12 Alphonse the Talented–but–Emotional French Chef

12. ALPHONSE THE TALENTED-BUT-EMOTIONAL FRENCH CHEF Alvin the Treacherous was Hiccup's arch-enemy. The last time Hiccup met him he thought he really HAD got rid of him, for in front of Hiccup's eyes Alvin had been swallowed by a Fire-Dragon that then dived down into a volcano. How could even Alvin have escaped from the fiery waters of the Earth's core? But, then again, there were things about Alvin that made him easy to recognise. One eye covered by a black eye patch, the other glinting with evil. One leg stamping and muscly, the other capped at the knee with an ivory stump. The moonlight bouncing off his paper-white skull. These are the kind of features that you don't really forget about a person, even if you haven't seen them in quite a while. The only difference was that Alvin used to have a large and arrogant nose. This man had no nose at all. Which is never a good look. He had fashioned himself a nose out of wood,

and tied it on, roughly in the right place, with an attractive bit of twine, but frankly, from a purely superficial 'looks' point of view, you can't really beat a nose made out of flesh, even if it is a little on the large side. The flesh nose hadn't been HANDSOME, precisely, but it was unobjectionable in a snooty kind of way. The wooden nose was just plain scary. 'ALVIN THE TREACHEROUS!' exclaimed Hiccup, one inch away from that horrible glinting eye. Alvin the Treacherous! He'd KNOWN there was something funny about that French Chef… Alphonse indeed… Alvin did not attempt to deny it. 'Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third,' he replied, with a grim jubilation in his tone.

'Why are you here?' whispered Hiccup, white with terror. 'What are you doing here?' Alvin grinned. 'I am here to gloat, of course,' he said. 'Oh, how I have dreamt of this moment… you have no idea… I expect you are wondering how I escaped from the Fire-dragon and the volcano?' Hiccup wasn't wondering about this, because he was more concerned about how he was going to BREATHE when Alvin was choking him so hard. 'I expect you thought I was dead, and I nearly was,

thanks to you,' purred Alvin the Treacherous. 'The heat melted my nose, but luckily I was wearing my Fire-Suit, which protected the rest of me. As the Fire- dragon swallowed me,' smiled Alvin, 'I plunged my sword into the stomach of the Exterminator Dragon I was riding. Dragon stomachs contain large amounts of laughing gas…' said Alvin craftily. 'The Exterminator exploded inside the Fire-dragon's throat into great bubbles of gas, one of which had me in the middle of it.' Hiccup's scared brain could barely think. Perhaps he should shout, and wake up the Fiancés? But they couldn't do anything, all chained up as they were. 'The bubbles forced their way out of the Fire-dragon's nose in a great snort of laughter, and rose up through the Lava, out of the Volcano, and floated out across the skies of the Archipelago. For hours and hours I drifted, stumbling about, trying to burst that revolting

bubble, stomach contents, and laughing manically from the laughing gas…' 'YUCKY…' groaned Hiccup.

'Quite so,' said Alvin. 'Until I happened by chance to drift over the island of Berserk, and my bubble was shot down by a Berserk arrow. I fell from the sky like a stone, landing on the head of Berserk's Chief Chef, and killing him outright. Chief Berserk explained he was going to slaughter me as a punishment'– (Alvin's teeth smiled on, but he had the watchful look of a cobra about to strike in his one good eye, and Hiccup kept on looking at that hook)– 'so I told him that I, too, was a Chef. He believed me, the fool, and I have been cooking for him ever since, three meals a day, may his toes turn to coral. But it was worth it, Hiccup… all worth it for this moment… Here you are, imprisoned in a cage, alone and afraid, facing a terrible death… and I am going to kill you now, Death by Hook!' Alvin threw back his head to laugh. Hiccup's heart was beating as quick and fast as the heart of a bird caught in the paws of a malevolent fox, and his hands were clammy with sweat. But he forced himself to speak calmly and politely. 'I'm not sure that I would say that you were "free as a bird", Alvin…' Alvin stopped mid-laugh, and turned his glittering eye to Hiccup. 'What do you mean?' he said