Chapter 8 TRAINING YO?R DRAGON THE HARD WAY

Hiccup was still pretty certain, knowing dragons as he did, that yelling was the easiest method of training them. So, over the next couple of weeks, he tried yelling at Toothless to see if he could make it work.

He tried yelling loudly, firmly, strictly. He looked as cross as he could.

But Toothless wouldn't take him seriously.

Hiccup finally gave up on the yelling when Toothless stole a kipper off his plate one morning at breakfast. Hiccup let out his most fierce and frightening yell and Toothless just gave him a wicked look and knocked everything else on to the floor with one swipe of his tail.

That was it with the yelling, as far as Hiccup was concerned.

"Okay, then," said Hiccup, "I'll try going to the other extreme."

So he was as nice to Toothless as he possibly could be. He gave Toothless the comfiest bit of the bed and lay dangerously balanced on the edge of it himself.

He fed him as much kipper and lobster as he wanted. He only did this once, though, as the little dragon just went on eating until he had made himself thoroughly sick.

He played games with him for hours and hours. He told him jokes, he brought him mice to eat, he scratched the bit that Toothless couldn't quite reach in between the spokes on his back.

He made that dragon's life as close to Dragon Heaven as he possibly could.

By mid ?ebruary, the winter was coming to an end on Berk, and the snowy season had turned into the rainy season. It was the kind of weather where your clothes never got dry, no matter what. Hiccup would hang up his sodden tunic on a chair in front of the fire before going to bed at night, and in the morning it would still be wet -- warm and wet rather than cold and wet, but W?T nonetheless.

The ground all around the Village had turned into knee-deep mud.

"What, in Woden's name, are you doing?" asked ?ishlegs when he came across Hiccup digging a large hole just outside the house.

"Building a mud wallow for Toothless," panted Hiccup.

"You spoil that dragon, you really do," said ?ish-legs, shaking his head.

"It's psychology, you see," said Hiccup. "It's clever and it's subtle, not like that caveman yelling you're doing with Horrorcow."

?ishlegs had named his dragon Horrorcow. The "horror" bit was to make the poor creature at least sound a bit frightening. The "cow" bit was because for a dragon she really was remarkably like a cow. She was a large, peaceful, brown creature, with an easygoing nature. ?ishlegs suspected she might even be vegetarian.

"I'm always catching her nibbling at the woodwork," he complained.

"BLOOD, Horrorcow, BLOOD -- that's what you should want!"

Nonetheless, maybe ?ishlegs was a better yeller than Hiccup, or maybe Horrorcow was a lazier and more obliging character than Toothless, but Horrorcow was proving very easy to train by the yelling method.

"Okay, Toothless, it's read y," said Hiccup. "Get yourself a good.

wallow."

Toothless stopped trying to catch voles and leaped into the mud. He rolled over and over in the oozy muck, spreading out his wings and squirming happily.

"I'm bonding with him," said Hiccup, "so he'll want to do what I say."

"Hiccup," said ?ishlegs, as Toothless sucked up a good mouthful of the mud and spat it out straight into Hiccup's face, "I may not know much about dragons, but I do know that they are the most selfish creatures on ?arth. No dragon is ever going to do what you want out of gratitude. Dragons do not know what gratitude is. Give up. This will N?V?R WORK."

"Tie tiling about us it-h-hragons," said Toothless, helpfully, "is we're s-s-survivors. We're not like s-s-sappy cats or it-it-huijib itogs, failing in l-l-love with their Masters and yocky things like that.

Only reason we ever do what a what a m-m-man wants is because he's b-b-bigger than us and. gives us food."

"What's he saying?" asked ?ishlegs.

"Pretty much what you're saying," said Hiccup.

"N-n-never trust a dragon," said Toothless, cheerfully hopping out of the wallow and helping himself to one of the winkles that Hiccup had found for him (Toothless was particularly fond of winkles -- "?-j-just like picking your n-n-nose," he had said). "That's what my-m-m-mother taught me in the nest, and she shoud know."

Hiccup sighed. It was true. Toothless was cute to look at, and very good company -- if a little demanding. However, you only had to look into his big, innocent, heavily lashed eyes to realize that he was totally without morals. The eyes were ancient, the eyes of a killer. You might as well ask a crocodile or a shark to be your friend. Hiccup wiped the mud off his face.

"I'll think of something else," said Hiccup.

?ebruary turned into March and Hiccup was still thinking. A few flowers made the mistake of appearing and were immediately blasted out of existence by a couple of hard frosts that had kept themselves back for this very purpose.

?ishlegs could now get Horrorcow to "go" and "stay" on command.

Hiccup was still struggling to teach Toothless the basics of toilet training.

"NO ?OOING IN TH? KITCH?N," said Hiccup for the hundredth time, carrying Toothless outside after yet another accident.

"Is w-w-warmer in the kitchen," whined Toothless.

"But poos go OUTSID?, You KNOW that," said Hiccup, at the end of his tether.

Toothless promptly pooed all over Hiccup's hands and down his tunic.

"Is OUTSID?, is OUTSID?, is OUTSID?," crowed Toothless.

At this inopportune moment, Snotlout and Dogsbreath came sauntering past Stoick's house on the way back from the beach, their dragons on their shoulders. "Well, well, well," sneered Snotlout, "if it isn't the US?L?SS, covered in dragon poo. It actually quite suits you."

"Hur, Hur, Hur," snorted Dogsbreath.

"That's not a dragon," jeered Seaslug, Dogsbreath's dragon, who was an ugly great Gronckle with a pug nose and a mean temper, "that's a newt with wings."

"That's not a dragon," scoffed ?ireworm, Snotlout's dragon, who was as big a bully as her master, "that's an ickle newborn bunny wabbit with a pathetic pooproblem."

Toothless gave a gasp of fury.

Snotlout showed Hiccup the immense heap of fish that he had wrapped up in his cloak.

"Look what ?ireworm and Seaslug caught down at the beach. And it only took a couple of hours. ..."

?ireworm coughed, flexed a shining muscle or two, and looked at her claws in fake modesty. "Oh, pease," she drawled. "I wasn't even CONCC?N-TrATItfG. If I was TRYING, I could do it in ten minutes, with one wing tied, behind my back."

"?xcuse me while I throw up ," muttered Toothless to Horrorcow, who was regarding ?ireworm with disapproval in her big brown eyes.

"We reckon ?ireworm could be a bit of a HUNTING L?G?ND," grinned Snotlout. "I hear that Horrorcow is partial to carrots... . Has the Toothless Wonder gotten up the nerve to attack a vegetable? Carrots are a bit crunchy but perhaps he could manage the odd squished cucumber...

. You could give it to him through a straw perhaps. ..."

"HUR, HUR, HUR." Dogsbreath laughed so hard that snot came snorting out of his nose.

"Careful, Dogsbreath," said ?ishlegs politely, "your brains are coming out."

Dogsbreath bashed him hard and the two boys staggered off, ?ireworm making a lunge at Toothless that nearly took his eye out as he went past.

As soon as they were safely out of earshot, Toothless jumped out of Hiccup's arms and coughed out sheets of flame in a menacing manner.

"Bullies! Yellowbellies! Come closer and Toothess'll fry you to a frazzle! Toothess'll drag out yer guts and, play'em on a harp!

Toothess'll... Toothless'll... Toothless'll... well, you just better not come any closer, that's all... !"

"Oh, very brave, Toothless," said Hiccup sarcastically. "If you shout louder they might even, hear you."