The Freya'sday Fete took place every year on Freya'sday Eve, which was the Viking holiday celebrating the end of winter and the coming of spring.
This year the Fete was being held out in the middle of the frozen sea in Hooligan Harbor. It was strange to think that only six months before the Harbor had been filled with a grey, surly ocean. Now there were red and white striped tents pitched higgledy-piggledy all over the ice. Roaring fires burned high, grilling Semi-Spotted Snowpeckers for the Vikings to munch on as they wandered around stalls selling octopus lollipops, or listened to storytellers telling tall stories, or watched openmouthed as the giants on skates balanced dwarves on their heads.
[Image: A sign.] There was a big area marked out for the Smashsticks-on-Ice Competitions. Smashsticks-on-Ice was a very rough and complicated game played with bats, balls, and ice skates. Nobody was quite sure of the rules, which meant 81 that people tended to make them up as they went along, and then anybody who complained would start a fight.
The Young Heroes were supposed to go first, followed later on by the Adult Warriors. They would be playing against another Tribe, the Bog-Burglars, who had been invited over to join in the Celebrations for the day.
The Bog-Burglars were a Tribe of fearsome female Warriors who lived on an island some way to the west. Their Chief, Big-Boobied Bertha, stood nearby, gulping down mugs of beer and scratching her chin stubble.
Her daughter, Camicazi, a very small girl with a swagger and the tangiest hair in the Inner Isles, was practicing swinging her Smashstick.
Camicazi was a friend of Hiccup's, and he wandered over to ask her if she had seen Fishlegs that morning.
"Nope," said Camicazi cheerily. "But I hope you Hooligan boys are feeling lucky. We Bog-Burglars are going to MURDER you weedy little BOYS in the Smashsticks. I bet you Hooligans are hopeless at it --82 apart from you, of course, Hiccup," she added. Camicazi had a great admiration for Hiccup, ever since he had rescued her from being eaten by Sharkworms in Fort Sinister.
[Image: Big-Boobied Bertha in holiday mood...] [Insert: *This takes plare in "How to speak Dragonese," another of Hiccup's *] Snotlout happened to be skating past at that 83 Big-Boobied Bertha in holiday mood...moment and he nearly fell over, he laughed so much at this. "Hiccup???" jeered Snotlout. "Hiccup will get as many goals as he shot Semi-Spotted Snow peckers yesterday. I shot more than two hundred. How many did you shoot, again, Hiccup? What was it --none??"
Hiccup blushed. Camicazi looked very surprised.
"P-P-ARP! The Young Heroes Smashsticks-on-Ice Match is about to begin! Please could both teams make their way to the ice ... ," shouted Gobber the Belch from the center of the ice. Gobber had changed into his shortest shorts to be the referee. The Bog-Burglars (apart from Camicazi, 84 of course) were big, rough, mean-looking girls with wild hair, broken noses, and thighs like tree trunks.
[Image: A man.] Fishlegs staggered onto the ice at the last minute. He looked even more terrible than the last 85 time Hiccup saw him. He was sneezing and shivering hard, and he could hardly stand, and was using his Smashstick to hold himself up. He had put his ice skates on the wrong feet.
Hiccup put up his hand to try and get Gobber's attention. "Sir, I think Fishlegs isn't well," he said.
"NONSENSE!" roared Gobber. "Vikings don't get SICK! Flu is for softies! Colds are for babies! Plagues are for girlies! I'VE never had a day's sickness in all my life, not even a sore throat. I don't want to hear ANOTHER WORD."
Hiccup and Fishlegs skated out onto the ice, Hiccup supporting Fishlegs, who could hardly put one skate in front of the other.
"You ought to be at home," worried Hiccup, "You look awful."
Fishlegs laughed sarcastically. "Didn't you hear Gobber? Vikings don't get SICK.... I'm not ill, I'm just shivering with EXCITEMENT to be out here on this frost bitingly cold day..."
Gobber blew the whistle, threw the puck into the Smashstick Scrum, and all hell broke loose.
