6 Welcome to the Meathead Public Library

6. WELCOME TO THE MEATHEAD PUBLIC LIBRARY 'EEEEAAAARGH!' screamed Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, swinging violently this way and that, trying to get his other hand back on the ledge. 'STEALTH DRAGON! HELP ME!' The Stealth Dragon would have been happy to help out. Unfortunately, however, it did not hear Hiccup's desperate cries. It, too, had caught sight of the Lesser Squirrelserpent, and it hadn't eaten since the previous evening. Appetite had won out over military discipline, and the Stealth Dragon was already a hundred metres away, swooping after the unfortunate Squirrelserpent like a sparrowhawk after a mouse. ZZZZZZING! A wickedly sharp Northbow arrow narrowly missed taking off the tip of Hiccup's nose. ZZZZZZING-THUNK! ZZZZZZING-THUNK! Two more wickedly sharp Northbow arrows plunged deep into the backpack slung over Hiccup's shoulder.

Released from their chains, the snarling Driller-Dragons spread their black wings and leapt into the air, the drills on the ends of their noses viciously whirring, flying swiftly upward towards where the boy was hanging. Two pairs of hands closed over Hiccup's wrist, and Camicazi and Fishlegs, who were now kneeling on the window ledge, hauled him upwards with a strength they did not know they had, through a hail of arrows. They were only just in time.

As they dragged him through the window and into the Library, the drill of the Leading Driller- Dragon just missed the back of Hiccup's heels. The Dragon howled in fury, for the window was too small for it to enter. 'Oh, thank Thor you're safe,' panted Camicazi as they all now stood inside in the gloom of the Library, while the Driller-Dragons revved up their drills to an excruciating whine and screamed in frustrated fury outside.

'You call this safe?' coughed Fishlegs, sarcastically. 'AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!' screamed Hiccup, Fishlegs, Camicazi and Toothless, falling back as a terrifying six-foot-long drill, sharp and spinning, sliced through the air between the four of them. The Leading Driller-Dragon was not going to be defeated.

In a blinding rage it had thrown itself at the window, cracking it wider so that it could shove its gigantic head and one outstretched arm through the opening. bellowed the Driller-Dragon, shaking its head wildly from side to side, as it tried to push its way in.

Two great cracks appeared on either side of the window, as the brickwork burst, splitting the room from floor to ceiling… the Monstrous Creature gripped the edge of the opening with its one arm and H-E-A-V-E-D its way forward. It had already worked one gigantic muscled shoulder through… Hiccup watched in fascinated horror as its drill whirred even faster in its excitement… two seconds more and it would be in the room with them… …and Hiccup grabbed the nearest thing to hand, which happened to be a small marble statuette of the god Thor resting on a podium, and lobbed it at the dragon's head as hard as he could. By total fluke, it caught the Creature right between the eyes, totally depressing and wiping out a spot about the size of a large pimple that just happened to contain the Driller-Dragon's entire brain. Even a Driller-Dragon cannot function without the use of its brain, small as that brain might be. One second the Creature was plunging forward, roaring maniacally. The next it collapsed, as limp as a lettuce, and as dead as a dinosaur, its limbs jerking a little for a moment, and then going still. Only its drill continued to whir, but more and more slowly.