Текст книги "How to Train Your Dragon"

Автор книги: Cressida Cowell

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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."

"It looks like you could come in useful after all...," Old Wrinkly murmured to himself.

"Here he is!" yelled Fishlegs, patting Hiccup on the back. Hiccup started to wriggle through the crowd until somebody noticed him and dragged him up, and he was passed over everybody's heads and put down in front of Stoick.

"Hiccup," said Stoick. "Is it true that you can talk to dragons?"

Hiccup nodded.

Stoick gave an awkward cough. "This is an embarrassing situation. I know that we were about to banish you from the Tribe. However, if you do what I ask, I am sure I speak for everybody when I say that you can consider yourself un-banished. We stand in awful peril and nobody else in this room can speak Dragonese. Will you go to this monster and ask him whether he comes in PEACE or in WAR?"

Hiccup said nothing.

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Stoick coughed again. "You can talk to me," said Stoick. "I've un-banished you."

"So the exile is off, then, is it, Father?" asked Hiccup. "If I go and kill myself talking to this Beast from Hell, I will be considered Heroic enough to join the Tribe of Hooligans?"

Stoick looked more embarrassed than ever. "Absolutely," he said.

"OK, then," said Hiccup. "I'll do it."

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Chapter 12. THE GREEN DEATH

It is one thing to approach a primeval nightmare when you are part of a crowd of four hundred people. It is quite another to do so on your own. Hiccup had to force himself to put one foot in front of the other.

Stoick offered to send a guard of his finest soldiers, but Hiccup preferred to go alone. "Less chance of anybody doing anything Heroic and stupid," he said.

Although this is the part of the story that the bards tend to focus on as the bit where Hiccup was particularly Heroic, I do not agree. It is a lot easier to be brave when you know you have no alternative. Hiccup knew in his heart of hearts that the Monster intended to kill them all anyway. So he didn't have a lot to lose.

Nonetheless, he was sweating as he peered over the edge of the cliff. There, below him, was the impossibly large Dragon, filling up the beach. It appeared to be asleep.

But an eerie singing was coming from the direction of its belly. The song went something like this:

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Watch me, Gnat Destroyer,as settle down to lunch, killer whales an tasty 'cos thry've

got a lot of crunch. Gnat wharks sharks are scrumptious ,but here's a little tip: Those teeny weeny pointy teeth can

give a nasty nip....

How odd,thought Hiccup, he can sing with his mouth shut.

Hiccup nearly jumped clear out of his leggings when the Dragon opened both his crocodile eyes and spoke directly to him.

"Why so odd?" said the Dragon, who appeared to be amused. "A dragon with Ms eyes shut is not necessarily asleep, so it follows that a dragon with his mouth shut is not necessarily singing;. All is not what it seems. That noise that you hear is not me at all. THAT, my Hero, is tie sound. of a singing suffer."

"A singing suffer?" echoed Hiccup, quickly remembering that you should never, ever, look into the eyes of a large, malevolent Dragon like this one.

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This was a mistake, as Hiccup suddenly realized that the Dragon was holding a herd of pathetically bleating sheep captive under one massive claw. He pretended to allow one of them to escape, let the poor animal practically reach the safety of the rocks, then picked it up by its wool with a delicate pincer movement and tossed it way, way up into the air.

This was a trick Hiccup had often done himself, but with blackberries. Now the Dragon threw back his great head and the woolly speck fell down into the terrible jaws, which closed behind it with a mighty crash. There was a horrible sound of crunching as he chewed and swallowed the unfortunate sheep.

The Dragon saw Hiccup watching him in fascinated horror and he brought his ridiculously enormous head down closer to the boy. Hiccup nearly

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passed out as his offensive Dragon breath poured out in a disgusting, yellow-green vapor. It was the stench of DEATH itself – a deep, head-spinning stench of decaying matter; of rotting haddock heads and sweating whale; of long-dead shark and despairing souls. The revolting steam curled its way around the boy in repellent coils and wormed its way up into his nose until he coughed and spluttered.

"Some poeple say you should de-bone a sheep before you eat it," sneered the Dragon confidentially, "but I think it adds just a nice crunch to what would otherwise be a bit of a soggy meal...."

The Dragon burped. The belch came out as a perfect loop of fire that soared through the air like a smoke ring and landed on the heather surrounding Hiccup, setting it alight, so that for a moment he was standing right in the middle of a circle of bright green flames. The heather was damp, however, and the blaze flared for only a few moments, then extinguished itself.

