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one giant hand, and he lifted his sword above his head with the other.
"DON'T DO IT!" shouted Hiccup desperately, but Dogsbreath's eyes were full of the joys of battle and he began to swing the blade down towards Hiccup's chest.
[Image: Storm.]
And that would have been the end of Hiccup if it hadn't been for the extraordinarily lucky
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coincidence that at that very moment the ship lurched queasily upwards on the next giant wave, rolled for a second on the brim, and plunged hysterically downwards ... straight onto a large floating object that instantly holed the boat.
"Abandon ship!" shrieked Fireworm, and thirteen dragons rose into the air like gigantic bats. (Dragons are only loyal to their Masters up to a certain point.)
The ship split into two pieces on the spot, spilling the Vikings out into the sea. It then sank, with a sigh of relief, to the bottom of the ocean bed in about ten seconds flat.
One minute Hiccup was in the not-so-loving embrace of Dogsbreath the Duhbrain, the next he was doing the doggy paddle in water so breath-quenchingly, spine-numbingly, heart-stoppingly cold that it was difficult to think of questions like: "What in Woden's name do we do now?"
Something landed with a bump on the top of Hiccup's helmet. Toothless's eyes peered into his, upside down.
"N-n-nice fighting, Master," he said. "N-n-now, where's my l-l-lunch?"
"You may not have noticed," said Hiccup,
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swallowing a big chunk of seawater as the weight of Toothless pushed him under the surface, "but I'm having a bit of a crisis here. Now flap off, will you, and see what's happened to Fishlegs. He can't swim."
Hiccup could swim but the waves were mountainously rough. He really had to struggle to keep afloat.
Toothless returned a moment or so later looking anxious.
"F-f-fishlegs d-d-definitely needs you help, Master, B-b-big trouble. Follow me."
And he disappeared again.
Hiccup was just thinking, "Well, I don't know what in Valhalla he thinks I can do about it," when a miracle occurred.
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3. A CHANCE IN A MILLION
The object that had holed the boat, thereby saving Hiccup from Death at the hands of Dogsbreath the Duhbrain, was a large, heavy, six-foot-by-three-foot BOX.
It now floated up to within reaching distance of where Hiccup was treading water. There were a couple of iron handles on the sides, very handy for grabbing on to.
About twenty minutes earlier, some laughing members of the Meathead Tribe had thrown this box into the sea at Meathead Island, which was a couple of miles away. The winds had carried it a considerable distance in that short time.
And the chances of that particular box traveling all that way, and then in the middle of the whole wild and lonely ocean happening to hole the ship just in time to save Hiccup's life, must have been thousands, no, millions to one.
If you were a fanciful person, you might have said that it was almost as if that box was looking for Hiccup.
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But we are not fanciful people, and that would be ridiculous.
No sooner had Hiccup grabbed hold of one of the iron handles with a sigh of relief than a gigantic wave lifted him and the box way, way up, and then deposited them crashing down only a couple of feet away from where Toothless was trying to keep Fishlegs from going under for the third and what would have been final time.
The dragon had a firm grip on the back of Fishlegs's shirt, his wings were flapping furiously, and his little green face had turned bright red with the effort of trying to stop Fishlegs from sinking.
Fishlegs had got hold of a piece of broken oar that was keeping him up a bit, but he couldn't cling on much longer, and he would have drowned if it had not been for the sudden arrival of Hiccup and the mysterious box.
There was a lull in the sea for a couple of moments, in which Hiccup and Toothless managed to heave the exhausted Fishlegs onto the top of the box.
And there he clung, like an anxious Daddy Long-legs, terrified but alive.
Five indescribably cold minutes later, they were
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blown by the violence of the wind onto the shores of the Long Beach. Amazingly, all thirteen of the boys and Gobber himself had survived the shipwreck.
Gobber didn't exactly give them a big, welcoming hug.
"Mmmm, good work I suppose," he said begrudgingly, sniffing a bit. "You took your time about it, though. Step lively, Fishlegs. We're horribly late for the next lesson."
As soon as Fishlegs had dragged himself off the box and collapsed panting onto the beach, Gobber stopped being irritated.
