Chapter 9 FEAR, VANITY, REVENGE, AND SILLY JOKES

March turned into April and April turned into May. After ?ireworm's remark about the pathetic bunny rabbit, Toothless never pooed in the kitchen again. But Hiccup hadn't made any further progress in training him.

It was still raining, but it was a warm rain. The wind was blowing, but it was a less furious wind. It was just about possible to stand upright.

The gulls' eggs were hatching on the rocks and the parent gulls dive-bombed Hiccup and ?ishlegs when they came to the Long Beach to practice.

"KILL, Horrorcow, KILL," said ?ishlegs to Horrorcow, who was calmly perched on his shoulder. "You could have that Black-backed Gull for breakfast, he's barely half your size. Honestly, Hiccup, I give up, I don't know how I'm going to pass the hunting section of the test, Horrorcow just doesn't have the killer instinct. She'd never survive in the wild."89 Hiccup laughed hollowly. "You think YOU'V? got problems?

Toothless and I are failing right from the beginning: the basic obedience commands, the retrieval, the compulsory exercises, the hunting -- the lot."

"It can't be that bad," said ?ishlegs.

"Watch," said Hiccup.

The boys moved along the beach a bit, out of range of the gulls.

They started practicing the most basic command of all: "go." The dragon was supposed to stand, bolt upright, on the handler's outstretched arm. The handler would then bark the command as loudly as possible while simultaneously lifting his arm to fling the dragon into the air. The dragon was supposed to soar gracefully into flight when the handler's arm reached its highest point.

Horrorcow yawned, scratched, and slowly flapped off, grumbling to herself.

Toothless was even less obedient.

"GO!" yelled Hiccup.

Hiccup flung his arm up. Toothless hung on.

"I said GO!" Hiccup repeated in frustration.

"W-w-why g-g-go?" shuddered Toothless, gripping even tighter.

"?ust go GO GO GO GO!!!!" screamed Hiccup, flapping his arm up and down frantically, with Toothless hanging on to it for dear life.

Toothless stayed.

"Toothless," said Hiccup, as reasonably as he could, "please go. If you don't start going when I tell you to, we are both going be thrown into exile."

"But I don't w-w-want to go," Toothless pointed out, equally reasonably.

?ishlegs watched the whole process in appalled amazement. "You really do have problems," he said in an awed voice.

"Yup," said Hiccup. He finally managed to uncurl Toothless's claws, which had relaxed their grip for a second, and pushed him off. Toothless landed on the sand with a squeal of outrage, and immediately attached himself to Hiccup's leg, getting a good grip on the sandals with his talons, and wrapping his wings around Hiccup's calf.

"N-n-not going," said Toothless stubbornly.

"It can't get much worse than this," said Hiccup, "so I'm going to try a new tack."

He took out the notebook in which he had been jotting down all he knew about dragons in the hope that it might be useful. "DRAGON MOTIVATION .. ."

Hiccup read aloud, "Number one. GRATITUD?."

Hiccup sighed. "Number two. ??AR. That works, but I can't do it.

Three, four, five: GR??D, VANITY, and R?V?NG?. Those are all worth a try.

Six. ?OK?S AND RIDDLING TALK. Only if I'm desperate."

"This has got to be a first," drawled ?ishlegs, "but The Monstrous Nightmare is the largest and most terrifying of the domestic dragons.

Dazzling flyers, magnificent hunters, and fearsome fighters, they can be wild and difficult to train. By unofficial vik ing Law, only a chief or the son 0f a chief can own one.

STATISTICS COLORS: ?merald green, brilliant scarlet, deepest purple.

ARM?D WITH: Scary fangs, extra-extendable claws 9 D???NS?S: Nightmares don't need defenses... 2 RADAR: None 0 POISON: Bite is slightly poisonous 3 HUNTING ABILITY: Amazing to watch 10 SP??D: ?ast 7 ??AR AND ?IGHT ?ACTOR: Very, very scary 10] I'm with Gobber the Belch on this one. Why don't you just yell a bit louder?"

Hiccup ignored him.

"Okay, Toothless," said Hiccup to the little dragon, who was pretending to be asleep as he held on to Hiccup's leg. "?or every, fish you catch me I will give you two more lobsters when you get home."

Toothless opened his eyes. "A-a-alive?" he said eagerly. "C'C-can Toothless kill them? P-p-please? ?ust this once?"

"No, Toothless," said Hiccup, firmly, "I keep on telling you, it isn't kind to torture creatures smaller than yourself."

Toothless closed his eyes again. "You're so b-b- boring," he said sulkily.

"You're such a clever, quick dragon, Toothless," Hiccup flattered, "I bet you could catch more fish than any of tie others on Thor'siiay.

Thurshday if you wanted to."

Toothless opened his eyes to consider the matter. "T-t-twice as many," he said modestly. "But I don't w-w-want to."

This was unanswerable. Hiccup crossed VANITY off his list.

"You know that big red. ?ireworm dragon who was so rude to you?"

said Hiccup.

Toothless spat on the ground in indignation. "S-s-said I was a newt with wings. S-s-said I was an incontinent bunny r-r-rabbit. T-t-toothless going to T-t-toothless going to k-k-kiol her. Toothless going to s-s-scratch her to death. T-t-toothless going to --" "Yes, yes,"said Hiccup hastily. "That ?ire-woriji dragon and her master who looks like a pig think that ?ireworm is going to catch more fish thatn anybody else at the Thor'sday Thursday celebrations. Think how stupid they are going to look if YOU win tie prize for Most Promising Dragon instead of her."

Toothless got off Hiccup's leg. "I W-W-WILL think about that," said Toothless. He waddled off a couple of feet and thought about it.

