Hiccup did not sleep well that night. Every time he dropped off, Norbert the Nutjob found him in his dreams, screaming, "I will GRIND YOU INTO SAND!
I WILL CHOP YOU WITH MY CHOPPER!" and Hiccup would wake up again, burningly hot and sweaty.
The following day, Toothless woke up in a furious temper because he still wasn't back in Hibernation Sleep. He'd done everything he should have done the night before. He'd gotten lots of exercise, drunk a milky drink at bedtime; all for nothing. On the dot of five o'clock the next morning, his greengage eyes opened up, SNAP, like a scallop opening its shell, and that was it for the day, no more sleeping.
And that was it for Hiccup too.
Toothless crawled up from his place at Hiccup's feet, like a small, enraged hot-water bottle. He stormed up Hiccup's body, digging his sharp little claws into Hiccup's tummy as he went, up to Hiccup's forehead, where he sat and hissed furiously.
"Toothless a-a-awake AGAIN...'Snot fair...
68 'Snot fair .... WHY Toothless awake? Everyone else asleep..."
It is not much fun being woken up at five o'clock in the morning by a dragon sitting on your head and hissing angry smoke rings straight up your nostrils.
"Well I'M awake now too," grumbled Hiccup, coughing sleepily. "Could you blow those smoke ring somewhere else; I've already got a sore throat..."
"Oh you," fumed Toothless, blowing out great clouds of furious smoke.
"You're j-j-just a H-h-human, you don't count...Us d-d-dragons s-s-sensitive....we n-n-need our sleep."
our sleep."
"Thank you, Toothless," said Hiccup through a huge bout of coughing, "but we don't have to get up now, you know, we can just doze for a bit..."
Hiccup turned over onto his other side and snuggled the furs more cozily around his shoulders, so he could snooze for a bit longer.
But once Toothless was awake he was AWAKE.
[Image: A man and a dragon.] 69 The little dragon made a half-hearted pretense of snuggling down next to his Master, and then he bounced up again.
"Toothless get UP now...," he said, flapping around Hiccup's head, tweaking his hair and blowing raspberries in his ears. "Issa l-l-lovely morning...come on...come on ... Toothless h-h-hungry... Hiccup make Toothless b-b-breakfast...."
And when that didn't work, Toothless stood on Hiccup's shoulder, held his earlobe tenderly with one claw, and shrieked right down his ear hole, "MAYDAY MAYDAY! Toothless need to make p-p-pee-pee RIGHT NOW!"
Hiccup sat bolt upright like he'd been shot with an arrow. "Oh jumping jellyfish, not right now, Toothless, not on the bed again...Hang on there, Toothless, just hang on..."
Hiccup jumped out of the bed in one hop, onto the freezing cold stone floor, and threw on four layers of furs, with Toothless flapping around his head squawking, "RIGHT NOW, RIGHT SOW, Toothless need pee-pee RIGHT NOW."
"Just hang on!" begged Hiccup. He had to take his mittens off to undo the big bolts on the front door, 70 Toothless shrieking, "Right now! Right now! Right now!"
Hiccup dragged open the door, and the day outside was still as dark as nighttime and very, very cold, so cold that the air was like an icy bucket of water being thrown in your face.
Toothless flew out, still shrieking, "Right now! Right now!" and squatted down on the snow a meter out of the front door.
"Well done for hanging on, Toothless," said Hiccup, banging his hands together to warm them up. Toothless squatted down, a look of pretend concentration furrowing his horns, but nothing seemed to be happening.
After a while Toothless got up. "Toothless NOT need p-p-pee-pee after all ...," he said decidedly.
Hiccup clapped his mittened hand to his forehead in frustration.
Sometimes being the owner of a dragon was VERY HARD WORK.
There was no point going back to bed now that he'd gotten up, so Hiccup fixed himself breakfast; and while he did this he had plenty of time to think.
Hiccup was worried about Fishlegs. Why had 71 Fishlegs attacked those Hysterics? It was very out of character. Normally Fishlegs would only have to get a sniff of something like a Hysteric and he would snowplow as quickly as possible in the opposite direction. OK, maybe all that falling over had set off his Berserk tendencies, but still, it was a bit peculiar ...
And Fishlegs hadn't been looking too well, lately, either. Lots of sneezing and shivering, and that couldn't be caused by being a Berserk. It was almost like there was something WRONG WITH HIM ...
An hour or so later, the door was flung open so wildly it nearly fell off its hinges, and Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast, stomped into the room looking for his breakfast, like a six-and-a-half-foot earthquake, yawning so wide you could see his tonsils. Stoick the Vast was exactly what you might expect a Viking to be -- loads of beard and not a lot of neck, masses of muscles but not a lot going on in the BRAIN department.
"Made some porridge, have you, son?" he roared. "Excellent, excellent."
Stoick didn't bother putting the porridge into a bowl. He simply removed the cauldron from the fire, sat down at the table, and drank the porridge straight from the pot.
72 "Father?" said Hiccup.
