16 Things Start to Go Wrong Already

16. THINGS START TO GO WRONG ALREADY– YOU SEE, THAT DIDN'T LAST LONG, ONLY ONE CHAPTER Things had already started to go wrong, unbeknownst to Hiccup. He should not have locked that witch in the cupboard. Hiccup was young, you see, and prone to mistakes. When he was an older, more experienced Hero, he would never have done that. He would have put the witch

back in the cauldron instead (where she started, so that would have been poetic), and wound her down the well again and thrown the rope after her. If he had done that, then all would have been well (excuse the pun). Because even witches cannot get out of wells, for they have no wings. But the most amateur of witches can get out of a cupboard, even when they have no key, and the cupboard is locked from the outside. I don't know how, but they can. So the witch made her way out of the cupboard, and she was hopping mad. 'Checkmate!' she hissed. 'CHECKMATE???' she screeched. 'ME????

That wretched, creeping, lucky, burglaring, lying little ACCIDENT! 'I'll learn him!' she yelled (witches' grammar isn't all that good). 'I'll learn him!' she screamed, and she picked the Hiccup pawn from the chessboard that was the cause of all the trouble and she threw it into the fire so it melted, and then she chucked the chessboard on the floor and she poured poison on it so it sizzled, all green and decaying and satisfying. A bit of a waste of time, really, but it was a relief to her feelings. 'Checkmate?' she whispered, calmer now. 'I think not, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the game is not over yet, for I have yet a hand to play.' And then she dropped on all fours, and scuttled out the open door, nobody taking any more notice of her than a beetle, for the battle was in full flow. So in fact, Hiccup was wrong, the witch

HAD seen Alvin being beaten in battle by Stoick, and she scurried over like a great white crab, her long hair trailing on the boards behind her, to offer her motherly sympathy and consolation. 'LOSER!' screeched the witch. 'LOSER!'

Alvin jumped as if he had been bitten, looked down, and there she was. 'I beat Madguts on points so I came third,' he said defensively, 'you're never satisfied, that's pretty good actually– and you,' he said savagely, 'you were supposed to have got rid of Stoick and that revolting boy-nemesis of mine! I never promised I could defeat the boy-nemesis, did I? But you said, I'll deal with him. You said I have a way with clever little boys. You said he'll regret the day he ever was born. What happened? He's standing there, in the final, more born than ever!' 'He's immune to Vorpent poison!' screamed the witch. 'Why didn't you tell me? I said to tell me everything! How can I do my work unless you tell me everything? Being immune to Vorpent poison is a very important detail!' 'I didn't know,' replied Alvin the Treacherous, gloomily wiping some blood off his hand with the back of his sleeve. 'But it doesn't surprise me. I've been trying to kill him for years,* but he's so tricksy…' *See Hiccup's previous memoirs. How many times must I tell you! 'Third!' screamed the witch, back on that one again. 'I've got news for you, Loser-Boy! You don't get to be King of the Wilderwest if you come third!'

A wicked thought came to her mid-rant. 'Actually,' said the witch, smiling evilly. She closed her eyes, and remembered something. The witch's eyesight had improved, you see, in the months since she'd left the tree prison. And she thought she had seen something in the hut that might prove a useful weapon… 'Actually… maybe you do. HA! Watch out, Mr Accident, the game isn't over yet…' And she scuttled off to see someone. You see? Things had taken a turn for the worse, all because Hiccup put a witch in a cupboard, and not down a well. One little mistake is all that it takes.