Enjoy the next entry! In this one: Hiccup experiences his first failure...
Entry 20
Well, today was a verifiable disaster.
I finished my first dragon trap… and let's just say it didn't exactly work how it was supposed to. I guess maybe using one of Gobber's molds for the body of it wasn't as good of an idea as I thought it was. Because it turns out, the spring mechanism I made was a little too much for that design to handle.
I'm not entirely sure where it went wrong… I probably should have quit when I nearly chopped my hand off trying to set it up, but apparently I'm not good at picking up red flags. I also probably should have picked a spot out of town to test it, but that's besides the point. Anyway, everything seemed fine when I finally got it ready and walked away. The plan was to throw a rock onto it and set it off, so I could make sure it worked.
I threw my rock and… nothing. So I did it again. Still nothing. I waited a while more, in case it was delayed or something, but eventually decided that the trigger just wasn't working. Turns out, I was right about the trigger not working, but that didn't mean it was safe. No, the thing I overestimated was the strength of the metal… which, as I was walking toward it, finally couldn't handle the stress of my modified springs. It SHATTERED. I've NEVER seen metal do that before. Pieces flying left and right, some shooting into the sides of buildings, and others… unfortunately finding their way to people. I got hit by quite a lot, but so did a few unlucky passerbys. Once the shock of what had just happened faded, I realized that everyone was staring at me. But before I could say anything, someone's hand had a hold of my hair, and I was being pulled away.
It turns out, that hand was Gobber's, and the second we got to the forge, I got an earful. He said he was proud of me for trying new things, but I can't put other people in danger like that, and I need to be more careful and considerate. He sent me to clean it all up, before telling me I should just go home for the day, and not worry about work. So, here I am, nursing a few pretty deep cuts from flying shrapnel, and trying not to lose it.
Even if he won't say it directly, I know Gobber is disappointed in me. That's the only reason he would ever send me home unless I'm dying of illness or something. And it just hurts all the more because he's the one person I really wanted to impress. Well, besides my dad.
Oh, Thor! My dad! He's going to absolutely lose it when he hears about this. I'm probably going to be grounded for the whole winter… Ohhhhh, why can't I do anything right?
Until next time…
-H