Cressida Cowell_How to Train Your Dragon_04

by How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

  If the soup had been any hotter, Hiccup would have been burned to death, but it had been on the table for some time, and had cooled to a pleasant swimming temperature.

  If the Hysterics had been any fonder of Onion Soup, it would not have been deep enough to break Hiccup's fall, but the Hysterics only served Onion Soup because it was the traditional thing to do, and had hardly touched it.

  So Hiccup merely bumped his bottom gently on the bottom of the cauldron, and rose to the surface, coughing and spluttering, his hair full of onions. There was a shocked silence. Nothing puts a quicker stop to a jolly meal than a stranger and a great deal of snow suddenly falling onto the banqueting table. The Hysterics sat, amazed, spitting snow out of their beards, staring at the unexpected visitor gasping in their soup.

  Norbert the Nutjob was the first to recover, shaking the snow off and leaping to his feet. "ASSASSINS'" he screamed. "SEIZE HIM!"

  Twenty Warriors sprang onto the table. Hiccup tried to swim out of trouble, but his backstroke couldn't make up for the fact that he was entirely surrounded. Two large Hysterics dragged him out of the soup and dropped him, dripping and gloopy, in front of Norbert the Nutjob.

  "Are there more of you?" barked Norbert the Nutjob, brandishing the blackened blade of his axe in front of Hiccup's face.

  Hiccup shook his head, spraying soup in all directions.

  Norbert the Nutjob and his Warriors peered upward. Camicazi was hanging way up in the darkness of the ceiling, and her black clothes came in handy, for they could not see her.

  "SEARCH THE ROOF AND THE VILLAGE!" screamed Norbert the Nutjob.

  He turned to face Hiccup again. Norbert the Nutjob had a tic in his left eye, and it was jerking around frantically like a fly doing a jig.

  "I'm sure I recognize you ...," he said, using the edge of a nearby Warrior's cloak to wipe the soup off Hiccup's face. "Great Thumbnails of Thor! It's the revolting Hooligan worm who shot an arrow in my Royal Bottom yesterday!"

  This wasn't a very good start.

  "How do you do?" gulped Hiccup politely.

  "I DO NOT VERY WELL!" screamed Norbert the Nutjob. "MY BUTTOCKS ARE BURNING!"

  The Warriors came panting back into the Hall ' and said they had searched both the roof and the village, and there were no more Assassins to be found. One Eye and Toothless must have flapped off to hide in the darkness.

  Norbert the Nutjob looked rather cross. "You're a very SMALL Assassin," he said huffily, removing Hiccup's sword and stuffing it in his own sword belt. "And so, come to think of it, was the one who attacked us with you yesterday, the one who skied like a grandmother with knee trouble. I know I've been out of the loop for the last fifteen years, but do the Hooligans really think they can assassinate me with CHILDREN?"

  "I'm not an Assassin," pleaded Hiccup quaveringly.

  "LIAR!" screeched Norbert the Nutjob, and he lurched forward as if to kill Hiccup with the axe right there and then. And then he calmed himself, and smiled again, and settled himself back on his throne with a wince.

  "So if you're not an Assassin," smiled Norbert, "what are you doing here on Hysteria, shooting me with arrows, and poisoning my soup?"

  "I'm looking," said Hiccup, "for THE POTATO."

  There was an astonished silence.

  "Ssssssh!" said Norbert the Nutjob, looking over his shoulder as if walls had ears, "You're not supposed to NAME the Vegetable-That-No-One-Dares-Name ..."

  "Of course," said Hiccup craftily, "now that I'm here I realize that it was all just fairy stories. There's no such thing as a potato, is there? Because there's no such place as America.... The earth is as flat as a pancake, and if you sail to the west eventually you just fall off the end of it..."

  "RUBBISH!" shrieked Norbert the Nutjob. "KILL HIM!" he screamed, his eyes bulging, his mouth foaming, before, with an enormous effort, he gained control of himself again. "No, educate him, and then kill him!" said Norbert the Nutjob, twiddling his fancy mustaches to soothe himself.

  "The earth is as round as a circle, and a circle has no end," explained Norbert carefully. "There is such a thing as America, I know because I've been there ... and as for the Vegetable-That-No-One-Dares-Name ... I don't know what you're talking about..." "That's because there's no such thing," repeated Hiccup.

  "There IS such a thing," insisted Norbert, trying to keep his temper.

  "Isn't," said Hiccup. "Is!" "Isn't." "IS!" "Isn't."

