Viking in Trouble

by Jeremy Strong

  Jeremy Strong once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into three thousand doughnuts every night. Now he puts the jam in stories instead, which he finds much more exciting. At the age of three, he fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on his head. His mother says that this damaged him for the rest of his life and refuses to take any responsibility. He loves writing stories because he says it is ‘the only time you alone have complete control and can make anything happen’. His ambition is to make you laugh (or at least snuffle). Jeremy Strong lives near Bath with four cats and a flying cow.

  Other books by Jeremy Strong

  THE AIR-RAID SHELTER

  THE DESPERATE ADVENTURES OF

  SIR RUPERT AND ROSIE GUSSET

  DINOSAUR POX

  FANNY WITCH AND THE THUNDER LIZARD

  FANNY WITCH AND THE WICKED WIZARD

  FATBAG: THE DEMON VACUUM CLEANER

  GIANT JIM AND THE HURRICANE

  THE HUNDRED MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  THE INDOOR PIRATES

  THE KARATE PRINCESS

  THE KARATE PRINCESS AND THE

  CUT-THROAT ROBBERS

  THE KARATE PRINCESS TO THE RESCUE

  THE KARATE PRINCESS AND THE

  LAST GRIFFIN

  LIGHTNING LUCY

  MY DAD’S GOT AN ALLIGATOR!

  MY GRANNY’S GREAT ESCAPE

  THERE’S A PHARAOH IN OUR BATH

  THERE’S A VIKING IN MY BED

  VIKING AT SCHOOL

  Jeremy Strong

  Viking in Trouble

  Illustrated by John Levers

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by A & C Black Ltd 1992

  Published in Puffin Books 1995

  17

  Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 1992

  Illustrations copyright © John Levers, 1992

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author (and illustrator) has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192473-1

  This is for ‘Berserkers’ everywhere

  1

  Trouble Ahead

  The Viking Hotel in Flotby was famous throughout Britain – not for its fine cooking or excellent sea-views – but because it had a real Viking living and working there. People came from far and wide to see Sigurd. He was, after all, quite a sight. He had a fiercesome black beard and moustache and somehow managed to draw attention to himself wherever he went. This may have had something to do with the way he waved his huge sword ‘Nosepicker’ about his head.

  Nobody was quite sure how Sigurd came to be in Flotby at the end of the twentieth century, but Siggy had a strange story to tell.

  ‘I from Hedeby in Denmark. I sail with Ulric Blacktooth. Sit on boat long time and get dead bottom. Big war fleet. We come to kill everyone and steal everything. But mist come like cloud of darkness, all spooky-wooky. Boats go in mist, can’t see, like helmet slip down too far. We listen to sea. I sit at front of ship and ship go bang-bang against rocks. I fall off. Splash. Very wet, very cold. I get up. Where boat? Boat gone. I climb up cliff. I come to house. Agh! It’s me! Outside is sign with me – Viking Hotel. I walk in. Here I am. I am Sigurd from Hedeby in Denmark. Good morning and welcome! Hot baths in every room. Very well thank you. The toilets are over there. Goodnight!’

  At this point Sigurd would bow to his audience and there would be much applause. He had told this story many times. After all, he had been living at The Viking Hotel for almost a year now. Poor Mr and Mrs Ellis, the owners of the hotel, had been driven quite mad by him.

  The problem was very simple. Siggy had come straight out of the tenth century and into the twentieth. A lot of things had changed since 900AD, and Siggy was still trying to get used to them. Meanwhile Mr and Mrs Ellis were still trying to get used to him.

  The Ellis’s children, Tim and Zoe, thought that Siggy was marvellous. They enjoyed showing him off to their friends and Zoe had even undertaken the hard task of trying to teach Sigurd some English.

  Then there was Mrs Tibblethwaite, the widower who had first come to the hotel as a guest, but had stayed on – and on – and on. It wasn’t much of a secret that Siggy was madly in love with her, or that Tibby, as she was affectionately known, had a very large soft spot for the daft Viking. It seemed quite obvious that they would get married.

