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"This is an outrage!" boomed Mogadon. "That book is Meathead property. ... I demand its instant return or I shall declare war on the spot."
"Oh, put a sock in it, Mogadon," said Stoick. "With wimpy librarians like yours, what can you expect?"
The Hairy Scary Librarian blushed a delicate pink and shook in his size eighteen shoes.
"Baggybum, hand me the book from the fireplace," yelled Stoick.
Baggybum stretched out one of his great octopus arms and picked the book off the shelf. He lobbed it across the heads of the crowd and Stoick caught it, to much cheering. Morale was high. Stoick bowed to the hordes and handed the book to Gobber.
"GOB-BER, GOB-BER, GOB-BER," yelled the crowd. It was Gobber's moment of triumph. A crisis demands a Hero and he knew he was the man for the job. His chest swelled with self-importance.
"Oh, it was nothing really . . .," he bellowed modestly, "a bit of Basic Burglary you know . . . Keeps me in practice. ..."
"Ssssssh," hissed the crowd like sea snakes, as Gobber cleared his throat.
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"How to Train Your Dragon," announced Gobber solemnly. He paused.
"YELL AT IT."
There was another pause.
"And . .. ?" said Stoick. "Yell at it, and . .. ?"
"That's it," said Gobber. "YELL AT IT."
"There's nothing in there about the Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus in particular?" asked Stoick.
Gobber looked through the book again. "Not as such," said Gobber. "Just the bit about yelling at it, really."
"Hmmm," said Stoick. "It's brief, isn't it? I've never noticed before, but it is brief. . . brief but to the point," he added hastily, "like us Vikings. Thank Thor for our experts. Now," said Stoick, in his most Chieflike manner, "since it is such a large Dragon --"
"Vast," interrupted Old Wrinkly happily. "Gigantic. Stupendously enormous. Five times as big as the Big Blue Whale."
"Yes, thank you, Old Wrinkly," said Stoick. "Since it is, indeed, on the rather large side, we're going to need a rather large yell. I want everybody on the clifftops yelling at the same time."
"What shall we yell?" asked Baggybum.
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[Image: Baggybum]
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"Something brief and to the point. GOAWAY," said Stoick.
The Tribes of Meathead and Hooligan gathered at the top of the cliffs of the Long Beach and looked down at the impossibly vast Serpent stretched out on the sand, smacking its lips as it devoured the last morsels of its late unfortunate companion. It was so big that it seemed unlikely that it could be alive, until you saw it move like an earthquake or a trick of the eyes.
There are times when size reallyis important,thought Hiccup to himself. And this is one of them.
Dragons are vain, cruel, and amoral creatures, as I've said. This is all very well when they are a lot smaller than you are. But when a dragon's bad nature is multiplied into something the size of a hillside, how do you deal with it?
Gobber the Belch stepped forward to lead the yelling, as the most respected Yeller among them all. His chest swelled with pride.
"One ... two . .. three .. ."
Four hundred Viking voices screamed as one: "GO AWAY!" and added for good measure the Viking War Cry.
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The Viking War Cry was designed to chill the blood of Viking enemies at the commencement of battle. It is a horrifying, electrifying shriek that begins by mimicking the furious yell of a swooping predator, which then turns into the victim's scream of pure terror, and ends with a horribly realistic imitation of the death-gurgles as he chokes on his own blood. It is a scary noise at the best of times, but shouted altogether by four hundred barbarians at eight o'clock in the morning it was enough to make the mighty Thor himself drop his hammer and cry like a little baby.
There was an impressive silence.
The mighty Dragon then turned his mighty head in their direction.
There were four hundred gasps as a pair of evil, yellow eyes, as big as six tall men, narrowed down to slits.
The Dragon opened its mouth and let out a sound so loud and so terrifying that four or five passing seagulls dropped down dead with fear on the spot. It was a noise that made the Viking War Cry seem like the faint cry of a newborn baby in comparison. It was a terrible, alien, other-worldly noise that promised DEATH and NO MERCY and EVERYTHING AWFUL.
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There was another impressive silence.
With one delicate movement of his talon, the Dragon ripped through Gobber's tunic and trousers from head to toe as if he were peeling fruit. Gobber gave a most un-Heroic shriek of outraged modesty. The Dragon placed the same talon upright in front of Gobber the Belch and flicked him like a spitball, way, way away, over the Vikings' heads and over the walled fortifications of the village.
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The Dragon put his vast, cracked old paw to his reptilian lips and blew the Vikings a kiss. The kiss streaked through the sky and scored a direct hit on both Stoick and Mogadon's ships, which had survived the storm and were rocking in the safety of Hooligan Harbour. All fifty of them burst simultaneously into flames.
The Vikings ran away from that cliff as fast as their eight hundred legs could carry them.
Gobber the Belch had the luck to land on the roof of his own house. The deep layers of soggy grass broke his fall as he went through them, and he ended up sitting stark-naked in his own chair in front of the fire, dazed but unharmed.
"OK, then," said Stoick to four hundred Vikings suddenly looking scared but wildly overexcited, "so the Yelling doesn't work."
They had reassembled in the center of the village.
"And, as our fleet is out of action, we have no means of escape from the island," Stoick continued. "What we need now," he said, trying to sound as if he was on top of the situation, "is for somebody to
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go and ask the monster whether he comes in PEACE or in WAR."
"I shall go . . .," volunteered Gobber, who rejoined them at that moment, still determined to be the Hero of the hour. He was trying to sound noble and dignified, but it is very difficult to be truly dignified with grass in your hair and wearing your cousin
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Agatha's dress -- which was the only thing Gobber could find to wear in the house.
"Do you speak Dragonese, Gobber?" asked Stoick in surprise.
"Well, no," Gobber admitted. "Nobody here speaks Dragonese. It's forbidden by order of Stoick the Vast, O Hear His Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh. Dragons are inferior creatures who we yell at. Dragons might get above themselves if we talk to them. Dragons are tricksy and must be kept in their place."
"Hiccup can speak to dragons," said Fishlegs very quietly, from the middle of the crowd.
"Sssh, Fishlegs," whispered Hiccup, desperately digging his friend in the ribs.
"Well, you can," said Fishlegs stoutly. "Don't you see? This is your chance to be a Hero. And we're all going to die anyway, so you might as well take it. ..."
"Hiccup can speak to dragons!" shouted Fishlegs, very loudly indeed.
"Hiccup?" said Gobber the Belch.
"HICCUP?" said Stoick the Vast.
"Yes, Hiccup," said Old Wrinkly. "Small boy, red hair, freckles, you were going to put him into exile this morning." Old Wrinkly looked stern. "In order
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that the blood of the Tribes should not be weakened, remember? Your son, Hiccup."
"I know who Hiccup is,thank you, Old Wrinkly," said Stoick the Vast, uncomfortably. "Does anyone know wherehe is? HICCUP! Come forward."