How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

by Cressida Cowell

  Copyright © 2007 by Cressida Cowell

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group USA

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.lb-kids.com

  First eBook Edition: May 2008

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Hodder Children’s Books

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-03236-0

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1. THE HERDING-REINDEER-ON-DRAGONBACK LESSON

  2. THE EXTERMINATORS

  3. THE FIRETRAP

  4. THE FIGHT

  5. WHO IS THE MAN ON THE WHITE DRAGON?

  6. HICCUP’S BARDIGUARD HAS A BUSY TIME

  7. THE TALE OF HUMUNGOUSLY HOTSHOT THE BARDIGUARD

  8. THE TWIST IN THE BARDIGUARD’S TALE

  9. HOW DO YOU TAKE ADVICE FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS TAKEN A VOW OF SILENCE?

  10. A MEETING OF THE THING

  11. THE-QUEST-TO-STOP-THE VOLCANO-FROM-EXPLODING

  12. WELCOME TO LAVA-LOUT ISLAND

  13. MEANWHILE, BACK ON BERK

  14. IS IT ALWAYS NICE TO BUMP INTO AN OLD AQUAINTANCE?

  15. I DIDN’T MEAN TO COME HERE

  16. ANOTHER FIGHT

  17. JUST EXACTLY WHEN IS TOO LATE?

  18. HERE’S AN INTERESTING QUESTION. CAN YOU OUTRUN AN EXPLODING VOLCANO?

  19. HERE’S ANOTHER INTERESTING QUESTION. IS THE UNIVERSE A GOOD EGG OR A BAD EGG?

  20. WHEN THE PLAY IS OVER

  ABOUT THE HERO

  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was an awesome swordfighter, a dragon whisperer, and the greatest Viking Hero who ever lived. But Hiccup’s memoirs look back to when he was a very ordinary boy who found it hard to be a Hero.

  More books about Hiccup:

  How to Train Your Dragon

  How to be a Pirate

  How to Speak Dragonese

  How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse

  I dedicate this book to my mother, mama

  PROLOGUE

  BY HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK III THE LAST OF THE GREAT VIKING HEROES

  There were Heroes when I was a boy.

  Now that I am an old, old man, with white in my hair and wrinkles on my cheeks, it seems a long time ago.

  So I shall tell this story as if it happened to somebody else, because the boy I once was is so distant to me now, that he might as well be a stranger.

  Here is the story of a Hero I met when I was eleven years old and about to embark on one of the most dangerous Quests of my Life, the Quest to Stop the Volcano from Exploding.

  He was a very great man, but he didn’t want to be a Hero anymore . . .

  1. THE HERDING-REINDEER-ON-DRAGONBACK LESSON

  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third never forgot the day he met an Exterminator Dragon for the very first time.

  How could he?

  It was one of the most terrifying experiences of his short, adventurous life.

  There he was, sitting in the middle of a circle of fire which was getting smaller and smaller, with no way out, and prowling through the flames, getting closer and closer, were these sinister leopard-like shapes, the slinking silhouettes of Exterminator Dragons sharpening their talons and getting ready to leap —

  Hang on a second.

  I had better start at the beginning.

  It all took place during a heat wave in August, which was surprising, for Augusts in the Viking territories were normally rather cool, wet affairs. But it had been growing hotter and hotter over the course of the summer, and as the temperatures rose, Hiccup’s grandfather Old Wrinkly had been babbling on about how the unexpected warmth was a terrible Omen of Doom, and a new kind of Terror-Dragon had awoken in the West, and would descend upon them all with Fire and Destruction . . .

  But unfortunately nobody really took Old Wrinkly seriously, because he wasn’t very good at looking into the future.

  On this particular day, the sun was beating down relentlessly on the usually soggy Isle of Berk as if it had lost its way and thought it was in Africa.

  There was not a cloud (let alone an Exterminator Dragon) in the sky.

  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, only son of Chief Stoick the Vast, was in the Hooligan Pirate Training Program on the Isle of Berk.