"Ooops," giggled the Dragon evilly. "Pardon me ... A little party trick...."

He then placed one gigantic claw against the edge of the cliff that Hiccup was standing on.

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"Humans, however," continued the Dragon thoughtfully, "humans really should be filleted. The spine in particular can be very tickly as it goes down the throat...."

As the Dragon spoke, he extended his claws, the talons slowly emerging from the thick stumps of his fingers and rising up until they resembled nothing more than gigantic razors, six feet wide and twenty feet long, with points on the end like a surgeon's scalpel.

"Removing the human backbone is a delicate job," hissed the Dragon nastily, "but one that I am particularly good at... a small incision at the back of tie neck" – he gestured at Hiccup's neck – "a swift stroke downward, then filck itout. . . it's practically painless. For ME ..."

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Hiccup was thinking very fast indeed. There is nothing like staring Death in the face for speeding up your thoughts. What did he know about dragons that could work against an Invincible Monster like this one?

He could see the Dragon Motivation page he had written in his mind's eye. GRATITUDE: dragons are nevergrateful. FEAR: clearly hopeless. GREED: not a good idea to appeal to at this particular point in time. VANITY and REYENGE: could be useful but he couldn't quite think how. That left JOKES AND RIDDLING TALK. This Dragon looked a bit exalted for jokes. But from his manner of talking he clearly fancied himself as a bit of a philosopher. Maybe Hiccup could buy himself some time if he engaged him in a riddling conversation. . ..

"I've heard of singing for your suffer," said Hiccup, "but what is asinging supper?"

"A good question," said the Dragon, in surprise. "An EXCELLENT question, in fact." He drew back his claws and Hiccup sighed with relief. "It's a long time since the supper has shown such intelligence. They're generally too bound up with their little lives to bother with the Really Big Questions.

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"Now let me think," said the Dragon and, as he thought, he forked a protesting sheep on the end of a talon, then chewed on it reflectively. Hiccup was sorry for the sheep but deeply grateful that it wasn't himdisappearing down the ravenous reptilian gullet.

"How shall I put it,to a brain so much) smaller and less clever than mine.... Tie thing is, we are all, in a sense, supper. Walking, talking, breathing suppers, that's what we are. Take you, for instance. YOU are about to be eaten by ME, so that makes y ousupper. That's obvious. But even a murdererous carnivore like myself will be a supper for worms one day. We're ail snatching percious moments from the peaceful jaws of time," said the Dragon cheerfully.

"That's why it's so important," he continued, "for tie supper to sing as beautifully, as it can."

He gestured to his stomach, from where the voice could still be heard singing, though more and more faintly.

Humans can be bland, but if you have some salt to hand, A little hit of brim, will make them taste. divi-I-I-I-ne....

l5l

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"Tiat PARTICULAR, supper," said the Dragon, "that you hear singing now, was a dragon rather smaller than me ,but very full of himself. I ate him about half an hour ago."

"Isn't that cannibalism?" asked Hiccup.

"It's delicious," said the Dragon. "Besides, you can't call an ARTIST like myself a CANNBAL." He sounded a bit exasperated now. "You are very rude for such a small person. What do you want, Little Supper?"

"I have come," said Hiccup, "to find. out whether you come in PEACE or in WAR."

"Oh, peace, I tilink," said the Dragon. "I amgoing to kill you though," he added.

"Allof us?" asked Hiccup.

"You first," said the Dragon kindly. "Anil then everybody else when I've had, a little nap and got my appetite bad?;. It takes a little while to wake up completely from a Sleep Coma."

"But it's ail so unfair!" said Hiccup. "Why do YOU get to eat everybody, just because you're bigger than everybody else?"

"It's tie way of tie world," said the Dragon. " Besides , you'll fink that you come round to my

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point of view once you're inside me. That's tie marvelous thing about digestion.... But where are my manners? Let me introduce myself. I am the Green Death. What is your name, Little Supper?"

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddpck the Third," said Hiccup.

And the most extraordinary thing happened.

As Hiccup said his name the Green Death trembled, as if a sudden wind had made him shiver. Neither the Green Death nor Hiccup noticed.

"Hmmm .. .," said the Green Death. "I'm sure I've heard that name somewhere before. But it's rather a mouthful so I shall just call you Little Sup-fer. Now, Little Supper, before I eat you, tell me your problem."

"My problem?" asked Hiccup.

