impeccable French and
work on his yelling..
@*!*!*!
Might improve when he
can actually pick up
the hammer.
Quick reflexes and
strong fancy footwork.
I’m impressed. Needs to
work on his aggression.
I have grave doubts
that the Hopeful
Puffin will float.
Hiccup is the worst
sailor I have ever
taught in twenty years.
Spends most of his
time in the mud being
sat on.
Mark
out
of 10
0/10
GOBBER
1/10
GOBBER
-4/10
GOBBER
0/10
RUGGED
RITA
9/10
GORMLESS
THE GRIM
0/10
GOBBER
HA!
HA!
HA!
GOBBER
1/10
GOBBER
‘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.’
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 brave. You must be a MAN about it. There
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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
his fist so hard on the table that the oysters they’d
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been tucking in to 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 on
he had ever learned about dragons in it. How would
he ever talk to dragons again without it?
Stoick stomped off.
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
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while,
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 draught. 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 for
ever! Lost Toooooooothless! Lost him
foreverandeverandever’ over and over and over again.
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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 poor Toothless in a
voice he knew could not be heard.
‘H-h-h-h-help.’
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89
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 cowrie shell, but with an edge of menace to it.
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The song went something like this:
O Human Fatness who tried to eat 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 night-
time
For I have friends
I have friends who will itch you into nightmares
Their feet will plough your skin into rashes
And you will sleep no more, o Stomach-with-a-Head-on-it
You will sleep no more
O Balloon of Lard who tried to eat me
Man Uglier than an Exploded Jellyfish
I cannot kill you NOW
Though I would like to
But I can wait, Flesh-Dangler
I can wait, 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 eat YOU, o Sad Lump of Man Meat
We will eat you
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Where was the song coming from?
Eventually, Hiccup realised 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
window-sill.
The nanodragon had spent the night cleaning
the sticky honey off his body with his tongue. He was
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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
Centre of the Universe.’
Hiccup looked carefully at the very small
animal in front of him. ‘You ARE?’ he said, polite
but amazed. ‘You mean you are Thor or
Woden in disguise?’
‘Thor and Woden!’ snorted the creature
derisively. ‘Fairy stories! No, I am
Ziggerastica 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.
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‘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-Facelike-
a-Stinky-Haddock, you have had the good fortune
to save the life of the most Powerful Being in the
Galaxy…’
‘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
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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… However, the point
is, that since you have saved my life, I am honourbound
to save yours in return, however huge and
stinking and Wingless you are…’
‘Thank you,’ murmured Hiccup.
‘… with an ugly nose,’ added the creature, ‘and
those brown marks that look like spots—’
‘Those are freckles!’ said Hiccup indignantly.
‘They are not nice,’ said Ziggerastica. ‘They
displease my eye. But the Living God does not forget a
debt. In mortal danger you just have to say the word
Ziggerastica and I shall come to your aid…’
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, be warned… You can call on my Most
Glorious Aid just once, and once alone. When I have
repaid my debt you will become just another smelly,
95
repellent human to me. So choose your time wisely,
Boy-with-Spots-on-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
96
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
.
He was hopping mad. Stoick was often batey,
97
often shouty, often going off the deep end. But this
time he lost his temper.
And when a Hooligan loses his temper, he
REALLY loses it. A Hooligan in a rage yells so loudly it
makes his ordinary yelling sound like a baby’s lullaby.
‘I DECLARE A BLOOD FEUD!’ yelled Stoick
the Vast.
‘Oh, brother.’ Hiccup raised his eyes to the
heavens. ‘I do not believe this… this is all we need!
Hang on a minute, Father, let’s stay calm here. I really
don’t think this was from the Bog-Burglars. We
haven’t got their Heir have we? So SOMEONE ELSE
must have stolen her. I overheard the Romans saying
they would pretend to be the Bog-Burglars so they can
get us to fight each other.’
‘YOU STAY OUT OF THIS, HICCUP!’
roared Stoick the Vast. ‘POLITICS IS FOR GROWN-
UPS! FETCH ME MY SWORD! SOUND THE
WAR HORNS! I WANT EVERY MAN, WOMAN
AND CHILD PRACTISING THEIR
SWORDFIGHTING NIGHT AND DAY FOR THE
NEXT TWO WEEKS!’
‘But, Father,’ protested Hiccup, ‘please use your
head here—’
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‘I AM USING MY HEAD!’ roared Stoick the
Vast, headbutting the wall. ‘IF THOSE BOG-
BURGLARS SET ONE TOE INTO HOOLIGAN
WATERS, BY THOR, THEY’RE GOING TO
REGRET IT!’
Hiccup could feel himself getting cross too. He
didn’t stand up to his father very often but he was so
upset about Toothless that he got up and stood in
front of Stoick with his hands on his hips.
‘Why don’t you BELIEVE ME?’ he asked
furiously. ‘I have told you and told you, this is the work
of the ROMANS. I have even brought you back a
Roman helmet to prove it.’
Hiccup pointed to the Roman helmet, which
was sitting on a stool in the corner of the room. ‘We
COULD send out a War Party to go and find these
Romans, and Toothless too… but oh no, you would
rather stay here beating up the Bog-Burglars than
believe the word of your OWN SON…’
For a moment it seemed as if Hiccup was
getting through to his father. Stoick’s nostrils stopped
flaring and he ceased to paw the ground with his foot.