Thorfinn and the Awful Invasion Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  Harald the Skull-Splitter was a Viking chief. Like all Vikings, he’d been given a tough name when he came of age. Skull-Splitter was the roughest and toughest name his parents could think of. And Harald was one of the roughest and toughest Vikings EVER.

  One day, Harald came back from a sea voyage. He kicked open his front door in the usual Viking way.

  “BLAM!”

  “I’m hungry! What’s for dinner?”

  Then he let out a cry of horror, for standing in the kitchen was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen. More terrifying than the two-headed sea monster of Kroll. More terrifying than the painted cannibals of Caledonia.

  It was his son, Thorfinn.

  And he was doing the dishes!

  “Great Thor! What on earth do you think you are doing?” Harald shouted. His great bushy beard glimmered gold in the light from the fire.

  Thorfinn turned round, a kindly smile spreading across his face.

  “Greetings, dear Father!” he said. “How pleased I am to see you. Did you have a pleasant voyage?”

  Harald screwed up his face in disgust.

  “Pleased? Pleasant voyage? Bah! I’m a Viking, by Odin! I burn! I pillage! I bite chickens’ heads off and spit them at old ladies! I do not have pleasant voyages. Do you understand?”

  “Oh yes,” said Thorfinn. “Sorry, I forgot.”

  Harald’s face screwed up even more.

  “Mother was so tired,” said Thorfinn. “She dragged a whole goat up from the bottom of the fjord. I thought she could do with a nap, so I sent her off to bed with a nice cup of tea, while I did the dishes.”

  “A… A… A nap!”

  Thorfinn’s father was spitting with rage now, and his eye was twitching. Harald had an incredibly twitchy eye – probably from all those battles he’d fought in. He’d been in about two hundred battles. He was fearless.

  “Viking wives don’t have naps. Viking women are strong! They can chop down trees! They terrify wild bulls!” Harald looked again at his son and groaned. “And Viking sons don’t make nice cups of tea, do you hear?”

  “But Dad, it’s hard work looking after Viking families,” Thorfinn replied. “I mean, all that eating meat with bare hands and beer splashing all over the place. No wonder the poor woman is tired.”

  Harald saw the kindness and gentleness in his son’s eyes, and all of a sudden his anger melted away. How could anyone be angry with Thorfinn? Even Harald, a man who was known as ‘The Terror of the North Sea’, couldn’t be angry with him. He sighed and sat down, then picked Thorfinn up and plonked him on his knee.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he said. “You go around the village taking your helmet off to people and saying ‘Good day’. You make jam, you drink tea, you help old people across the street. It’s not on. I mean, you don’t have any decent Viking qualities at all.”

  Harald often wondered if his son had been swapped at birth, perhaps by a witch. Or maybe one of the Viking gods did it for a laugh. Maybe his real son was being brought up by a quiet family in one of those awful peaceful countries where no one had battles.

  “Hmm…” Harald said under his breath. “What will I do with you? What, what, what?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Thorfinn was at a very important age. Soon he would have to earn his Viking name. Thorfinn had three brothers: Wilfred the Spleen-Mincer, Sven the Head-Crusher and Hagar the Brain-Eater. But what sort of a name was Thorfinn going to get?

  “I dread to think what we’ll call you,” Harald said. “Thorfinn the Neat-and-Tidy, perhaps. Thorfinn the Jam-Maker?”

  A huge shiver ran right up Harald’s back, and Thorfinn gave a worried look.

  “Dearest Father, have you caught a chill? Would you like me to fetch you a pair of slippers or a quilted blanket?”

  “Quilted blanket indeed!” Harald sighed and slapped his own forehead. “Can you guess what my enemies would say if they found me wrapped up in a quilted blanket?”

  “I expect they’d say, ‘Oooh, I want one of them,’” replied Thorfinn. “After all, it does get very cold in Norway.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear, this is a terrible situation for a Viking chief’s son,” said Harald. “People are beginning to talk. I’m going to have to do something drastic. Yes, I will make a Viking of you somehow.”

