How to be a Pirate's Dragon (Hiccup) Page 4

  He was already feeling uneasy because he knew that he and all the other boys were going to have to join in this suicidal quest to the Isle of the Skullions, which would set out just as soon as Stoick and Alvin had worked out a Plan to avoid the Tiny Problem of everybody being eaten alive the moment they landed on the island.

  [Image: A dragon.]

  And he knew that he, Hiccup, as the Heir to the Hairy Hooligans, was supposed to be the one

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  to find the treasure. So when he wasn't doing his swordfighting, or being shouted at by Gobber on the Training Program, he was bustling Toothless out of the door to practice sniffing for treasure.

  The first morning was typical. Fishlegs turned up with his dragon Horrorcow, and they stood watching in polite astonishment as Hiccup went through the elaborate game of getting Toothless out of the front door.

  Firstly, Hiccup went through the house shouting Toothless's name.

  No answer.

  Next, Hiccup stole a mackerel from the pantry.

  "Ohhhhh, Toothless," he sang craftily, waving the fishy stench around a bit to get Toothless's interest. "I've got a lovely piece of mackerel for you."

  A very muffled but thoughtful voice replied, "T-t-toothless sick. T-t-toothless can't come out 'cos he's V-V-VERY VERY sick."

  "Then you won't want this mackerel then," sang Hiccup.

  Another pause.

  "M-m-mackerel good for the sick. Have mackerel but NO GO OUT."

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  Hiccup had worked out where the voice was coming from. He peered up the chimney, and there was Toothless, hanging upside down in a cloud of smoke.

  "NO, Toothless," said Hiccup in his firmest voice. "You have the mackerel , you have to go out, THAT'S the deal. And you have to PROMISE."

  "Okay, then," said Toothless, flapping out of the chimney, "Toothless p-p-promise."

  Hiccup held out the mackerel.

  With a shriek of "T-T-TOOTHLESS CROSSED HIS CLAWS!" Toothless grabbed the fish, pushed Hiccup heavily in the chest, and disappeared at high speed into the other room, leaving Hiccup to topple over into the fireplace in a cloud of ash.

  It didn't take long for Hiccup to find him again.

  A telltale drift of bluey-gray smoke was curling out from the end of Stoick's bed.

  Hiccup tiptoed up and dragged him out from under the covers.

  With a squawk of outrage, Toothless grabbed hold of one of the bed knobs in his powerful jaws.

  Hiccup got him by the tail and pulled.

  "Come ON, Toothless," said Hiccup, "time for

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  LEARNING TO SPEAK DRAGONESE

  Dragonese is punctuated by shrill shrieks and popping noises, and sounds

  MOST EXTRAOROINARY when spoken by a human. The word " pishyou," for example, is pronounced very like a sneeze.

  MORE COMMON DRAGON PHRASES:

  Pishyou na munch-munch di miaow-miaow

  Please do not eat the cat

  Hoody chuch-it-up un di jum-jams di pappa?

  Who has been sick in my father's pajamas?

  PARKA DI BOTTY, forsakes di Woden, or me do di girly boo-hoo.

  SIT, for Woden's sake, before I burst into tears

  (To big dragons): Mi wobblediguts bigtime .

  I am very poisonous

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  sniffing practice...."He tickled Toothless under one wing. Toothless wriggled a bit, going red in the face. Hiccup tickled him under the other.

  Toothless let go, giggling, and there was a short kerfuffle, in which Toothless bit Hiccup several times, before Hiccup finally got him under control, tucking him under one arm and holding his mouth shut with the other.

  "Now," said Hiccup, "you know we have to practice the sniffing. You want us to find the treasure, don't you , not Fireworm or Seaslug? You want us to show everybody what amazing sniffers Toothless Daydreams really are, don't you?"

  Toothless nodded, still with Hiccup holding his mouth shut.

  "Well, tien," said Hiccup, "we have to practice. Promise you won't bite me anymore, and no claw-crossing?"

  As soon as Hiccup had removed his fingers, Toothless went all limp and floppy.

  "T-t-toothless so w-w-weak... can't sniff when he's so w-w-weak...," he moaned pathetically.

  "RIGHT," said Hiccup, "you can have the

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  other half of the mackerel if you BEHAVE FROM NOW NO."