"That's right," said the Dragon. "Your Why-Can't-I-More– Like– My-Father? problem Your It's-Harh-to-Be-a-Hero problem. Your Snotlout-Would-Make-a-Better-Cftief-Than-Me problem. I have helped. the probiems of many a Supper. Some-how meeting a Really Big problem like myself seems to put everything else inproportion."

"Let me get this straight," said Hiccup. "You

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know all about my father, and me not being a Hero and everything ~"

"I can see things like that," said the Green Death modestly.

"-anil you want me to tell you my problems and then you're going to eat me?"

"We're back at tie beginning again," sighed the Green Death. "We're allgoing to be eaten SOMETIME. You can win yourself some extra time, though, if you're a smart little crabstick. A few scraps from tie burning...."

The Green Death yawned.

"I'm suddenly rather tireh," he said. "You ART; a clever little crabstick, you've kept me talking for AGES. . .." and the Dragon yawned again. "I'm too tired to eat you right now, you'll have to come back in a couple of hours ... and I'll tell you how to ileal with your problem then. I have a feeling I can help you... ."

And the terrible monster really didfall asleep this time, and snored most heavily. His great claws relaxed and fell open and the remaining sheep, their woolly sides trembling with terror, scrambled over the tops of the terrible talons and bolted up the cliff path.

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Hiccup stood watching the Dragon thoughtfully for a second, then he trudged slowly back through the heather toward the village.

Everybody cheered when he walked through the gates. He was carried shoulder high and set down in front of his father.

"Well, son," said Stoick. "Does the beast come in PEACE or in WAR?"

"He says he comes in peace," said Hiccup. There were huge hurrahs and heavy stampings of feet. Hiccup held up his hand for silence. "He's still going to kill us, though."

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Chapter 13.

WHEN YELLING DOESN'T WORK

The Dragon slept on as the Council of War argued about what to do next.

"I am going to write a strongly worded letter to Professor Yobbish," said Stoick the Vast. "This book needs a lot more WORDS to tell you what to do if yelling doesn't work."

Which shows how cross Stoick was – he never wrote a letter if he could help it.

Stoick, in fact, was really rattled, for the first time in his life.

This is what comes of not following the Law,he thought to himself. If I had banished the boys last night like I should have done, they would not be here to die with the rest of us. I should have put my trust in Thor.

Mogadon the Meathead had not yet realized the gravity of the situation. He thought it was a question of constructing some sort of megaphone machine to make the Yell sound bigger.

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"A gigantic dragon just needs a gigantic Yell,"he said.

"We already TRIED that, O Plankton Brain," said Stoick.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING PLANKTON

BRAIN?" demanded Mogadon, and they went whisker to whisker like a couple of furious walruses.

Hiccup sighed and walked out of the village.

He had a feeling the grown-ups weren't going to come up with anything fiendishly clever.

To Hiccup's surprise he was followed not only by Fishlegs but by all the Novices from both the Hooligan AND the Meathead tribes.

They stood around Hiccup in a semicircle.

"So, Hiccup," said Thuggory the Meathead. "What are we going to do now, then?"

"Whaddyamean by asking HICCUP?" demanded Snotlout crossly. "You're not going to ask THE USELESS to get us out of this mess, are you? He just single-handedly got us all to fail the Final Initiation Test. We were about to be banished and eaten by cannibals all because of HIM. He can't even control a dragon the size of an earwig!"

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"Can YOU talk to dragons then, Snotface?" asked Fishlegs.

"I am pleased to say I cannot," said Snotlout, with dignity.

"Well, shut up, then," said Fishlegs.

Snotlout got hold of Fishlegs by the arm and started twisting.

"Nobody, but NOBODY, tells SNOTFACE

SNOTLOUT to shut up," hissed Snotlout.

"Ido," said Thuggory the Meathead. He grabbed Snotlout by the shirt and lifted him clear off the ground. "YOUR dragon got us failed just as much as HIS. I didn't notice anybody'sdragon sitting up and begging like a good boy in the middle of that dragon-fight. YOU shut up or I will tear you limb from limb and feed you to the gulls, you winkle-hearted, seaweed-brained, limpet-eating PIG."

Snotlout looked into Thuggory's stern little eyes.

Snotlout shut up.

Thuggory dropped him and wiped his hands disdainfully on his tunic. "Anyway," said Thuggory, "MY father was on that stupid Council of Elders too. I'm with Hiccup. What kind of father puts his stupid Laws before the life of his son? And what kind of stupid Test

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[Image: You shut up or I will tear you to the gulls, you winkle hearted seaweed-brained, limpet eating Pig]

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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.

uYou 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.

