LOOK OUT FOR MORE
STORIES OF MAYHEM
AND CHAOS IN
VULGAR THE VIKING
AND THE ROCK CAKE RAIDERS
VULGAR THE VIKING
AND THE GREAT GULP GAMES
VULGAR THE VIKING
AND THE TERRIBLE TALENT SHOW
With special thanks to
Barry Hutchison
“Back with you, monster. Back, back!”
Vulgar the Viking swiped with his sword, slashing the air and driving back a slimy sea serpent that had emerged, unexpectedly, from the duck pond in his home village of Blubber.
Around him, the other villagers were running in terror, screaming and wailing as they hurried to safety. Vulgar stood his ground. He tightened his grip on his broadsword and looked the monster in the eye.
“You think you can challenge a real Viking?” Vulgar asked. He threw back his head and laughed. “Let me see you try!”
With a hiss, the serpent rose up to its full height. It towered above him, blocking out the sun itself. Its terrible jaws opened. The smell of rotten whale meat rolled out, and then the creature spoke in a voice like thunder: “Wakey wakey, sleepyhead.”
Vulgar blinked. He lowered his sword.
“Um, what?” Something shook his shoulders and the sea serpent vanished in a swirling mist.
Vulgar opened his eyes and saw his mum’s face leaning over him. It wasn’t as terrifying as the sea monster’s face had been, but it was a close run thing.
“Dreaming again?” she asked.
Vulgar nodded sleepily. He should have known it was a dream. Nothing that exciting ever happened in Blubber. The scariest thing in Vulgar’s village was probably his mum’s cooking.
“Which was it this time? The sea serpent or the exploding helmet?”
“The sea serpent,” Vulgar said. He tried to hold on to the dream, but it was already fading away. He yawned and pulled the blanket tighter around him. Maybe if he went back to sleep for a while ...
“Don’t even think about it. You’re going to be late as it is,” said his mum. Helga was the largest and strongest woman in all of Blubber.
She was stronger than most of the men, too. With one hand she tipped up Vulgar’s bed. He screamed with fright as he spilled on to the cold stone floor.
Vulgar looked up in time for a grey tunic to land on his head. “Put that on,” Helga told him. “I want you to look smart for your first day back at school.”
Five minutes later, Vulgar shuffled into the kitchen and plonked himself down on the bench by the table. His dad, Harald, was there, spreading goat butter on a slice of burnt bread.
Little black crumbs were flying up and getting stuck in his thin, wispy beard.
“Morning, Vulgar,” Harald chirped. “Excited about going back to school?”
Vulgar didn’t have to think about his answer. “No,” he sighed. “Not really.”
There was a clunk as a piece of blackened toast was put down in front of him. “Eat up,” said Helga. “You don’t want to be late for class, do you?”
“Well, actually ...” said Vulgar.
“Ah, school. The happiest days of your life,” said Harald.
Vulgar shuddered. He really hoped that wasn’t true.
“You learn so much,” Harald continued through a mouthful of burnt bread. “Reading ... er ... other stuff. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t stuck it at school.”
“You’re a toilet cleaner, dad,” Vulgar said.
“Exactly!” cried Harald. “And if you work hard at school, maybe one day you can be a toilet cleaner, too.”
“I don’t want to be a toilet cleaner, though. I want to be a real Viking. I want looting and pillaging, not scrubbing and ... more scrubbing.”
Harald looked hurt. “I don’t just scrub,” he muttered. “I polish, too.”
“Viking school should be about proper Viking stuff,” Vulgar sighed. “But try telling that to our teacher.”
“Eat,” said Helga, snapping off a piece of the bread and shoving it in Vulgar’s mouth. “Dagmar the Dull has been Blubber’s teacher for as long as I can remember. There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“Of course there’s something wrong with him,” said Vulgar, between chews. “He’s dull.”
“Well, yes,” said Helga. “But he’s very ... reliable.”
