How to Train Your Dragon

was that, anyway? If we save all those stupid people from a REAL dragon like this one, maybe they'll let us into their stupid Tribe after all."

WELL, WELL, WELL,thought Hiccup. Thisis a turn up for the books. Maybe that Dragon was right and heis going to help me with my It's-Hard-to-Be-a-Hero problem. Before he eats me, of course.

One solo meeting with the Green Death and here were nineteen young barbarians, most of them much bigger and tougher and rougher than Hiccup, looking at Hiccup expectantly to tell them what to do.

Hiccup stood on tiptoe and tried to look like a Hero.

"OK," said Hiccup. "I need some time to think."

"GIVE THE BOY SOME ROOM HERE!" yelled Thuggory, pushing all the others back.

He swept off a rock for Hiccup to sit on.

u You just do all the thinking you need, boyo," said Thuggory. "This is a situation that needs a lot of thought and I have a feeling you're the only one here who can do it. Anybody who can have a twenty-minute conversation with a winged shark the size of a planet and come out of it alive is a better thinker than I am."

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Hiccup found himself warming to Thuggory the Meathead.

"QUIET!" yelled Thuggory. "HICCUP IS

THINKING."

Hiccup thought. And thought.

After about half an hour, Thuggory said: "Whatever you're thinking about to get rid of that monster better work for both of them."

"There's ANOTHER Dragon?" asked Hiccup.

Thuggory nodded.

"I went up to the Highest Point and spotted him while you were having your chat with the Big Green One."

"OK," said Hiccup. "That's good news, actually. Let's check out the new Horror."

The trail up to the Highest Point was littered with scallop shells and dolphins' bones thrown up by the gigantic storm. Along the way they even passed the wreck of one of Stoick's favorite ships, the Pure Adventure,lost at sea seven years before, and now perched crazily on a rock three quarters of the way up the biggest hill on Berk.

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Once you were right at the top it was possible to see most of Berk's coastline and the sea encircling you on all sides. Right at the other end of the island, a Dragon entirely filled up Unlandable Cove and spilled over the sides.

He was resting his vast, wicked chin on the cliff as a pillow. Great plumes of violet smoke were belching out of his snoring nostrils.

He was another Seadragonus Giganticus Max-imus, this time a glorious deep purple in color and, if anything, slightly larger than the one at Long Beach.

"The Purple Death, I presume," whispered Hiccup, shakily. "This is just what we need. Are you sure there aren't any more?"

Thuggory laughed, slightly hysterically. "I think it's just the two nightmare killing machines. Two not enough for you?"

Back at the Highest Point, Hiccup outlined his Plan of Action.

It was Fiendishly Clever -- if a bit desperate.

"We aren't big enough to fight these dragons," said Hiccup, "but they canfight EACH OTHER. We have to get them reallyangry at one another. We

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Hooligans will concentrate on the Green Death and you Meatheads will deal with the Purple Death.

"The one thing we will need is our own dragons, who seem to have disappeared," said Hiccup, "so we'd better start calling for them."

They started calling for their dragons, as loudly as they dared, and then louder still as there was no response.

The twenty dragons that belonged to the Novices were not, in fact, very far away at all. They had made up after the dragon fight and were now hiding in a piece of boggy bracken about a hundred yards or so away from where the boys were standing on the Highest Point. They were crouching like giant cats in the ferns, wicked eyes gleaming.

They were now so exactly the shade of a clump of bracken that they seemed to have melted entirely into the bog. If you had been

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a rabbit or a deer you would not have noticed them until you felt the talons on your back and the hot fire on your neck.

They had been following the boys for a while.

"So," whispered Fireworm, her tongue flickering menacingly. "What do we ho now then? Tie power is shifting on this island. Tie Masters will not be Masters for much longer. They are trapped, like lobsters in a pot. Weare not. We can fly. whenever we want. Do we obey or do we desert?"

Dragons are not the sort of creatures to back a loser.

"Whatever we ho," grumbled Brightclaw, "let's ho it QOICKLY, m y;wings are freezing up?."

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"We could kill the boys now take them as an offering to tie New Master," suggested Seaslug, with a grunt of greedy pleasure.

"What, that great green. Devil on the beach?" said Horrorcow placidly. "I don't like the look of him, myself. He has too big an appetite. We might find. ourselves as the next offering."

"We fly, then," said Brightclaw, and the others murmured their agreement.

"S-s-siience," hissed Fireworm. "These islands are perilous," she sneered. "We might fly from one danger straight into tie mouth of another. I say we obey, until we are sure thatthey have lost. When that time comes I will give the signal for us to desert."

And so, as if from nowhere, Fireworm and Seaslug, Horrorcow and Killer, Brightclaw and Alligatiger and all the other dragons flew out of their hiding place and came circling slowly up to the Highest Point, landing on each boy's outstretched arm.

Last of all came Toothless, complaining horribly.

"Dragons . ..," said Hiccup.

And he explained the Fiendishly Clever Plan.

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Chapter4 THE FIENDISHLY CLEVER PLAN

The dragons protested a bit, but the boys yelled them into line.

All except for Toothless, who absolutely refused to join in.

"Y-y-you must be j-j-joking," sneered the little dragon. "I refuse to go anywhere N-N-NEAR a S-S-Seadragonus Gigamticus M-M-Maximus. Those things are d-d-dangerous. I shall stay here and watch you all."

Hiccup coaxed and bribed and threatened in vain.

"You see?" said Snotlout. "The Useless can't even get his owndragon to carry out his pathetic plan. And THIS is the person you are banking on to get you out of this mess?"

"Ugh," said Dogsbreath the Duhbrain.

"Oh, SHUDDUP, Snotlout," chorused the rest of the boys.

Hiccup sighed and gave up. "OK then,

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Toothless, you just stag here and miss all the fun. Now, I want everybody to go down to the Gull's Nesting Place and collect as many birds' feathers as you can for the feather bombs --"

"Birds' feathers!" scoffed Snotlout. "This wimp thinks you can fight an animal like THAT with birds' feathers! Cold steel is the only language a creature like that will understand."

"Dragons have a tendency to asthma," explained Hiccup. "It's all that fire-breathing they do. The smoke gets in their lungs."

"So you think this monster is going to die from asthma right then and there because of a few FEATHER BOMBS? Why not just feed him fried herring and see whether he drops dead of a heart attack in twenty years or so?" jeered Snotlout.

"No," said Hiccup patiently, "the feather bombs are just to make him very confused so he won't kill anybody on the way. Snotlout, Thuggory, I'm going to need to coach Fireworm and Killer in what they have to say," continued Hiccup.

"I'm not putting mydragon at risk in this crazy plan," said Snotlout.