How to speak Dragonese (5 page)

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Dinner time

Dragon: Issa yuck-yuck.

This is disgusting.

Dragon: Me na likeit di stink fish. Issa yuck-yuck.

Issa poo-poo. Issa doubly doubly yuck-yuck.

I
don't like haddock. It's revolting. It's gross. It's really revolting.

You: Okey dokey so questa yow eaty?

All right then, so what
will
you eat?

Dragon: Me, eaty di miaowla...

I
want to eat the cat...

You: (you can raise your voice now) NA EATY DI BUM-SUPPORT, NA EATY DI SLEEPY-SLAB PLUS DOUBLY DOUBLY ISA EATY DI MIAOWLA!

Don't eat the chair, don't eat the bed and definitely don't eat the cat!

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Talking to BIG DraGons

Dragon: ooohserumplush yum-yuminditum eatings di iekle prickle-burger!

"Ooh, delicious, a scrummy little deer!

You: Me look a di scrummy may me ow-in-di-tummy.

"I may look delicious but I'm actually very poisonous."

And if that doesn't work...

You: Me gambla yow na flicka-flame di gaff da di pestistings.

"I bet you can't set fire to that nanodragon nest."

Dragon: Easipeasilemonsqueezi

"U can do that no problem."

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[Image: I hate snotlout, gobber is a girly.]

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5. BACK ON BERK

By the time
The Hopeful Puffin
had stopped turning round in circles, the fog had started to lift a little. Half an hour later, the mist had vanished entirely, and they could see for miles in every direction.

The Roman ship was nowhere to be seen.

The water was as cold as
ice
again, so there was no further danger of bumping into any Sharkworms. They had not gone as far off course as Hiccup had thought. They set off toward the distant silhouette of Berk to the north. Fishlegs took the rudder because Hiccup was too depressed to do anything.

Hiccup sat staring at his half of
How to Speak Dragonese.
All that work, all that time spent dragonwatching at the Wild Dragon Cliffs, ripped in two. He was trying not to think of what might be happening to Toothless on board the Roman ship.

[Image: Hiccup.]

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Toothless hated the idea of being trapped so much Hiccup even had to leave the door open when they went to bed. And now there he was, most likely locked up in that horrible iron cage.

We'd just had an argument, too,
thought Hiccup in total misery.
And he flew to our rescue ... and now I might never see him again.

Horrorcow finally woke up from her deep sleep. "Did you get that helmet?" she yawned.

"Not exactly," replied Fishlegs grimly. "It's a long story."

In her strange, spinning and zigzagging fashion,
The Hopeful Puffin
drew nearer to the little Isle of Berk.

The Isle of Berk has been home to the Hooligan Tribes for so long as to seem like forever. It is one of the smallest inhabited islands in the Barbaric Archipelago, and perhaps the best way to describe it is "wet." There are twenty-eight words for "rain" in the Hooligan language. And Berk is the kind of place where the sea is always wandering up onto the land. Even at the Highest Point you can find scallop shells and dolphins' bones, thrown up by some gigantic tide or storm.

So, what with the rain pouring down constantly from above, and the sea sneaking up from below, the

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Hooligans spend most of their lives up to their knees in muddy saltwater.

As they got nearer to Berk they didn't have time to feel sorry for themselves.
The Hopeful Puffin
was in difficulties. Never a
very
seaworthy boat, she had taken two big knocks, first when she was rammed by Snotlout's boat
Sparrowhawk,
then when Hiccup jumped down onto her decks from the Roman ship. She was taking on water even faster than normal.

Despite Hiccup and Fishlegs bailing out the water as quickly as they could with their helmets, by the time they reached Hooligan Harbor, she sank entirely.

They had to swim the last hundred meters, Hiccup holding Fishlegs up because (unusual for a Viking) Fishlegs had never quite mastered the doggy paddle.

To make matters worse, Gobber was standing on the harbor wall watching them come in, arms folded, brows as low as Thor's thunderclouds. When
The Hopeful Puffin
disappeared beneath the water he looked as if he might explode.

"It hasn't been a very successful day, has it?" moaned Fishlegs as they struggled out of the sea and

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[Image: Gobber was not amused.]

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onto the rocks. "At least we didn't meet any Sharkworms, after all..."

"I'm not sure there ever
were
any Sharkworms," said Hiccup through gritted teeth. He looked back sadly at the three circles of ripples and bubbles that were all that remained of
The Hopeful Puffin.
She had never been the most beautiful of boats but to him she was the best.

Slipping and sliding on the seaweedy rocks, they clambered reluctantly toward Gobber and stood before him, soaking wet, heads bowed. Fishlegs timidly offered him the Roman helmet.

Gobber was not amused.

"WHAT," he bellowed, pointing furiously at the Roman helmet, "WHAT in the name of Woden is
this?"

"A Roman helmet, sir," admitted Fishlegs. "We sort of accidentally boarded a Roman ship
by mistake
... we got lost, you see, sir ..."

"You got LOST?" boomed Gobber, not believing his ears. "Vikings don't get LOST. And how could you possibly board a Roman ship by mistake? A Roman ship doesn't look anything like a Peaceable fishing boat!"

"Yes, I know, sir," stammered Fishlegs. "But we thought there were these Sharkworms, you see --"

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"And WHERE," Gobber interrupted Fishlegs, his voice dangerously calm, "WHERE is your boat?"

