So, what with the rain pouring down constantly from above, and the sea sneaking up from below, the
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Hooligans spend most of their lives up to their knees in muddy saltwater.
As they got nearer to Berk they didn't have time to feel sorry for themselves. The Hopeful Puffin was in difficulties. Never a very seaworthy boat, she had taken two big knocks, first when she was rammed by Snotlout's boat Sparrowhawk, then when Hiccup jumped down onto her decks from the Roman ship. She was taking on water even faster than normal.
Despite Hiccup and Fishlegs bailing out the water as quickly as they could with their helmets, by the time they reached Hooligan Harbor, she sank entirely.
They had to swim the last hundred meters, Hiccup holding Fishlegs up because (unusual for a Viking) Fishlegs had never quite mastered the doggy paddle.
To make matters worse, Gobber was standing on the harbor wall watching them come in, arms folded, brows as low as Thor's thunderclouds. When The Hopeful Puffin disappeared beneath the water he looked as if he might explode.
"It hasn't been a very successful day, has it?" moaned Fishlegs as they struggled out of the sea and
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[Image: Gobber was not amused.]
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onto the rocks. "At least we didn't meet any Sharkworms, after all..."
"I'm not sure there ever were any Sharkworms," said Hiccup through gritted teeth. He looked back sadly at the three circles of ripples and bubbles that were all that remained of The Hopeful Puffin. She had never been the most beautiful of boats but to him she was the best.
Slipping and sliding on the seaweedy rocks, they clambered reluctantly toward Gobber and stood before him, soaking wet, heads bowed. Fishlegs timidly offered him the Roman helmet.
Gobber was not amused.
"WHAT," he bellowed, pointing furiously at the Roman helmet, "WHAT in the name of Woden is this?"
"A Roman helmet, sir," admitted Fishlegs. "We sort of accidentally boarded a Roman ship by mistake ... we got lost, you see, sir ..."
"You got LOST?" boomed Gobber, not believing his ears. "Vikings don't get LOST. And how could you possibly board a Roman ship by mistake? A Roman ship doesn't look anything like a Peaceable fishing boat!"
"Yes, I know, sir," stammered Fishlegs. "But we thought there were these Sharkworms, you see --"
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"And WHERE," Gobber interrupted Fishlegs, his voice dangerously calm, "WHERE is your boat?"
"Ah, yes, well," said Fishlegs miserably. "The boat sort of sank, sir."
"THE BOAT SORT OF SANK?" roared Gobber. "YOU CALL YOURSELVES VIKINGS AND YOU SORT OF SINK YOUR OWN BOAT ON A PERFECTLY CALM DAY TWO HUNDRED METERS FROM YOUR OWN ISLAND? WHAT KIND OF HOOLIGANS ARE YOU, ANYWAY? YOU CAN'T BUILD BOATS, YOU CAN'T TRAIN DRAGONS, FISHLEGS HERE CAN'T EVEN SWIM ...."
"Saltwater brings out my eczema ..." mumbled Fishlegs.
[Image: A man and a woman.]
"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A PIRATE!" howled Gobber. "AS IT IS, YOU ARE THE MOST USELESS, MISERABLE, PATHETIC EXCUSES
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FOR TADPOLE POOS I HAVE EVER MET IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! I AM LOST FOR WORDS ..."
Despite being lost for words, Gobber yelled at them for the next ten minutes, telling them they were a disgrace to their Tribe and the worst recruits he had ever had. He put them on limpet rations for the next three weeks, and said the next time anything like this happened they would be expelled from the Program.
At home, it wasn't much better.
During supper, Hiccup explained to his father about the unfortunate accident of boarding the Roman galley by mistake, and about the kidnapping of Toothless, and how the Prefect had got hold of half of How to Speak Dragonese, and how Stoick really should send a war party to rescue Toothless and the book. Hiccup showed the sad remains of How to Speak Dragonese and the Roman helmet to his father to prove his story was genuine.
