15 The Hairy Librarian Gets Scary

15. THE HAIRY LIBRARIAN GETS SCARY Bertha jumped a foot in the air and her plaits shot out from the side of her head, all of a tremble. She spun around with really quite impressive quickness for a woman of her girth, and nearly fainted with relief when she saw it was only the Hairy Scary Librarian, standing in the stable doorway with a Northbow pulled back ready to shoot. 'Oooh, Hairy, it's only you, thank Thor,' she said, pressing her hand to her gigantic chest. 'I thought you might be Madguts the Murderous…' 'SHUT IT, BERTHA, AND PUT YOUR THIEVING HANDS OVER YOUR BURGLAROUS HEAD,' advised the Librarian. It occurred to Bertha and Stoick that the Librarian was looking rather more agitated than normal. He had always been a little unstable, but the Itchyworms-down-the-trousers-incident had driven him over the edge. There was a mad glint in his eye, a large lump on his head, and a stray Itchyworm left down one side was making his whole body tremble. 'Err… you're looking a little peaky, Hairy,' said

Bertha, politely humouring the Librarian by putting her hands over her head. 'Do you think you need a little lie-down?' 'YOU BETCHA I'M LOOKING A LITTLE BIT PEAKY!' shrieked the Hairy Scary Librarian. 'YOUR LITTLE HOOLIGAN AND BOG-BURGLAR BRATS HAS BEEN SNEAKINGS INTO MY LIBRARY, AND STEALING ONE OF MY BOOKS!' 'I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!' roared Stoick the Vast, genuinely bewildered. 'AND HOW DARE YOU THREATEN ME, STOICK THE VAST, ON MY VERY OWN ISLAND! GET OFF MY LAND, OR I WILL THROW YOU OFF!' 'You are on the wrong end of this arrow,' pointed out the Hairy Scary Librarian, 'and therefore not in a position to give out orders. Your brats have been trespassing,' he continued, 'and have stolen one of my books…' 'You must have mistaken them for somebody else,' said Stoick the Vast, with less of a bellow as he realised that the Hairy Scary Librarian had a point about the being-on-the-wrong-end-of-the-arrow. 'One barbarian child looks very like another…'

'Not your child,' screeched the Librarian, 'your child is very different from most decent Viking children… small skinny boy with bright red hair, ridiculously scrawny for the son of a Chief…' 'There are lots of Viking children who haven't had their growth spurt yet!' protested Stoick defiantly. 'It could have been anybody!' 'Was with a boy with a face like a fish and a girl with light fingers and no manners,' continued the Hairy Scary Librarian. 'My Camicazi isn't the nicking-things type!' cried Big-Boobied Bertha. (Bertha had her

fingers firmly crossed above her head.) 'All Bog-Burglars is the nicking-things type!' screeched the Hairy Scary Librarian. 'They'd nick the trees from the woods if they could fit 'em in they's pockets! And I caughts the little magpies red-handed pilfering my very last copy of How to Train Your Dragon!' screeched the Librarian. Stoick started guiltily. 'HA!' cried the Librarian triumphantly. 'So you do knows what I is talking about! You all try and steal books off me, don't you, and fair enough I suppose,

we are Vikings, but those who gets caught in my Library have to pay the price, which is death on the spot, no questions asked. But did they's have the decency to put their hands up and let me poke them with my Heart-Slicers?' His hissing, whiny voice rose in outrage. 'Oh no, not them, they bonked me on the head, and put Itchyworms down my trousers! I don't know what the younger generation is coming to!' Stoick the Vast couldn't help grinning with pride when he heard this information. Well done, Hiccup! he thought exultantly. Stoick's secret smile drove the Hairy Scary Librarian wild with temper, and he let fly the arrow, which cut off Big-Boobied Bertha's left plait, and he had fastened another arrow in the bow before Bertha and Stoick had had time to blink. 'TELL ME WHERE THE THIEVING LITTLE MAGPIES IS OR THE NEXT ARROW GOES INTO STOICK HERE.' Bertha tried to bluster her way out of the situation. 'I really don't know what you're talking about,' she bellowed, 'and I haven't seen my daughter since this morning anyway.' The Hairy Scary Librarian let fly his next arrow, which flew straight into the chest of Stoick the Vast.

And this was where the Hairy Scary Librarian lost control of the situation. For instead of falling down as dead as a dinosaur, Stoick calmly removed the arrow from his breast and snapped it in two. 'B-b-but that's impossible!' stammered the Hairy Scary Librarian, turning very white. 'HOW IS YOU DOING THAT?' The Northbow is the deadliest, hardest, most accurate bow in the Archipelago. Nobody gets hit by a Northbow arrow and lives to tell the tale. The Hairy Scary Librarian re-loaded his bow and was about to shoot again. But he didn't get the chance. An enormous, practically invisible dragon appeared out of nowhere and landed on him. Squashing him. Flat.