?ive minutes later he was still thinking. He let out the odd chuckle every now and then, but every time Hiccup said, "So, how about it, then?" he just replied, "S-s-still thinking. Go away."

With a sigh, Hiccup put a line through R?V?NG?.

"Okay," said ?ishlegs, looking over Hiccup's shoulder. "You've tried everything else. How about ?OK?S AND RIDDLING TALK? I assume you're desperate."

"Toothless," said Hiccup, "If you catch me a nice big mackerel you will be the cleverest, fastest dragon on Berk AND you will make that ?ireworm dragon look like an idiot AND you will have all tie lobsters you can eat when we get horne AND I will tell you a really good joke."

Toothless turned around. "T-t-toothless loves jokes." He flapped on to Hiccup's arm again. "All right. Toothless helf you. B-b-but NOT because me being n-n-nice or anything yucky. ..."

"No, no," said Hiccup. "Of course not."

"Us d-d-dragons cruel and. mean. But we do love a j-j-joke. Tell me NOW."

Hiccup laughed. "No way. A?T?R you bring me a mackerel."

"Okay then," said Toothless. He jumped off Hiccup's arm into the air.

A dragon hunting is a very impressive sight, even a scrawny infant one like Toothless. He flew across the beach in his usual untidy, lopsided fashion, shrieking a few insults along the way at any cormorants that looked smaller than him. But as soon as he reached the sea, Toothless seemed to grow up a bit. The sea-salt awoke in him some ancestral memory of the great pedigree hunting monsters that were his forefathers.

He spread out his wings like a kite and flew fairly swiftly over the surface of the choppy waves, keeping his body and wings steady as he searched for the movement of fish. He spotted something, and soared upward in circles until he was so high that Hiccup, craning his neck backward on the beach, could only just see him as a tiny speck. The speck was motionless for a second, and then Toothless dived, his wings folded by his sides, dropping like a stone out of the sky.

He disappeared into the water and was gone for quite a while.

Dragons can stay under water for at least five minutes, if they want to, and Toothless got quite distracted under there, chasing one fish and then another, unable to decide which was the biggest.

Hiccup had gotten bored and was looking for oysters when Toothless came bursting triumphantly out of the sea carrying a small mackerel.

He dropped the mackerel at Hiccup's feet, did three somersaults in a row, and landed on Hiccup's head. He let out the dragon's cry of triumph, which is a bit like a rooster crowing but a lot louder and more self-satisfied.

Then he leaned over and stared into Hiccup's eyes, upside down.

"Now t-t-tell me a joke," said Toothless.

"Whimpering Wodens," said Hiccup. "He did it. He really did it."

"T-t-tell me a, ?OK?," said Toothless again.

"What's black and white and red all over?" asked Hiccup.

Toothless didn't know.

"A sunburned penguin," replied Hiccup.

It was a very, very old joke, but apparently it hadn't made it to Wild Dragon Cliff. Toothless thought it was hysterically funny.

He flew off to catch more fish so he could hear more jokes.

It was an enjoyable afternoon. The rain stopped, the sun shone, and Toothless didn't do too badly at all with the hunting. He dropped a few fish and, at one point, wandered off entirely to chase rabbits on the clifftops. But he came back when Hiccup called, eventually, and by the end of a couple of hours he had caught six medium-sized mackerel and a dogfish.

All in all, Hiccup was pretty satisfied.

"After all," he said to ?ishlegs, "it's not like I'm expecting to win the prize for Most Promising Dragon or anything. All I need is to show that Toothless is basically under my control and for him to catch a few fish.

We'll make fools of ourselves compared to Snotlout and his beastly Hunting Legend, but at least we'll have passed Initiation."

What was more, as Toothless dropped the last mackerel on the heap in front of Hiccup, ?ishlegs noticed something sharp and gleaming in the dragon's lower jaw.

"Toothless has gotten his first tooth!" said ?ishlegs.

It seemed a very good omen.

As they staggered home they passed Old Wrinkly, who had been sitting on a rock watching them for the past couple of hours.

"Ve-ry impressive," wheezed Old Wrinkly as the boys showed him the fish wrapped up in Hiccup's cloak.

"We reckon Hiccup really might pass the ?inal Initiation Test on Thor'sday Thursday," said ?ishlegs excitedly.

"So you're still worrying about that piddly little Test, are you, Hiccup?" asked Old Wrinkly. "There are larger concerns, you know.

There's a gi-normous storm brewing up, for instance. It should hit us in about three days."

"Piddly little Test?" said ?ishlegs indignantly. "What do you mean, piddly little Test??? The Thor'sday Thursday ?estival is the biggest event of the year. ?V?RYBODY who is ANYBODY will be there, all the Hairy Hooligans AND the Meatheads. Plus, this may not seem important to YOU, but anybody who fails this piddly little Test gets put into exile to get eaten up by cannibals or something equally gruesome."

"I'm going to call myself HICCUP TH? US??UL and his dragon TOOTH?ULL," said Hiccup, beaming. "I thought of it just now and I'm really pleased with it. It's solid, dependable, not too flashy and not too much to live up to."

"This reptile finally got his act together and caught some fish," said ?ishlegs, pointing at Toothless, who was picking his nose with one claw.

"Incredible though it may seem, Hiccup may pass this Test after all."

"Oh, I think it's almost a certainty," said Old Wrinkly, looking at Toothless, who was now attempting to cross his eyes and was falling down in the process.

"Almost," repeated Old Wrinkly thoughtfully.

And the boys went home, with Toothless following behind them whining, "Ok C-C -CARRY M?, CARRY M? ... it's not f-f-fair ... my wings ache...."