  His teacher, Gobber the Belch, had decided that on this particularly still, stuffy summer’s day, when all you really wanted to do was to find a nice tree and lie gasping underneath it, downing lots of drinking-horns of nice cool water, it would, in fact, be an EXCELLENT idea to hold a Herding-Reindeer-on-Dragonback lesson.

  Hiccup did not agree with Gobber the Belch.

  But Gobber the Belch had not asked Hiccup’s opinion on the matter.

  And Gobber the Belch was a six-and-a-half-foot axe-wielding lunatic who was not the kind of teacher you argued with.

  So there they all were, all twelve pupils on the Program, standing in a hot, bedraggled, wilting line, halfway up Huge Hill, swatting off the midges that were gathering in great clouds in the still and steamy air.

  There was Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, rather surprisingly the Hero of this story, for he was extremely ordinary-looking, with bright-red hair that shot straight up in the air whatever you did to it, and no obvious Heroic qualities.

  There was Hiccup’s best friend Fishlegs, the only boy on the Pirate Training Program who was even worse at being a Viking than Hiccup was. He had asthma, eczema, short-sight, flat-feet, knock-knees, an allergy to reptiles, heather, and animal fur, and he couldn’t swim. He bore a strong resemblance to a string bean wearing glasses.

  There was Snotface Snotlout. A delightful boy — if you happen to like unpleasant teenagers with skull tattoos who bully anything that moves and is smaller than them.

  There was Tuffnut Junior. A pleasure to meet — if you happen to like meeting pimply young plug-uglies who pick their noses and sleep with an axe under their pillows.

  And Dogsbreath the Duhbrain, the largest, sweatiest, and smelliest of the lot of them, had all the grace and charm of a pig in a helmet.

  There they all were, this horrid collection of spotty Viking preteens, and Gobber was shouting at them in his usual cheery fashion.

  “RIGHT!” yelled Gobber, the sweat pouring down his lobster-red cheeks and into his beard, turning it as limp and steamy as a jungle rainforest. “I PRESUME YOU HAVE ALL BROUGHT YOUR HUNTING DRAGONS?”

  They had all brought their hunting dragons. All except for Clueless, who really was so stupid that he shouldn’t have been allowed out without a guardian. He had brought his hunting FLAGON, which wasn’t the same thing at all.

  But everybody else had brought their hunting dragons.

  Most of the hunting dragons were looking as cross at being called out on this mission as their Masters were, panting heavily with their forked tongues hanging out, and swishing their tails to keep off the midges and the flies.

  Snotlout’s dragon, Fireworm, who looked a bit like a flame-red Rottweiler with a face like a snooty alligator, was curling dangerously around Snotlout’s legs, wondering whether she would get in trouble if she gave Gobber a big fat bite on his big fat hairy bottom.

  If it was a big enough chomp, it might just stop the lesson while Gobber went to the Hospital Hut . . .

  But, reluctantly, s
he decided that she would get in trouble.

  Fishlegs’s dragon, Horrorcow, the only vegetarian hunting dragon anybody has ever heard of, had gone to sleep in Fishlegs’s arms on the way up, and Fishlegs was trying to hold her head up in a way that looked like she was awake, and listening intently, because Gobber had strong views on how everybody at the lesson really ought to be conscious.

  And all the other dragons were lounging at their Masters’ feet, or hovering limply a little way above their Masters’ heads, wishing they were somewhere else.

  Hiccup’s hunting dragon, Toothless, was by far the smallest, a bright green little Common-or-Garden dragon, about the size of a naughty dachshund, or Jack Russell terrier.

  He was also the only dragon showing the same amount of enthusiasm for this expedition as Gobber.

  He was fidgeting in and out of Hiccup’s waistcoat in a whirl of impatience, scurrying up his shirt, his little claws tickling Hiccup’s tummy, and then up out the collar and onto Hiccup’s head. Then he would perch on Hiccup’s helmet, spreading his wings and hooting in short, excitable bursts before scampering back down Hiccup’s body again.

  “Are we s-s-starting yet? Are we s-s-starting?” chirped Toothless. “When are we going to start? H-h-how many minutes? C-c-can T-T-Toothless go first? Me! Me! M-m-me!”