Because the box wasn't a box at all.
It was a coffin.
A huge, six-and-a-half-foot floating coffin, with the following words carved into the lid:
BEWARE! DO NOT OPEN THIS COFF!
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4. WHOSE COFFIN IS THIS ANYWAY?
The boys all crowded around the box, forgetting, in their curiosity, about their narrow escape from drowning.
"It's a coffin, sir."
"Yes, I can see that, thank you, Wartihog," snapped Gobber the Belch. "The question is, whose?"
The answer was written right underneath the words "Do Not Open This Coffin," in letters scratched out with some kind of dagger, and stained with something that might once have been blood.
"CURSED BE HE WHO DISTURBS THE REMAINS OF GRIMBEARD THE GHASTLY THE GREATEST PIRATE WHO EVER STRUCK TERROR INTO THE INNER ISLES."
Hiccup felt a cold clammy shiver run down his back, and he suddenly knew that something really bad was going to happen.
Grimbeard the Ghastly had been Hiccup's own great-great-grandfather.
"The Lost Treasure of Grimbeard the Ghastly" was a popular Hooligan Saga. It told of how
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Grimbeard had won a glorious treasure through his brilliance at piracy and swordfighting, a treasure that included his famous sword, the Stormblade.
[Image: The storm blade.]
[Insert: Owned by Grimbeard the GHASTLY the greatest Viking Sword ever]
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But after twenty years of glorious rule, Grimbeard had disappeared on a mysterious quest, and neither he nor the treasure were ever seen again.
And now here, out of the blue, one hundred years later, his coffin had appeared back on the shores of Berk. ... It was spooky.
"OOOOOOOOH," chattered Wartihog in excitement. "Do you think there might be TREASURE in there, sir? Can we open it, sir? Pleasesir, pleasesir, can we open it?"
All the other boys joined in the clamor ... except for Hiccup.
Hiccup knew that Grimbeard had been the ULTIMATE in pirate-ness, the GREEDIEST, GRISLIEST, GORIEST Viking who had ever sailed and slew and farted his way across the Northern Seas.
Treasure or no treasure, if a man like Grimbeard the Ghastly was telling you not to mess with his coffin, it was Hiccup's personal opinion that you ought to listen.
Even if he had been dead for a hundred years.
Particularly if he had been dead for a hundred years.
"Right," said Gobber, just as excited as
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everybody else, "we're going to have to forget about the Advanced Rudery lesson. This is an Important Discovery and I think we should take it straight to Stoick the Vast and the Council of Elders. Bearhug, Sharpknife, Wartihog, Clueless, pick it up and carry it back to the Hooligan Village. ..."
The boys hauled the coffin onto their shoulders.
"Don't just hang about shivering, you lazy lug-fish," Gobber bellowed crazily. "This is Pirate Training, not a holiday with your mother on the Mainland. QUICK MARCH, one-two, one-two, one-two...."
He set off at a brisk trot towards the Hooligan Village.
The boys sighed and began to stumble after him.
Snotlout and Dogsbreath the Duhbrain sauntered over to Hiccup, who was sitting, trying to catch his breath on a large rock, shivering violently.
/> "A shame that Dogsbreath was interrupted," sneered Snotlout, "just when things were getting interesting, don't you think, Dogsbreath?"
"Yeah," grinned Dogsbreath the Duhbrain.
"I reckon," said Snotlout thoughtfully to the remaining boys, "that Hiccup must be the most pathetic swordfighter I have EVER seen, don't you
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think, guys? I mean, face it, Hiccup, somebody who fights like a granny with a back problem is NEVER going to be Chief of this Tribe...."
"Oh, and so who is going to be Chief of this Tribe if Hiccup isn't?" asked Fishlegs, still lying spread-eagled on the sand in the exact position where he had fallen off the coffin. "Let me guess ... YOU, I suppose?"
Snotlout flexed his muscles, making the skeleton tattooed on his right biceps grin smugly.