  “Well that would make me very happy too, Father. I want to make you proud of me,” said Thorfinn.

  “I need to go outside for a think,” said Harald.

  Whenever Harald had to think, he practised throwing axes at the trees. It made his brain work, he said. When Thorfinn’s father went outside to think, everybody in the neighbourhood ran indoors and hid. He had a terrible aim. Thorfinn thought this was probably due to the twitchy eye.

  After a few minutes of axe throwing, during which he hit three eagles, a moose and a whale basking in the fjord, Harald came bursting back through the door.

  “BLAM!”

  A mighty laugh bellowed from inside his great barrel-shaped chest.

  “Bah! I have it, young Thorfinn!” he cried. “I have it. You are going to make a name for yourself, by Thor! I am leaving on a voyage of destruction in two days, and you, my son, are coming with me!”

  This idea sounded brilliant to Thorfinn. He’d never been abroad. In fact, he’d never been outside his own fjord.

  “How exciting! I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise.”

  He jumped into his father’s arms, and Harald whirled him around and set him down again. Like most Vikings, Harald was fiery and excitable, and he often got a bit carried away. He pulled his hammer out of his breeches, clutched it in both hands and brought it down with a mighty clobber on the dining table. The table split in two – crack – and a big bowl of jam catapulted up into the air.

  “Watch out!” cried Thorfinn, but it was too late.

  The bowl spun around and came hurtling down on to his father’s head. Jam splurted all over his beard and across his chest.

  “Blaaah!” cried Harald, his booming voice echoing inside the bowl.

  “Oh dear, that’s another table ruined,” said Thorfinn, thinking of the twelve other tables his father had smashed up in the last year. Fortunately, Thorfinn was a dab hand at DIY too.

  “Mmmm, good jam, though!” said Harald.

  CHAPTER 3

  The next day, in the market, all the Viking boys were boasting about how tough their families were.

  “My grandfather was Sigmund the Sword-Slasher,” said one boy proudly. “His sword was a metre long and he could split trees in half with a single blow!”

  The biggest of the boys was called Olaf. He had a huge bulgy red nose and a chin like a jagged cliff. He barged his way to the front, munching on a pile of nuts.

  “Ha! That’s nothing!” he chomped. “My great-grandfather was called Hagar the Throat-Throttler, and he was so strong he once wrestled a moose. When he got bored wrestling the moose, he went and wrestled a bear instead.”

  The younger boys all gasped in admiration.

  Velda, one of the Viking girls, came running up, swinging an axe. Everyone leapt out of the way. “My father was a great warrior too, you know!” she cried.

  Ve
lda’s father was called Gunga the Navigator. Unfortunately, rumour had it that he was actually a bit rubbish at navigating. He’d got lost on one of his voyages and hadn’t been seen since. Velda had sworn she would find him one day. But a girl would never be allowed on a longship. The Vikings thought it was unlucky.

  “Girls can’t come on voyages,” said Olaf, and the other boys shouted their agreement.

  “Why not? I can fight better than any of you.” She could too. Velda had proven it many times. That was how Olaf got his bulgy nose.

  “You’re a girl!” Olaf cried. “Now buzz off!”

  Velda stomped away, dragging her axe behind her. Only Thorfinn gave her a sympathetic smile. He was sitting at the edge of the market, feeding his pet pigeon, Percy.

  Percy was a lovely white colour with grey freckles. Thorfinn was the only person in the village to own a pigeon, and Percy was special because he was a homing pigeon. He would often carry messages and news to people in other fjords, but he always came home to Thorfinn. Thorfinn found out what was happening outside the fjord before anyone else did.

  The other boys laughed when they saw Thorfinn with Percy.

  “Look, there’s Thorfinn. I heard he’s getting to go on a voyage. Can you believe it?” said one of them. None of the other boys had been on a voyage yet.

  They were all jealous.

