Little flakes of white drifted in through the open windows of Vulgar’s house. He shivered, half with cold and half with excitement. There was snow outside – snow! – but he was stuck inside with his parents.
“Can I go out to play?” he asked hopefully. He flattened down his wild, greasy hair and opened his eyes as wide as he could. “Please?”
Vulgar’s mum, Helga, looked up from her knitting. Helga was a big woman with enormous hands and the whalebone knitting needles looked tiny in her grasp. “No,” she said. “It’s too cold.”
“Aw, Mum! But real Vikings don’t mind the cold,” Vulgar said. “We love it!”
“Not now,”
Helga sighed.
“Maybe later.”
Vulgar slowly counted to three in his head. One. Two. Three.
“OK. How about now?”
Helga glanced over at her husband. “Harald. Tell him.”
“Vulgar, listen to your mother,” Harald said, without looking up.
Harald was not as big as his wife. Nowhere near it, in fact. Helga could have carried her husband in one hand, and still had room for her knitting. He was technically a Viking, but not the sort that Vulgar wanted to be. His beard was too wispy and his helmet was too small for a start.
To make matters worse, Harald never went looting or plundering. He didn’t even own a longship! He cleaned toilets for a living and that, Vulgar thought, was the most un-Viking job anyone could ever do.
But then no one in the village of Blubber was very good at being a Viking. Vulgar was determined that one day he would show them all how it was supposed to be done!
Harald was sitting in the kitchen, weaving a tapestry. Vulgar shook his head in dismay – weaving, for goodness’ sake. It looked a bit like a gargoyle, or some kind of horrible troll.
Vulgar tilted his head left and right, trying to work out what the picture was.
“Is it a Frost Giant?” he asked. “You know, one of the really ugly ones?”
“A Frost Giant?” said Harald. He looked at the tapestry. “No, it’s your mother.”
Vulgar stared at the cloth, then over at his mum. “Oh yeah,” he said, suddenly seeing the resemblance.
“So it is. That’s amazing, Dad! You’re so talented.”
“Thank you,” said Harald. “But you still can’t go outside.”
With a sigh, Vulgar stood up. Over in the corner his dog, Grunt, lay snoring. A big pot of stew bubbled on the fire.
Next to the fire sat a big pile of dried elk manure. Helga burned piles of the stuff during the winter to keep the house warm. It worked, but it also made the whole place stink of poo.
Vulgar gave the manure a poke. It had dried into a solid heap. It was almost the size of his head and perfectly round. He picked it up. Not too heavy, not too light. His mum and dad watched as he bounced the manure ball off his knee and began to play keepie-uppie.
“One, two, three…” he counted, juggling the hardened poo with his feet.
“Careful with that, Vulgar,” Harald warned, then he ducked as the manure flew over his head and thudded against the wall.
“Sorry, I’m out of practice,” Vulgar said as he scooped up his ball. He started again. “One, two, three, four, five…”
He lost control again and the dung bounced with a boing off Helga’s cheek.
“Vulgar!” she snapped.
“Sorry, Mum, I didn’t mean to hit you in the face with elk poo,” Vulgar said.
“On the bright side, though, that was my new record!”
Helga picked a fleck of manure from her eyebrow and dropped it on to the floor. “I’m very happy for you,” she said. “Now be careful.”
“Will do!” Vulgar chirped. “Right, watch this. This is going to be the best yet.”
He swung back his leg and kicked, but his aim was bad. Vulgar and his parents watched the manure go up, up, up into the air. They stared as it bounced off the ceiling, then they gasped as it landed with a soggy splat in the stew pot.
Helga gripped her knitting needles so tightly one of them snapped in half.
“OK,” she muttered. “Now you can go outside.”
Vulgar punched the air. “Yes!” He made a run for the door, but his mum got there before him.
“First,” she said, “you have to wrap up warm.”
Fifteen minutes later, Vulgar stood in the snow. A tiny patch of his face was visible. The rest of him was buried beneath a mountain of wool.
He wore a woolly jumper with a woolly cardigan on top. His sealskin shorts had been replaced by a pair of woolly trousers. A scarf was wrapped around his face, and his hands were trapped inside fluffy mittens. Vulgar was so bundled up that he could barely move.
On his head was a woolly hat. It was shaped like a Viking helmet, complete with knitted horns. It was, Vulgar thought, the itchiest, scratchiest hat in the world.
Grunt stood in the snow beside him, looking up.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” Vulgar warned, and Grunt gave a bark that sounded suspiciously like a snigger.
There was a crunch of footsteps through the snow. Vulgar looked up and saw his best friend, Knut, coming out to meet them. Knut looked like he always did – the same jumble of sackcloth clothing, the same helmet with one horn pointing the wrong way. He did have a scarf on, but it was wrapped around his waist like a belt.
“All right?” Knut said. “Seen my monster?”
Vulgar scratched his head. “What monster?”
“That one,” said Knut, pointing to a huge snowman that stood over by his house. “It’s a Snow Beast.”
Vulgar peered up at the Snow Beast. It was almost as tall as his mum. He scratched his head and had an idea. “It needs something.”