Reliably boring, thought Vulgar, but his mouth was too full to say it. A sharp tug at his hair made him yelp and spray crumbs all over Harald. He tried to turn his head, but his mum was holding it steady.
“Don’t move or you’ll have your eye out,” she said, coming at him with a brush she had made from reindeer antlers. She tugged and pulled at the knots in Vulgar’s long, greasy hair but most of them refused to come out, and she was forced to admit defeat.
“That’ll have to do,” she said, sighing. She handed him his helmet and he pulled it on. Helga had polished the helmet’s horns so they gleamed. “Right, off you go to school,” she said. “And no getting into trouble!”
“I’ll try,” said Vulgar. He got up from the table and almost tripped over his flea-bitten dog, Grunt, who was sleeping on the kitchen floor. “Sorry, Grunt,” he said, then he carried on out of the house and along the narrow garden path.
His best friend, Knut, was leaning on the gate waiting for him. Vulgar gave his friend a nod of approval. Vulgar was usually scruffy, but Knut always went one better. He slouched as he walked, and his clothes had crumpled to fit his slumped shoulders. His helmet was on the large side, and one of the horns pointed in the wrong direction, because it had snapped off and been stuck back on upside down.
Compared to Knut, Vulgar’s half-brushed hair and polished horns made him look like a prince.
“Looking forward to school?” asked Knut.
“No,” Vulgar said. “You?”
Knut nodded. “Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.”
Vulgar’s jaw dropped open. “What, really?”
“No, not really,” said Knut, laughing, and they set off towards the school, walking slowly side by side. They were halfway there when they heard a faint woof from behind them.
Vulgar turned to find Grunt following them. The dog wagged his tail happily.
“Go home, Grunt,” Vulgar said. “I have to go to school, but you don’t. Run. Get away while you still can.”
Grunt’s tail stopped wagging. He looked from Vulgar to Knut, then back again. Finally, he turned and sloped back off in the direction of the house.
“Wish I could go home,” Knut said.
“Yeah,” agreed Vulgar. “Me too.”
A few minutes later, they arrived inside their classroom. The school was a small stone building with a thatched roof and a strip of mud outside that passed for a playing field. It had just one classroom. A dozen other Viking children were gathered in it. Some of them sat on the benches. Some of them stood leaning against the walls. They all looked just as unhappy as Vulgar felt.
Or almost all of them. Princess Freya, daughter of King Olaf, the ruler of Blubber, hopped excitedly from foot to foot. Her long blonde hair was tied in perfect plaits. Her clean white dress spun in frilly circles as she turned on the spot.
Freya was clutching a small wooden longship in her hands and chattering to anyone who would listen.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I spent most of the holidays on a cruise around the fjords,” she said. “It was incredible. Amazing. Beautiful!”
“Boring,” said Vulgar, with a yawn.
“You’re just jealous,” Freya sniffed. “Because you’ve never been on a real longboat before.”
She waggled th
e wooden boat in front of Vulgar’s face. “Wow, let’s have a look,” said Vulgar, grabbing it from her. He held it up and studied it. One day he’d own a boat like that. A real one, too, not just a toy.
“Give it back,” Freya demanded. She grabbed for the boat, but Vulgar dodged out of her way.
“I’m just having a look,” Vulgar protested, but Freya didn’t care. She lunged and snatched the boat back, then stuck her tongue out and flashed Vulgar a smug smile. Vulgar made to grab for the boat again, but a familiar voice stopped him.
“Right, you lot, quit your messin’,” said Harrumf, the crotchety old Viking who acted as King Olaf’s advisor. Vulgar turned in time to see Harrumf’s long grey beard enter shakily through the door, followed by the rest of him. “You’re expecting to be ’aving Dagmar teaching you, right?” He paused dramatically.
“Wrong!” Harrumf continued. “He won’t be ’ere, on account of him havin’ been mostly trampled by a moose.”