  “This just isn’t fair,” said Olaf. “Why should he get to make a name for himself? He’s no Viking. Not like us.”

  The boys all agreed that Thorfinn was a rubbish Viking. They started joking about him.

  “What name will he come back with? Thorfinn the Milk-Drinker? Thorfinn the Shelf-Fixer? Thorfinn the Napkin-Folder? Ha ha ha!”

  Then they made up a song. The Vikings loved singing rowdy songs.

  “Oh-oh-oh-oh, Thorfinn will a-raiding go,

  Ay-ay-ay-ay, without delay he’ll run away…”

  Thorfinn didn’t mind. In fact, he was impressed that they’d made the words rhyme for once. He even joined in at one point.

  Unfortunately, he was about to make a new name for himself.

  Nuts were one of Percy the pigeon’s favourite foods. As soon as Percy caught sight of the nuts in Olaf’s hand he took to the air and started dive-bombing Olaf, trying to get at the nuts. Olaf tried to shoo him away, but Percy wanted those nuts, and no amount of shooing was going to put him off. Olaf stumbled backwards, then tripped over a barrel before splatting right into a big pile of horse dung. The nuts scattered everywhere, and Percy flew down and pecked them all up.

  There was a stunned silence from the other boys. Olaf’s dad was Erik the Ear-Masher, who was a rival to Thorfinn’s dad as village chief. The Ear-Mashers were a powerful family. You didn’t want to make an enemy of Erik the Ear-Masher’s son.

  Olaf got up. He was covered in horse dung, and he glared at Thorfinn.

  “How about this for a name,” he snarled. “Thorfinn the Dunked-In-The Fjord.”

  “Oh dear,” replied Thorfinn. “I’m awfully embarrassed by my pigeon’s lack of manners. I should have said that he’s mad about nuts.”

  “And there’s no one more nuts than Olaf,” said Velda, who had wandered back over to see what the fuss was about.

  It was no use trying to reason with someone like Olaf. He charged at Thorfinn, roaring like a tiger.

  But Thorfinn was nimble for a Viking, and Olaf was big and clumsy. Thorfinn darted out of the way just in time, and Olaf leapt straight past him. He stumbled over a bucket, then landed with a splodge in another, even bigger, pile of horse dung.

  This one had bits of hay mixed in with it, which stuck to Olaf’s hair and face. Thorfinn calmly knelt down and picked up his pigeon.

  “Percy, you really are a naughty bird,” he said.

  Velda bellowed with laughter. “Clever Percy,” she said. “And clever Thorfinn.”

  Olaf stood up, looking like a scarecrow with an attitude problem. He smelled terrible. All the boys in the market held their noses.

  “Eeuuugh!”

  Thorfinn left the market, still scolding Percy for his bad behaviour. Olaf swore that he would get his revenge. So did his whole family when they found out. Vikings are like that. They hold grudges.

  CHAPTER 4

  The day before Thorfinn’s great voyage was due to begin, Percy arrived with a message tied to his leg. The message was from Oswald, the wise man of the village. It said: Come and see me immediately, you young fool!

  Oswald was Thorfinn’s best friend in the world. He had a beard that stretched right down to his belly, and he was about eighty years old. He also had an incredibly loud, whiny voice, and he liked nothing more than to shout insults at people. He knew he could get away with it, because he was old.

  Oswald had taught Thorfinn everything he knew. He’d taught him to read and write. He’d taught him mathematics and astronomy and navigation. He’d taught him how to speak languages. But what Thorfinn liked most about Oswald was his fantastic storytelling.

  Night after night, groups of Vikings would huddle round the fire in the great hall where they had their meetings and feasts, and listen to the old wise man Oswald telling ancient Viking legends.

  As soon as Thorfinn received Oswald’s message, he set off to see him, whistling happily to himself as he walked through the forest and up the hill.

  Oswald lived in a hut in the woods above a waterfall. Thorfinn climbed up and found him tending his garden outside. The old man greeted the boy with a whinny.