  "IS, IS, IS, IS, IS!!!!!" yelled Norbert the Nutjob, twiddling his fancy mustaches so hard they got all tangled in a knot.

  "Prove there is," challenged Hiccup.

  "I know there's such a thing as a Vegetable-That-No-One-Dares-Name ... because the

  Vegetable-That-No-One-Dares-Name ... is right here in this room!" cried Norbert the Nutjob. He ran over to the wall where the map of America was hanging.

  With two grand sweeps of his axe he threw aside the curtain.

  [Insert: Are potatoes spiky on the outside out juicy in the middle ]

  "VERY SMALL ASSASSIN," announced Norbert the Nutjob proudly, "SAY HELLO TO PAPA..."

  "Oh whoops!" breathed Hiccup.

  Norbert the Nutjob was clearly madder than a Mad March Hare having a nervous breakdown.

  For there, on a stand, larger than life, stood what looked horribly like the frozen body of Norbert the Nutjob's Papa.

  He was standing proud and upright, every whisker frozen solid, mouth open in a soundless YELL, a scary monumental sight. One hand was on his hip, and in the other he held a casket with glass sides, filled with ice.

  On top of the ice sat the round, rather disappointing shape of a lumpy brownish vegetable.

  Surely THAT can't be the magical, wondrous POTATO, thought Hiccup. Sticking out of the vegetable was a single arrow.

  Norbert's Papa was surrounded by a carpet of unusual dragon-creatures, called SQUEALERS.

  These weird animals are often used as primitive burglar-alarm systems. They have no legs to chase after their prey, so they lie on their backs waving their extra-long nails gently in the air. Any animal that comes into contact with those nails causes the whole pack of Squealers to scream unbearably loudly. The sound is so piercingly noisy that it actually kills smaller dragons (who have much better hearing than humans) stone dead on the spot. The Squealers then devour their victim, and rather like piranha fish, they can strip an animal to the bone in sixty seconds flat. "But, Norbert," gasped Hiccup. "I thought your father was supposed to be DEAD?"

  "Oh, he's dead all right," smiled Norbert. "He's as dead as a doornail... but as I was keeping the potato frozen anyway, I thought I'd freeze Papa too."

  "You could give your father a proper Viking funeral," shuddered Hiccup. "He looks untidy standing there ... and a bit spooky ..."

  "MY FATHER HAS HIS FUNERAL OK THE DAY THE DOOMFANG DIES!"

  shouted Norbert the Nutjob. "That's why I froze him. Just before my father breathed his last, he stuck into the potato the only arrow he had left given to him by the Feather People, and made me promise to use this to get rid of the Doomfang."

  "That's impossible," objected Hiccup. "You can't kill a whopping great creature like a Doomfang with one tiddly little arrow!"

  "Not im-POSSIBLE, weird little red-haired boy," corrected Norbert the Nutjob. "Just im-PROBABLE. And made more improbable by the fact that we can't get the arrow OUT of the Vegetable-That-No-One-Dares-Name.... Take a look at the inscription on the casket."

  Hiccup looked at the casket Bigjob was holding. In it, frozen by the ice, was the disappointingly boring vegetable called the potato. And stuck in this potato was the gaudy little arrow, decorated with brilliant feathers taken from birds Hiccup would not have recognized. American birds that once flew about in undiscovered American skies. On the front of the casket was written in flowing script the following inscription:

  [Insert: Whomsoever removes the Arrow from this Vegetable

  Shall Rid Us of the Doomfang and Prove Himself

  Eight True Hero and Ruler of all the Vikin
g Tribes. ]

  "We can't get the arrow OUT of the Precious Vegetable ..." said Norbert the Nutjob sadly. "We practice all year round with constant arm wrestling, and every year our strongest Champions try and pull it out. Even I do not seem to be able to do it, although the verse is obviously referring to ME. The arrow is stuck in the vegetable, and we are stuck on Hysteria, until the death of my father is avenged."

  Hiccup looked at the potato.

  "You can't get the arrow out of the potato because it is frozen solid. If you DEFROSTED the potato, a child could pull it out," Hiccup suggested.

  The tic was back in Norbert the Nutjob's eye.

  "My dying father gave me this arrow for a reason," snapped Norbert the Nutjob. "It's supposed to be a test to find out who is strong enough to defeat the Doomfang. What would be the point of the test if just ANYBODY could do it? Who are you, anyway, you small boy, and how dare you ask ME all these questions?"