A murmur of excitement went round the group. Dagmar was the only teacher in Blubber. “So does that mean we can go home?” asked Vulgar, hopefully.
“No chance,” snapped Harrumf. “We’ve got a replacement for you.”
“It’s not you, is it?” said Vulgar.
“You should be so lucky. No, it’s someone else. Someone who won’t take any of your muckin’ about. He’s Blubber’s most famous son. He’s feared in all ten countries in the whole wide world. He’s the one, the only...”
Harrumf drummed his fingers against the teacher’s desk. “Yes?” mumbled the class.
“ ... Otto the Bone-Cruncher!”
A wide grin lit up Vulgar’s face. Otto the Bone-Cruncher was a proper Viking. He was probably the most proper Viking who had ever lived.
A hulking shape in an enormous horned helmet ducked in through the door. This was more like it! Maybe school wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
“Whoa!” gasped Vulgar, staring up at the towering Otto. He was the most impressive-looking Viking Vulgar had ever seen.
The horns on Otto’s helmet were half a metre long. His beard was so bushy it looked like it had another beard all of its own. His eyebrows were like angry caterpillars having a fight, and his arms were like tree trunks with fists attached to the end. He didn’t just look big, he made the rest of the room look small.
“This is going to be amazing,” Vulgar blurted out, grinning. Otto’s glare moved down and stopped on him. The big Viking’s nostrils flared.
“You bet your scrawny wee boots it will!” he bellowed in a voice like an avalanche. “Now sit down. All of you. Quickly, so you don’t miss any of the amazing things I’ve got to say.”
It took less than a second for every single pupil to sit down on one of the classroom benches. Otto’s voice was still ringing in their ears, and none of them wanted to get on the big man’s bad side.
“Call that quick?” Otto scoffed. “My grandmother could move quicker than that. And she’s got no legs.”
The class looked up at him in silence. Somewhere near the back of the room, the sheer volume of Otto’s voice made one of the younger boys cry. Otto raced over to him, hoisted him up by the back of his tunic, then tossed him out through the window.
“There’ll be no blubberers in my class,” he told the rest of them, as he stomped back to the front of the room.
“But we’re all Blubberers,” Vulgar pointed out. “We’re from Blubber.”
Otto glared down at Vulgar, his eyes bulging, his face going an angry shade of purple. Before he could start shouting, though, Harrumf interrupted.
“Right. I’ll leave you in Otto’s capable hands,” the old man said. He turned and hobbled out of the room. Otto watched him leave, shot Vulgar another angry look, then turned to the rest of the pupils.
“This school thing,” he said. “Waste of time. Reading runes. Counting? That’s not what real Vikings do. I’ve never counted higher than three in my entire life. You don’t need to when you’re fighting dragons. If you haven’t killed it after three sword slices, you’re dead. One, two, three. That’s all you need to know.”
Vulgar leaned closer. He was liking the sound of this.
“So from now on forget all that stuff,” Otto continued. “I’m going to teach you babies how to be real Vikings. I’m going to toughen you up and teach you how to survive. None of this reading rubbish.”
Freya raised a hand. “Can we talk about what we did during the summer holidays?” she asked, hopefully.
“No!” thundered Otto.
“But I went on a cruise and—”
“I don’t care! Do you know what I did in the holidays?”
“What?” asked Vulgar, breathlessly.
“I tamed a polar bear, headbutted a giant and conquered Norway.”
“You headbutted a giant?” Vulgar gasped. He was impressed. The most exciting thing he’d done in the holidays was sleep.
Otto puffed out his chest. “I headbutt a giant at least once a day,” he announced. “And twice on Sundays.”
“Can you teach us how to headbutt a giant?” Vulgar asked.
“No!” boomed Otto. “You’re all too titchy. You wouldn’t reach.”
“Can you teach us swordfighting, then?”
Otto’s eyes narrowed. “Swordfighting?” he said, standing over Vulgar’s desk and glaring down. “You want me to teach you swordfighting?”