"Mmmmmmm," said Stoick thoughtfully. Stoick was a great giant of a man with enough red, haystacky beard and barrels of belly to equip at least two decent-sized Viking chieftains.
He wasn't really concentrating, because he was reading Hiccup's Pirate Training report, which was the
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worst report he had ever read. Thumbnails of Thor, he was thinking, how can anybody get --4 for Advanced Rudery? And nothing at all for Beginner Burping and Hammerthrowing Studies, which had been Stoick's favorite subjects when HE was a boy.
Stoick was trying very hard not to feel disappointed in his son. He kept telling himself that Hiccup was just a slow developer, and would soon start getting muscles and nose hair, and scoring the winning goal in Bashyball games like Stoick had himself. But what was he doing, earning reports like "Hiccup is the worst sailor I have ever taught in twenty years"? How could he have come back from a perfectly straightforward training exercise having misplaced both his dragon and his boat? And how could he possibly have got lost and accidentally boarded a Roman ship rather than a Peaceable fishing boat?
Vikings didn't get lost.
Stoick opened his mouth to bellow at his son.
And then he closed it again.
Small, skinny, freckled and unsatisfactory, Hiccup's worried face looked up at him. He was clearly desperately anxious about that laughably tiny
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[Image: Report card.]
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dragon of his. Stoick didn't have the heart to be angry. He crumpled up the report in one gigantic fist.
"Son," he said gently and gravely, "I am sorry you have lost Ruthless --"
"Toothless!" Hiccup interrupted indignantly. "He's called Toothless."
"Toothless," Stoick corrected himself hurriedly. "But I am about to tell you something very important."
[Image: Stoick the vast reading Hiccup's report.]
Stoick took Hiccup by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "You," he said solemnly, "are the son of a Chief. You have lost your pet, but you must be
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brave. You must be a MAN about it. There will be other dragons ..."
"Not like Toothless!" objected Hiccup, in distress. "That dragon trusted me and I let him down!"
"Silence!" said Stoick sternly. "What does a Chief feel, son?"
"A Chief feels no pain," replied Hiccup obediently. "But Father --"
Stoick was just getting into his stride. "A Chief feels no pain. A Chief feels no fear. A Chief must be above mere weak, personal feelings. There is no question of putting together a War Party to rescue your dragon. It would be a waste of our warriors' time. The Romans are probably halfway back to Rome by now and they'll have turned Useless into a handbag -- "
"Toothless," corrected Hiccup again, "and that's what I'm telling you, Father, I overheard them talking and I think they're not just passing through."
"Talking?" roared Stoick, his eyebrows lowering. "What do you mean TALKING? How did you understand these Romans?"
''Ah," admitted Hiccup. "Old Wrinkly's been teaching me some Latin, you see --"
"Latin? LATIN?" Stoick exploded. He crashed
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his fist so hard on the table that the oysters they'd been eating did a couple of cartwheels in the air. "My son, my son, has been speaking LATIN!"
He controlled himself with an effort. "Hooligans do not, I repeat, DO NOT, speak Latin. What are they teaching you in your Frightening Foreigners lessons? When a Hooligan meets a foreigner he shouts at it loudly and slowly. That's the only language a foreigner understands. Hooligans don't talk to dragons either. Or write books about them. you're spending far too much time scribbling about dragons and not enough time preparing to become a Chief."
Stoick took the half of How to Speak Dragonese out of Hiccup's hands and threw it onto the fire. Hiccup gasped. That book had everything he had ever learned about dragons in it. How would he ever talk to dragons again without it?
Stoick stomped off.
[Image: A chair.]
As soon as he was out of sight, Hiccup burned his fingers pulling the book
out of the flames. Luckily it was still quite damp, and the edges were only very slightly burnt.
