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One: The Mayor's Son

The sounds of laughter echoed down the hall as the gang swung in, voices loud and confident. It was the same group of the most popular kids in the year and as Seniors now, they were the ones to be friends with. More junior students moved aside to let them through as they joked and yelled. A couple of oblivious Freshmen got jostled out of the way and one was shoved to the ground as the group strutted by, uncaring of anyone else in the school. A short, tow-haired boy cast them an annoyed glance but he was shoved roughly aside by a buff young man with short, carrot-red hair and pale green eyes.

"Out the way, squirt! Don't you know who we are?" he sneered. A raven-haired girl flipped her braid over her left shoulder, her green eyes impatient.

"Leave them alone, Dagur!" she told him firmly. "These babies hasn't even sat in their first class yet! They can hardly know who we are yet!" The buff young man huffed and then gave a brilliant smile.

"Okay, sis," he said then turned to the unfortunate young kid. "Make sure you know who we are by lunch, squirt!" The young boy recoiled and raced off to his first class as the other students turned away, some awed and others just envious of the respect the group were held in. People either wanted to be their friends or avoided them.

The gang had been together since the first day of High School and comprised the Thorsten twins, Rachel and Timothy or 'Ruffnut' and 'Tuffnut' as they liked to be called, the top pranksters in Berk High; Simon 'Snotlout' Jorgensen, Captain of the Football team; Damien 'Dagur' DeRange, the class bully who was redoing Senior Year for the second time; Heather Oswaldson, his half-sister; Cameron Bogthorpe, a keen soccer player, Theo 'Thuggory' Carnaby and Erik 'Eret' Eretson, both buff Senior football players and Hiccup Haddock, the Mayor's son. They were loud, confident-bordering on arrogant, brash, popular and took what they wanted. All were well-off, privileged and completely insensitive to the feelings and needs of anyone else. And those who crossed them were teased, taunted and bullied-or ridiculed and ostracised.

Of course, if you weren't one of the gang, you were definitely a second class citizen-and none more so than Astrid Hofferson. Joining in Sophomore Year-and late at that because of the death of her father, she had been barely welcomed since everyone had already formed their friendships and were busy in their cliques when she had arrived. She hadn't helped, of course, because she was withdrawn and down following his unexpected death and no one wanted to welcome the miserable looking blonde. And worse, she had made the mistake of crossing Cameron in soccer trials, winning a place in the first team at Cameron's expense. And though the other girl had made the squad, Astrid had been teased and ostracised by the popular gang since. And her small circle of friends-Finlay 'Fishlegs' Ingerman, a husky boy with exceptional knowledge of almost everything; Anna Christiansen, a bubbly kind ginger-haired girl and Kristof Shepherd, Anna's boyfriend-were not popular or cool, but they were loyal and supportive.

She watched the gang shove some more students aside and closed her locker with a sigh. The fact was that they all had everything they wanted: cars, expensive games consoles, phones and computers; they went on expensive holidays and they never had to worry about anything. None of them had the heartache of losing a parent, of having to work to help pay the bills, of struggling with any lesson or dealing with bullying or cruelty from the other students. In fact, most of them were callous and cruel to other students, either on purpose or just because they never seemed to think about others' feelings and sensibilities. And her mind flew treacherously back to the trials in Sophomore Year.

Soccer had always been her favourite sport, the game her father had ceaselessly encouraged her in and supported her through. So having to move school and try out so soon after his death had been doubly hard-but Astrid was a Hofferson, a fearless and determined young woman and she had played her heart out in the trials, winning the coveted number 10 that she had played in all her previous teams. So it had been with a sense of relief and joy that she had received the news, knowing she had done her father's memory proud-for all of ten seconds until a shorter wild-haired blonde, Cameron Bogthorpe, had come screaming up at her, abusing her and yelling that she had stolen Cameron's place and should step aside or she would be sorry. And when the Coach had just watched and said nothing, Astrid's temper had broken and she had screamed back in the other girl's face that no one owned a place in the team and that Astrid had won it on merit. If Cameron wanted to play, she needed to up her game and stop imagining things should just be handed to her on a plate.