Vulgar gulped. “Um ... yes.”
The big Viking gave a nod. “An excellent idea.”
A little while later, the whole class stood in the small courtyard outside the school. They had each been given a short wooden sword, and then ordered to copy what Otto did.
The teacher drew his own sword – a heavy steel blade that was easily as long as Vulgar’s whole body – and began frantically chopping and stabbing at the air with it.
“You do this, and then you do this, and then you give it some of that,” Otto said, hacking and slashing at an invisible opponent. “And then, when they least expect it, you let them have a taste of this and one of these, and then a couple of those for luck.”
He slid his sword back into its scabbard. “Everyone got that?”
The pupils all blinked and mumbled uncertainly.
“Good. You’ll work in pairs,” Otto told them.
Vulgar grinned and went to team up with Knut, but a big hand caught him by the tunic and hoisted him off the ground. “You can fight her,” Otto said, dropping Vulgar beside Freya.
“What?” Vulgar spluttered. “But why?”
Otto stroked his wild beard. “Let me think. Oh, yes. Because I said so! Everyone else, pair up and show me what you’re made of.”
As the teacher strode off to shout some more at other people, Vulgar turned to Freya. “Get ready to see what a real Viking is made of,” he warned her.
“Ouch!” he yelped, covering his head with his arms.
“Oof!” he cried, bringing his hands down to protect his ribs.
Vulgar leapt backwards. “Cut it out,” he said. “I wasn’t ready.”
Freya lowered her wooden weapon. “Fine,” she sighed. “Are you ready now?”
Vulgar gripped the handle of his own sword. He nodded. “Ready.”
“Ow!”
Freya laughed. “Some real Viking you are. You can’t even beat a girl.”
That did it. With a roar of anger, Vulgar ran at the princess, his sword swinging. She sidestepped at the very last moment, and Vulgar crashed face first into the teacher’s bum.
Otto turned to see Vulgar stumbling backwards then falling to the ground. The teacher stepped over Vulgar and glared down at him. Vulgar gave a groan. “Is it playtime yet?”
“Playtime?” Otto laughed. He slapped his thigh with one plate-sized hand. “Real Vikings don’t play. There will be no playtime from now on.”
An unhappy murmur went through the class. Knut raised a hand. “What about lunch?” he asked. “We still get lunch, right?”
Vulgar’s stomach gave a worr
ied grumble.
“No playtime,” Otto said. “And no lunch, either.”
Vulgar’s face went pale. “But we’ll starve!”
“Nonsense,” Otto said. “I once went for six years eating only tree bark and dust. Lunch is cancelled. Lunch is for wimps!”
Down on the ground, Vulgar gave another groan. No playtime, and now no lunch? He suddenly wished he’d eaten more of the burnt toast at breakfast. If only someone had told him that being a proper Viking was going to be such hungry work.
The next day, Vulgar and Knut made their way to school. Vulgar was limping. Freya had turned out to be a lot better with a sword than she looked. Still, Vulgar’s bruises didn’t make him any less excited about the day ahead.
“I wonder what we’ll learn today?” he said.
Knut shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Looting, probably,” Vulgar said. “Or plundering. Maybe a bit of pillaging, if we’re lucky.”
The day’s lesson was on none of these things, however. The boys arrived at school to find a fire burning in the courtyard. Otto explained – with lots of shouting – that he was going to teach them how to light fires using just a sword and a stone.
“All right!” cheered Vulgar, punching the air with delight. His mum would never let him light a fire in a million years, not since he’d accidentally set her hair alight with that candle on his last birthday.
Starting the fire wasn’t as easy as it looked. It took Vulgar almost an hour of hitting the stone with the sword to produce even one small spark. The others weren’t having much luck, either, except Freya who had managed to get a roaring fire going after just a few minutes.
Vulgar the Viking and the Spooky School Trip Page 1