  The decision bit was simple, but after that it got very complicated and very noisy.

  ‘We have Viking weeding!’ announced Sigurd.

  ‘Wedding, not weeding,’ corrected Zoe.

  ‘Ah! Viking wedding!’ shouted Siggy, waving Nosepicker above his head and slicing through the lampshade. There was a loud bang as the hotel electrics fused and everything went dark.

  ‘Who am I?’ bellowed Sigurd, crashing into a near-by table.

  ‘Not “Who am I?”. You say ‘Where am I?”.’

  Mr Ellis heaved a deep sigh and made his way to the fuse box. A few minutes passed and the lights came back on. Siggy was on his feet in an instant, wildly waving his sword. ‘Where did that? Sigurd kill him!’

  ‘There’s no need to kill anyone Sigurd. And you don’t say “Where did that?” You must say “Who did that?”.’

  ‘Who did that?’ Sigurd repeated slowly.

  ‘Who did what?’ asked Mr Ellis, coming back into the room.

  Siggy looked at Mr Ellis, then at Zoe, and tried to puzzle out the new turn in the conversation. It was too much. His eyes narrowed to dark slits. ‘I kill him!’ he hissed.

  ‘Kill who?’ asked Mr Ellis, completely mystified.

  Mrs Tibblethwaite could stand it no longer. She rose majestically to her feet and bellowed at every one. ‘That is quite enough of this gibberish. Perhaps we can get back to making the arrangements for the wedding. We shall have a church wedding, with a vicar and a white dress and a veil.’

  Tim giggled and whispered to his sister. ‘I didn’t think vicars wore white dresses with veils.’

  ‘Sssh! That’s not what Tibby means.’

  Zoe’s reply was almost drowned out by the noise of Sigurd clambering on to a dining table. ‘By Odin!’ he thundered, ‘I say we have a Viking weeding. We kill ten sheep, five cows, eight pigs and forty chickens. We make fire for Thor to bless our weeding. Then you Viking woman.’

  Mrs Tibblethwaite hitched up her skirts and climbed up on the table beside her future husband. ‘Just a moment, Sigurd. We are not going to sacrifice anything. I shall have a white weeding dress – o
h bother you! I mean a white wedding dress, and we will be married in a church by a vicar or we won’t be married at all.’

  ‘Viking weeding!’ bellowed Sigurd, waving Nosepicker alarmingly close to the light again.

  ‘Church!’ screeched Mrs Tibblethwaite, stamping her foot on the table. All of a sudden there was an almighty crash as the table collapsed beneath their weight. Sigurd and Tibby vanished from sight, emerging seconds later as a struggling heap on the ground.

  They clung to each other as they struggled back to their feet.

  ‘All right, you win Siggy,’ laughed Mrs Tibblethwaite. But the Viking bowed low to her.

  ‘We marry in church,’ he said. ‘I am yours forever.’

  Tim turned away in disgust. ‘Yuk!’ he muttered. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  Having finally agreed on the arrangements for the wedding, Sigurd and Mrs Tibblethwaite went to visit the vicar. Everything was going fine until the vicar asked Sigurd what his surname was.

  ‘Surname?’ repeated Sigurd, completely bewildered.

  ‘Yes. My surname is Buttertubs. What is yours?’

  ‘Buttertubs?’

  ‘Ah – so your name is Sigurd Buttertubs. That’s quite unusual for a Viking, I think.’

  Mrs Tibblethwaite butted in. ‘Of course his name isn’t Buttertubs. He doesn’t know what you are talking about. Do you think I’d marry anyone called Sigurd Buttertubs? If he has to have a surname call him ‘Viking’. It’s as good as anything else.’

  And so the marriage of Sigurd and Mrs Tibblethwaite went ahead. Tibby got her wish and arrived in a flowing white wedding gown and veil. Sigurd got his wish too. Halfway through the ceremony he threw a pile of twigs on the church floor, set them on fire and raised both his arms.