  "Okay, then," grumbled Toothless, shaking his wings. "T-t-toothless Daydreams such g-g-g-good sniffers they don't have to p-p-practice, but OKAY."

  Hiccup and Fishlegs scraped the disgusting mess of the rest of the mackerel from the bottom of Stoick's bed -- Stoick was NOT going to be pleased -- and fed it to Toothless, as well as a small haddock pie and three or four oysters.

  "He won't be able to FLY at this rate," said Fishlegs.

  They set off into the hills and bogs of Berk, Toothless whining the whole way, "C-c-carry me, c-c-carry me, my w-w-wings ache..... Are we n-n-nearly there yet?"

  Berk was always a wild-looking place, tree-less and boggy, heather-blown and fern-filled. And, of course, it was practically always raining, anything from a light, persistent drizzle to a drenching downpour. (There are twenty-eight words that mean "rain" in the Hooligan language.)

  But if you like your landscapes bleak and dramatic, Berk was attractive in its own way, and

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  this was now spoilt by the great muddy holes the Hooligans were digging everywhere, ever since they had become obsessed with hunting for treasure.

  What with avoiding the holes, and wading through waist-high gorse and bracken, it took the boys an hour or so even to get up into the hills to practice. And by the time they got there, Horrorcow had fallen into such a deep sleep on Fishlegs's shoulder it was impossible to wake her.

  Hiccup brought out an old gold bracelet of his mother's for Toothless to sniff.

  "That's the smell you're looking for," he said.

  "N-n-no problem," said Toothless. "Easy-p-p-peasy..."

  After two hot and breathless hours of running around after Toothless and digging where he said he could sniff something, the boys surveyed what they had found.

  1 turnip

  3 rabbits (couldn't catch them)

  1 small broken spoon

  Um ... that's it, really.

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  Hiccup shook his head mournfully. "It's not good, is it?"

  "Not good? NOT GOOD??" exclaimed a jeering voice behind them. "It's pathetic, that's what it is."

  Hiccup turned round, and there was Snotlout, laughing so hard Dogsbreath had to hold him upright.

  "I mean, a VEGETABLE and a PIECE OF CUTLERY?" Snotlout wiped the tears from his eyes. "It's just so brilliantly Useless...."

  [Image: A man.]

  "Do you really think," tittered Snotlout, once

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  he had recovered somewhat, "that microscopic amoeba," Snotlout pointed at Toothless, "is going to lead you to TREASURE? He couldn't sniff his way to his own bottom."

  Toothless bristled angrily.

  "But then he's just a mongrel Common or Garden ...," scoffed Snotlout.

  "Toothless-not-repeat-not-a-Common-or-Graden-D-d-dragon!" Graden-D-d-dragon!" howled Toothless. "Toothless VERY RARE breed c-c-called a Toothless Daydream...."

  "Now, Fireworm here is a Monstrous Nightmare, one of your pure hunting greenbloods.... Look what a REAL hunting dragon can find if she puts her nose to it...." Snotlout reached into a bag slung round his waist and drew out a large silver plate, a dagger with ancient runes winding round the handle and a couple of pretty bead necklaces.

  [Image: A dragon.]

  "And that's only an afternoon's work," said Snotlout.

  Fireworm purred with pleasure. She shrugged her beautiful, shining, blood-red shoulders.

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  "To tie nose of an aristocrat like myself," she hissed, "the thing was reeking like a week-old haddock."

  "Naturally," said Toothless, "if you have a nose the s-s-
size of an elephant seal it m-m-makes life easy for you."

  Fireworm's nostrils flared furiously. "I have a beautifully proportioned nose," she snapped.

  "Now, now, Fireworm," chided Snotlout, who didn't understand Dragonese but knew they were trading insults, "don't let the peasants upset you. Just think of when we get to the Isle of the Skullions and you sniff out the treasure and everybody will know that I am the true heir to the Hairy Hooligans.... Nice thought, isn't it, Useless?"

  Snotlout leant forward, and with the edge of the plate he was holding, pushed Hiccup very gently backwards until he overbalanced into the mud.

  "Har Har Har Har Har!" snorted Snotlout and Dogsbreath, and they sauntered off.

