Chapter 1

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III woke up to the sound of his alarm roaring. Yes, roaring. For some reason, that was the only sound that could reliably lift him from his deep slumber. The dragon-like noise always managed to alarm Hiccup, no matter what time it was set for. At first Hiccup couldn't remember why he had set the thing to go off at 6:30, but it quickly occurred to him that it was the first day of school- of senior year. He loved school, yet he loved sleep more. Groaning, he reluctantly pried himself from the warm bed that seemed to envelop him deeper and deeper into a hug. As he swung his bony legs over the side of the bed, he made contact with something furry. He could just make out the faint outline of his large, black cat. "Mornin', Bud," Hiccup said to the sleeping animal who stirred silently in his sleep. He gave his best friend an affectionate pat on the top of his head. Feeling Hiccup's gentle touch, the cat stretched and let out a huge yawn, bearing his gummy smile. Hiccup was never sure exactly how the cat came to miss his teeth, but Hiccup knew he had endured a rough life in the wilderness before he took him in. Due to his missing canine teeth, Hiccup called the cat Toothless. At first it started out as a nick-name, but it eventually stuck.

Hiccup stood at the entrance to his closet, debating on whether or not to actually look nice for the first day of school. Standing there pondering, Hiccup felt like an idiot. It didn't matter at all what he wore. No one would give him a second thought, except to make fun of his awkward nerdiness and clumsiness. Hell, people would laugh at him just as much in normal clothes as they would if he wore a clown suit to school. Realizing this, Hiccup grabbed his favorite green shirt off the hanger and took his favorite pair of brown pants out of his hamper. He gave the pants a solid sniff before putting them on.

As Hiccup trudged down the stairs to make himself breakfast, a black blur ran past him. "Don't worry, Toothless, I'll make you breakfast too," he shouted after the object. "You always know when I'm going to get food, don't you?" At this, the cat turned around and gave a self-assured meow that made Hiccup chuckle. He always found it funny how his cat's meow sounded vaguely similar to his dragon-roar alarm clock. Hiccup went over to the cupboard and took out a box of cereal and a can of tuna. With all the food in the house, Hiccup preferred simple, easily prepared foods. Judging by his rail-thin frame, he didn't really eat all that much, unlike his father, Stoick, whom his friends affectionately called "Stoick the Vast" due to his exceptionally large frame. Hiccup quickly poured his cereal and milk and put the tuna into a bowl for Toothless. Still extremely groggy from his early wakeup, Hiccup accidently placed his bowl of cereal on the floor for Toothless and stuck his spoon into the bowl of tuna. Just as he was about to take a bite, he realized his mistake, glancing both at his spoonful of tuna as well as the happy black cat lapping up the milk from his bowl. "Sorry, Bud. That's not your breakfast. He ya go," he said as he exchanged the bowls. Honestly, Hiccup really didn't feel like fetching himself a new bowl of cereal so he decided to go ahead and eat the saliva-contaminated cereal.

At 7:00 Hiccup gathered his things and was set to head out the door. He debated whether or not to say goodbye to his father before he left; however, a gnarly snore from upstairs answered that question. Hiccup knew better than to wake his father. After all, his father definitely needed his beauty sleep to be the best mayor possible. And besides, it's not like he really cared what Hiccup was doing anyways. His father had tried for so long to get his son interested in football and baseball. He really tried to bond with his son; however, Hiccup really never took an interest to those sort of things. For one he was abnormally klutzy, tripping over nothing but air and also, he truly preferred his academics. His father could never understand how Hiccup could stay in the basement study area for hours upon hours just reading or drawing up inventions. He just wasn't like the other boys.

Hiccup knew this all too well. He was far different from everyone else at Berk High School. Freshman year, he entered through the doors of high school a scrawny, nerdy boy. He had hoped more than anything to make his mark on his high school- sure he had made his mark, but all in the wrong places because there he was, it was senior year and he entered those same doors as that same scrawny, nerdy boy whom everyone knew as a screw-up. Sure, Hiccup had grown a considerable amount since freshman year, but he was still just as skinny. Also, his new height helped add to his clumsiness. At least Hiccup was smart. In fact he was the smartest person in the school. As valedictorian no one even came close to matching his intelligence, no one except for Astrid Hofferson.

Astrid- just the thought of her made Hiccup's insides feel like mush and his heart race. He had had a crush on her ever since he had first laid eyes on her during homeroom freshman year. There she was in his homeroom class, sitting in the front of the room. Her presence in the room was like a beacon of light in a storm. Her glossy blonde hair lay perfectly in a braid and her deep blue eyes glistened with confidence. Hiccup was always amazed at how her soft facial features could always look so fierce, so well Astrid.

Hiccup snapped himself out of his daydream when he realized he had reached the student parking lot at school. When he parked his black sedan into his designated spot and went to step outside, he groaned. Just his luck, he happened to be assigned the spot right next to Scott, only the biggest bully in school. Scott was the quarterback of the football team and the most attractive guy at Berk High School. The muscular boy's biceps twitched menacingly as he leaned against his car, surrounded by his teammates whom together could outweigh a cruise ship. Hiccup tried to get out of his car as stealthily as possible. "Please don't see me, please don't see me," Hiccup silently pleaded to himself. He stole a quick glance over his shoulder to ensure that Scott and the rest of the team didn't notice him. Sure enough, they were busy ranting about their various sexual escapades over the duration of the summer. Hiccup's relief didn't last long as his foot caught the edge of a pothole and he fell face-first onto the hard asphalt. Not only did he hear the sound of his backpack clunk against his bony body, but he also heard the sound of screeching breaks and crunching steal. Hiccup looked up just in time to see a car slam on the breaks to avoid hitting his fallen body, spanned across the parking lot and the car behind it crash into the back of the stopped vehicle.