  ‘Hear me Thor,’ he thundered. ‘Bless this wedding. Make Mrs Tibblethwaite happy. Make…’

  Sigurd’s touching speech was brought to an abrupt end as the vicar frantically baled water out of the font and over the fire. There was a loud hiss, followed by clouds of smoke and the guests ran coughing from the church and headed straight for The Viking Hotel to begin the celebrations. Mr Ellis opened several bottles of champagne. Siggy seemed to think that the delicate little glasses were just too little to drink out of. He seized a water jug and threw the contents to one side.

  There was a startled squeak. ‘Eeek! I’m soaked! I’m flooded! My new dress!’ cried the vicar’s wife, as she stared open-mouthed at her soaking dress.

  Sigurd was crestfallen. ‘Very sorry, I make you better,’ he said and began to brush down Mrs Buttertubs with his huge hairy hands. At once she started screaming again.

  ‘Eeek! Get off me you brute! Don’t touch me or I shall call the police! Help – police!’

  Mrs Ellis came to her rescue. She guided Sigurd away and went back to help Mrs Buttertubs recover. Meanwhile Sigurd had opened two more bottles of champagne, poured them into the water jug and was sitting in an armchair. He gazed lovingly across the room at his new wife and raised his jug of champagne to her.

  ‘Ears!’ he shouted.

  ‘Ears?’ muttered Mr Ellis. ‘Ears?’

  Zoe giggled quietly. ‘I think he means “cheers” Dad.’ Mr Ellis began to laugh. Soon everyone was going round the room saying ‘Ears!’ to each other and raising their glasses.

  Then some bright spark started saying ‘Legs!’ instead. The laughter got louder and louder.

  The only silent person now was Sigurd, who was completely baffled. Zoe sat down next to him, tears rolling down her cheeks. She tried to explain, but every time she began she was overcome with laughter.

  Nobody saw the small thin man in the dark suit enter the room and glance round suspiciously. He spoke seriously to each guest in turn until at last he came to Mr Ellis.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, in a voice that sounded as if it came from inside a very small tin can. ‘But my name is Mr Thripp. I have been staying at your hotel for the last four days.’

  ‘Jolly good,’ laughed Mr Ellis. ‘Hope you’re enjoying yourself.’

  Mr Thripp pressed closer. ‘Actually, I can’t say that I have. You see Mr Ellis, I work for the Health Department. I have been very concerned to see that the meals in this hotel are being served by one of the filthiest, dirtiest, most disgusting waiters I have ever seen in my life.’

  By this time Mr Ellis was on red alert. ‘Just what do you mean, Mr Thripp?’ he demanded.

  ‘I mean that so-called Viking of yours. He is a public health hazard. He is revolting. I am going to have to report this hotel to the Health Department, which means that unless you do something about him straight away, you will be closed down. Good day, Mr Ellis.’

  The thin man slipped away through the guests like a slug through leaves. Mr Ellis stood quite still, the colour gone from his face and the enjoyment of the last few hours completely forgotten.

  2

  Taxi!

  When Mr Ellis told everyone about the Health Inspector’s visit, they were all understandably upset… especially Sigurd… ‘I not dirty!’ he cried, banging both fists on his chest. Clouds of dust erupted from his furry top and several moths decided it was time to leave.

  Mrs Tibblethwaite sat down, a fierce look in her sharp eyes. ‘It’s no use panicking. We shall have to work something out. What exactly is the problem?’

  Mr Ellis sighed deeply. The problem is that if we don’t find Siggy another job the hotel will be closed down and we shall go bankrupt.’

  Tibby looked surprisingly cheerful. ‘I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. The answer is quite clear. We take my dear husband out of the kitchen and give him something else to do.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Making the beds? Gardening? Cleaning rooms?’ suggested Mrs Tibblethwaite.

  Mr and Mrs Ellis looked at each other thoughtfully. It hadn’t taken long to teach the Viking how to wait at table. Maybe he could be taught how to do something else. Mr Ellis stood up.

