Feather-Brained Idiots

Astrid poured more soap into the bucket of water and swirled it around with the head of her mop. Soap bubbles whirled up, reaching her nose and making her sneeze. Sighing, she wrung the mop out and applied it to the police station's cafeteria floor with hard, angry strokes.

Fishlegs, Camicazi, and Snotlout attacked the remnants of the Great Food Fight with their own cleaning accessories and about as much enthusiasm as Astrid: that is to say, with none. The twins, the culprits of the whole thing, got off easy and were stuck in Stoick's office getting their eardrums blown out.

"YOU TWO ARE A BUNCH OF FEATHER-BRAINED IDIOTS!" Stoick boomed from behind the oak Door of Doom. "KANGAROOS HAVE HIGHER IQ'S!"

Or maybe not so easy, but it wasn't fair that the rest of the gang was stuck on clean up duty when the twins were the ones who started it.

"I'll get them," Snotlout vowed vehemently, putting more force into his mop strokes than necessary. "I'll get them so good, they won't know what hit them."

"I should have left when Hiccup did," Astrid muttered to herself, picking an empty fruit cup off the floor and tossing it into the big utility trashcan in the center of the room.

Fishlegs sighed in a big whoosh.

"This is disgusting!" Camicazi complained, scrapping mac and cheese off the bottom of her shoe.

"The sooner we get this done," Astrid reasoned, "the sooner we can leave."

They worked in silence for another half an hour. Astrid's back and arm muscles were aching by the time she finished mopping the floor.

"At last!" Fishlegs rejoiced, tying off the trash bag they had filled up.

"I won't be long." Snotlout marched towards to cafeteria door. "I'm going into the office to murder somebody," he declared emphatically.

Fishlegs laughed.

"Oh, Ruffnut, Tuffnut. Come take your medicine like Vikings!" Snotlout cooed.

"It's a good thing they're still in Stoick's office so he can't fulfill that crime," Astrid decided. "I'm out for the day. I don't suppose you two want to help me move boxes down to my basement?"

"No," Fishlegs said. "I have work to do."

"I've got two annoying cousins to babysit," Camicazi excused herself. "People to rob, places to see." They helped Astrid put the mops and plastic gloves back into the closet before parting ways.

Astrid grabbed her things from her desk, tiptoeing past Stoick's office door, which was still vibrating with Stoick's loud voice, and headed home.

"Cold, cold, cold!" Her car engine sputtered, threatening to die, and the heater wasn't working quite right. She made it safely home and had a quick cup of coffee for rejuvenation before tackling the boxes in the room Camicazi was to occupy. Most of them were filled with old junk she didn't need, so she lugged them out to the truck of her car with the intention of dropping them off at a donation station later.

Near the end of the arduous task, she came across a box full of old newspapers."This looks interesting," she said to herself. The papers were from random dates, ranging from three to ten years ago. Maybe later she could find the rest of the article that the ghost had dropped, but that would have to wait because she had work to do.

…

The gang decided to meet in the basement of Gobber's Fix It Up Shop on the Saturday morning following Thanksgiving. When Astrid walked into the garage, Gobber pointed to a car and bellowed, "RIGHT ON SCHEDULE! HE'S UNDER THERE, LASSIE!"

A leg stuck out from underneath the fender of the dilapidated sedan and muffled muttering could hardly be heard over the rest of the racket in the garage. Astrid wandered over to him.

"Hiccup," she said gently, trying to get his attention.

"Hiccup," she called louder, getting impatient.

"HICCUP!" she hollered, stomping her foot. A loud clank and an "Ow!" came from under the car. A few seconds later, Hiccup rolled out on a mechanic's creeper. He had black grease all over his face and shirt.

"Garm's snout! You made me hit my head!" he complained. There was a thin line of blood on his hair line. Nothing serious.

"Work's only fun if you get a scar out of it. Are you coming?" Everyone else was probably in the basement and Astrid wanted to get on with things.

"Is it really ten already?" He checked his wrist, which was vacant of a watch. He grabbed a rag and wiped off his face, but the grease only smeared worse. "Give me a second, and I'll be right on down. There's a thumbprint scanner on the door, by the way. I installed it yesterday morning instead of venturing into the Black Friday shopping chaos since I had everyone's prints on file."