  “I hear you are coming on our voyage, young Thorfinn,” he said. “Well, I can safely say that you have lost your head!”

  “But what do you mean, old friend?” replied Thorfinn.

  Oswald took him inside and sat him down beside the hearth. He’d made pancakes especially for Thorfinn’s visit.

  “Thorfinn, if anyone has the knowledge and the bravery to be a good Viking, it is you,” said the old man. “Unfortunately, the ruthless bit is missing.”

  “I can’t help being polite,” said Thorfinn. “It’s just the way I am.”

  Oswald got out a jar of Thorfinn’s favourite jam, made from arctic berries. Together they ate the pancakes. To top it all off they shared pinecone tea, which Thorfinn drank with his pinkie raised in the air.

  “Yummy,” said Thorfinn, dabbing the edges of his mouth politely with a cloth.

  “Voyages are very important to Vikings,” said Oswald, leaning forward. As he did so, his long beard dipped into the pot of jam. “When a Viking goes on his first voyage, he comes of age. He performs heroic feats, brave deeds. That’s how legends come about. It is every Viking’s aim to have legends told about them after they are gone.”

  It was difficult talking to a man whose beard was dangling in a pot of jam. Thorfinn didn’t want to embarrass his friend. He tried several times to lift the beard and move the jam away without the old man noticing, but Oswald kept moving it back.

  “Oi! I’m not finished with that,” Oswald said.

  “Do you think they’ll tell stories about me one day?” Thorfinn asked.

  Oswald laughed. It sounded like a horse having a sneezing fit, and left Thorfinn covered in partly chewed pancake and jam.

  “Perhaps,” the old man said, composing himself. “Though maybe not the kind of legend you’re thinking of. You see, my dear Thorfinn, you are unlike any Viking who has ever lived. The other Vikings do not understand you. They even laugh at you. But, if you remain true to yourself no matter what, then one day – just maybe – they will understand. And then, who knows, perhaps they will be telling stories about your adventures.”

  Oswald stood up. “Now where’s that other pancake of mine gone?”

  As he turned round Thorfinn spotted it. It was stuck to Oswald’s bottom.

  CHAPTER 5

  That night, in the great hall, the Viking warriors held a farewell feast. A long table stretched right up the middle of the hall, and it was covered in huge mounds of food.

  There was roast chicken, boiled goat, grilled
reindeer, stewed hare, leg of moose, rack of lamb, wild boar, fried squid, whole stuffed pig’s head, roasted pheasant, partridge soup…

  And that was just the first course.

  The Vikings liked to wash their food down with lots and lots of ale, which they drank from reindeer horns.

  Thorfinn sat next to his father at the top of the table. Oswald sat opposite Thorfinn. At the far end of the table, Olaf’s father, Erik the Ear-Masher, glowered at everyone. He only had one eye, of course. The other was covered by a patch. But there was enough glower in it for two.

  Viking feasts were a messy business. They ripped the meat apart with their bare hands.

  Crack! Crunch! Ping! Rip!

  Then they all went silent and the room was filled with the sound of ravenous men eating.

  Chomp! Grind! Gnash! Chew! Slurp!

  Then they spat the bones onto the floor for their dogs.

  Snarl! Gnaw! Woof! Snap!

  Then there was the burping, the cheering, the farting, more cheering and the odd fight. For the Vikings, any banquet without at least three punch-ups was boring.

  There was a glint in Chief Harald’s eye as he picked up a huge roast leg of goat. He bit into it and a big squirt of grease shot out and hit him in the eye.

  “Ouch!” he cried.

  Thorfinn could only laugh. Unlike the others, he was calmly cutting all his food up with a knife, and eating it in small pieces.

  “You see, Father, if you take the time to chop your food, it’s easier to eat,” he said. But his father wasn’t listening. He was too busy getting stuck into the goat’s leg, a great sliver of meat hanging off his beard.