Chapter 10 THOR'SDAY TH?RSDAY

The Thor'sday Thursday Celebrations were a truly spectacular occasion. The Hairy Hooligans' fierce rivals, the Meatheads, from the nearby Meathead Islands, sailed across the Inner Ocean to the Isle of Berk for this great gathering.

The visitors set up camp in Black Heart Bay, which turned overnight from an empty desert of echoing seagulls into a bustling village of tents made out of sails too patched to be used at sea anymore.

By the next morning the Long Beach was packed with stalls and jugglers and fortune tellers. There was a happy confusion of Vikings spotting old friends, and practicing their sword play, and yelling at the children to stop hitting each other RIGHT NOW for Thor's sake no I R?ALLY M?AN IT this time ... or ... or ... or .. . ?LS?.

[ W?LCOM? TO TH? THOR'SDAY THURSDAY C?L?BRATION Program of events 9:00 Hammer-throwing for the Over-GOs only. Meet up at the Marooner's Rock with your own hammer or somebody else's (hard hats essential for spectators).

10:30 How Many Gulls' ?ggs Can You ?at in One Minute?

11:30 Ugliest Baby Contest Baggybum the Beerbelly is the defending champion in this hotly contested competition.

12:30 Axe-fighting Display Admire the delicate art of fighting with axes.

2:00 Young Heroes ?inal Initiation Test Watch tomorrow's Viking Heroes as they compete Whose dragon will be the most obedient, and whose will catch the most fish? Blood, teeth, loud yelling -this sport has everything;

3:30 Grand Raffle and Closing Ceremony] Vast Viking men sat on uncomfortable rocks guffawing loudly like gigantic sea lions in a holiday mood. Impressively large Viking women huddled in groups cackling like seagulls and downing whole mugs of tea in one swallow.

Despite Old Wrinkly's gloomy forecasts of terrible storms and typhoons, it was a gloriously hot ?une day with not even a hint of a cloud in the offing.

The Young Heroes ?inal Initiation Test would not start until 2 P.M.

that afternoon, so Hiccup spent the morning listening round-eyed to storytellers telling tall tales of Dirty Danes and pirate princesses.

He was sick with nerves, so he found it difficult to enjoy the occasion as much as he had in previous years.

?ven Gobber throwing up during the How Many Gulls' ?gg You ?at in One Minute?

competition failed to raise more than a faint smile on his pale, tense face.

Hiccup's family had a picnic lunch overlooking the Axe-fighting Display. Hiccup could not eat a thing, and nor, unusually, could Toothless, who was in a difficult mood and turned his nose up at the tuna sandwich Valhallarama offered.

"Good to keep your dragon's appetite sharp for the game," boomed Stoick the Vast, who was in an excellent mood. He had won a bet on Goggletoad in the Ugliest Baby Contest and was looking forward to seeing his son's brilliant display during the Initiation Test.

As the day wore on, a hot wind suddenly started blowing out of nowhere. It was still sweltering, but ominous gray clouds were gathering on the horizon. There was the odd rumble of thunder in the air.

Maybe Old Wrinkly had been right, thought Hiccup as he gazed upward, and Thor is going to put in his traditional appearance at the Thor'sday Thursday celebrations.

"P-P-P-P-A-R-P! Will all youths hoping to be initiated into the Tribes this year please make their way to the ground at the left of the beach."

Hiccup gulped, nudged Toothless, and stood up. This was it.

Hiccup was one of the last to get to the ground, which was a large area of wet sand just at the edge of the sea. The boys from his own Tribe were already assembled, their dragons hovering a couple of feet above them.

?verybody was chattering excitedly, and even Snotlout was looking nervous.

The Meathead boys and their dragons seemed to be gigantic, rough-looking customers, far tougher than the Hooligans. One in particular was a great hulking brute of a boy, who looked fifteen at least.

Hiccup presumed he was Thuggory, Chief Mogadon the Meathead's son, because a silver-gray Monstrous Nightmare about three feet tall was perched on one of his shoulders. It was looking at ?ireworm like a rottweiler thinking evil thoughts.

?ireworm acted unconcerned.

"An aristocrat never growls," purred ?ireworm sweetly. "You must be one of those mongrel Nightmares. We pure greenbloods descended from th e great Ripperclaw himself would never dream of doing anything so common."

The silver Nightmare's growling increased in volume.

The crowd was assembling at the touchline. Hiccup tried not to notice Stoick the Vast blasting his way to the front with great cries of, "Out of my way, I'm a CHI??."

"T?N TO ON? MY SON CATCH?S MOR? ?ISH THAN YOUR SON IN THIS T?ST," boomed Stoick, giving his old enemy Mogadon the Meathead a good prod in the stomach.

Mogadon the Meathead narrowed his eyes and wondered whether to hit him. Maybe A?T?R the Test.

"And which," asked Mogadon the Meathead, "is your son? Is he the tall one who looks like a pig with the skeleton tattoos and the red Monstrous Nightmare?" "Nope," said Stoick happily.

