1 Swordfighting at sea (Beginners Only)

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1. SWORDFIGHTING AT SEA (BEGINNERS ONLY) Thor was SERIOUSLY annoyed. He had sent a mighty summer storm to claw up the seas around the bleak little Isle of Berk. A black wind was shrieking across the wild and angry ocean. Furious thunder boomed overhead. Lightning speared into the water. Only a madman would think it was the kind of weather for a pleasant sail. But, amazingly, there was one ship being hurled violently from wave to wave, the hungry ocean chewing at her sides, hoping to tip her over and swallow the souls aboard and grind their bones into sand.

The madman in charge of this ship was Gobber the Belch. Gobber ran the Pirate Training Programme on the Isle of Berk and this crazy voyage was, in fact, one of Gobber's lessons, Swordfighting at Sea– (Beginners Only). 'OK, YOU DRIPPY LOT!' yelled Gobber, a six-and-a-half-foot hairy muscle-bound lunatic, with a beard like a ferret having a fit and biceps the size of your head. 'PUT YOUR BACKS INTO IT, FOR THOR'S SAKE. YOU ARE NOT AN ICKLE PRETTY JELLYFISH… HICCUP, YOU ARE ROWING LIKE AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD… THE FAT BIT OF THE OAR GOES IN THE WATER… WE HAVEN'T GOT ALL YEAR TO GET THERE…' etc. etc. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third gritted his teeth as a big wave came screaming over the side and hit him full in the face. Hiccup is, in fact, the Hero of this story, although you would never have guessed this to look at him. He was on the small side and had the sort of face that was almost entirely unmemorable. There were twelve other boys struggling with the oars of that ship, and practically all of them looked

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more like Viking Heroes than Hiccup did. Wartihog, for instance, was only eleven, but he already had a fine crop of bubbling adolescent pimples and a personal odour problem. Dogsbreath could row as hard as anybody else with one hand, while picking his nose with the other. Snotlout was a natural leader. Clueless had ear hair. Hiccup was just absolutely average, the kind of unremarkable, skinny, freckled boy who was easy to overlook in a crowd.