10 Toothless’s Adventure in the Cooking Tent

10. TOOTHLESS'S ADVENTURE IN THE COOKING TENT It was Toothless who provided the answer to the Escape Problem. One afternoon Hiccup looked down from the crow's nest and spotted Stormfly and Toothless creeping out of the Cooking Tent. They had sneaked in there while the Cook was having a thoughtful chat with Norbert, as Norbert checked his Great Map of America. Both dragons were flying extremely erratically. Stormfly had turned every colour of the rainbow, and was letting out little hiccups in fiery explosions of golden smoke as she somersaulted and cartwheeled through the air. Toothless appeared to be flying upside-down. He too was hiccupping, and with every hiccup, a little stream of golden bubbles blew out of his nose. 'What ARE they doing?' asked Camicazi, in danger of falling off the mast as she peered down at the little dragons' eccentric progress. 'They look like they're DRUNK,' said Fishlegs in amazement. Toothless got entangled in the rigging, and the

Stormfly was so helpless with giggles she could barely free him. 'Isshh v-v-very TANGLY, thish air,' Hiccup could hear Toothless saying. Eventually they got going again, and they flew past Hiccup's perch. 'Who ISH this tall gentleman?' asked Toothless, as he bashed into the mast for the second time. 'He keepsh getting in my way.' 'Toothless! Stormfly!' Hiccup called out. 'Come over here!'

'That b-b-boy over there s-s-seemsh to be calling you,' Toothless advised the Stormfly. 'Hic… whoops… shorry…' They flapped over to where Hiccup and Camicazi and Fishlegs were sitting, and they were burping and swaying and exploding with bubbles. 'What have you been doing?' scolded Hiccup. 'I TOLD you not to go near that Cooking Tent…' 'I haven't been anywhere near the Cooking Tent, have you, Toothless?' drawled Stormfly.

The upside-down Toothless nodded so hard great streams of golden bubbles poured out of his ears. 'Absholutely NOT,' he said solemnly, his eyes crossing. 'T-t-toothless NOT go into the Cooking Tent… Toothless N-N-NOT open the lovely shcrumdiddly-delicious j-j-jar of lemonade with the l-l-lovely tickly bubbles… oooh... hic… tee hee… there goes another one… Toothless not there… Toothless… Toothless…' He searched his rather addled brain for a really good excuse this time, and came up with a BELTER. 'Toothless in R-R-Rome,' he said at last. 'Really?' said Hiccup politely, carefully turning Toothless the right way up, and settling him in his arms. 'OR up the chimney,' said Toothless, not quite able to decide which was more convincing. 'With Toothless's good friend, the s-s-senator.' And with that, both Toothless and the Stormfly fell asleep, so suddenly and deeply that the Stormfly fell off her perch, and Camicazi only just caught her in time.

They were both snoring like two little hibernating grizzly bears. All around their mouths was a slightly sticky browny-yellow substance. 'Dragon-nip,' said Hiccup thoughtfully. 'There must be a jar of dragon-nip down there in the Cooking Tent.' Dragon-nip was a perfectly harmless but sleep-inducing substance gathered from the sweat glands of the Loafer dragon. 'A spot of dragon-nip in the dinner, and anybody who eats it will be out for the count for the next twelve hours…' said Hiccup. 'OK, guys. I think this could be a good night for us to escape.'