"OH YES, YOU ARE," hissed Thuggory,

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through gritted teeth, brandishing a massive fist at Snotlout.

"This guy is such a PAIN, Hiccup, I don't know how you put up with him. Listen, Snotfeatures, by some miracle you have got yourself a reasonable dragon. "You GET that dragon to do what Hiccup wants or it will give me much pleasure to PERSONALLY boot you all the way to Porpoise Point and back again."

"OK, then," said Snotlout crossly. "But don't blame me when we all get barbecued because of the Useless's mad idea."

Hiccup supervised the making of the feather bombs.

The boys gathered great armfuls of feathers from the Gulls' Nesting Place.

They then burgled every item of material they could find: Goggletoad's nappies, Gobber's pajamas, Mogadon the Meathead's tent, Valhallarama's bra – anything they could get their hands on. The grown-ups were too busy consulting amongst themselves to take any notice.

Snotlout cheered up a bit because he could show off his superior skill at Burglary. He managed to steal Baggybum's knickers right off him as he was standing

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[Image: Valhallarama's extra strong heavy duty bra]

[Image: Baggy bum's hairy knickers]

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in a Huddle discussing a Plan of Action. Baggybum didn't notice, not even when he reached a hairy hand down to absentmindedly scratch his great bottom – he was too busy talking about Bigger and Better Methods of Yelling.

The boys then wrapped the feathers up in the material, so that they would fly out when the bomb was dropped.

Each team of ten boys was armed with about a hundred of these feather bombs wrapped in a great parcel made out of an old sail.

Hiccup led the Hooligans toward the Long Beach, while Thuggory took the Meatheads to Unland-able Cove.

The thin column of boys were excitedly chattering as they set off behind Hiccup; Wartihog and Clueless dragging the sail at the rear, the dragons circling and diving a couple of feet above their heads. Vikings are practically fearless, having been bred to be soldiers, so even Hiccup and Fishlegs had a surge of excitement at the thought of the battle to come.

But as soon as the monster came into sight again, the boys and the dragons instantly dropped to their tummies and squirmed forward, hearts beating hard.

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It was impossible that ANYTHING could be

THAT big.

Hiccup led them as near as he dared to the edge of the cliffs surrounding the Long Beach.

They looked down on the terrible creature snoring in front of them. His nostrils alone were as big as six front doors, and the stench reeking out of them made it difficult for the boys to breathe.

Wartihog, who had always had a delicate stomach, threw up disgustingly in the heather.

Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Clueless unwrapped the feather bombs and gave one to each boy. The boys called their dragons, as softly as they could, and each put a feather bomb in their dragon's mouth.

They then stood up on the edge of the cliff with their dragons on their outstretched arms.

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This took about the same amount of bravery it might take for you to leap off a mountain at a thousand feet. Even with the monster fast asleep, the natural reaction was to keep hidden in the bracken.

Hiccup tried not to breathe in.

He lifted his arm to give the command to begin.

"Go," whispered Hiccup.

"GO!" yelled back the boys, and ten dragons flew up and circled around the vast sleeping head.

Just as the Green Death inhaled, Hiccup shouted "NOW!" and the dragons let go of the feather bombs.

The Green Death took in a breath that was half air and half feathers. He woke with a gigantic sneeze and, as he shuddered and coughed, Fireworm, who was treading air near his right ear, gave a speech which went something like this, but a lot more irritating:

"Greetings, O Seadragonus Pusillanimus Min-imus, from my Father, the Terror of the Seas. He is feeling like feasting on tie barbarians and if you get in his way. he will feast on YOU.swim away, little seaslug, and you will be safe ~ but stay, on this island and you will feel tie sharpeness of his claws and tie fierceness of his fire."

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[Image: Fireworm leads the way in operation sneeze attack

Valhallarama's bra makes a particularly effective double bomb]

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The Giant Monster tried to laugh sarcastically and cough at the same time, but this is virtually impossible, and a feather went down the wrong way, making him cough even more.

Then Fireworm bit him on the nose.

It must have felt like a flea bite, but the Monster was outraged.

Through streaming eyes, the Green Death made a swipe at this irritating dragon-flea and missed. One giant claw tore down part of the cliff-face instead.

The nine other dragons had by this time returned to collect more feather bombs from the boys on the cliffs.

"NOW!" yelled Hiccup and, with split-second timing, they let their bombs fly. They hit their target of the Green Death's nostrils and he collapsed with coughing again.

"You cannot win, puny worm," crowed Fireworm. "Wriggle back to tie sea. where you belong and let my Master have his supper."

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