Pumpkins and Punches

Part 1

Astrid Hofferson first noticed Hiccup Haddock at a Halloween Party when they were eleven. She had met him before-well, Berk wasn't such a large town that all the kids didn't go to the sole Elementary, Middle and High Schools-but he was someone she hadn't paid much attention to. She was smart, quick, strong and determined, always leader of the class and first to step forward while Hiccup was shy, clumsy and stammered. Admittedly, he was far the smartest kid in class, though he was easily distracted and tended to head off at a wild tangent chasing some mad notion of his own. But he tended to be ignored by Astrid and teased-sometimes quite harshly-by the rest.

But everyone was invited to the Party so Hiccup had come, dropped off by a large one-armed one-legged man with an elaborate braided blond moustache and twinkling blue eyes. The skinny boy had walked self-consciously into the School Gym with its purple and orange streamers and carved pumpkins, dressed in an elaborate black mask and black pyjamas with a stuffed cloth tail trailing behind him. The man leaned forward, murmured a few words of reassurance and clapped the boy on the back so hard he fell over. 

"Oops. Sorry, laddie," the man said in a broad Scottish brogue and lumbered out. Hiccup picked himself up.

"Thanks, Gobber," he grumbled, dusted himself down and pulled his mask down determinedly. Astrid had stared at him: she had gone traditional with a witch outfit, the hat a perfect black cardboard cone and cloak fastened absolutely straight, the decorations of stars and bats stuck neatly on and wondered whether he had come as a demon of some sort. It certainly didn't look like anything she had seen previously. Puzzled, she picked up a pumpkin and orange juice and walked over to inspect him.

"Grrr!" he had tried and she looked and him a scowled.

"What are you supposed to be?" she asked bluntly. "You don't look very frightening."

"Actually, this-this is the most feared dragon of them all!" he protested, his slightly nasal voice muffled by the mask. She folded her arms across her chest, an unimpressed expression on her face.

"It doesn't look very frightening," she told him . "Actually he looks cute."

"Does not!"

"Does too!" And he did. The mask was actually very good, a blunt rounded muzzle on a flattened head with several ear flaps all neatly formed. Large round green eyes were painted in with oblong black cellophane panels for pupils and the slightly open mouth showed red gums with no teeth. The dragon looked rather like a large black kitten. Astrid rapped it with her knuckles.

"Hey!" Hiccup protested, backing away. "You'll damage it!" It was clearly a good piece of work, probably papier mache over chicken wore. It must have taken ages to make.

"Why are there no teeth? I mean, it doesn't even have fangs!"

"Night Furies had retractible teeth," he told her proudly.

"Did your Mom make that for you?" Astrid asked, inspecting it critically. There were even small scales painted on the dragon's cheeks and the paintwork was very even and neat. He paused and his skinny shoulders slumped.

"No," he sighed. "She died when I was about one." 

"Oh." She tried to remember him with a Mom but all she could recall was the large two-limbed man who had brought him this evening and an even larger man with an enormous flaming beard and a booming voice. She knew him: the Mayor, Stoick Haddock. "You're the Mayor's son."

"Yeah."

"Did he make the mask for you?" she accused him.

"No, I did it myself." The tone was hurt. She frowned.