"I AM the obvious choice," he said. "I've got noble blood" (Snotlout was Hiccup's cousin, the son of Baggybum the Beerbelly, the Chief's younger brother), "charisma, good looks" (Snotlout stroked the rather unpleasant little straggly hairs on his upper lip that he was trying to grow into a mustache), "and I'm BRILLIANT at absolutely everything...."
Unfortunately this was true.
Snotlout was a natural at Mindless Violence, superb at Advanced Rudery and practically everything else.
"... particularly swordfighting," said Snotlout, drawing his sword from its scabbard.
The other boys gasped.
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"Wow," breathed Speedifist. "The latest Double-Sided Extra-Biting Supa-Sword. Curving inner edges, silverpoint finish ... where did you get THAT from, Snotlout?"
"This is the Flashcut," boasted Snotlout, swishing the beautiful sword around so that everybody could get a good look. "Makes that silly Swiftpoint Scaremaker that Dogsbreath lost for you look pretty weak, doesn't it, Hiccup? Let me show you how swordfighting should be done. This," sneered Snotlout, lunging athletically, "is a Perfect Pointer. ..."
Hiccup dodged.
[Image: The latest double sided extra-bitin supa-sword like Snotlout's flashcut.]
"And this is the Destroyer's Defense. ..." Snotlout gave an animal howl and brought the sword down over his head, stopping just before he cut Hiccup in half.
"And that," jeered Snotlout, slashing the Flashcut expertly from side to side and then leaping forward suddenly, the sword ending up just inches away from
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Hiccup's heart, "that is a Grimbeard's Grapple.... But I expect a loser like you, who couldn't even beat a three-year-old in diapers, hasn't even heard of moves like that."
Hiccup said nothing.
"THAT, dear cousin," sneered Snotlout, "is HOW TO SWORDFIGHT." He put his sword back in its scabbard.
"Yup," he said, very pleased with himself, "I'm a genius. I'm going to make the best Chief this Tribe has ever had."
"It's just a shame," said Fishlegs, "that your brain isn't as big as one of your nostrils."
Snotlout looked irritated for a second as all the other boys laughed. He grabbed Hiccup by the scruff of the neck and lifted him clear off the ground.
"Amazing how the wooden case to that sword fell off, wasn't it?" he spat right into Hiccup's face. "You were lucky this time ... but the question is, can you be lucky ALL the time? Think about it, LOSER. Come on, Dogsbreath. Let's leave the girlies to get their beauty sleep."
He dropped Hiccup and as he went he trod heavily and deliberately on one of Fishlegs's hands.
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"Whoops," laughed Snotlout.
"Har Har Har Har," snorted Dogsbreath the Duhbrain.
And they jogged off.
"If Snotlout is EVER Chief of this Tribe, I'm emigrating," said Fishlegs, shaking his hand.
"Are you all right, Fishlegs?" asked Hiccup with concern, as he gazed down on Fishlegs still lying flat on his back.
"Perfect," croaked Fishlegs, coughing up a bit more seawater. "I do love an early morning swim. How about you?"
"Oh, couldn't be better really," said Hiccup bleakly, taking off one of his boots and pouring out a flood of seawater and a couple of small fish.
[Image: Hiccup.]
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"My first day at Pirate Training and I've already been humiliated by my pathetic swordfighting, beaten to a pulp, shipwrecked, and narrowly escaped Death by drowning. And it's not even ten o'clock yet."
"Maybe it was the SWORD that was the problem," suggested Fishlegs kindly but untruthfully.
Hiccup brightened up.
"You could be right," he said eagerly. "It felt a bit light in my hands. Perhaps I need something a bit chunkier, you know, to get some weight behind my swing." He did a few imaginary lunges in the air. "That must be it, because I still have this feeling that swordfighting is going to be my thing, you know?"
"Um, yeeeessss," said Fishlegs, not wanting to hurt Hiccup's feelings by mentioning that it had been the worst display of swordfighting he had seen, EVER. "And you need a lot more PRACTICE, don't you think?"
Hiccup nodded enthusiastically. "Anyway," he said, "we need to get after the others. I'm freezing, and I've a horrible feeling that some idiot is going to suggest OPENING that coffin which says quite clearly DO NOT OPEN. It would be just the sort of mindlessly stupid thing they would do."