  ‘Right then Siggy, how would you like to be a chambermaid?’

  ‘Dad – he can’t be a chambermaid! He’ll have to be a chamberviking!’ giggled Tim. Mr Ellis smiled. Sigurd looked puzzled.

  ‘I want you to clean the bedrooms, Siggy. Understand?’

  ‘I understand. I clean beetroots.’

  ‘Not beetroots – bedrooms. Mr Johnson is leaving Room Nine. I want you to get all the bed linen from his bed and take it to the laundry room, okay?’

  ‘Okey-dokey boss,’ Sigurd replied as he disappeared up the stairs leaving a bewildered Mr Ellis staring after him.

  ‘Where on earth did he learn to say “okey-dokey boss”?’

  Tim turned bright red and hurried off to find something to do, leaving Mr Ellis to draw his own conclusions.

  Upstairs, Siggy had reached Room Nine. He banged on the door and when there was no reply he marched straight in. Mr Johnson was still there, lying under the duvet, fast asleep. Sigurd bent over the unfortunate guest and shouted at him. ‘Hey you! I clean beetroots. I clean today. You get up and go away!’

  Mr Johnson stirred and groaned. ‘What? What’s going on? Look, I’ve got a stinking headache and I don’t have to leave for another hour. Leave me alone. I’m going back to sleep.’

  But the Viking wasn’t having any of this. Mr Ellis had told him to collect the bed linen from Room Nine and that was exactly what he was going to do. Sigurd pulled out Nosepicker and pointed it at Mr Johnson. ‘I clean beetroots!’ he hissed.

  ‘All right, go and clean beetroots if you have to, but leave me alone.’ Mr Johnson sighed and turned over with a large groan.

  Sigurd stared down at the poor guest. He pushed Nosepicker back into its scabbard and gritted his teeth. He reached down and grabbed all four corners of the bottom sheet. With one almighty heave he hoisted all the bedding, duvet and all, on to his shoulders, with Mr Johnson trapped inside and struggling to free himself.

  ‘Hey! What’s going on! Put me down you oaf!’

  ‘I
tidy!’ shouted Siggy, stomping triumphantly downstairs.

  ‘You’re not tidy, you’re filthy!’ came a muffled voice from inside the duvet. ‘Now let me out. Help!’

  Mrs Ellis was the first to hear the cries coming from the back of the hotel and she hurried round to see what was going on. She was greeted by the sight of Sigurd striding into the laundry with a huge sack on his back. It was wriggling and shouting and had arms and legs popping out from all directions.

  ‘Siggy? What is going on?’

  The Viking grinned. ‘I clean beetroot. This Room Nine.’ So saying, he let the bundle fall to the floor.

  ‘Ouch!’ Mr Johnson struggled from the sheets, and after falling down three times because his feet were caught up, finally stood up in front of Siggy, red-faced and fuming. ‘You idiot!’ he yelled. ‘You numbskull! Peabrain! Noodlebonce!’

  Siggy stepped backwards as Mr Johnson marched towards him. ‘I’ve never been in such an hotel!’

  Mrs Ellis hastily tried to calm things down. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Johnson. Sigurd doesn’t quite understand the rules of the hotel yet,’ she said apologetically. ‘Come with me and I shall make sure we give you a big discount on your bill.’ As she took Mr Johnson gently by the arm and led him away she glared back at Sigurd. ‘And you wait there and don’t move!’

  As soon as Mrs Ellis had finished with Mr Johnson she went off to find her husband. There was more serious talking to be done. ‘I just can’t cope with it all Keith. I am not going to spend the rest of my life giving our guests discounts because of that totally dopey Viking.’

  Mr Ellis gave his wife a comforting hug. ‘Don’t worry. I think I’ve come up with a pretty good plan.’ Penny Ellis glanced at her husband. ‘You know how I’ve always complained about fetching and carrying guests to and from the station? Well, I thought I might teach Sigurd how to drive, and then he can do all that for us!’