Astrid headed to the basement. There was indeed a scanner on the door, and her thumb was accepted. She went on down to discover that only Camicazi and Snotlout were there. The earlier was playing Fruit Ninja on her cellphone while the latter attempted to do push ups.

"Where are the twins and Fishlegs?" Astrid asked, taking a seat on the couch next to Camicazi, who wore a black and white t-shirt.

"Beats me," Snotlout huffed from the floor.

"The twins called me. Something about concussions from a disastrous Black Friday crowd-surfing competition," Camicazi said without looking up. "Fishleg's aunt broke her leg from tripping over an umbrella and he went to the hospital to see her."

Hiccup came down the stairs at that moment. The grease still mucked his shirt, but he had managed to wipe most of it off his face. "Hey, Camzi. Hey, Snotlout."

Snotlout let out a wheeze in greeting and dropped to the floor.

Camicazi ended her game and shut off her phone. "So, what are we doing?"

"Delving into the black history of an evil crime lord," Hiccup intoned dramatically, steepling his fingers and cackling darkly.

"He means that we're looking up Alvin Treacher on Facebook," Astrid translated.

"Did he even have a Facebook account?" Snotlout wondered from the floor. "Who would friend him? His cat? Or maybe he was a dog person."

"That's what we're going to find out!" Camicazi chirped cheerfully, booting up her laptop. "Tabby or Siamese? I think he was more a panther guy, but isn't it illegal to own one of those since they're a scarcity? Of course, if I owned one, there wouldn't be a trace and the police would never catch me. Oh, wait. I am the police! Bonus!"

Astrid interrupted Camicazi, the only way to possibly get a word in."Hey, Hiccup. I've been wondering... when your dad arrested you that night, you yelled Alvin's name like it should have meant something to him. Does Stoick know more about Alvin?" She had kept meaning to ask him the question, but either forgot it or the time was never right.

Hiccup hesitated. "A past...case."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out!" Camicazi put her hands in a "T" shape. "Chief arrested you? What'd you do to get him mad?"

"Uncle Stoick threw him in the worse cell in the precinct," Snotlout added from the floor.

Astrid kicked him in the calf. "Would you get up? You're ruining the rug with your sweat."

"My sweat is manly!"

"Yeah, right! Manly gross!"

Camicazi whistled through her teeth. "Why'd he throw you in jail, Hiccup? To get thrown in jail when you're the police is a very admirable feat – for a boy, of course."

"A misunderstanding. Call it a generation gap." Hiccup scratched the back of his neck, clearly wanting to be done with the whole thing.

"Your dad is hardcore." Camicazi typed something into her computer. "Alvin Treacher, eh?"

"Yep." Snotlout finally got off the floor and collapsed on the couch next to his cousin.

"Weird last name. You'd think since we're in the twenty-first century that some people would have better taste, but apparently not! I like mine. It's got class! Way more than, say, Hofferson or something like that." Camicazi peered closely at her computer screen and roughly jammed on a couple of keys, completely unaware that Astrid was very close to losing her self-restraint and putting Camicazi's consciousness in jeopardy.

"He's not on Facebook," Camicazi announced presently, "but he's on a crime watchers website, a bunch of recent news articles, and YouTube videos. Was there a fight recently?" Loud noises blared from her computer's speakers.

Astrid scooted closer to Camicazi to see what she was watching. Instantly, she recognized the footage. Someone had videoed the fight between Hiccup and the Red Death. If it had been bad seeing it the first time in person, it was worse watching the replay and knowing the outcome.

Astrid glanced over at Hiccup to subconsciously assure herself that he was, indeed, alive. His eyes were screwed shut.

"Turn it off, Camicazi," Astrid instructed.

Camicazi obeyed. "You guys were on the police force at the time. Did you see it in person?

"Worse." Hiccup shuddered. "I was the other dragon in the-"

Astrid elbowed him, but she was too late. Despite Hiccup cutting off the end of his sentence, realized he had just revealed to the unsuspecting Camicazi that he was the Night Fury.

To Guest Reviewer: Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you were "backing me into a corner." I was simply using the terminology from Howl's Moving Castle. No offence was meant, and if you don't want to read the story, you don't have to. :)

Can anyone name the "I'm going to murder them/take medicine like Vikings" quote? It's from a movie about a cat.

~rIDER