6 HICCUP’S BARDIGUARD HAS A BUSY TIME

6. HICCUP'S BARDIGUARD HAS A BUSY TIME Stoick rather regretted hiring Humungous over the next couple of weeks. Everybody, including Hiccup, seemed to think he was absolutely marvelous. He autographed axes, spears, favorite dragons, even Baggybum's famous beerbelly. "Even his WRITING is humungously cool," sighed Baggybum, gazing down at the stylish scrawl on his tummy. "I'll never wash again..." "Did you ever?" grunted Stoick, thinking, Who does this Humungous guy think he IS? And that was the other thing. Everybody normally followed Stoick's lead where it came to fashion. That meant the beard was worn au naturel, in a tremendous tangly mess the size of a large and complicated bird's nest that had recently been

attacked by a weasel. The whole was then decorated with a lavish sprinkling of food droppings. Suddenly, everybody was appearing with their beards immaculately groomed, just like Humungous's, and the ends of the moustaches elaborately twiddled and coaxed in pretty little curls. And Stoick strongly suspected they were WASHING, not to mention doing up their shirt buttons, and polishing their helmets till they shone.

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"What have you done to your beard?" Stoick demanded of a rather guilty-looking Gobber, whose haystack had turned into a riot of ringlets overnight. Gobber blushed. "Oh this..." said Gobber carelessly. "It's just the latest fashion, you know... more HEROIC... Everybody's doing it." "Well, you all look ridiculous," blustered Stoick.

But what he found by far the most difficult part of the whole Bardiguard business, was that Hiccup seemed to look up to Humungous so much. It was all "Humungous this" and "Humungous that" nowadays. Indeed, Hiccup did admire Humungous. Here was a Hero a cut above the usual uncouth Barbarian. His fighting wasn't just the usual loutish bonking on the head, but stylish, elegant, graceful. He taught Hiccup the Flash-thrust-with-twist thingummy, and showed him how to tie an opponent into elaborate and beautiful knots, while at the same time courteously inquiring about the state of their health. But Humungous was causing Hiccup the odd little difficulty, not his fault, of course, but there it was. Hiccup's general practice on the Pirate Training Program was to try and blend into the background and hope that nobody noticed him. But this is difficult if an exceptionally good-looking six-foot-seven internationally renowned Hero is following two steps behind you with his sword drawn and shouting out, "MAKE WAY FOR HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK THE THIRD, ONLY SON OF THE CHIEF!" And there were other problems.

Gobber allowed the boys a bit of time off to recover from their Herding-Reindeer-on-Dragonback lesson, and then it was back to the normal Program a day or so later, and an Axe-fighting-with-Art lesson. The strange weather had, if anything, gotten even hotter. How hot could it get? It was like standing in the middle of an oven. The boys stood in a straggly line in front of Gobber, scratching their bottoms and sweating profusely. Above them towered Huge Hill, like a bad omen, its lower half alive with trees and ferns, its upper half a scalded desert, as bald and nude as Gobber's still-helmetless-and-now-very-sunburned head. When Gobber the Belch asked for volunteers to fight Snotface Snotlout, there was a stony silence among the boys. Snotlout was horribly good at Axe- fighting, and he was a terrible cheat who tended to kick you in the ankles with his specially sharpened sandals when Gobber wasn't looking. So imagine Hiccup's horror when Humungous stepped forward, shouting out, "I VOLUNTEER HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK THE THIRD, ONLY SON OF CHIEF STOICK THE VAST, O HEAR HIS NAME AND TREMBLE, UGH UGH!" "SShhhhhh..." begged Hiccup. "Please...