"That's my brother Baggybum's son. MY SON is that skinny one over there with the Toothless Daydream." Mogadon the Meathead broke into a big smile. He slapped Stoick, on the back and yelled, "I TAK?

YOUR B?T AND DOUBL? IT!" "DON?!" shouted Stoick, and the two great chieftains shook hands and bumped bellies on the bet.

Gobber the Belch was in charge of this final stage of the Initiation Test. He was still looking a bit green from his unpleasant experience in the How Many Gulls' ?ggs Can You ?at in One Minute? competition.

This had not improved his temper.

"ALL RIGHT, YOU 'ORRIBL? LOT!" yelled Gobber. "This is where we find out if you are the stuff that Heroes are made of. You will either walk out of this arena full members of the noble Tribes of Hairy Hooligans and Merciless Meatheads OR go into miserable exile forever from the Inner Isles. Let's see which it's going to be, shall we?"

He grinned nastily at the twenty boys standing before him.

"I shall begin by inspecting you and your animals, as if you were warriors about to go into battle. I shall introduce you to the watching members of the Tribes you hope to enter. Then the Test will begin. You will demonstrate how you have asserted yourselves over these wild creatures and tamed them by the sheer force of your Heroic Personalities.

"You will start by performing the basic commands of 'go,' 'stay,' and 'fetch.' You will end by ordering your reptile to hunt fish for you, as your forefathers have done before you."

Hiccup swallowed nervously.

"The boy and dragon who most impress the judge, and that is M?," --Gobber bared his teeth grimly -- "will receive the extra glory of being called the Hero of Heroes and Most Promising Dragon. The boys and dragons who ?AIL this Test will say farewell to their families forever and leave the Tribe to go, where we do not care." Gobber paused.

"Poetry," muttered ?ishlegs, just loud enough for Gobber to hear.

Gobber glared at him.

"H?RO?S OR ??IL?S!" yelled Gobber the Belch.

"H?RO?S OR ??IL?S!" yelled eighteen boys fanatically back at him.

"H?RO?S OR ??IL?S!" yelled the watching Hooligan and Meathead Tribes.

Please let me be a bit of a Hero, just this once, Hiccup and ?ishlegs each thought to themselves. Nothing too spectacular or anything, just to get through this Test.

"STAND TO ATT?NTION, WITH YOUR DRAGONS ON YOUR RIGHT ARMS!" yelled Gobber the Belch.

Gobber walked down the row of boys for the inspection.

"Beautiful turnout." Gobber congratulated Thuggory the Meathead on his Nightmare dragon, Killer, who spread out his shining wings to show off a wingspan of about four feet.

Gobber stopped abruptly when he got to Hiccup.

"And WHAT in the name of Woden," demanded Gobber, blanching a little, "is THIS?"

"It's a Toothless Daydream, sir," muttered Hiccup.

"Small but vicious," added ?ishlegs, helpfully.

"Toothless Daydream???" blustered Gobber. "That's the smallest Common or Garden I have ever seen. What do you think I am, an idiot?"

"No, no, sir," murmured ?ishlegs reassuringly, "just a little on the slow side."

Gobber glowered dangerously.

"A Toothless Daydream," explained Hiccup, "looks exactly like a Common or Garden except for the characteristic wart on the end of its nose."

"SIL?NC?!" said Gobber, in a very loud whisper. "Or I shall throw you all the way to the Mainland. I HOP?," he continued, "that this dragon hunts better than it looks. you and your fishy friend here are the worst candidates for Initiation I have ever had the displeasure of teaching. But you are the future of this Tribe, Hiccup, and if you shame us in front of the Meatheads, I, personally, will never forgive you. Do you understand?"

Hiccup nodded.

?ach boy then stepped forward to bow and hold up his dragon for the spectators to applaud.

There was huge clapping for Snotface Snotlout and his dragon, ?ireworm, rivaled only by the mighty cheering for Thuggory the Meathead and his dragon, Killer.

"I give you, last but not least," Gobber the Belch was trying to put a bit of enthusiasm into his yelling, "the fearsome ... the terrible ... the only son of Stoick the Vast... HICCUP TH? US??UL AND HIS DRAGON TOOTH?ULL!"

Hiccup stepped forward and held up Toothless as high as he could to make him look a bit bigger.

There was a slightly appalled silence.

People had seen dragons this small before, of course, normally scampering about after field mice in the wild, but NOT as noble hunting dragons competing in Initiation.

"SI?? ISN'T ?V?RYTHING!" boomed Stoick, so loudly that you could have heard him several beaches away, and he banged his great hands together to start the applause.

?veryone was terrified of Stoick's famous temper, so they joined in with polite wild cheering.

Toothless was still in a mood, but he was delighted to be the center of attention, and he puffed out his chest and bowed solemnly to left and right.

A few of the Meatheads snickered.

I've changed my mind, thought Hiccup, closing his eyes, THIS is the worst moment of my life so far.

"Okay, Toothless," he whispered into the little dragon's ear, "this is our Big Chance. Catch lots of fish here and I will tell you more jokes than you have ever heard in your life. Which will make that big red ?ireworm dragon really cross."

