‘Fate herself shall decide your Fate,’ said Norbert
the Nutjob. ‘I shall throw my axe high into the air…
and if it lands with the golden side burying itself into the
wood, I shall allow you to live. But if it lands on the dark
side,’ Norbert the Nutjob stroked the dark side lovingly,
‘if it lands on the dark side, I shall kill you with this very
axe, on the spot. I hope you’re feeling lucky…’
Norbert stepped back dramatically. He gazed up
at the heavens…
‘COME, GREAT POWERS OF FATE AND
DESTINY,’ yelled Norbert the Nutjob. ‘I SWEAR
TO DO AS YOU TELL ME. LIFE OR DEATH?’
The axe soared towards the ceiling, spinning
slowly through the air. It began to fall, first the bright
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side down, then the dark.
Hiccup was not as tough as the other boys, but
his eyesight was very good. He could see the axe was
going to land dark side down, and he leapt in between
the dark and bright blades, and caught the axe with
its wooden handle just before the dark side landed in
the wood.
The Hysterics gasped.
High up on a beam in the ceiling, Camicazi
gasped too.
Hiccup heaved the axe above his head and drove
the bright blade deep into the tree trunk.
‘BRIGHT SIDE WINS, NORBERT THE
NUTJOB,’ shouted Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the
Third, his hands on his hips.
Nobody knew quite what to do.
Norbert the Nutjob’s mouth opened and shut
like a fish out of water.
‘You CHEATED!’ screamed Norbert the Nutjob.
‘Fate must have let me cheat,’ Hiccup pointed
out. ‘Now set me free like you promised.’
Norbert looked as if he was about to explode. He
was used to terrified adults who cowered down before
him and his terrible Axe of Fate.
He WASN’T used to bossy small boys who told
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him to defrost his Precious Potato, and bury his Papa,
and caught his Axe before it landed.
But what if Hiccup was right, and Fate had really
meant to LET Hiccup cheat?
Norbert did not dare annoy FATE herself.
‘SEIZE HIM!’ screamed Norbert. ‘He can live,
but he can live out his days in prison! That will teach him
to shoot arrows at NORBERT THE NUTJOB!’
Four or five burly Hysterics grabbed Hiccup and
dragged him to a small cage suspended by a single chain
from a beam in the rafters above. They pushed him in
and locked the cage, returning the key to Norbert, who
put it in his pocket.
And then the Hysterics forgot about Hiccup, and
partied long, long into the night, laughing and singing
and eating and drinking too much.
Hiccup sat silently in the small cage, trying to
think of a Cunning Plan to get out of this situation.
It didn’t look too good.
Even if he could escape from the locked cage,
steal the potato and get away without a single Hysteric
noticing, he could hear some ominous creaking noises
coming from the ice outside… Loud crackings and
knockings, like the striking of an enormous sword upon
a stone.
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The ice was beginning to melt, and once the
Doomfang was free again there would be no way out of
Hysteria…
As the long night wore on, one by one the
Hysterics fell asleep in their chairs or on the floor, or, in
the case of one fat Warrior, on top of the table hugging
the remains of the roasted boar. Norbert the Nutjob
slumbered on his throne, his thumb in his mouth,
cradling his double-headed axe. High up in the ceiling
of the Great Hall Camicazi was sleeping, clinging to her
beam like a little black cat. Time ticked on, and Hiccup
struggled to keep awake, but eventually the gentle
rocking of the cage, and the cloudy heat and fumes of
alcohol in the room overpowered him, and he,
too, nodded off.
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SQUEALERS
Squealers are strange
blobby, slug-like creatures
who are so lazy they have
developed an interesting
method of stunning their prey with a single
shriek. A pack of Squealers can strip their
victim to the bone quicker than a shoal of
piranha fish.
~STATISTICS~
COLOURS: Slug black.
ARMED WITH: Scream so loud it can
knock a smaller dragon unconscious.
Piranha-like jaws and fangs.
FEAR FACTOR: ......3
ATTACK: ........3
SPEED: .............1
SIZE: ...................2
DISOBEDIENCE: .......5
12. WILL TOOTHLESS SAVE
THE DAY?
Meanwhile, up on the roof, Toothless and One Eye had
flapped off and hidden in The American Dream when
they heard the noise of Hiccup falling into the Onion
Soup, and the Hysteric Warriors charging outside to look
for other Assassins.
When things grew quiet again, they flew back to
the chimney. Both dragons were cold, hungry and tired.
One Eye’s eye gleamed golden-yellow in the darkness.
‘Shall we leave them?’ One Eye mused to
himself. ‘It looks like they haven’t found the cure for
Vorpentitis after all… and I’m not hanging round
here just to save the skin of a couple of stinking
Humans…’
‘S-s-selfish Humans!’ grumbled Toothless.
‘They n-n-never think of poor, cold H-H-H-
HUNGRY Toothless!’
One Eye snorted. ‘Well, I don’t blame them
for that. You’re just a lap-dragon, an overgrown rat.