That night, for the first time in a long, long while,
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Hiccup had to go to bed without the company of Toothless. The little dragon was a small, wriggling, snoring hot-water bottle. Now Hiccup lay awake till the early hours of the morning, shivering uncontrollably under the thin covers, his feet and hands as cold as the North Pole, his ears trembling in the icy draft. And when eventually he slipped in and out of a feverish sleep, the nightdragons and the wind and the wolves seemed to be howling all together, "You've lost Tooooothlesss! Lost him forever! Lost Toooooooothless! Lost him forever and ever and ever" over and over and over again.
[Image: Hiccup is on the bed.]
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6. THAT NIGHT IN SINISTER ROMAN FORT SINISTER
Far, far away from Berk in the sinister Fort Sinister, there was a dungeon so deep beneath sea level that no light ever reached it, a dungeon so far away that even the gods had forgotten it existed.
Toothless, who was afraid of the dark and of small spaces, lay in utter blackness in a cage so cramped he could hardly turn over.
He was crying.
"H-h-help," whimpered Toothless, in a voice he knew could not be heard.
"H-h-help."
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[Image: A dragon.
"H-h-help" whispered Toothless, in a voice he knew could not be heard.
"H-h-help...."]
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7. THE NANODRAGON
Hiccup woke very early. He had just been having a lovely dream about playing a tickling game with Toothless and he woke up laughing. For a moment everything was all right again and he forgot Toothless had gone and reached out for him, only to feel the chilly, damp depression in the bed where Toothless should have been. He was instantly miserable again, and lay, teeth chattering, under the bedclothes trying to get up the willpower to brave the cold and get dressed in the still-slightly-damp-and-salty clothes he was wearing yesterday. He gradually became aware that what had woken him was a very faint and tiny singing noise, a reedy little sound like the wind caught in a cowries shell, but with an edge of menace to it.
[Image: A village.]
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The song went something like this:
SONG OF THE NANODRAGON (while licking off honey)
O Human Fatness who tried to cat me
Great Wobbling Vomit of Repulsive Man-Flesh
I cannot kill you NOW
Though I would like to
But you will regret this, Blubber-Man
You will regret this in the quiet darkness of the nighttime
For I have friends
I have friends
I have friends who will itch you into nightmares
Their feet will plow your skin into rashes
And you will sleep no more, o stomach-with-a-Head-o-it
You will sleep no more
O Ballon of Lard who tried to cat me
Man Uglier than an Exploded Jellyfish
I cannot kill you NOW
Though I would like to
But I can Walt, Ticking in the corner like Fate
And I have friends
I have friends who will crawl with me into your coffin
Where you are lying, hoping for the quiet sleep of Death
And we will cat YOU, o Sad Lump of Man Meat
we will eat you We will eat you
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Where was the song coming from?
Eventually, Hiccup realized the noise seemed to be sneaking out of the jacket he had worn the day before and left to dry on the back of a chair in front of the fire.
And then he remembered the nanodragon he had replaced with the Electricsquirm and put in his pocket.
Hiccup braced himself against the cold, jumped out of bed, dragged his clothes on and approached the jacket. Carefully, he put his hand into the pocket and drew it out again with a gasp. Not only was there a yucky warm mess of honey in there, but the nanodragon had bitten him on the end of his finger.
As Hiccup put the finger in his mouth (you should always do this with a nanodragon bite -- it helps to draw out the sting) the nanodragon flew out of the pocket, fluttered around the room and landed on the windowsill.
[Image: A man.]
The nanodragon had spent the night cleaning the
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sticky honey off his body with his tongue. He was a handsome little beast. No bigger than a grasshopper, he was a gleaming rust-red with flecks of charcoal, and the morning sun shone through his gossamer-thin wings and threw red and black spots all round the room.
Something about the self-importance of the little animal, the arrogance with which he held himself, made Hiccup ask, "Who are you?"
"I," squeaked the tiny creature grandly, "am the
Center of the Universe."
Hiccup looked carefully at the very small animal in front of him. "You ARE?" he said, polite but amazed. "Ton Your mean you are Thor or Woden in disguise?"