  “Calm down, Toothless,” said Hiccup, as Toothless accidentally stuck his claw up Hiccup’s nostril on the way down. “We’ve only just got here.”*

  “OK, BOYS, LISTEN UP!” bellowed Gobber.

  “Herding reindeer is a lot like herding sheep, but reindeer are bigger.”

  Clueless put his hand up.

  “Which is bigger?” asked Clueless.

  “Sheep are the round fluffy ones, and reindeers are the larger ones with the pointy things on their heads,” explained Fishlegs kindly.

  “Thank you, Fishlegs,” said Gobber. “You will use your hunting dragon to round up any stray reindeer that try to break away from the group we are herding. It’s a chance to put into practice all that you have learned in your Herding Sheep lessons.”

  “I don’t know how Hiccup the Useless is ever going to be the chief of this tribe,” sneered Snotlout, “when he can’t even keep control of that minuscule microbe of a dragon of his. Look what happened last Herding Sheep lesson.”

  Toothless had lost his head on that occasion, and single-handedly CHARGED the flock and chased it into the Dragon Toilets. (He claimed it was an accident, but Hiccup had his suspicions.)

  It had taken three-quarters of an hour to get the sheep out of the Toilets, and they still stunk to high heaven four weeks later.

  “But the main business of the herding,” continued Gobber, “will be performed by YOU on your RIDING DRAGONS . . .”

  “C-c-can Toothless EAT the reindeer when he catch them?” squeaked Toothless.

  “NOBODY is going to be EATING any reindeer, Toothless!” whispered Hiccup. “And we’re not going to chase them, either. This is herding, not chasing. We will just be gently guiding the reindeer in the right direction.”

  “Oh,” said Toothless, hugely disappointed.

  “. . . None of you have ridden dragons before,” Gobber boomed, “and you will find it is more difficult than you think. And therefore the dragons that you will be riding on today are NOT YET FULLY GROWN. This means that they will not have the strength to carry you up into the air.”

  “Oh, Sir . . .” groaned Snotlout, “I thought we were going to be FLYING today.”

  “First you learn to ride,” said Gobber, “and then later, MUCH LATER, you learn to fly. You fall off a flying dragon, Snotlout, and you will end up a SQUASHED Viking. Which would be difficult for me to explain to your father.”

  “Can T-T-Toothless just eat a very small one?” asked Toothless, in a very small voice.

  “No,” whispered Hiccup.

  “So, ON our riding dragons, we will approach the reindeer QUIETLY — no farting, Dogsbreath — and we will carefully surround the herd and see whether we can guide it back toward Hooligan Village. Any questions so far? Yes, Clueless?”

  “Which were the round fluffy ones again?” asked Clueless.

  Gobber sighed.

  “The round fluffy ones are the SHEEP, Clueless, they’re the SHEEP. Now. You will find the riding dragons rather a lively ride. They are just over here — WHERE ARE THE RIDING DRAGONS?” asked Gobber in exasperation. “They were supposed to be following us.”

  “I think they’re over there, sir,” said Fishlegs, pointing to a small, twisted tree a little way away.

  The riding dragons were looking far from lively. They were lying in the shade, resting their heads on their paws, their forked tongues hanging out.

  Gobber strode toward them, clapping his hands and shouting, “COME ON, UP YOU GO THERE, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE TERRIFYING, FOR THOR’S SAKE!”

  And as the riding dragons got to their feet, and slunk toward their Masters through the browned and shriveled heather like a pack of surly lions, Hiccup realized something that really WAS terrifying.

  Something that gave a small indication that perhaps the day might take an unexpected turn.

  The tree the riding dragons had been sheltering under was blasted and twisted and reduced to carbon. All around the tree were scorch-marks. And when Hiccup moved a little closer to investigate, he found to his horror that the entire hillside behind had been burnt to a cinder and turned to sooty desert.

  Where once heather grew and swayed in the wind, covered with butterflies and grasshoppers and buzzing nanodragons, now there was only ashy stubble, scarred across with white, stretching out across the whole of the slope.

  Only one thing could do that to a hillside, and it wasn’t the sun, however fiercely it might shine.

  It was FIRE.

