How to Train Your Dragon: How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse Page 12

Enormous hairy Stoick the Vast burst into tears.

  ‘Oh for Thor’s sake, Stoick,’ cried Old Wrinkly,

  bossily pushing Stoick out of the way. ‘Will you just

  SHUT UP and listen to me? I’m really not that bad a

  soothsayer. This has nothing to do with the Doomfang.’

  He took Hiccup’s pulse, and looked under his eyelids,

  and tapped his chest, which had turned as wooden as a

  tree trunk. ‘This is VORPENTITIS.’

  Stoick reeled back. ‘And what does that mean?’

  he whispered through white lips.

  ‘It means,’ said Old Wrinkly, ‘that one little

  weirdo looks very like another when you’re soothsaying

  in a fire, and it was HICCUP who was bitten by the

  Vorpent, and not Fishlegs. So HICCUP has Vorpentitis.

  214

  And that means that since it is now…’

  (At this point Old Wrinkly reached into Hiccup’s

  breast pocket, hoping to draw out the potato, and in fact

  drew out the ticking metal thingummy. He looked at the

  numbers on it and nodded his head.)

  ‘… oooh exactly five to ten in the morning on

  Freya’sday Friday!’ continued Old Wrinkly, laying the

  metal thingummy carefully on the bed beside Hiccup,

  ‘your son, Hiccup, who has Vorpentitis, has five minutes

  to live.’

  Old Wrinkly chuckled. This didn’t seem to be

  worrying him much.

  ‘Which wouldn’t give a great deal of time for us

  to find an antidote. But luckily,’ said Old Wrinkly, in

  the spirit of a conjuror, ‘luckily, on your son’s so-called

  stupid useless quest for NOTHING, he has brought

  back the antidote with him ALREADY. Camicazi,

  where is the potato? It doesn’t seem to be here in

  Hiccup’s pocket… Have you got it?’

  Camicazi was as white as One Eye’s back. She

  shook her head numbly. ‘No… potato,’ she gasped.

  Old Wrinkly’s mouth fell open, appalled.

  ‘NO POTATO?’ shrieked Old Wrinkly. ‘WHAT

  DO YOU MEAN, NO POTATO? YOU MUST

  HAVE THE POTATO!!!’

  215

  Camicazi shook her head again. ‘No potato,’ she

  whispered.

  ‘But I was so sure,’ whispered Old Wrinkly. ‘I

  was so sure you would bring back the potato… This is

  the last time I believe a single word those beastly fires

  say… they told me DEFINITELY that you would

  get it…’

  ‘Oh, we got it all right,’ mumbled Camicazi

  miserably. ‘It was just that the Doomfang ATE it.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ gulped Old Wrinkly.

  NO POTATO.

  Suddenly Old Wrinkly looked every second of his

  ninety-three years. His whole body crumpled up like an

  old brown leaf.

  Little did Hiccup know, when he was crying on

  the boat for his friend Fishlegs, that he should have been

  crying for himself.

  For it was indeed HICCUP who had been stung

  all those many months ago, escaping from the Fortress

  of Sinister.

  And it was Hiccup who was now moments away

  from the death he feared for his friend Fishlegs.

  ‘WHAT CAN I DO?’ roared Stoick the Vast.

  ‘There must be other cures? Other medicines?’

  Old Wrinkly shook his head. ‘The potato is the

  only cure for Vorpentitis.’

  ‘I’LL BRING BACK THE POTATO!’ cried

  Stoick the Vast, drawing his sword, a Man of Action to

  the last. ‘JUST TELL ME WHERE TO GO AND

  HOW LONG I’VE GOT!’

  ‘Well,’ said Old Wrinkly sadly, ‘the nearest potato

  is now roughly three-and-a-half-thousand miles away

  on the distant shores of the country known as America

  to those who may believe in it. And you have…’ Old

  Wrinkly checked the clock sitting next to Hiccup’s bed,

  ‘… exactly THREE minutes to find it.’

  Even Stoick seemed to feel that perhaps this

  might be a problem.

  He strode round the room, tearing at his beard.

  Old Wrinkly, Camicazi and One Eye sat at

  Hiccup’s bedside.

  One Eye didn’t seem as happy as he might have

  been two days ago at the thought of one less Human in

  the world.

  A big tear rolled out of his one eye and down his

  Sabre-Tooth and plopped on to the ground.

  Hiccup was stiff as a board, and his body was

  218

  now red, and boiling hot. Toothless licked his poor red

  face, to try to cool it down.

  ‘THE DOOMFANG!’ cried Stoick the Vast.

  ‘I COULD TRACK DOWN THE DOOMFANG

  AND WRESTLE THE POTATO FROM HIM!’

  ‘You’re going to find the Doomfang in the vast

  and trackless wastes of an immense and fathomless

  Ocean,’ said Old Wrinkly wearily, checking the time

  again on the clock, ‘in TWO minutes?’

  ‘Face it, Stoick,’ whispered Old Wrinkly. ‘What

  you’re talking about is not just im-PROBABLE… it’s

  im-POSSIBLE…’

  Fishlegs had drawn back into the shadows, and

  he was watching his friend’s face.

  Hiccup was trying to say something, but his

  frozen, burning mouth made it difficult for him to say

  the words.

  In fact he looked very like the Doomfang, when

  he was trying to speak to Hiccup out on the Sullen Sea.

  ‘Ooot me…’ mumbled Hiccup desperately.

  ‘OOOOOT ME!’ and he tried to point, but his arms were

  as stiff as if they were made out of wood.