"Thor and Woden!" snorted the creature derisively. "Fairy stories! No, I am Ziggerastiea the Living God." Hiccup looked blank. "Most High and Mighty Ruler of the Nano Empire. Despot of the Northern Grasses..."
Hiccup shook his head regretfully.
[Image: A man.]
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Ziggerastica.
"You MUST know about me!" piped Ziggerastica. "Great Scourge of the Bracken Dwellers...Doesn't that ring any bells at all?"
"Nope," said Hiccup. "I'm so sorry. I've never heard of you before."
"I don't know, You Humans," Fumed Ziggerastica, hugely offended. "Ignorant as well as ugly."
"I'm not ugly," protested Hiccup. "That is a very rude thing to say."
Ziggerastica wasn't listening. "You're so caught up in your own world that you never bother to lower your fat noses to the ground and have a look at what's going on in the Real world! Well, Boy-With-a-Face-like-a-Stinky-Haddock, you have had the good fortune to save the life of the most Powerful Being in the Galaxy..."
[Image: A dragon.]
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"If you're the most Powerful Being in the Galaxy," said Hiccup, "how come you didn't get your nanodragons to come and save you from the big Fat Roman?"
"Even a Living God has his weak spots," replied Ziggerastica. "And mine happens to be honey. I love the stuff. But the Nanodragon cry for help is created by rubbing the back legs together, and honey gums up the noise ... It is delicious though..."
And what on earth could someone as small as YOU do? Hiccup thought to himself, but it would have been rude to say it. "How will you hear me?" he asked instead.
The nanodragon ignored the question.
"Just say the word Ziggerastica and I will come. However, fee warned... You can call on my Most Glorious Aid just once, and once
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alone. When I have repaid my debt you will become just another smelly, repellent human to me. So choose your time wisely, Boy-with-Spots-no-his-Ugly-Nose, choose your time wisely..."
And with that the rude little animal gave a last shake of his wings and flew out of the window.
Hiccup wasn't quite sure what to make of this conversation. It seemed unlikely that a creature as small as Ziggerastica could be as powerful as he seemed to think he was. But on the other hand, I need all the help I can get, Hiccup thought gloomily.
At breakfast, Hiccup was more miserable than he had ever been in his life. He couldn't eat a thing. He just sat there pushing his kipper sadly round his plate. His grandfather, Old Wrinkly, tried to ask him what the matter was, but Hiccup just sighed.
"What does a Chief feel?" asked Stoick the Vast, seeing his son drooping.
"A Chief feels no pain, Father," replied Hiccup glumly.
In the middle of the meal a Carrier Dragon flew in the window, dropped a letter addressed to Stoick on the table and flew out again.
The letter was from Big-Boobied Bertha, the chief of the Bog-Burglars. The Bog-Burglars were a
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tribe of particularly fearsome female warriors who lived on an island some way to the west of the Isle of Berk. (Please see map at the beginning of this book.) The Hooligans had a long-running feud with the Bog-Burglars which had started many, many years ago, when the Bog-Burglars stole the shield of Hiccup's great-great-grandfather, Grimbeard the Ghastly.
Hiccup read the letter over Stoick's shoulder.
Greetings, You Fat Burglar, I see you have broken the truce we have had for so many years and wish to make war with us again .... How dare you steal the noble Heir to the Bog-Burglar Tribe?
You are a thief and I give you two weeks to return our
Heir to us unharmed...otherwise I shall declare a blood feud and we will sail to Berk in all our strength and exterminate the lot of you ... It should be easy peasy--you Hooligans always did fight like a load of bunny rabbits... Yours very untruly, Bertha, Chief of the Bog-Burglars.
Stoick grew more and more purple in the face as he read the letter. Finally, he came to the end and with a roar he tore the paper up into little pieces and stamped on them.
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He was hopping mad. Stoick was often wild, often shouty, often going off the deep end. But this time he lost his temper.