Knut frowned. “What?”
“A hat.” Vulgar pulled off his itchy woollen hat and climbed on to Knut’s back so he could reach the Snow Beast’s head. “There,” he said, giving his own head one final scratch. “Much better.”
From somewhere nearby, they heard the sound of singing. Vulgar’s eyes narrowed as he recognised the voice of Princess Freya. Putting his finger to his lips, he led Knut and Grunt around a few stone huts until they spotted the princess. She was lying on the ground and waving her arms up and down, making angel shapes in the snow.
“What’s she up to?” Knut whispered.
Vulgar shrugged. “No idea.”
“Maybe she’s fallen over and can’t get up?”
“Maybe we should help her,” Vulgar said. He and Knut both smirked. “Nah!”
They knelt down and squashed together some snowballs. Being careful to keep out of sight, Vulgar took aim, drew back his arm, and threw.
The snowball sailed through the air. Vulgar grinned. It was going to be a direct hit!
Then, just before the snowball struck her, Freya swiftly rolled out of the way. “Ha!” she cried. “I knew you’d turn up sooner or later.”
The princess reached into the pockets of her furry waistcoat and pulled out two snowballs of her own. She hurled them both, and Vulgar and Knut gasped as the icy snow splattered across their faces.
“Right!” Vulgar cried, grabbing for another snowball. “You asked for it!”
He was about to open fire when a low droning sound echoed around the village. It was the sound of the Official Announcement Horn.
Vulgar dropped his snowball as they all started trudging in the direction of the Great Hall. “Don’t you go running off anywhere,” he warned Freya. “After this, it’s snowball time.”
Freya cracked her knuckles. “Oh yes? Bring it on!”
The horn blasted two more times in the next fifteen minutes. By the t
ime it had sounded for a third time, everyone in Blubber was squashed into the Great Hall. They grumbled and complained, unhappy at having to leave their warm houses.
Still, the Official Announcement Horn meant only one thing – an official announcement – and everyone knew you didn’t ignore an official announcement.
Vulgar, Knut and Freya stood right at the front of the crowd. With so many bodies crammed in, the hall was becoming very hot and Vulgar sweated inside his knitted outfit.
An old man with a bent back and crooked, wobbly legs hobbled out on to the stage. He waved a walking stick at the crowd and glared. “Right, you lot, that’s enough,” snapped Harrumf, the steward of the Great Hall. “Quit your whingein’ an’ open yer ears.”
Harrumf rocked on his heels and waited for the crowd to fall silent. When it eventually did, he knocked three times on the stage with his stick. Thock. Thock. Thock.
“Men, women an’ little babes of Blubber,” he began, “what a treat we’ave in store for you on this fine winter’s day.”
“Oh, get on with it!” called someone from the crowd. Harrumf ignored him and carried on.
“You’s a right lot of lucky so-an’-sos, you are. You ain’t gonna believe who’s waitin’ in the wings to address you today.”
“Is it King Olaf?” asked a woman near the front of the audience.
“It’s always King Olaf,” said a man at the back.
“Not always it ain’t,” said Harrumf. “It might not be ’im.”
“Who is it, then?” shouted Vulgar.
Harrumf glanced at the curtain by the side of the stage. “Knnm Omnnn,” he mumbled, too quietly for anyone to hear.
“What was that?”
“Speak up!”
Harrumf tutted. “King Olaf. You happy now?” He hobbled offstage again, muttering below his breath.
As the old man reached the curtain, a stomach emerged from behind it. The stomach was soon followed by the rest of King Olaf, who munched on some boar trotters as he shuffled across the stage. A quiet ripple of applause went around the room.
“Thank you, thank you,” said Olaf, spraying half-chewed boar trotters across the front row. Vulgar picked a lump out of his hair and secretly stuck it to Freya’s back. “I expect you’re wondering why I summoned you all here.”
Vulgar raised a hand. “Are there dragons?”
King Olaf frowned. “What?”
“Dragons,” said Vulgar. “Is it because loads of dragons are swooping in to attack the village, and you need us to fight them off?”
“Um… no.”
Vulgar lowered his hand. “Oh,” he said. “Pity.”
“Yes, well…”
“Giants, then?” asked Vulgar hopefully.
“Did you want to tell us about an army of giants that want to grind our bones and—?”
“A talent contest,” said the king, cutting Vulgar short.
Vulgar glanced at Knut. “A talent contest?”
“Yes.” Olaf nodded. “To brighten up the long winter ahead, I thought we would have a talent contest.”
“Right. So definitely not giants, then?”
The king shook his head crossly at Vulgar, then turned to the rest of the audience. “The contest shall be open to all Blubberers. If you have a talent—”
“Ha! Fat chance,” snorted Harrumf from offstage.
“—then this is your chance to share it with us all,” said Olaf, ignoring the old man. “It doesn’t matter if you sing, dance or do amusing things with pickled herring – this Saturday will be your chance to shine as the Great Hall hosts the first ever Blubber Talent Contest!”
A much more enthusiastic round of applause went around the room, and the audience began to chatter with excitement. A talent contest! They’d never had a talent contest before. King Olaf left the stage and the crowd began to hurry out before Harrumf came back.