86 Ten boys and girls fell on top of one another in an untidy hairy mess, clonking each other on the head with their wooden sticks. Within two minutes Wartihog, Clueless, Lovethug, and Deadly Doris were lying stretched out on the ice, and Camicazi had somehow broken free of the scrum and [Image: A girl.] 87 was skating toward Hiccup and Fishlegs at breakneck speed. Fishlegs moved in to tackle her, and she pulled his helmet over his eyes so he couldn't see anything, before skillfully shooting the puck between the goalposts. And as the Bog-Burglars merrily cried out, "G-O-A-L!!" an extraordinary change came over Fishlegs.
He tore off his helmet and he snorted like a bull about to charge.
"Uh-oh," said Hiccup. He had seen that look somewhere before. "Now hang on a second, Fishlegs, don't do anything rash ..."
"FOUL!" bellowed Fishlegs.
Fishlegs skated toward the gigantic figure of the referee, Gobber the Belch, like a crab slipping on soap.
88 "GOBBER, YOU BIG, STUPID, BARBARIAN BABOON, ARE YOU BLIND? SHE FOULED ME!"
Gobber started, as surprised as if a small pink prawn on a plate had suddenly leapt up and bit him.
"WHAT did you say, Fishlegs????" roared Gobber in astonishment.
"SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR EARS AS WELL AS YOUR EYES?" screamed Fishlegs. "I'VE MET SHEEP MORE INTELLIGENT THAN YOU ARE! I'VE MET JELLYFISH WHO COULD OUTPLAY YOU IN A GAME OF CHESS!"
Gobber swelled up like a balloon about to explode.
"I'LL DEAL WITH THIS, BELCH!" yelled Stoick the Vast, skating ponderously over to this extraordinary scene.
Stoick the Vast looked down at Fishlegs from the giant height of six and half feet. "YOUNG MAN," he roared, 89 "YOUR CHIEFTAIN IS SPEAKING TO YOU, THIS IS A SPECIAL OCCASION...THERE ARE BOG-BURGLARS PRESENT," Stoick pointed to the Bog-Burglars, who were killing themselves laughing.
Fishlegs was silent for a second, looking up at his Chieftain. And then...
"FATTY!" shrieked Fishlegs.
Stoick the Vast started.
"LARDY-BUM!" shouted Fishlegs. "WHO'S BEEN HAVING TOO MANY SECOND HELPINGS, CHIEF GREEDIGUTS OF THE JELLY-BELLIES??"
Stoick the Vast turned as red as a lobster.
"HOW DARE YOU TALK TO YOUR CHIEF IN THIS RUDE AND IMPERTINENT MANNER?"
Fishlegs opened his mouth to scream some more insults, but Hiccup interrupted.
"He's not well, Father," whispered Hiccup urgently. "I think his Berserk thingy has gone wrong.... Please, Father ... I'll take him home, he's not well..."
90 "Take him home, then," growled Stoick to Hiccup. "But I'm warning you, son, that boy isn't fit to be a Hooligan, let alone a friend to the son of the Chief."
At first Fishlegs didn't want to be dragged away, but while he was struggling, he fell over, and the cold shock of landing in the snow brought him back to his senses again.
Hiccup was really worried now, and he decided to take Fishlegs to Old Wrinkly, to see whether HE knew what was wrong ...
91 ILLNESS Ole wrinkly's Cures for Common Iunesses COLD Stuff a small carrot up each nostril to stop a running nose. Remember to breathe through MOUTH.
.UPSET STOMACH Drink a cupful of live earwigs. The insects will attack the germs in your small intestine and eat them. Probably, CHICKEN POX Paint the spots with Old Wrinkly's soothing lotion of Runny Seagull Poo, This will relieve the itching. It will also cause your friends to stay away from you, thus protecting them from infection.
HEADACHE WITH TEMPERATURE Old Wrinkly's tasty medicine of sheep mucus and dead flies wrapped in cobwebs will soon have the patient bouncing out of bed.
A VIRUS Pray to Thor. Nobody knows what to do with a virus. * * Interestingly. 1,5000 year later, medical science has advanced to such and extent, that we STILL don't knew what to do with a virus.
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