  "Now, I'm very glad you brought that up, Norbert," said Hiccup soothingly. "I am Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, only son of Stoick the Vast, and my friend Fishlegs, whom you also met yesterday, has had the Bad Luck to have been bitten by a Venomous Vorpent --"

  "That IS Bad Luck," said Norbert the Nutjob with satisfaction. "Certain death, I'd say. I can't say I'm surprised, you know, he seemed like just the sort of little weirdo that Fate would have it in for." "Fishlegs is not a little weirdo!" interrupted Hiccup. "The point is, Norbert, I have been told that this potato of yours is the only antidote to Vorpent venom, and I wonder if you could possibly spare it to save my friend's life. It would be the kindest thing you've ever done."

  Norbert the Nutjob was flabbergasted.

  "And what," whispered Norbert the Nutjob, "would you do with my Papa's Precious Vegetable after I gave it to you?"

  "Well," said Hiccup, "I guess my friend would eat it."

  For a second Norbert the Nutjob stared into space.

  Then he was livid with rage, whirling his double-headed axe around his head. "EAT IT????" roared Norbert the Nutjob. "YOU SHOOT ME IN THE BOTTOM AND THEN YOU WANT TO DIVIDE UP AND EAT MY DEAR DEAD PAPAS PRECIOUS AMERICAN VEGETABLE????? KILL HIM, KILL HIM, KILL HIM!!!!"

  After a short struggle, he calmed down again, and turned to Hiccup with great dignity, holding up his arms. "I could," said Norbert the Nutjob, "kill you right now, you Evil Vegetable Murderer ... but we Hysterics are not like that. We Hysterics are CIVILIZED. We never execute before we have given lousy potato-savaging criminals an absolutely fair trial. And on Hysteria" -- Norbert the Nutjob gave a nasty mad leer -- "the Trial you face is Trial by Axe." Oh, crumbs thought Hiccup.

  Norbert the Nutjob strode over to the middle of the room where there was a large tree trunk, lopped off at the base.

  "Fate herself shall decide your Fate," said Norbert the Nutjob. "I shall throw my axe high into the air ... and if it lands with the golden side burying itself into the wood, I shall allow you to live. But if it lands on the dark side" -- Norbert the Nutjob stroked the dark side lovingly -- "if it lands on the dark side, I shall kill you with this very axe, on the spot. I hope you're feeling lucky..."

  Norbert stepped back dramatically. He gazed up at the heavens ... "COME, GREAT POWERS OF FATE AND DESTINY" Yelled Norbert the Nutjob. "I SWEAR TO DO AS YOU TELL ME. LIFE OR DEATH?"

  The axe soared toward the ceiling, spinning slowly through the air. It began to fall, first the bright side down, then the dark.

  Hiccup was not as tough as the other boys, but his eyesight was very good. He could see the axe was going to land dark side down, and he leaped in between the dark and bright blades, and caught the axe with its wooden handle just before the dark side landed in the wood.

  The Hysterics gasped.

  High up on a beam in the ceiling, Camicazi gasped too.

  Hiccup heaved the axe above his head and drove the bright blade deep into the tree trunk.

  "BRIGHT SIDE WINS, NORBERT THE NUTJOB," shouted Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, his hands on his hips.

  Nobody knew quite what to do.

  Norbert the Nutjob's mouth opened and shut like a fish out of water.

  "You CHEATED!" screamed Norbert the Nutjob.

  "Fate must have let me cheat," Hiccup pointed out. "Now set me free like you promised."

  Norbert looked as if he was about to explode. He was used to terrified adults who cowered down before him and his terrible Axe of Fate.

  He WASN'T used to bossy small boys who told him to defrost his Precious Potato and bury his Papa, and who caught his Axe before it landed.

  But what if Hiccup was right, and Fate had really meant to LET Hiccup cheat?

  Norbert did not dare annoy FATE herself.

  "SEIZE HIM!" screamed Norbert. "He can live, but he can live out his days in prison! That will teach him to shoot arrows at NORBERT THE NUTJOB!"

  Four or five burly Hysterics grabbed Hiccup and dragged him to a small cage suspended by a single chain from a beam in the rafters above. They pushed him in and locked the cage, returning the key to Norbert, who put it in his pocket.

  And then the Hysterics forgot about Hiccup, and partied long, long into the night, laughing and singing and eating and drinking too much.

  Hiccup sat silently in the small cage, trying to think of a Cunning Plan to get out of this situation.

