Free How to train your dragon by by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III; translated from the Old Norse by Cressida Cowell Page B
looking almost pleadingly at Hiccup. "He has to decide what is for the good of the Tribe."
Suddenly Hiccup was very angry.
"Well, don't expect ME to pity you!" said Hiccup. "What kind of father thinks his stupid Laws are more important than his own son? And what kind of stupid Tribe is this anyway, that it can't just have ordinary people in it?"
Stoick stood looking down at his son in surprise and shock for a moment. Then he turned round and trudged off. The Tribes were already running off the beach and scrambling up the hillsides toward the shelter of the Village, lightning coming down all around them.
"I'm going to kill you," hissed Snotlout at Hiccup, Fireworm snarling menacingly from his shoulder. "First thing after we're banished, I'm going to kill you," and he ran off after the others.
125
"I've lost my t-t- tooti," Toothless com- plained whinily. "C-c-came out when I hit that F-f-fireworm dragon."
Hiccup took no no tice. He looked up at the heavens, beside himself with fury as the wind scooped up seawater in handfuls and flung it straight into his face.
"JUST ONCE," yelled Hiccup. "Why couldn't you let me be a Hero JUST ONCE? I didn't want anything amazing, just to pass this STUPID TEST so I could become a proper Viking like everybody else."
Thor's thunder boomed and crackled above him blackly.
"OKAY, THEN ," screamed Hiccup, "HIT ME with your stupid lightning. Just do something to show you're thinking about me AT ALL."
But there were to be no bolts of lightning for Hiccup. Thor clearly didn't think he was important enough for an answer. The storm moved on out to sea.
126
[Image: storm]
127
Chapter 11. THOR IS ANGRY
The storm raged through the whole of that night. Hiccup lay unable to sleep as the wind hurled about the walls like fifty dragons trying to get in.
"Let us in, let us in," shrieked the wind. "We're very, very hungry."
Out in the blackness and way out to sea the storm was so wild and the waves so gigantic that they disturbed the sleep of a couple of very ancient Sea Dragons indeed.
The first Dragon was averagely enormous, about the size of a largeish cliff.
The second Dragon was gobsmackingly vast.
He was that Monster mentioned earlier in this story, the great Beast who had been sleeping off his
128
Roman picnic for the past six centuries or so, the one who had recently been drifting into a lighter sleep.
The great storm lifted both Dragons gently from the seabed like a couple of sleeping babies, and washed them on the swell of one indescribably enormous wave onto the Long Beach, outside Hiccup's village.
And there they stayed, sleeping peacefully, while the wind shrieked horribly all around them like wild Viking ghosts having a loud party in Valhalla, until the storm blew itself out and the sun came up on a beach full of Dragon and very little else.
The first Dragon was enough to give you nightmares.
The second Dragon was enough to give your nightmares nightmares.
Imagine an animal about twenty times as large as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. More like a mountain than a living creature -- a great, glistening, evil mountain. He was so encrusted with barnacles he looked like he was wearing a kind of jeweled armor but, where the little crustaceans and the coral couldn't get a grip, in the joints and crannies of
129
him, you could see his true color. A glorious, dark green, it was the color of the ocean itself.
He was awake now, and he had coughed up the last thing he had eaten, the Standard of the Eighth Legion, with its pathetic ribbons still flying bravely. He was using it as a toothpick and the eagle was proving very useful for teasing out those irritating little pieces of flesh that get stuck between your twenty-foot back teeth.
The first person to discover the Dragons was Badbreath the Gruff, who set out very early to check how his nets had fared in the storm.
He took one look at the beach, rushed to the Chief's house, and woke him up.
"We have a problem," said Badbreath.
"What do
Suddenly Hiccup was very angry.
"Well, don't expect ME to pity you!" said Hiccup. "What kind of father thinks his stupid Laws are more important than his own son? And what kind of stupid Tribe is this anyway, that it can't just have ordinary people in it?"
Stoick stood looking down at his son in surprise and shock for a moment. Then he turned round and trudged off. The Tribes were already running off the beach and scrambling up the hillsides toward the shelter of the Village, lightning coming down all around them.
"I'm going to kill you," hissed Snotlout at Hiccup, Fireworm snarling menacingly from his shoulder. "First thing after we're banished, I'm going to kill you," and he ran off after the others.
125
"I've lost my t-t- tooti," Toothless com- plained whinily. "C-c-came out when I hit that F-f-fireworm dragon."
Hiccup took no no tice. He looked up at the heavens, beside himself with fury as the wind scooped up seawater in handfuls and flung it straight into his face.
"JUST ONCE," yelled Hiccup. "Why couldn't you let me be a Hero JUST ONCE? I didn't want anything amazing, just to pass this STUPID TEST so I could become a proper Viking like everybody else."
Thor's thunder boomed and crackled above him blackly.
"OKAY, THEN ," screamed Hiccup, "HIT ME with your stupid lightning. Just do something to show you're thinking about me AT ALL."
But there were to be no bolts of lightning for Hiccup. Thor clearly didn't think he was important enough for an answer. The storm moved on out to sea.
126
[Image: storm]
127
Chapter 11. THOR IS ANGRY
The storm raged through the whole of that night. Hiccup lay unable to sleep as the wind hurled about the walls like fifty dragons trying to get in.
"Let us in, let us in," shrieked the wind. "We're very, very hungry."
Out in the blackness and way out to sea the storm was so wild and the waves so gigantic that they disturbed the sleep of a couple of very ancient Sea Dragons indeed.
The first Dragon was averagely enormous, about the size of a largeish cliff.
The second Dragon was gobsmackingly vast.
He was that Monster mentioned earlier in this story, the great Beast who had been sleeping off his
128
Roman picnic for the past six centuries or so, the one who had recently been drifting into a lighter sleep.
The great storm lifted both Dragons gently from the seabed like a couple of sleeping babies, and washed them on the swell of one indescribably enormous wave onto the Long Beach, outside Hiccup's village.
And there they stayed, sleeping peacefully, while the wind shrieked horribly all around them like wild Viking ghosts having a loud party in Valhalla, until the storm blew itself out and the sun came up on a beach full of Dragon and very little else.
The first Dragon was enough to give you nightmares.
The second Dragon was enough to give your nightmares nightmares.
Imagine an animal about twenty times as large as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. More like a mountain than a living creature -- a great, glistening, evil mountain. He was so encrusted with barnacles he looked like he was wearing a kind of jeweled armor but, where the little crustaceans and the coral couldn't get a grip, in the joints and crannies of
129
him, you could see his true color. A glorious, dark green, it was the color of the ocean itself.
He was awake now, and he had coughed up the last thing he had eaten, the Standard of the Eighth Legion, with its pathetic ribbons still flying bravely. He was using it as a toothpick and the eagle was proving very useful for teasing out those irritating little pieces of flesh that get stuck between your twenty-foot back teeth.
The first person to discover the Dragons was Badbreath the Gruff, who set out very early to check how his nets had fared in the storm.
He took one look at the beach, rushed to the Chief's house, and woke him up.
"We have a problem," said Badbreath.
"What do
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