Hiccup could feel his face glowing a bright crimson color. He didn't know whether or not to stay on the ground forever or rise and face all the humiliation. To make matters worse, Scott came trotting over to Hiccup and placed one of his large, Nike shoes on Hiccup's backpack. "Wow, I've never seen anyone mess up that badly. You clumsy nerd can't stay on your feet for two seconds without causing disaster." Hiccup's heart pound heavily in his chest. He really didn't care what Scott thought of him, granted Scott has always bullied him, but he knew that Scott would tell Astrid about this incident and what a failure he was. Unfortunately, Scott had been pursuing Astrid since like forever. He loved to flirt with her and berate Hiccup and other misfits in the school with her. Hiccup hated the fact that he liked Astrid more than anything because Scott had been extremely vile towards him since middle school. Luckily, Astrid was too focused on her academics and athletics for a relationship with Scott, but really, he knew that the pairing made sense. He was the star quarterback and she was the star cross country runner. Both of them were the most attractive of their respective genders in school and both were extremely popular. However, Hiccup knew deep down that Astrid was way too good for him, despite that rough façade she put on for everyone at school. She was insanely smart at number two in the class behind Hiccup and she did have a somewhat sensitive side. Never had Hiccup heard her make any snide remarks in his direction, even when her whole group was laughing at one of his many mess-ups. She didn't say anything nice to Hiccup, but granted, she stayed quiet and Hiccup appreciated that. Hiccup just prayed that she would keep saying no to Scott's advances.

After the parking lot incident, Hiccup was sure his day could only go up. He arrived at his homeroom just before the bell rang. Hiccup was late for a lot of things, but school was usually not one of them. Getting the situation in the parking lot taken care of had taken longer than he thought. As he had for the three previous years, Hiccup took his seat in the back of his homeroom next to his one and only friend, Fishlegs. The nick-name sat very funny with Fishlegs now, but it had stuck ever since sixth grade gym class when Scott had bestowed it on him. On that fateful day many years ago, Fishlegs had forgotten his gym clothes. He didn't particularly like gym, but he didn't want to fail it either. After asking around for a pair of shorts to borrow, he finally found a pair hiding in lost-and-found. Unfortunately for Fishlegs, they were girl's shorts, but at that point he didn't really have a choice. He reluctantly put them on so he wouldn't get participation points deducted. All it took for Scott was one glance at his skinny, white legs protruding from the way too short shorts for the nick-name to come about. Fishlegs had put on a considerable amount of weight since then and had grown into an extremely husky boy with legs opposite of fishlegs. However, the name still sticks.

Hiccup greeted Fishlegs in a monotonous tone. "Sorry about what happened this morning," Fishlegs whispered as he reached out a patted his friend on the shoulder.

"How do you know about that?" Hiccup questioned in a worrisome tone as his palm stuck the center of his face.

"Everyone knows. Sorry man." Fishlegs responded. Fishlegs noticed how Hiccup's eyebrows contorted into a perplexed manner and he pointed at the blonde goddess seated at the front of the room. Hiccup's heart sunk, of course it was Astrid that would tell the whole school what a screw-up he is. Fishlegs continued, "Scott walked in here this morning and loudly proclaimed to Astrid and everyone else in the room what happened." Once again, Hiccup could feel his face turning that terrible shade of red, except this time it was not from embarrassment but from anger. It made perfect sense that Scott would do something like that, however, that fact still did not settle his rage. If Hiccup was double his weight and had double his balls, he would go track down Scott and sock him square in the jaw. But he was Hiccup so he sat there and fumed quietly in his seat.

Hiccup's schedule was passed out to him by their homeroom teacher. He didn't take much notice to it as his thoughts were consumed with the blonde goddess in front of him. He couldn't help but stare at that perfect braid and wonder how much of an idiot she thought he was. Stupid him, he knew that she definitely thought he was the biggest screw-up on the planet, if she even knew he existed. "Wow, you're taking seven AP classes?" Hiccup heard a voice say. He quickly realized it came from Fishlegs. "You do know it's senior year, right?"

Hiccup laughed, "yeah, you know what they say, seven AP's a day keeps senioritis away."

Fishlegs laughed at his sarcasm, "like the valedictorian needs to worry about that." Hiccup didn't really hear him as his mind drifted back to Astrid, wondering if she would be in any of his classes this year. He has had classes with her before, not that he ever talked to her, but he was hopeful that maybe she could be a beautiful distraction to boring high school lectures.

The day went by as normal as it could for an abnormal person like Hiccup. After the bell rang to dismiss the school to their last class of the day, Hiccup trudged through the hall to AP Chemistry a little disappointed. So far he had been to six of his seven classes without Astrid Hofferson. Hopefully, hopefully she would be in his final class of the day. This was his last chance. He entered the door to chemistry and he felt his chest flutter. There she was, sitting perfectly in the front of the room. Hiccup's mind did mental flips as he took his seat in the back of the room.