  2. THE EXTERMINATORS

  Hiccup swallowed hard.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh DEAR,” he muttered to himself. “What has done that?”

  Dragons, you see, were normally very careful about how they used their fire. They used it to fight and catch prey, but they would never dream of setting fire to a whole landscape. Why would they? It was the land that supported them, and gave them food, and shelter.

  This must have been done by a “Rogue Species,” a different kind of dragon entirely.

  Hiccup did not like to think of how dangerous such a dragon might be.

  “Ummm, sir,” said Hiccup, “I think you should come and have a look at this . . . I think there’s been a dragon-fire here.”

  “Dragon-fire? Nonsense and gull-droppings!” Gobber the Belch snorted, as he came to look at the destruction, his hands on his hips. “This will have been caused by a spot of summer lightning.”

  “There hasn’t been a storm lately,” said Hiccup, “and look,” he said as he knelt in the dust. “There’s a sort of greenish tinge to the ash. It’s definitely a Rogue Dragon Species.”

  “Thank you, Hiccup,” said Gobber, with heavy sarcasm, “for the helpful lecture, but I am the teacher here. GET BACK INTO LINE!”

  Hiccup got back into line.

  Snotlout smirked to see Hiccup being told off.

  “No dragon, however Rogue, would DARE to attack us here in the Hooligan stronghold of Berk. The idea is RIDICULOUS, ABSURD, BIZARRE. It is not the done thing,” roared Gobber. “Each of you mount your dragons! On the double, QUICK QUICK QUICK!”

  Wartihog climbed onto his Marsh Tiger. Snotface Snotlout was riding the best dragon there, a smooth, evil-looking Devilish Dervish.

  Tuffnut Junior had a Rocket Ripper with go-faster stripes along the sides.

  “Hiccup the Useless and his fishlegged failure of a friend are really letting the rest of us down, Sir,” sneered Snotlout. “Look at their pathetic riding dragons. They’re a disgrace to the tribe!”

  Fishlegs and Hiccup had the runts of the group, one an ugly, cross little Chickenpoxer so fat its belly barely cleared the ground, the other a nervous Windwalker with a wild look in its eye, and a pronou
nced limp.

  As the son of the Chief, Hiccup had first pick when they went to choose their dragons from the Dragon Stables a few days earlier. And he could have chosen the Devilish Dervish that Snotlout was smugly sitting on right now, a superb, shining muscular creature, who was clearly one day going to grow up into a magnificent animal.

  But something about the poor nervous Windwalker had caught Hiccup’s eye.

  He knew no one else would pick him.

  And somehow he had the feeling that something awful had happened to the anxious creature lolloping crookedly in front of him. His legs bore the marks of having recently been in manacles.

  “I wouldn’t pick that one,” advised Nobber Nobrains, who was in charge of the Dragon Stables. “We found HIM caught in a tree during a raid on Visithug Territory. We think he might be a runaway from the Lava-Lout Gold Mines, and runaways never make good riding dragons. The kindest thing really might be just to bonk him on the head and have done with it . . .”

  So Hiccup had picked the Windwalker with

  the limp.

  Both Fishlegs and Hiccup did not quite believe that the fire had been caused by lightning, but there was no arguing with Gobber in this mood, so reluctantly they mounted their dragons.

  Fishlegs’s Chickenpoxer gave a furious snort, pawed the ground, and bucked Fishlegs off the moment he sat on his back.

  “Yippee,” said Fishlegs morosely as he got back on board, and exactly the same thing happened again, only quicker, “I can see I’m going to like dragon riding . . .”

  “I will be leading you on the back of my own dragon,” shouted Gobber.

  Gobber’s dragon was a great warty Bullrougher known as Goliath.

  He winced as Gobber plumped heavily onto his back.

  “Sweet chest hair of Thor . . .” grumbled Goliath. “I do believe his bottom is even fatter than last week. It’ll be a miracle if I can take off at all . . .”

  “YOICKS!” yelled Gobber, squeezing his thighs to get Goliath going.

  And the Herding-Reindeer-on-Dragonback party set off across the scorched wreckage of the heather, with Gobber enthusiastically shouting at the front, and everybody else following him in a more leisurely fashion.