"Ah, yes, well," said Fishlegs miserably. "The boat sort of sank, sir."

"THE BOAT SORT OF SANK?" roared Gobber. "YOU CALL YOURSELVES VIKINGS AND YOU SORT OF SINK YOUR OWN BOAT ON A PERFECTLY CALM DAY TWO HUNDRED METERS FROM YOUR OWN ISLAND? WHAT KIND OF HOOLIGANS ARE YOU, ANYWAY? YOU CAN'T BUILD BOATS, YOU CAN'T TRAIN DRAGONS, FISHLEGS HERE CAN'T EVEN SWIM ...."

"Saltwater brings out my eczema ..." mumbled Fishlegs.

[Image: A man and a woman.]

"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A PIRATE!" howled Gobber. "AS IT IS, YOU ARE THE MOST USELESS, MISERABLE, PATHETIC EXCUSES

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FOR TADPOLE POOS I HAVE EVER MET IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! I AM LOST FOR WORDS ..."

Despite being lost for words, Gobber yelled at them for the next ten minutes, telling them they were a disgrace to their Tribe and the worst recruits he had ever had. He put them on limpet rations for the next three weeks, and said the next time anything like this happened they would be expelled from the Program.

At home, it wasn't much better.

During supper, Hiccup explained to his father about the unfortunate accident of boarding the Roman galley by mistake, and about the kidnapping of Toothless, and how the Prefect had got hold of half of
How to Speak Dragonese,
and how Stoick really should send a war party to rescue Toothless and the book. Hiccup showed the sad remains
of How to Speak Dragonese
and the Roman helmet to his father to prove his story was genuine.

"Mmmmmmm," said Stoick thoughtfully. Stoick was a great giant of a man with enough red, haystacky beard and barrels of belly to equip at least
two
decent-sized Viking chieftains.

He wasn't really concentrating, because he was reading Hiccup's Pirate Training report, which was the

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worst report he had ever read.
Thumbnails of Thor,
he was thinking,
how can
anybody
get --4 for Advanced Rudery?
And nothing at all for Beginner Burping and Hammerthrowing Studies, which had been Stoick's favorite subjects when HE was a boy.

Stoick was trying very hard not to feel disappointed in his son. He kept telling himself that Hiccup was just a slow developer, and would soon start getting muscles and nose hair, and scoring the winning goal in Bashyball games like Stoick had himself. But what was he
doing,
earning reports like "Hiccup is the worst sailor I have ever taught in twenty years"? How could he have come back from a perfectly straightforward training exercise having misplaced both his dragon
and
his boat? And how could
he possibly
have got lost and accidentally boarded a Roman ship rather than a Peaceable fishing boat?

Vikings didn't get lost.

Stoick opened his mouth to bellow at his son.

And then he closed it again.

Small, skinny, freckled and unsatisfactory, Hiccup's worried face looked up at him. He was clearly desperately anxious about that laughably tiny

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[Image: Report card.]

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dragon of his. Stoick didn't have the heart to be angry. He crumpled up the report in one gigantic fist.

"Son," he said gently and gravely, "I am sorry you have lost Ruthless --"

"Toothless!" Hiccup interrupted indignantly. "He's called Toothless."

"Toothless," Stoick corrected himself hurriedly. "But I am about to tell you something very important."

[Image: Stoick the vast reading Hiccup's report.]

Stoick took Hiccup by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "You," he said solemnly, "are the son of a Chief. You have lost your pet, but you must be

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brave. You must be a MAN about it. There will be other dragons ..."

"Not like Toothless!" objected Hiccup, in distress. "That dragon trusted me and I let him down!"

"Silence!" said Stoick sternly. "What does a Chief feel, son?"

"A
Chief feels no pain," replied Hiccup obediently. "But Father --"

Stoick was just getting into his stride. "A Chief feels no pain. A Chief feels no fear. A Chief must be above mere weak, personal feelings. There is no question of putting together a War Party to rescue your dragon. It would be a waste of our warriors' time. The Romans are probably halfway back to Rome by now and they'll have turned Useless into a handbag -- "

"Toothless," corrected Hiccup again, "and that's what I'm telling you, Father, I overheard them talking and I think they're not just passing through."

"Talking?" roared Stoick, his eyebrows lowering. "What do you mean TALKING? How did you understand these Romans?"

''Ah," admitted Hiccup. "Old Wrinkly's been teaching me some Latin, you see --"

"Latin? LATIN?" Stoick exploded. He crashed

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his fist so hard on the table that the oysters they'd been eating did a couple of cartwheels in the air. "My son, my son, has been speaking LATIN!"

He controlled himself with an effort. "Hooligans do not, I repeat, DO NOT, speak Latin. What are they teaching you in your Frightening Foreigners lessons? When a Hooligan meets a foreigner he shouts at it loudly and slowly. That's the only language a foreigner understands. Hooligans don't talk to dragons either. Or write books about them. you're spending far too much time scribbling about dragons and not enough time preparing to become a Chief."

Stoick took the half of
How to Speak Dragonese
out of Hiccup's hands and threw it onto the fire. Hiccup gasped. That book had everything he had ever learned about dragons in it. How would he ever talk to dragons again without it?

Stoick stomped off.

[Image: A chair.]

As soon as he was out of sight, Hiccup burned his fingers pulling the book out of the flames. Luckily it was still quite damp, and the edges were only very slightly burnt.

That night, for the first time in a long, long while,