  It was very depressing.

  All in all, ever since Alvin arrived, Hiccup had been walking around with a sick feeling in his stomach

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  and a prickle of fear crawling spiderishly down the back of his neck.

  It wasn't just the thought of the quest to the Isle of the Skullions (although he was already having nightmares about being ripped to pieces by panther-like creatures with teeth like broken glass). It was this feeling that there was something evil, something POISONOUS lurking on the Isle of Berk.

  And that something really terrible was going to happen ... sometime soon....

  [Image: A dragon.]

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  8. MEANWHILE, IN A CAVERN DEEP, DEEP UNDERGROUND

  Meanwhile, in a Cavern deep, deep underground, a small Deadly Nadder was crying for its mother.

  It had wandered away from its home in the cozy tunnels of the Dragon Nursery, and lost itself in the maze of the Caliban Caves below.

  Gradually, as it flapped frantically down wrong turn after wrong turn, the happy hissings and squawkings of its fellow dragons had grown fainter and fainter. For the last hour it had heard only the unhappy echoes of itself as it crept deeper and deeper into the blackness.

  What is more, it had the bad luck to stumble into a Cavern inhabited by a gigantic creature who was guarding something precious. This was a far larger and scarier killing machine than a mere Skullion. It was at least a hundred years old, and living for a century in such gloomy depths had done very little for its soul or its brain. It was lonely and bitter, and had a longing

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  for the light, which it had never seen. But most of all it was permanently hungry.

  The little Nadder cried for its mother again, and hopped a bit farther forward.

  A singularly unattractive sludgy tentacle curled its way around the small dragon and lifted it into the air.

  The Creature did something to the Nadder to kill it, something most unpleasant, and the poor little animal let out a last shriek of absolute terror. ...

  And then all was silence.

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  [Table: Timetable.]

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  9. THE ADVANCED RUDERY LESSON IS INTERRUPTED

  This jumpy time of waiting and preparing finally came to an end about two weeks later.

  It was halfway through one of Gobber's Advanced Rudery lessons in the Great Hall.

  Snotlout was in front of the rest of the class, having a Rudery Battle against Tuffnut Junior. Tuffnut Junior was struggling. He was naturally a good-natured boy and insults were not his strong point.

  "You," said Tuffnut Junior, trying to sound sneery "are a big fat... and I mean really really fat... BULLY ... and your granny is a ... your granny is a ... your granny is a ... very naughty person. ..."

  "Oh, for Thor's sake, Tuffnut Junior!" exploded Gobber furiously, tearing his beard out. "This is a simple exercise, can't you do better than THAT? Snotlout's granny is a yellow-bellied decrepit old oyster, Snotlout's granny is a barking mad old walrus-head. ..."

  "Wossat????" howled Snotlout, so psyched up for the lesson that he didn't care who he attacked.

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  "No, no, Snotlout," soothed Gobber, "not really, I'm just telling Tuffnut... you're supposed to think of something EXTRA VILE and then spit the words out... you show him, Snotlout."

  "With pleasure," leered Snotlout. He leaned forward until his nose was just inches away from Tuffnut's. He grabbed Tuffnut around the neck for extra emphasis. His mean little eyes narrowed with menace, his nostrils quivered with temper.

  "You," he spat out with savage contempt, "are a cowardly cowering cuttlefish. ..."

  "BRILLIANT, Snotlout, BRILLIANT," cheered Gobber.

  [Image: Men.]

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  "... with the heart of a jellyfish, the brains of a plankton and the stink of a barrelful of mackerel heads."

  "Oh BRAVO, " boomed Gobber, "you go straight to the top of the class. At this rate, Snotlout, you will have no problems whatsoever becoming a pirate, which is more than I can say for the rest of you. ..."

  ETC,ETC, ETC...

  Hiccup raised his eyes to the heavens. He went on absentmindedly drawing pictures in his Insults Book.

  He was unexpectedly interrupted by the arrival of Stoick the Vast, and behind him, smiling charmingly, Alvin the Poor-but-Honest Farmer.

  "I apologize for disturbing your lesson, Gobber," beamed Stoick.

  "Not at all, not at all," said Gobber.

  "But I bring GOOD NEWS. We are about to set out on our glorious QUEST TO THE ISLE OF THESKULUONS!!"

