5 Smashsticks-on-Ice

5. SMASHSTICKS-ON-ICE The Freya'sday Fete took place every year on Freya'sday Eve, which was the Viking holiday celebrating the end of winter and the coming of spring. This year the Fete was being held out in the middle of the frozen sea in Hooligan Harbour. It was strange to think that only six months before the Harbour had been filled with a grey, surly ocean. Now there were red and white stripy tents pitched higgledy-piggledy all over the ice. Roaring fires burned high, grilling Semi- Spotted Snowpeckers for the Vikings to munch on as they wandered round stalls selling octopus lollipops, or listened to story-tellers telling tall stories, or watched open-mouthed as the giants on skates balanced dwarves on their heads. There was a big pitch marked out for the Smashsticks-on-Ice Competitions. Smashsticks-on-Ice was a very rough and complicated game played with bats, balls and ice-skates. Nobody was quite sure of the rules, which meant that people tended to make them up as they went along, and then anybody who complained would start a fight. The Young Heroes were

supposed to go first, followed later on by the Adult Warriors. They would be playing against another Tribe, the Bog-Burglars, who had been invited over to join in the Celebrations for the day. The Bog-Burglars were a Tribe of fearsome female Warriors who lived on an island some way to the west. Their Chief, Big-Boobied Bertha, stood nearby,

gulping down mugs of beer and scratching her chin stubble. Her daughter, Camicazi, a very small girl with a swagger and the tangliest hair in the Inner Isles, was practising swinging her Smashstick. Camicazi was a friend of Hiccup's, and he wandered over to ask her if she had seen Fishlegs that morning. 'Nope,' said Camicazi cheerily. 'But I hope you Hooligan boys are feeling lucky. Us Bog-Burglars are going to MURDER you weedy little BOYS in the Smashsticks. I bet you Hooligans are hopeless at it– apart from you, of course, Hiccup,' she added. Camicazi had a great admiration for Hiccup, ever since he had rescued her from being eaten by Sharkworms in Fort Sinister.*

Snotlout happened to be skating past at that moment and he nearly fell over, he laughed so much at this. 'Hiccup???' jeered Snotlout. 'Hiccup will get as many goals as he shot Semi-Spotted Snowpeckers yesterday. I shot more than two hundred. How many did you shoot, again, Hiccup? What was it– none??'

Hiccup blushed. Camicazi looked very surprised. 'P-P-ARP! The Young Heroes Smashsticks-on- Ice Match is about to begin! Please could both teams make their way to the Pitch…' shouted Gobber the Belch from the centre of the ice. Gobber had changed into his shortest shorts to be the referee. The Bog-Burglars (apart from Camicazi of course) were big, rough, mean-looking girls with wonky plaits, broken noses, and thighs like tree-trunks. Fishlegs staggered on to the pitch at the last minute. He looked even more terrible than the last time Hiccup saw him. He was sneezing and shivering hard, and he could hardly stand, and was using his Smashstick to hold himself up. He had put his ice-skates on the wrong feet. Hiccup put up his hand to try and get Gobber's attention. 'Sir, I think Fishlegs isn't well,' he said. 'NONSENSE!' roared Gobber. 'Vikings don't get SICK! Flu is for softies! Colds are for babies! Plagues are for girlies! I'VE never had a day's sickness in all my life, not even a sore throat. I don't want to hear ANOTHER WORD.' Hiccup and Fishlegs skated out on to the pitch, Hiccup supporting Fishlegs, who could hardly put one skate in front of another.

'You ought to be at home,' worried Hiccup. 'You look awful.' Fishlegs laughed sarcastically. 'Didn't you hear Gobber? Vikings don't get SICK… I'm not ill, I'm just shivering with EXCITEMENT to be out here on this frost-bitingly cold day…' Gobber blew the whistle, threw the puck into the Smashstick Scrum and all hell broke loose.