Toothless took a sideways glance at ?ireworm. She was sharpening her nails on Snotlout's helmet with the smug certainty of a dragon who knows she's about to win the prize for Most Promising Dragon.

"P-PPAKP!"

The Test began.

Toothless didn't do too badly in the early obedience exercises, though he clearly thought it was extremely dull. It was now raining quite hard and Toothless hated the rain. He wanted to go home and relax in front of a nice warm fire.

?ireworm and Killer were "going" and "fetching" as soon as Snotlout and Thuggory commanded, and they were diving and breathing out fire as they did so, just to show off. ?ireworm did some fancy acrobatic somersaults that had the crowd screaming and stamping their feet.

"START YOUR HUNTING!" yelled Gobber the Belch.

?very dragon except Toothless flew out to sea.

Toothless flapped back to Hiccup's shoulder.

"T-T-Toothless got a t-t-tummy-aeie," he complained. Hiccup tried not to see his father looking surprised on the sidelines. He tried not to notice the crowd whispering to each other: "That's Stoick's son over there -- no, not the tall one with the skeleton tattoos who looks like a pig, the small skinny one who can't even control his minuscule dragon."

"Don't forget, Toothless," said Hiccup through gritted teeth, "tie ?ISH. I'm going to tell you all tie jokes I've ever hearh., remember?" "T-t-tell me NOW," said Toothless.

Help came from an unexpected quarter.

Snotlout broke off from yelling "KILL, ?IR?WORM, KILL" to lean over and sneer at Hiccup. "What AR? you doing, Hiccup? You're not TALKING to that newt with wings, are you? Talking to dragons is against the rules and forbidden by order of Stoick the Vast, your wimpy father. ..."

"N-n-newt with wings?" repeated Toothless. "N-N-N?WT WITH WINGS???"

"You're not a newt with wings, are you, Toothless?" said Hiccup.

"You're tie best hunter in tie world, aren't you?"

"Too RIGHT I am," said Toothless, grumpily.

"You SHOW that Snotface Snotlout and Ms snobby dragon what a R?AL hunting dragon can do," said Hiccup urgently.

"OKAY, then," said Toothless.

Hiccup heaved a huge sigh of relief as Toothless took off in shambolic fashion in the general direction of the sea.

"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 hour, I, Hiccup, will become a fully paid-up member of the Hairy Hooligan tribe."

It was too good to be true. ?ireworm 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."

?ireworm stopped in mid-air. Her head whipped round, her eyes narrowing.

"WHAT did you say?" hissed ?ireworm.

"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 think you're so cruel but you're s-s-sloppy as scallops."

"YOU," hissed ?ireworm, 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."

?ireworm went for him.

Toothless streaked off, as quick as lightning, and ?ireworm's massive jaws snapped together with a sickening crunch on nothing but thin air.

Chaos ensued.

?ireworm 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.

"CAN SOM?BODY T?LL M? WHAT IN THORA ND WOD?N'S NAM? IS HAPP?NING?"

Toothless was in his element in this kind of chaos, dodging ?ireworm's angry lunges with ease, nipping in with a lively bite at Alligatiger here and a scratch at Brightclaw there, obviously enjoying the fight enormously.

?ven Horrorcow showed a great deal of spirit for a dragon who was supposedly vegetarian. She managed to give ?ireworm a truly impressive bite on the bottom as ?ireworm and Killer rolled through the air biting chunks out of one another.

Gobber the Belch entered the fray, grabbing hold of ?ireworm's tail.

?ireworm 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 ?ireworm'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.

?ven the watching crowd went quiet.

This had never happened before. All twenty boys 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.

?ood 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 ?lders of the Tribes," was all he said.

He dropped ?ireworm on the ground. She had come to her senses and now slunk toward Snotlout, her tail between her legs.

The ?lders 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 ?lders consulted in the traditional ?lder Huddle, which looked a bit like a rugby scrum.

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 ?lders 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. ?ventually 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 is a very bad day for all of you. You have ?AIL?D the ?inal 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 ?OR?V?R. 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. "?urthermore," 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. ?rom this moment forth, you are all banished and may not talk to any other member of your Tribe."

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 M? 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, ?ireworm snarling menacingly from his shoulder. "?irst thing after we're banished, I'm going to kill you," and he ran off after the others.

"I've lost my t-t- tooti," Toothless com- plained whinily. "C-c-came out when I hit that ?-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.

"?UST ONC?," yelled Hiccup. "Why couldn't you let me be a Hero ?UST ONC?? I didn't want anything amazing, just to pass this STUPID T?ST so I could become a proper Viking like everybody else."

Thor's thunder boomed and crackled above him blackly.

"OKAY, TH?N ," screamed Hiccup, "HIT M? with your stupid lightning. ?ust do something to show you're thinking about me AT ALL."

But there were to be no bolts of lightning for Hiccup. Thor clearly didn't think he was important enough for an answer. The storm moved on out to sea.