"Mmm?" said Stoick absentmindedly, as he tipped his great head back and drank the last dregs of porridge, a lot of it running down his beard in a sticky, lumpy river.
"I wonder if you can help me.... I've been worrying about Fishlegs ...," said Hiccup.
Stoick finished the porridge with a great smacking of the lips and threw the cauldron into the fireplace with cheery violence.
"Is Fisheggs your odd little friend with the face like a depressed haddock?" boomed Stoick, grabbing a mackerel off the table and swallowing it, tail and head and eyes and all, in one gulp like a sword swallower swallowing swords.
"That's right," said Hiccup, "and his name isn't Fisheggs, it's Fishlegs ..."
"Well, there's a coinci-thingamajigy" bellowed Stoick.
"Do you mean coincidence?" asked Hiccup politely.
"Whatever" roared Stoick. "I'VE been worrying about Fisheggs too."
73 "You have?" asked Hiccup in surprise. It wasn't like Stoick to worry about anything.
"I have," said Stoick solemnly. ''And I need to talk to you about something VERY SERIOUSLY. Come here, Hiccup."
Hiccup went and stood in front of his father. Chief Stoick put his hands on his son's shoulders and looked into his eyes very seriously. Hiccup tried to look serious too, but it is quite hard to take your father totally seriously when he seems to have a beard made entirely out of porridge.
"Son," said Stoick the Vast, "you are the son of a Chief, and the Heir to the Hooligan Tribe. A man is judged by the company he keeps, and I am sorry to have to tell you, but Fisheggs is the weirdest little weirdo I have ever seen. You must give him up, Hiccup, give him up ..."
"But, Father," protested Hiccup. "Fishlegs is my friend."
"SILENCE.'" roared Stoick. And then more gently, "I know it is hard, son, but a Chief is a public figure. We Hooligans need to be FEARED by the other Tribes, so they don't start thinking they can 74 75 sneak along and invade us....Fisheggs is a ... well, let's face it, son, he's a bit ODD. You stand too near Fisheggs, son, and the Meatheads, and the Visithugs, and the Bog-Burglars and the Hysterics will start thinking YOU'RE a bit odd too ... a bit soft, a bit WEAK, and then you're putting the whole Tribe in peril."
"Yes, Father," said Hiccup miserably.
"You need to start working on being TERRIFYING, Hiccup." Stoick patted his son on the shoulder, peering sympathetically at his sad face. This was hard, but it was for Hiccup's own good. "And Fisheggs isn't helping.
Give him up, son. Your cousin, Snotlout, now, there's a suitable friend for you. Got an air of terrible danger about him. You stand shoulder to shoulder with Snotlout and you'll be feared throughout the Archipelago. Does that answer your question?"
"Yes, Father," said Hiccup very sadly.
Stoick the Vast clapped his son heartily on the back. "Good boy," roared Stoick. "I knew you'd see sense. And now, we'd better get ready for the Freya'sday Fete.... We don't want to be late now, do we? Old Wrinkly has given me a tip for the Young 76 Heroes Smashsticks-on-Ice Competition.... He's done some soothsaying, and he tells me we Hooligans are going to win ten to two so I've put a bit of a bet on. Run and fetch your stick and skates, quick, boy."
Slowly, Hiccup went and fetched his Smashstick. Sadly, he picked up his ice skates.
"Old Wrinkly isn't very good at looking into the future," he warned his father, but Stoick wasn't listening.
Stoick rarely listened.
[Insert: * soothsaying means Looking into the future] 77 TOILET TRAINING You: Toothless, ta COGLET me wantee ta cack-cack in di ?reenclaw crapspot...
Toothless, you KNOW I want you to poo in the dragon toilets Dragon" O yessee yessee , me co?let ...
Yes, yes, I know You: (pointing at large poo in the middle of Stoick's bed ) Er?...questa SA?
So what, then, is THIS? PAUSE Dragon(hopefully): Ummm...un choclush snik-snak?
Er...a chocolate biscuit?
You: Snotta chocklush snik-snak, issa CAK-CAK, issa cack-cack di Toothless NA in di ?reenclaw crapspot, may oopla ban? splosh in di middlin? di sleepy-slab di pappa.
This isn't a chocolate biscuit, it's a POO, it's on of YOUR poos Toothless, and it ISN'T in the dragon toilets, it's right bang splat in the middle of my father's bed.
78 79 CELEBRATE THE COMING OF SPRING AT THE FREYA'SDAY FETE PROGRAM OF EVENTS 10:00 Young Heroes Smashsticks-On-Tce competition on the frozen harbor. No rules. No quarter given.
NO survivors. No limits.
11:00 Mud Wrestling. Can Big-Boobied Bertha be the All-In-Snow-Wrestling Champion for the third year in a row? Will those boobies remain undefeated?
12:00 Have a go at the FROZEN LUCKY DIP We have frozen 500 everyday objects Into 500 identical lumps of Ice. Can you guess what they are and take something useful home?
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