And YOU shouldn’t be hungry anyway. Who ate
all the snacks in the sleigh on the way here I’d like
to know?
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‘… I’ll give them till morning,’ One Eye
decided, letting the rope attached to his leg flop down
the chimney and into the Great Hall again, and settling
himself in the snow to sleep on the roof. ‘My aunt
Snaggletooth died of Vorpentitis, and it’s a nasty
way to go.’
‘Toothless not s-s-sleeping here!’ moaned
Toothless, outraged. ‘Iss too cold! Toothless D-D-
DELICATE, sensitive…’ He checked whether the big
dragon was really asleep. One Eye gave a deep rumbling
snore and Toothless carried on, ‘… not like YOU, you
big, white, gormless mountain gorilla…’
One Eye’s one eye snapped open, and his big
Sabre-Tooth jaws lashed out towards Toothless… but
they shut on thin air, for Toothless had the reflexes
of a bluebottle, and he had already tumbled down
through the hole in the roof. Toothless soared into the
Great Hall, over the heads of the sleeping, mumbling
Hysterics, and landed on top of Hiccup’s cage. The cage
swung violently to the right, and Hiccup’s head banged
sharply on one of the bars, waking him up.
‘Ow!’ protested Hiccup, looking straight into the
upside-down g
reengage eyes of his pet dragon.
‘Toothless!’ he whispered joyfully. ‘Thank Thor
you’re here, you see how right I was to bring you –
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you can save the day!’
‘HA!’ grunted Toothless crossly.
‘Just flap over to that big frozen Viking over
there, will you, and nick the potato, and then we’ll be
off…’ whispered Hiccup.
Toothless looked where Hiccup was pointing, to
Norbert’s Papa, Bigjob, and the casket, and gave a shriek
of terror.
‘S-s-squealers!’ he gasped, and jumped into the
cage, burying his face in Hiccup’s leg.
‘Oh, goodness, yes, I’d forgotten. Squealers can
kill a dragon as small as you, can’t they?’ remembered
Hiccup, soothing the little dragon by stroking him on the
back. ‘OK, DON’T steal the potato, but the key to
this cage is in Norbert the Nutjob’s pocket, and if you
could just flap off and get it…’
But Toothless had smelt the Onion Soup on
Hiccup’s leg, and he gave it a lick.
‘Onion S-s-soup!’ said Toothless accusingly. ‘You
bin eating Onion S-s-soup!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Hiccup hurriedly, ‘I fell in the
soup, but about the key—’
But this was the last straw as far as Toothless was
concerned. He was FURIOUS, and he swelled up to
nearly twice the size with anger, and flew out of the cage
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like an infuriated little balloon.
‘SNOT fair! SNOT fair!’ snorted Toothless.
‘You been stuffing yourself with Onion S-s-soup and
poor T-t-toothless STARVING and now you want
Toothless to f-f-face a whole load of Squealers with
no food in his t-t-tummy? TYPICAL! Well, you can
just WAIT, that’s all… Toothless’ll have his supper
and THEN maybe he’ll help you out…’
‘TOOTHLESS!’ whispered Hiccup, as loud as
he dared, ‘THIS IS IMPORTANT! GET THAT
KEY RIGHT NOW OR I’LL… I’LL… I’LL…’
‘You’ll what?’ jeered Toothless cheekily,
flapping out of Hiccup’s way as he desperately tried to
grab Toothless’s tail through the bars of the cage.
Sticking out his little pink forked tongue,
Toothless hopped down on to the banqueting tables
and tucked into the roast buffalo pie, ignoring Hiccup’s
furious, frustrated whispers from the cage swinging a
couple of metres above.
‘Toothless can’t hear!’ sang Toothless through
a mouthful of pumpkin. ‘Got s-s-something in his ear!
Oooooh, that rhymes… Toothless ca-a-an’t he-ar, got
something in his e-ar! Toothless ca-a-an’t he-ar, got
something in his e-ar!’
And for the next five minutes, Toothless
154
pretended to be quite deaf, and took his time hopping
from plate to plate, gorging himself on deep-fried
mackerel, turkey wings and sweetcorn fritters.
Eventually, he swallowed the last
remains of the pie, took a big swig of the Home-made
Nettle Champagne, burped and rubbed his stomach
contentedly.
‘That’s b-b-better. Toothless can hear now.
Wossat you saying?’
‘WILL YOU GET THAT KEY FROM
NORBERT THE NUTJOB’S POCKET BEFORE
HE MURDERS THE LOT OF US?’ hissed Hiccup
at the top of his whisper.
‘S-s-say pretty please…’ sang Toothless.
‘Pretty please,’ whispered Hiccup through
gritted teeth.
‘OK, OK, keep your hair on,’ said Toothless,
and he took off (rather wobbly, because he had eaten so
much), and crashlanded on Norbert the Nutjob’s chest.