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"What do you think could be in it?" asked Fishlegs.
"I don't know," said Hiccup, "but a pirate like Grimbeard the Ghastly won't have hidden the treasure in it without booby-trapping it in some way. You read what it said on the top. ... A man like him could have thought of all SORTS of unpleasant surprises."
Fishlegs sighed and struggled to his feet. They set off slowly towards the Hooligan Village, Toothless hitching a ride on Hiccup's helmet.
"They wouldn't open it, would they?" worried Fishlegs. "Surely, surely, SURELY, they couldn't be that stupid?"
[Image: A pirate.]
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5. DO NOT OPEN a Coffin That Says "DO NOT OPEN" on the Front
As soon as they got to the Hooligan Village, Hiccup and Fishlegs changed into dry(ish) clothes. (Berk was one of those damp places where clothes never really dried. They just became warm and wet rather than cold and wet.)
They hurried as quickly as they could towards the Great Hall.
[Image: The Hooligan Village.]
By the time they got there, Stoick had called a Big Meeting of Everybody and the Great Hall was already packed to bursting with great Hairy Hooligans jostling each other for a good view of the coffin, which had been placed on a table in front of the fire.
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Bit by bit Hiccup and Fishlegs managed to wriggle their way through the crowd to the front.
"Ah, Hiccup, there you are," said Hiccup's father Stoick the Vast absentmindedly, as he consulted with the other Elders in front of the coffin.
Stoick was a terrifying red-headed bull of a man whose belly turned a corner a good foot or two before the rest of him.
"Interesting find you've made here, my boy," said Stoick, ruffling his son's hair proudly. "The Lost Treasure of Grimbeard the Ghastly, eh?"
"Yes, Father, but... ," said Hiccup.
"We're just about to open it," said Stoick.
"But what I'm trying to say is," interrupted Old Wrinkly (the cleverest and most ancient Elder of the Hooligan Tribe), "it is written quite clearly on the top, 'DO NOT OPEN THIS COFFIN, Cursed be he who disturbs the remains of Grimbeard the Ghastly, the greatest pirate who ever struck Terror into the Inner Isles.' ... In my considerable experience it is always a good idea NOT TO OPEN a coffin that says 'DO NOT OPEN' on the front...."
"I agree," said Hiccup nervously. "Grimbeard
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[Image: A man.]
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the Ghastly was a nasty piece of work. Anybody who opens that coffin could be in for a horrible shock."
"Rubbish," scoffed Stoick the Vast. "A warning like that to put off grave robbers should not stay the hand of Fearsome Vikings like ourselves. Shall we, who laugh in the face of Death and spit in the eye of the Great Typhoon, quail at a simple
curse to scare infants and old men?"
Cries of "No!" and "Not likely, guv'nor!"
"All those in favor of opening up the box and seeing whether the Lost Treasure of Grimbeard the Ghastly is inside say AYE!"
"AYE!!!" bellowed out every member of the Hooligan Tribe, except for Fishlegs, Old Wrinkly and Hiccup.
"R-r-run for your lives!" yelped Toothless, and hid in Hiccup's shirt. Fishlegs edged backwards into the crowd.
"NOT a good idea, NOT a good idea, NOT a good idea," muttered Hiccup. He started backing away from the coffin as Stoick fiddled clumsily with the iron clasps.
"NOT a good idea, NOT a good idea, NOT A
GOOD IDEA," repeated Hiccup as Stoick slowly c-r-e-a-k-e-d up the coffin lid....
c r-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-a-k...
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The coffin lid dropped open with a bang.
Stoick jumped away to avoid being splashed by the seawater gushing out of it from all sides.
Everybody else tried very hard not to look nervous.
Stoick peered into the coffin.
There was a bit of a pause.
"Not pretty, was he?" sniffed Stoick the Vast, trying to show off how much he laughed in the face of Death.
"Oh, I don't know, sir," said Gobber the Belch, leaning in to look as well. "I think I can see a bit of a family resemblance."
"I know what you mean," said Baggybum the Beerbelly, turning his head thoughtfully. "There's a look of Great-Aunt Heftythighs."