19 The Final Chapter

19. THE FINAL CHAPTER Sometimes it is not until the Final Chapter that you realise what a quest has REALLY been about all along. Stoick's face turned from red anger to pure white terror. 'The Doomfang…' whispered Stoick the Vast in agony, rushing to hold his stiff son in his arms. 'By Woden and Freya and Hairy Knuckled Thor, he did get touched by the frozen flames of the Doomfang… and all for a stupid useless quest for NOTHING…' Enormous hairy Stoick the Vast burst into tears. 'Oh for Thor's sake, Stoick,' cried Old Wrinkly, bossily pushing Stoick out of the way. 'Will you just SHUT UP and listen to me? I'm really not that bad a soothsayer. This has nothing to do with the Doomfang.' He took Hiccup's pulse, and looked under his eyelids, and tapped his chest, which had turned as wooden as a tree trunk. 'This is VORPENTITIS.' Stoick reeled back. 'And what does that mean?' he whispered through white lips. 'It means,' said Old Wrinkly, 'that one little weirdo looks very like another when you're soothsaying in a fire, and it was HICCUP who was bitten by the Vorpent, and not Fishlegs. So HICCUP has Vorpentitis.

And that means that since it is now…' (At this point Old Wrinkly reached into Hiccup's breast pocket, hoping to draw out the potato, and in fact drew out the ticking metal thingummy. He looked at the numbers on it and nodded his head.) '…oooh exactly five to ten in the morning on Freya'sday Friday!' continued Old Wrinkly, laying the metal thingummy carefully on the bed beside Hiccup, 'your son, Hiccup, who has Vorpentitis, has five minutes to live.' Old Wrinkly chuckled. This didn't seem to be worrying him much. 'Which wouldn't give a great deal of time for us to find an antidote. But luckily,' said Old Wrinkly, in the spirit of a conjuror, 'luckily, on your son's so-called stupid useless quest for NOTHING, he has brought back the antidote with him ALREADY. Camicazi, where is the potato? It doesn't seem to be here in Hiccup's pocket… Have you got it?' Camicazi was as white as One Eye's back. She shook her head numbly. 'No… potato,' she gasped. Old Wrinkly's mouth fell open, appalled. 'NO POTATO?' shrieked Old Wrinkly. 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO POTATO? YOU MUST HAVE THE POTATO!!!'

Camicazi shook her head again. 'No potato,' she whispered. 'But I was so sure,' whispered Old Wrinkly. 'I was so sure you would bring back the potato… This is the last time I believe a single word those beastly fires say… they told me DEFINITELY that you would get it…' 'Oh, we got it all right,' mumbled Camicazi miserably. 'It was just that the Doomfang ATE it.'

'Oh, my goodness,' gulped Old Wrinkly. NO POTATO. Suddenly Old Wrinkly looked every second of his ninety-three years. His whole body crumpled up like an old brown leaf. Little did Hiccup know, when he was crying on the boat for his friend Fishlegs, that he should have been crying for himself. For it was indeed HICCUP who had been stung all those many months ago, escaping from the Fortress of Sinister. And it was Hiccup who was now moments away from the death he feared for his friend Fishlegs.

'WHAT CAN I DO?' roared Stoick the Vast. 'There must be other cures? Other medicines?' Old Wrinkly shook his head. 'The potato is the only cure for Vorpentitis.' 'I'LL BRING BACK THE POTATO!' cried Stoick the Vast, drawing his sword, a Man of Action to the last. 'JUST TELL ME WHERE TO GO AND HOW LONG I'VE GOT!' 'Well,' said Old Wrinkly sadly, 'the nearest potato is now roughly three-and-a-half-thousand miles away on the distant shores of the country known as America to those who may believe in it. And you have…' Old Wrinkly checked the clock sitting next to Hiccup's bed, '…exactly THREE minutes to find it.' Even Stoick seemed to feel that perhaps this might be a problem. He strode round the room, tearing at his beard. Old Wrinkly, Camicazi and One Eye sat at Hiccup's bedside. One Eye didn't seem as happy as he might have been two days ago at the thought of one less Human in the world. A big tear rolled out of his one eye and down his Sabre-Tooth and plopped on to the ground. Hiccup was stiff as a board, and his body was

now red, and boiling hot. Toothless licked his poor red face, to try to cool it down. 'THE DOOMFANG!' cried Stoick the Vast. 'I COULD TRACK DOWN THE DOOMFANG AND WRESTLE THE POTATO FROM HIM!' 'You're going to find the Doomfang in the vast and trackless wastes of an immense and fathomless Ocean,' said Old Wrinkly wearily, checking the time again on the clock, 'in TWO minutes?' 'Face it, Stoick,' whispered Old Wrinkly. 'What you're talking about is not just im-PROBABLE… it's im-POSSIBLE…' Fishlegs had drawn back into the shadows, and he was watching his friend's face. Hiccup was trying to say something, but his frozen, burning mouth made it difficult for him to say the words. In fact he looked very like the Doomfang, when he was trying to speak to Hiccup out on the Sullen Sea. 'Ooot me…' mumbled Hiccup desperately. 'OOOOOT ME!' and he tried to point, but his arms were as stiff as if they were made out of wood. Old Wrinkly patted his hand, and bathed his forehead with water. Stoick's shoulders heaved with sobs.