"This is too good to be true," Hiccup said to himself ten minutes later as Toothless returned from a second trip, clearly too bored for words but dropping a couple of herring at Hiccup's feet. "In about half an
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hour, I, Hiccup, will become a fully paid-up member of the Hairy Hooligan tribe."
It wastoo good to be true. Fireworm was just flying back to Snotlout with her twentieth fish, her green cat's eyes snapping with triumph, when Toothless called out:
"S-s-sloppy. snob."
Fireworm stopped in mid-air. Her head whipped round, her eyes narrowing.
"WHAT did you say?" hissed Fireworm.
"Oh no," said Hiccup. "No, Toothless, no, don't
do it...."
"S-s-sloppy. snob," jeered Toothless. "Is that the best you can do? It's p-p-pathetic. Hopeless. U-u-use-iess. You N-N-Nightmares thinkyou're so cruel but you're s-s-sloppy as scallops."
"YOU," hissed Fireworm, her ears dangerously back as she crept forward through the air like a leopard about to spring, "are a little LIAR."
"Anil Y-Y-YOU," said Toothless calmly, "are a r-r-rabbit-hearted, s-s-seaweeh-brained, w-w-winkle-eating SNOB."
Fireworm went for him.
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Toothless streaked off, as quick as lightning, and Fireworm's massive jaws snapped together with a sickening crunch on nothing but thin air.
Chaos ensued.
Fireworm completely lost control. She plunged wildly through the air, claws out, biting anything that moved, and letting out great bursts of flame.
Unfortunately, in the process she accidentally scratched Killer, a dragon with a very short temper. Killer then attacked any Hooligan dragon within biting distance.
Soon the dragons were involved in a full-scale, rip-roaring dragonfight, with the boys running around shouting at them to stop and trying to pull them apart without getting killed themselves. The dragons took absolutely no notice whatsoever, however hard the boys yelled -- and Thuggory and Snotlout were very red in the face after some pretty impressive yelling.
Gobber the Belch went ballistic on the sidelines.
"CANSOMEBODYTELLMEWHATINTHORAND-WODEN'SNAMEISHAPPENING?"
Toothless was in his element in this kind of chaos, dodging Fireworm's angry lunges with ease, nipping in with a lively bite at Alligatiger here and a
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scratch at Brightclaw there, obviously enjoying the fight enormously.
Even Horrorcow showed a great deal of spirit for a dragon who was supposedly vegetarian. She managed to give Fireworm a truly impressive bite on the bottom as Fireworm and Killer rolled through the air biting chunks out of one another.
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Gobber the Belch entered the fray, grabbing hold of Fireworm's tail. Fireworm gave a howl of outrage, squirmed round, and set Gobber's beard on fire. With one massive hand Gobber swatted out the fire and with the other he clamped Fireworm's jaws together so she could neither bite nor burn. He tucked the furiously enraged animal under one arm, still holding her mouth closed.
"SSSTOPPP!!!!!" screamed Gobber the Belch with a hair-raising, skin-crawling, fang-dropping yell that reverberated off the cliffs, bounced off the sea, and whose faint echoes could be heard on the Mainland.
The boys stopped their useless screaming. The dragons stopped in mid-air.
There was an awful silence.
Even the watching crowd went quiet.
This had never happened before. All twenty boys
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had shown themselves to be completely out of control of their dragons during the Initiation Test.
Technically, this meant that all of them should be thrown out of their Tribes into exile. And exile in this horrid climate could mean death. Food was scarce, the sea was dangerous, and there were certain wild Tribes in the Isles who were rumoured to be cannibals. . ..
Gobber the Belch stood, lost for words, his beard still smoking.
When he eventually spoke, his voice was deep with the horror of the situation.
"I will have to speak with the Elders of the Tribes," was all he said. He dropped Fireworm on the ground. She had come to her senses and now slunk toward Snotlout, her tail between her legs.
The Elders of the Tribes were Mogadon and Stoick, Gobber himself, and a few more of the more fearsome warriors, such as Terrible Tuffnut, the Vicious Twins, and the Hairy Scary Librarian from the Meat-head Public Library. The crowd and the boys stood absolutely still as the Elders consulted in the traditional Elder Huddle, which looked a bit like a rugby scrum.
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Meanwhile, the storm was getting worse. Huge claps of thunder burst over their heads, the rain poured down, and they couldn't have been much wetter if they had all jumped into the sea.
The Elders consulted for a long time. Mogadon got angry at one point and swung a fist at Tuffnut. A Twin held on to each of his arms until he calmed down again. Eventually Stoick came out of the Huddle and stood before the boys, who were hanging their heads in shame, their dragons at their feet.
If Hiccup had been able to look at his father, he would have seen that Stoick was not his normal, merry, violent self. He looked very solemn indeed.
"Novices of the Tribes," he bellowed grimly, "this
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is a very bad day for all of you. You have FAILED the Final Test of the Initiation Program. By the fierce Law of the Inner Isles this means that you should be cast out from the Tribes into exile FOREVER. I do not want to do this, not only because my own son is among you, but also because it will mean that a whole generation of warriors is lost from the Tribes. But we cannot ignore our Law. Only the strong can belong, in case the blood of the Tribes should be weakened. Only Heroes can be Hooligans and Meatheads."
Stoick jabbed a fat finger at the heavens. "Furthermore," he carried on, "the god Thor is really very angry. This is not the moment to weaken our Laws."
Thor let out a great crash of thunder as if to underline this point.
"Under normal circumstances," said Stoick, "the ceremony of exile would start now. But going to sea in weather like this would mean certain death for all concerned. As an act of mercy, I will allow you one more night of shelter under my roof, and first thing tomorrow morning you will be set ashore on the Mainland to fend for yourselves. From this moment forth, you are all banished and may not talk to any other member of your Tribe."
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The thunder crashed all around the boys as they stood, heads bowed, in the rain.
"Pity me, for this is saddest thing I have ever had to do, to banish my own son," said Stoick sadly.
The crowd murmured sympathetically, applauding the nobility of their Leader.
"A Chief cannot live like other people," said Stoick, looking almost pleadingly at Hiccup. "He has to decide what is for the good of the Tribe."
Suddenly Hiccup was very angry.
"Well, don't expect ME to pity you!" said Hiccup. "What kind of father thinks his stupid Laws are more important than his own son? And what kind of stupid Tribe is this anyway, that it can't just have ordinary people in it?"
Stoick stood looking down at his son in surprise and shock for a moment. Then he turned round and trudged off. The Tribes were already running off the beach and scrambling up the hillsides toward the shelter of the Village, lightning coming down all around them.
"I'm going to kill you," hissed Snotlout at Hiccup, Fireworm snarling menacingly from his shoulder. "First thing after we're banished, I'm going to kill you," and he ran off after the others.
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"I've lost my t-t- tooti," Toothless com- plained whinily. "C-c-came out when I hit that F-f-fireworm dragon."
Hiccup took no no tice. He looked up at the heavens, beside himself with fury as the wind scooped up seawater in handfuls and flung it straight into his face.