  It didn't look too good.

  Even if he could escape from the locked cage, steal the potato and get away without a single Hysteric noticing, he could hear some ominous creaking noises coming from the ice outside.... Loud cracking and knockings like the striking of an enormous sword upon a stone.

  The ice was beginning to melt, and once the Doomfang was free again there would be no way out of Hysteria ...

  As the long night wore on, one by one the Hysterics fell asleep in their chairs or on the floor, or, in the case of one fat Warrior, on top of the table hugging the remains of the roasted boar. Norbert the Nutjob slumbered on his throne, his thumb in his mouth, cradling his double-headed axe. High up in the ceiling of the Great Hall Camicazi was sleeping, clinging to her beam like a little black cat. Time ticked on, and Hiccup struggled to keep awake, but eventually the gentle rocking of the cage, and the cloudy heat and fumes of alcohol in the room overpowered him, and he too nodded off.

  VIKING DRAGONS AND THEIR EGGS

  SQUEALERS

  Squealers are strange Blobby, slug like creatures who are so lazy they have developed an interesting method of stunning their prey with a single shriek. A pack of Squealers can strip their victim to the bone quicker than a shoal of piranha fish.

  --STATISTICS--

  COLORS: Slug black.

  ARMED WITH: Scream so loud it can knock a smaller dragon unconscious. Piranha-like jaws and fangs... 8

  POISON: None......0

  HUNTING ABILITY: ... 7

  SPEED: Hardly move at all.....0

  FEAR AND FIGHT FACTOR: Scary if you are wounded or are on the small side.... 7

  12. WILL TOOTHLESS SAVE THE DAY?

  Meanwhile, up on the roof, Toothless and One Eye had flapped off and hidden in The American Dream when they heard the noise of Hiccup falling into the Onion Soup, and the Hysteric Warriors charging outside to look for other Assassins.

  When things grew quiet again, they flew back to the chimney. Both dragons were cold, hungry, and tired. One Eye's eye gleamed golden-yellow in the darkness.

  "Shall we leave them?" One Eye mused to himself. "It look like they haven't found the cure for Vorpentitis after all...and I'm not hanging around here just to save the skin of a couple of stinking Humans..."

  "S-s-selfish Humans! grumbled Toothless. They n-n-never think of poor, cold H-H-H-HUNGRY Toothless!"

  One Eye snorted. "Well, I don't blame them for that. You're just a lap-dragon, an overgrown rat. And YOU shouldn't be hungry anyway. Who ate all the snacks in the sleigh on the way here, I'd like to know?"

  "...I'll give them till morning," One Eye decided, letting the rope attached to his leg flop down the
chimney and into the Great Hall again, and settling himself in the snow to sleep on the roof. "My aunt Snaggletooth died of Vorpentitis, and it's a nasty way to go."

  "Toothless not s-s-sieeping here!" moaned Toothless, outraged. "Iss too cold! Toothless D-D-DELICATE, sensitive ..." He checked whether the big dragon was really asleep. One Eye gave a deep rumbling snore and Toothless carried on, "... not like YOU, you big, white, gormless mountain gorilla..." One Eye's one eye snapped open, and his big Saber-Toothed jaws lashed out toward Toothless ... but they shut on thin air, for Toothless had the reflexes of a bluebottle, and he had already tumbled down through the hole in the roof. Toothless soared into the Great Hall, over the heads of the sleeping, mumbling Hysterics, and landed on top of Hiccup's cage. The cage swung violently to the right, and Hiccup's head banged sharply on one of the bars, waking him up.

  "Ow!" protested Hiccup, looking straight into the upside-down greengage eyes of his pet dragon. "Toothless!" he whispered joyfull.

  "Thank Thor you're here; you see how right I was to bring you--you can save the day!" "HA!" grunted Toothless crossly. "Just flap over to that big frozen Viking over there, will you and steal the potato, and then we'll be off..." whispered Hiccup.

  Toothless looked where Hiccup was pointing, to Norbert's Papa, Bigjob, and the casket, and gave a shriek of terror.

  "S-s-squealers!" he gasped, and jumped into the cage, burying his face in Hiccup's leg.

  "Oh, goodness, yes, I'd forgotten. Squealers can kill a dragon as small as you, can't they?" remembered Hiccup, soothing the little dragon by stroking him on the back. "OK, don't steal the potato, but the key to this cage is in Norbert the Nutjob's pocket, and if you could just flap off and get it ..."