Luckily, Norbert was so dead to the world he merely
grunted, and hugged his axe a little closer.
Giggling, Toothless snipped off both of Norbert
the Nutjob’s fancy moustaches with two bites of his
sharp little gums, and then he staggered into Norbert’s
pocket and pulled out the key.
155
Toothless marched
across the banqueting table with
the key in his mouth, spitting it out every now and then to
make pointed remarks to Hiccup.
‘Is TYPICAL,’ snorted Toothless. ‘T-t-typical.
Poor old starving T-t-toothless, woken up from his H-
h-hibernation Nap just to save the day YET AGAIN.’
Toothless put the key back in his mouth, and this
time, his large, overfull belly prevented him from seeing
exactly where he was putting his feet, and he tripped over
a knife lying in the middle of the table.
Toothless lurched forwards, knocking a candle
off the table and on to the floor, where it promptly set
fire to a polar bear rug. He did a couple of somersaults,
spinning over and over until he landed bottom first in
the wild boar stew and… swallowed the key.
‘G-g-gulp…’ said Toothless.
13. THE GREAT POTATO
BURGLARY
‘AAAARGH!’ raged Hiccup, shaking the bars of his
cage. ‘Typical! Five minutes ago I was just locked in
a cage in a room full of Hysteric Warriors. NOW
you’ve swallowed the key and set fire to the room!
Flap up and wake up Camicazi and then PUT OUT
THAT FIRE!’
‘S-s-say pretty please…’ choked Toothless
defiantly.
‘PRETTY PLEASE!’ howled Hiccup in the
loudest whisper he could whisper.
Toothless flew unsteadily up to the beam where
Camicazi was sleeping, and woke her up by shrieking
softly, ‘No key! No key!’ in her ear, before flying back to
deal with the fire.
Camicazi took charge of the situation from
the moment she opened her eyes. She got up, calmly
balancing on the beam, for all the world as if she was
safely down on the ground rather than almost twenty
metres up in the air.
She unwound another rope from around her
waist, and threw the metal end of it so that it wrapped
158
around the beam from which Hiccup’s cage was
suspended. She pulled to check it was secure, and then
swung out, clinging to the rope, and landed on the top of
Hiccup’s cage.
Camicazi wriggled down the outside of the cage, and
looked hard at the lock on the door. She felt in her pocket
and brought out a long pin-like instrument, and stuck it in
the lock, wiggling it expertly from side to side.
‘That was so brave of you!’ she whispered. ‘For
a boy of course… Leaping down into the soup like that!
We’d NEVER have found out where they kept the potato
if you hadn’t done that…’
Hiccup considered telling her it had all been a total
accident, and then thought better of it. ‘Oh, you know…’
he whispered modestly back. ‘It was nothing. I do that
kind of… leaping all the time. What are you doing?’
‘Picking the lock,’ replied Camicazi airily. ‘Locks
are nothing to us Bog-Burglars… no prisons can hold us.
We’re as wriggly as eels. We’re as jumpy as crickets.’
<
br /> The lock suddenly clicked loudly, and the door of
Hiccup’s cage swung open.
‘Your exit, my lord,’ grinned Camicazi.
Hiccup scrambled out of the cage, and dropped
down on to the banqueting table below, unable to believe
his luck.
159
‘And now,’ frowned Camicazi, ‘for the Vegetable-
that-No-one-Dares-Name. We haven’t got a lot of time.’
Indeed they hadn’t.
Toothless had tried to snuff out the fire on the
polar bear rug by smothering it with his wings, and
when that didn’t work, he threw Home-made Nettle
Champagne on it.
The flames sprang up a metre high and the fire
spread to a nearby chair.
‘Oh d-d-dear!’ wailed Toothless. ‘Toothless m-m-
messed up… all Toothless’s fault… ohdearohdear…’
‘Toothless,’ Hiccup ordered, ‘stop making that
fire WORSE and come over here. We’re going to need
YOUR help to steal the potato.’
Toothless flapped over, his guilt making him
unexpectedly obedient.
‘I want you to melt the ice in the casket,’ said
Hiccup.
‘B-b-but the Squealers?’ whimpered Toothless.
Hiccup wound his scarf around the little dragon’s
ears, to act as earplugs.
‘Wait until Toothless has finished melting the ice,
just in case you DO set off the Squealers,’ he explained to
Camicazi. ‘The sound could STUN a dragon as titchy as
Toothless if he’s too close.’
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‘T-t-titchy?’ huffed Toothless. ‘Toothless not
like the word TITCHY.’
‘You’re looking at the burglary EXPERT,’ said
Camicazi. ‘There’s no way I’m going to set off those
Squealers.’
By some miracle, all the Hysterics were so dead
to the world that not even all this noise and commotion,
and a large fire blazing in the middle of their Great Hall,
had woken them up. They snored on, oblivious.
Trembling with terror (and flying rather erratically
because he was weighed down by his fur coat, his large
meal, and the scarf around his head that was slipping
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse Page 8