at all -- my favorite kind of day.
As for Gobber the Belch, why Gobber the Belch woke up with a throbbing head and a sore throat and a nose that ran like a great green river.
So it appears that Vikings DO catch colds after all....
[Image: A dragon.]
248
[Image: A man.]
Vikings don't get sick...flu is for softies...plagues are for girlies...
249
[Image: A ship is in the middle of the sea.]
250
EPILOGUE BY HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK THE THIRD, THE LAST OF THE GREAT VIKING HEROES
I guessed, but never knew for sure, what had happened in that strange frozen moment in my childhood, when the Doomfang stole my potato.
But many years later, when I was a tall young man in command of my first ship and we were just returning home from some wild and dangerous adventure, we suddenly realized that we were being followed by something. For days and days it followed us, always staying at the same distance behind the boat. I spent hours up the mast watching the black pinprick on the horizon and trying to work out what it was, whale or shark or dragon monster, friend or foe, with some nagging feeling at the back of my mind that this was something I recognized from somewhere in my past.
It wasn't until we entered the Sullen Sea that the creature came right up close. It was immediately clear from its glossy dark color that it was a Doomfang. It
251
didn't attack us, as I had been secretly dreading, but began to play with the boat, swimming alongside, diving underneath and coming up the other side, getting nearer and nearer with each circle that it made.
This is common enough behavior in dolphins, and even in humpback whales, who are fascinated by boats, and will play like this for hours. But it is hugely unusual in a Doomfang. Doomfangs normally have the same attitude toward humans that we have toward insects: they loftily ignore us.
But this Doomfang was different. Even though it was clearly a fully grown animal, at least five times as long and as big as our ship, it played with us like a child, swimming around and around the boat, until finally the great creature gave a mighty thrash with its tail and soared out of the water, spreading wide its wings. It jumped right over the ship, just clearing the mast.
My Warriors gasped in awe and fear and amazement and wonder, as the great long body blocked out the sun, and I gasped too, for I recognized the animal at last. This was my Doomfang, not slain, not dead, not gone away, but in the very pink of health, and it seemed rather pleased with itself, and with me.
For when it entered the water on the other side,
252
the great Doomfang tucked its legs up neatly and entered the water at exactly the right angle, so that it would not cause a single ripple to rock our little boat. And when the creature swam alongside, so close now that we could reach out and touch its glistening raven black sides, it rolled onto its back and moved its wing almost like it was waving, and its terrible mouth seemed to be grinning at me.
That very same Doomfang has followed my boat ever after, not like a Doom or a Curse, but more like a guardian angel.
I have lost count of the times when I have been out at sea in the most dreadful peril (for we Vikings lead dangerous and exciting lives) and just at the moment when all hope is lost, the Doomfang has appeared.
That Doomfang has steered my boat through the Great Storm that drowned a thousand ships in the Restless West Sea; it has rescued me from shipwreck on Cannibal Isle; it has fought great Monsters that had my ship wrapped around with their squids' tentacles like a cat's cradle.
It has returned the favor I once did it of saving its life in a cold, cold world, a hundred times over.
253
It is following me still, even though I don't need rescuing so much now I am old and slow as a great sea turtle, and my hair is as white as a Semi-Spotted Snow pecker.
You can Cheat a Dragon's Curse.
You do not have to accept the hand that Fate has dealt you.
Look at me, the skinniest, most unlikely Viking ever, now known as this great Hero all around the world. Again and again, I have the same dream. Norbert the Nutjob has thrown the axe high, high into the air, it is turning around and around, and the black side is going to plunge into the ground first.... Bad Luck will follow and the Tribe will be DOOMED. Again and again I make the same leap, I dodge the bright and black murderous blades, I catch the axe before it lands, I make my own luck.
If none of this had happened, the potato would still be stuck frozen on Hysteria, of no use to anybody. Instead of which, I buried the arrow which saved my life in some muddy ground behind my house, and, miracle of miracles! A single seed must have been sticking to the metal!
For some time later, in the springtime, I noticed
254
a strange green plant in that particular spot, and I dug the arrow up again. A new potato, larger than the one I lost, had grown right around the arrow's point. From that new potato, I grew more potatoes, and now there are potatoes growing all over Berk and the whole of the Barbaric Archipelago, and not a SINGLE PERSON or dragon has died a terrible death from Vorpent stings EVER SINCE.
(The potatoes are also rather delicious when they are cooked, either mashed or just plain with a little dollop of melted butter.)
But more important still, if I had never gone on the quest for the Frozen Potato, I would never have saved the life of my good friend Fishlegs, who, although some people thought of him as a little weirdo, was the best and truest friend a Viking ever --
HANG ON A SECOND.
You see how confusing all of this is.
I didn't save the life of my good friend Fishlegs, after all, did I? Because Fishlegs was never ill in the first place.
I saved myself.
[Image: A tree.]
255
What Happens Next?
Will Norbert the Nutjob set out on a Quest to go back to America? And, indeed, does this land they call America really exist, and is the world really a circle that has no end?
And what has happened to Alvin the Treacherous, Hiccup's archenemy, who we rather hoped had been killed when he dropped from a hot-air balloon into a sea boiling with ravenous Shark worms? I can't think how he might have gotten out of that tricky situation ...
But I have a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach that Hiccup hasn't seen the
last of these two mad, wicked, and dangerous villains, both of whom have sworn to kill him ...
Watch out for the next volume of Hiccup's memoirs...
256
[Image: An arrow and a stone.]
257
BOTHER.
[Image: A dragon and a tree.]
244
How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup the Viking) Page 11