Down at the front, Vulgar turned to Knut. “Odin’s elbows! This is going to be brilliant!” he said, bouncing up and down with excitement.
“Are you going to enter?” Knut asked.
“Of course I’m going to enter!” Vulgar replied. “And I’m definitely going to win!”
“Great! What are you going to do?”
Vulgar thought about this. If he was going to win he had to do something amazing. Something spectacular. Something that would blow everyone’s eyebrows off.
“Oh, I know, I know!” he cried, slipping his hand up inside his woolly jumper and trapping it beneath a sweaty armpit. He pumped his arm furiously up and down and a series of loud squelchy trumping noises echoed around the hall.
“I’m going to do that!”
Knut wasn’t sure. “I like it,” he said.
“But I don’t know if anyone else will.”
“Are you crazy? They’ll love it!” Vulgar pumped his arm again and several more soggy parps rang out. Knut shook his head.
“Can you do anything else?”
Vulgar thought some more. “I could… juggle elk manure.”
Knut wrinkled his nose. “Not very exciting, though, is it?”
“I could set it on fire first!”
Knut shook his head again. “Harrumf wouldn’t let you in case you burned the place down,” he said. “Or decorated the walls with elk poo.”
“I could shove a whole rock cake in my mouth.”
“You do that every day.”
Vulgar sighed. This was proving harder than he thought. “Two rock cakes?”
Freya stepped between them, her hands on her hips. “Ha! You two wouldn’t know talent if it smacked you on the helmet with a broadsword. There’s only one way you have a chance of winning.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Vulgar. “What's that?”
“I’m going to sing,” the princess said, ignoring the question. “It’s a beautiful love song about the goddess Freya, whom I was named after.”
“Sounds horrible,” Vulgar sniffed. “How does it help me win?”
Freya smiled sweetly. “Because it’s a duet. I need someone to sing with me.”
Vulgar’s jaw dropped open. “What?”
“I’d be the goddess Freya, obviously. You’d be my true love, Od.”
“I’d rather arm-wrestle a giant squid!” Vulgar spluttered.
Freya scowled. “Fine! But you’ll never win without me! Blubber might have talent, but you don’t!”
“Want a bet? I’ve got loads of talent,” Vulgar insisted. “In fact, I’ve got an amazing top-secret act that’s bound to win. It’s much better than some stupid love song.”
“Oh yes? What is it, then?” Freya demanded.
Vulgar crossed his arms. “Not telling,” he said, turning away. “It’s a secret.”
The princess stomped her foot on the stone floor. “Fine!” she snapped, then she stormed off towards the exit.
“So what’s the top-secret act, then?” Knut asked.
Vulgar shrugged. “No idea. I just said that to get rid of her.” He sighed and looked around the now almost empty Great Hall. “There must be something I can do.”
He stopped when he spotted the tapestries hanging on the wall. They showed great moments of Viking history, back when Vikings behaved the way Vikings should.
Vulgar stared at the largest tapestry. It showed the legendary Sven the Dragon-Slayer. In the picture, Sven was pinning a large green dragon to the ground while kicking it up the bottom. Underneath the scene was a title – Booting Some Dragon Bum. It had always been one of Vulgar’s favourite stories, and he suddenly knew how he was going to win the talent show.
“I’m going to re-enact the legend of Sven the Dragon-Slayer,” he cried. “With fighting and dragons and giants and treasure and all that stuff. I’m going to show everyone in Blubber how real Vikings are supposed to behave!”
Vulgar’s eyes sparkled as he turned to Knut and flashed him a broad grin. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Next morning, Vulgar was up and dressed early. It was Friday, which meant there was only
one day until the talent contest. He had to fit in lots of practice before then if he was going to win.
There was a knock at the door. Down on the floor, Grunt raised his head and let out a lazy woof. Vulgar opened the door and Knut shuffled in. Grunt closed his eyes and promptly went back to sleep.
“There you are!” Vulgar cried, shutting the door behind his friend.
Knut yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“Here I am,” he nodded. Then he added, “Why am I here?”
“To help me with the act!”
“Oh yeah,” said Knut, yawning again. “I forgot.” He looked around the hut. “Where are your mum and dad?”
“They’re at the Great Hall. They’ve decided to enter the contest, too.”
“What’s their talent?” Knut asked.
“Dancing,” said Vulgar.
“Dancing?” asked Knut.
Vulgar nodded. “Dancing,” he said, and both boys shuddered at the thought. “Still, it means we can rehearse in peace.”
“You mean you can rehearse in peace,” Knut said.
Vulgar grinned. “Yes, well, I wanted to talk to you about that. In the story, Sven fights an evil dwarf, a wicked giant and a fearsome dragon, so he can rescue some silly princess and – more importantly – collect a huge treasure chest and a magical golden helmet.”
Knut nodded. Everyone knew the story of Sven the Dragon-Slayer. “That’s a lot of characters. How are you going to play them all?”
“I’m not,” said Vulgar. “You are.”
“What?!” spluttered Knut. “No way!”
Vulgar the Viking and the Terrible Talent Show Page 1