  Old Wrinkly patted his hand, and bathed

  his forehead with water. Stoick’s shoulders heaved

  with sobs.

  219

  ‘OOOOT ME!’ cried poor Hiccup again.

  Fishlegs tried to follow where his friend’s eyes

  were looking, and it seemed like they were staring at the

  table by the door.

  On that table lay Hiccup’s furry coat and his

  helmet, bow and arrows that he had thrown there when

  he first came in the room.

  ‘One minute left,’ whispered Old Wrinkly.

  ‘OOOOOOOOOOT ME!’ repeated Hiccup

  desperately.

  Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows

  what we mean when we try to speak.

  Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us,

  and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and

  tries to understand.

  Fishlegs understood.

  He didn’t know why he was supposed to do what

  he was about to do, but he trusted Hiccup, who always

  seemed to know the right thing to do.

  Fishlegs picked up Hiccup’s bow.

  Out of the arrow-case he drew an arrow, a

  singularly beautiful arrow, decorated with feathers from

  birds Fishlegs had never seen before.

  Fishlegs fitted the arrow to the bow, and pointed

  the bow towards Hiccup.

  220

  Stoick looked up from his sobbing, in

  amazement. Here was his son, moments away from

  dying, and that weird fish-faced friend of his appeared to

  be about to SHOOT him. TYPICAL. What a nutcase.

  221

  cried Stoick. ‘DON’T SHOOT!’

  Stoick threw his vast bulk across t
he room in an

  attempt to shield his son from the arrow.

  223

  Of course, he was trying to protect Hiccup’s heart and

  chest. He didn’t realise what an appalling shot Fishlegs

  was, so he jumped far too high.

  Fishlegs let the arrow

  go, and it soared in a wobbly

  unsteady arc, finally landing in

  Hiccup’s right big toe, piercing

  through his wet boots, and into

  the skin.

  It was a bit of a miracle it hit

  Hiccup at all. In fact, it may just be

  the only time Fishlegs has EVER

  hit something he was actually

  aiming at.

  The arrow that pierced the

  skin of Hiccup’s big toe at ten o’clock

  on the morning of Freya’sday Friday was the same arrow

  that had been soaking for the last fifteen years in the

  magical juices of THE POTATO.

  Over the past decade and a half, those juices

  had concentrated on the surface of the metal, and the

  antidote now made its way into Hiccup’s bloodstream,

  taking its cooling, healing work up every little vein, down

  every little artery, into every little corner of Hiccup’s

  poor, rigid, boiling little body.

  224

  In front of their eyes, Hiccup’s stiff arms

  softened. His chest rose and fell. The breath blew out of

  his nostrils, and his eyes opened.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ said Hiccup.

  This was just too much for Stoick. He fainted

  dead away, on the spot, all six-foot-seven and three feet

  round of him, and it took a great deal more trouble to

  revive HIM.

  He was out cold, and Old Wrinkly slapped him,

  and Hiccup shook him, and Camicazi tickled his feet,

  and eventually it was Fishlegs who ran out and filled

  an enormous bucket full of snow, and threw it right in

  Stoick’s face. That brought him to his senses, and Stoick

  sat bolt upright, spluttering and spitting snow out of

  his beard.

  ‘You’re ALIVE!’ he shouted joyfully, and he

  hugged his son so hard Hiccup thought his ribs might

  crack. ‘By the Bristly Beard and Thunderous Thighs of

  Great Goddess Freya, you’re ALIVE!’

  ‘He is alive,’ said Old Wrinkly pointedly, ‘and I

  think some apologies are in order.’

  Stoick’s brows lowered. However relieved and

  happy he is, a Great Chieftain used to absolute power

  does not like to apologise, but after a short struggle,

  Stoick swallowed his pride.

  225

  ‘You are right,’ said Stoick. ‘I have been

  thoroughly wrong, and I am sorry. Old Wrinkly, you are

  not the most pathetic soothsayer in the uncivilised world,

  and I am sorry I ever said you were. Hiccup, you were

  right to go on the quest for the Frozen Potato to try and

  save the life of your odd little friend.’

  Stoick turned to Fishlegs.

  ‘And most of all, FISHEGGS,’ he boomed

  solemnly, ‘I have misjudged YOU.’

  Fishlegs blushed. ‘No, no,’ he stammered.

  ‘Yes,’ said Stoick, holding up a hairy hand. ‘I

  226

  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 apologising, flapped away to

  find a nice warm spot by the fire.

  ‘Hiccup,’ Toothless called out sleepily, when he

  had found himself a particularly cosy position, ‘issa

  anyone else gonna d-d-die inna next 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.’

  ‘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,

  227

  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 favourite kind of day.

  As for Gobber the Belch, why Gobber the Belch

  woke up with a throbbing head and sore throat and a nose

  that ran like a great green river.

  So it appears that Vikings DO catch colds after all…

  228

  229

  232

  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 realised 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 pin-prick 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 recognised 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 colour that it was a Doomfang. It

  didn’t attack us, as I had been secretly dreading, but

  began to play with the boat, swimming alongside, diving

  233

  underneath and coming up the other side, getting nearer

  and nearer with each circle that it made.

  This is common enough behaviour 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 towards 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 r
ound and round 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 recognised 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, 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.

  234

  And when the creature swam alongside, so close now

  that we could reach out and touch its glistening raven

  black sides, it rolled on to 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 favour I once did it of saving

  its life in a cold, cold world, a hundred times over.

  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

  Snowpecker.

  You can Cheat a Dragon’s Curse.

  235

  You do not have to accept the hand that Fate has

  dealt you.