  There was a short silence, in which Fishlegs turned white as a sheet and made faint moaning noises.

  And then everybody else started cheering.

  Hiccup put up his hand.

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  [Image: Insults book.]

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  "What about the Skullions?" he asked.

  "I'm glad you asked that," replied Stoick the Vast enthusiastically. 'As we all know," he patted Hiccup affectionately on the head, "Skullions are terrifyingly vicious creatures. ..."

  "Savage beyond your wildest dreams," murmured Hiccup.

  "BUT," beamed Stoick, "they have not only lost their ability to fly, but also their sense of SIGHT. Indeed, they are guided to their prey almost entirely by smell alone. So it is Alvin's theory that if we BATHE thoroughly before we go -- unusual, I know, but you have to suffer to be rich -- we should be all right."

  Fishlegs put up his hand. "Theory? Should be? What you're saying is that Alvin doesn't actually KNOW, and we could find ourselves flat on our backs being chewed to death very slowly by a bunch of ravenous reptiles."

  Stoick nodded.

  "In which case you shall enter Valhalla a Hero of the Tribe! And may I say here," said Stoick solemnly, "that anyone who dies in the course of his duty shall be awarded a posthumous Black Helmet."

  "Oh yippee," murmured Hiccup.

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  "DEATH OR GLORY!" yelled Stoick the Vast, performing the complicated Hooligan salute, which consists of making a slitting motion across your own throat while letting out a fart like a clap of thunder.

  "DEATH OR GLORY!" shouted Gobber the Belch, and eleven of the trainees shouted fanatically, "DEATH OR GLORY!" and made the salute back at him.

  "OH, not this AGAIN," groaned Hiccup and Fishlegs to themselves.

  Stoick and Alvin's plan really was that simple. The Hooligans and dragons had to bathe themselves thoroughly. They had to present themselves the next day at the Great Hall, where Alvin would make sure they passed what Alvin called "the Sniff Test." This consisted of Alvin, who was good at this sort of thing, seeing if he could smell them or not, and the expedition would set off.

  Hiccup nerved himself up to talk to his father, never an easy task.

  "Father," said Hiccup to Stoick, after he had bathed himself and Toothless very thoroughly indeed.

  "Hmmmm?" replied Stoick absentmindedly.

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  He was attempting to dry off his own dragon, Newtsbreath, in front of the fire.

  Newtsbreath was an acne-covered sludge green Gronckle the size of a small lion. He loathed water. It had taken Stoick forty minutes to catch him and dump him in the tub. Now he made a furious lunge at Stoick, grabbing his left forearm betw
een his massive jaws. Stoick laughed merrily and gave him a sharp whack on the nose with the scrubbing brush.

  [Image: Men.]

  "Now, now, Newtsbreath," chided Stoick, "don't be grumpy."

  "I'm worried," continued Hiccup, "that we may be setting out on the wrong quest. Do you really think

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  we should be looking for treasure? We're quite happy and peaceful enough without all that money."

  Stoick ruffled Hiccup's hair affectionately.

  "Don't you see," said Stoick excitedly, "YOU'RE going to be the one to find this treasure. That's what the riddle said, 'Only the True Heir can find it.' It has troubled me for some time that Baggybum and Snotlout might have their eyes on your throne. When YOU find the treasure, it will silence them forever. I'm doing this as much for YOU as for the gold and the glory, although I do see myself in a pair of fancy earrings, I must admit. ..."

  "But what if I DON'T find the treasure?" asked Hiccup.

  But Stoick wasn't listening. He had stomped off to get ready.

  "Oh bother," said Hiccup.

  [Image: Newtsbreath in the bath.]

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  10. THE WORST DAY OF HICCUP'S LIFE SO FAR

  At dawn on the day of the Quest, Hiccup got dressed very reluctantly indeed. He buckled on the sword his father had given him, hoping that it wouldn't get in the way too much. He slung a shovel in a sling I across his back, where he normally might have carried la bow and arrow. He was so nervous he couldn't eat his porridge.

  He finally managed to drag Toothless out of bed and set off towards Hooligan Harbor, where everybody was meeting.

  Toothless sat on his shoulder, angrily rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one wing.