How to be a Pirate's Dragon (Hiccup) (14 page)

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A dragon's breath, even when it exhales, is composed almost entirely of pure oxygen. It is this that makes it so very flammable.
All
they needed to do was to rise to the surface (slowly so as not to get the bends) with Toothless swimming beside them and occasionally blowing into their noses when they ran out of breath.

A dragon never runs out of breath because just below its horns it has a fully working set of gills. As soon as it enters the sea it can shut off its lungs and get its oxygen from the water rather than the air.

Hiccup and Fishlegs resurfaced after about ten minutes. There was plenty of debris floating around, because they were not far from where the
Lucky Thirteen
had made its final journey to the bottom of the ocean. The boys each got hold of one end of an oar, and steered their way around the corner to where there was a beach to land on.

Fishlegs tried to persuade Hiccup to change his mind all the way home.

At last he said in exasperation, "You're NEVER going to be a Hero with this attitude. How
can
you be with no one to cheer, no one to clap?"

"Okay then," Hiccup sighed. "I'll never be a Hero. All I know is that I'm supposed to be the

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Future Leader of this Tribe and I want there to be a Tribe left to lead. And that seems more important to me than being a Hero."

They staggered through the heather towards the Hooligan Village, which was strangely silent and deserted. No smoke curled from the rooftops, no children quarreled in the streets, no dragons were fighting in the thatch.

"Please, please, good god Woden," prayed Hiccup, "PLEASE let everybody be alive."

Everybody
was
alive.

Miraculously, no one had drowned during the sinking of the
Lucky Thirteen.

The Hooligans sailed the heavily overloaded
Hammerhead
back to Berk, with the Outcasts tied up as their prisoners.

With typical generosity, they set the Outcasts free.

I fear the Outcasts were not as grateful as they should have been, and this would not be the last the Hooligans would see of these vicious people. For the moment, however, they returned to the Outcast Lands humiliated, unarmed and with a hunger for revenge.

The Hooligans were not in much better shape themselves. They were a hardy race, and drowning was

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an occupational hazard, but the loss of the only son of the Chief was a big blow, whether he was the Heir or not.

Stoick sat for an hour at the edge of the sea. As soon as Snotlout's treasure had disappeared beneath the waves it had lost its magic for him. He kept on seeing in his mind's eye his son, Hiccup, standing on the deck of the
Lucky Thirteen,
saying,

"I AM THE HEIR TO STOICK THE VAST."

He tore out his golden earrings, and threw them into the ocean. And then he went home and sat in front of his shrine to Woden.

So this was why, when Fishlegs, Hiccup and Toothless came stumbling and limping into the Hooligan Village, everyone had locked themselves indoors, the shutters were shut up, doors were closed, fires were unlit.

It was only a chance that the wooden window had blown open in Gobber the Belch's home. He went to close it, and happened to spot the bedraggled friends lurching along.... And then he let out a great bellow of, "They're ALIVE!!!"

The shout went from house to house like watch fires lighting from hill to hill, and the Hairy Hooligans rushed out of their front doors like a crowd

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of jubilant sea elephants, and they swooped on the three companions and lifted them onto their muscly shoulders with great happy shouts of, "They're ALIVE! They're ALIVE! THEY'RE ALIVE! THEY'RE ALIVE!"

Snotlout was already furious to find that people had been more concerned about mourning Hiccup and Fishlegs than congratulating HIM on being the Hero of the Hour on the Isle of the Skullions.

Imagine
how cross he was to run out of his house in curiosity at the commotion, to find himself barged out of the way by Gobber the Belch and Nobber Nobrains, and practically trampled into the ground by a clapping mob carrying Hiccup shoulder-high through the Village.

Hiccup, who was quite clearly, yet again, NOT dead, NOT drowned, NOT safely out of the way.

The happy Hooligans reached the door of their Chieftain's house and banged on it, crying, "Open up, open up, they're alive, they're alive!"

Stoick the Vast lifted his great hairy head as if he was dreaming, staggered to the door, and there, on the doorstep, was HIS SON, Hiccup.

Stoick the Vast, Terror of the Seas, Most

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High Ruler of the Hairy Hooligans, O Hear His Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh, picked up his son and hugged him, while the crowd cheered and cheered. And that was how Toothless found and lost a marvelous treasure all in the space of an afternoon ...

... And how Hiccup finally got himself a sword and learnt how to use it...

... And how Fishlegs discovered that you don't always have to be a Hero to get a Hero's Welcome.

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EPILOGUE

A few months afterwards, I had a dream.

It was a dream about shipwrecks, perhaps because I had been doing a lot of that lately. The ship was called the
Endless Journey,
and just before it disappeared beneath the waves, the ferocious looking captain, who had a strange smile on his face, threw a sword up, up into the air. It spun end to end over the waves, through the atmosphere and into space and stars and never-ending time, where, to my surprise, my own left hand sprang out of its own accord and caught it.

As soon as I awoke, I got up and brought out that uninspiring sword that Toothless had picked for me in the cavern of the Treasure, the one with which I had fought Alvin the Treacherous. I turned it over and over, and inspected the dull little object for quite half an hour. And eventually I found that by twisting and twisting it, the knob at the end fell off and there was a small piece of paper rolled up in a little hollowed-out compartment inside. A small fragment of paper on which was written the following words:

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Now I am an old, old man, the same age as Grimbeard the Ghastly when he got his dragons to swim down to the cavern with the treasure. Toothless and Fishlegs and I have kept the secret of what really happened on that terrible day all those years ago....

But because I am writing my memoirs I find I have to write it down, as it is such an important part of my journey to becoming a Hero. Even though I know I will never be able to show it to anyone of my own time.

As soon as I have finished writing these papers, I shall lock them in a box. I shall throw that box into the sea.

And I shall throw it hoping, like Grimbeard the Ghastly, that someday it may be found by someone who will be a better Leader than I have been.

Someone living way, way in the future, in times more civilized than those in which I have lived, where men can own beautiful and dangerous things and use them wisely.

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Surely that would be the last Hiccup would see of that wicked villain,
Alvin the Treacherous?

His grim hook sank to the bottom of the ocean
with the wreck of the
Lucky Thirteen.
He himself
was last seen struggling in the throat of a Monstrous

Strangulator in an inaccessible cavern deep,
deep underground....

Nobody could get out of
that
situation alive ...

Or could they???

Look out for the next volume of Hiccup's memoirs....

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[Image: A question mark.]

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[Image: Storm.]