Trolls Prequel Novel Page 6

  “It could have fallen off him earlier, when Biggie was setting up the display. Finding the hat doesn’t necessarily mean he’s still in here.”

  I rub the back of my neck with my hand. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess we got our hopes up for nothing.”

  “We’re going to find him,” Satin says reassuringly. “Either us or Biggie or you or Poppy.” Chenille adds, “Or Smidge or any of the Trolls in Poppy’s search party. Someone is going to find him.”

  I nod. “I know. You’re right. He’s bound to turn up, and I’m sure there’ll be some silly explanation.”

  I help the twins lower their racks to the ground—using our hair as lifts—and peer around for any Trolls who might be waiting for their turn. The clipboard shows Guy Diamond up next, but there’s absolutely no sign of his glittery awesomeness.

  “We’ll catch you—” Satin calls.

  “—later!” Chenille finishes.

  “Later!” I call back.

  I turn and make my way to the center of the pod, where I plop onto the floor. It’s completely quiet now, except for some music far in the distance.

  My heart is heavy with the excitement of finding the little worm’s top hat, followed so closely by a dead end. I lift my head and look around. The face of Mr. Dinkles peers down at me from the walls. If one of the Mr. Dinkles could talk, he would probably be asking, “Harper, how could you be so worried about your own stuff when Biggie is missing me so much?”

  He’s right. I do need to be there helping! Why am I only just now realizing this?

  I shake my head quickly to snap my thoughts clear, snag a page from my sketchbook, and scribble a quick note to Guy Diamond: Be back as soon as we find Mr. Dinkles. Join in the search while you wait!

  And I’m out of here. I fling my hair in front of me to grab a branch and swing through the opening.

  Poppy

  “Ooooof!”

  “Bluuurft!” I hear. Then “Poppy?”

  “Harper?”

  “What are you—?”

  “What are you—?”

  We both sit up from the spots on the ground where we’d tumbled after colliding. Harper rubs her head.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Yup. You?”

  “Totally.”

  We giggle at the rumpled sight of each other for a second, then Harper shakes her hair into place and rearranges her face into a hopeful expression.

  “Poppy, does your being here mean you found Mr. Dinkles?” she says.

  I shake my head. “No luck yet. I know we have to be close, though. There are Trolls searching every inch of the village, so I thought I’d circle back to the scene of the crime. Well, not crime, of course, but just to where he first went missing. He’s so small and squirms to get around, so I started to wonder just how far away he could have gotten.”

  “Good call,” Harper agrees, holding out a hand. “I was just coming to help you.”

  “You were? That’s awesome! That must mean you found your opening exhibit, then! I just knew you would! Oooh, which one did you pick? Was it Satin and Chenille—I’ll bet their clothes were incredible. Or was it—”

  “Poppy!” she interrupts.

  I halt and blink a few times. “Yes?”

  She drops her head. “I didn’t pick anyone. I just realized I should have offered to help from the start and that my priorities were a little messed up. I didn’t want to disappoint the Trolls who had signed up to present, but I know they all understand the situation.”

  I exhale. “Oh. Yeah, you’re right about that. Well, happy for the help, and no worries on not picking yet, because we can easily figure it out just as soon as Mr. Dinkles is tucked safely in Biggie’s arms. Ready to resume the search?”

  She nods enthusiastically. “I know we’ve already scoured the pod, but Satin, Chenille, and I found his top hat, and—”

  I cut her off. “You found his hat! That’s huge! Where? How long ago? What were the circumstances of your discovery?”

  Harper holds up a hand to stop me. “Whoa. Slow down. It ended up being just his hat, nothing more. We went over and over the pile of clothes, and no other clues turned up.”

  “But it’s a clue!” I say. “The first real one we’ve had all day.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s always possible that it fell off him when he and Biggie first got to the pod and isn’t linked to his disappearance at all.”

  “I need to see for myself.”

  Harper nods. “C’mon. I’ll show you where we were when we discovered it.” She stops suddenly and reaches into her hair. “By the way, I found your clipboard. All the rating cards still attached,” she says flatly, handing it to me.

  “Cool! Thanks, Harp,” I say. “If this popped up out of nowhere, maybe Mr. Dinkles will, too!”

  We head back inside, and I trail Harper to the spot where she found the hat. Just as she said, there’s no sign of a pet worm anywhere on the floor, now free of the twins’ clothes. “Well, this still feels really hopeful to me.”

  I’m turning in a slow circle, looking for any other clues, when something catches my eye. “Hey, we never checked behind the curtain along the back wall, did we?”

  I make a beeline to it and move to pick up the bottom corner, but Harper beats me there, squeaking, “No! That’s a surprise! I’ll look back there.”

  Drat. I was hoping I’d get a peek.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Dinkles isn’t behind the curtain.

  But we’re NOT giving up. “Let’s check the entire pod again. At this point, it feels like the most logical place to keep looking. He’s so tiny. How could he have gotten very far on his own?”

  Suddenly, a funky, electronically tuned voice drifts in through the pod opening.

  “Ooh, that sounds like—” Harper begins, craning her neck.

  “If you were about to finish that sentence with ‘four inches of glitterificness,’ then the answer is yes.”

  Harper’s smile crinkles her eyes. “I know a fellow artistic soul when I see one. Guy Diamond is sure to have something especially dazzling for us. After we find Mr. Dinkles, of course.”

  I return her grin. “I’m sure Guy Diamond will help us look in the meantime,” I say, just as a razzle-dazzle of glittering Troll appears.

  Guy Diamond is a walking, talking disco ball. Although, disco balls throw off light, and Guy throws off something thirty thousand times better: glitter. That’s because he’s covered head to toe—every naked, gem-coated bit of him—in glitter.

  Can’t Go Wrong with Glitter is my motto. Not when it comes to scrapbooking, and definitely not when it comes to Guy Diamond.

  “Hey!” I say before filling him in on our hunt for Mr. Dinkles. Just as I expected, he’s all for helping.

  “Where doooooo we searrrch?” Guy Diamond asks, his electronically tuned voice stretching out the letters. He always sounds like he’s singing even when he’s not.

  “Tree branches. Smidge checked between here and the ground, but what if Mr. Dinkles reached the trunk and went up?” I answer.

  “Good call,” says Harper.

  “Perrrrrrrrfect ideaaaaaa!” agrees Guy Diamond. He poofs a shot of glitter as punctuation, like he always does when he gets excited.

  “Ah-choo!” we suddenly hear, in the tiniest voice imaginable.

  We all freeze, staring at each other.

  “Did you hear that?” Harper whispers.

  “Uh-huh,” I say, and Guy Diamond nods.

  We hold extra still, barely blinking, but there’s no other sound. “Guy!” I whisper. “Do your glitter again.”

  Guy shrugs and poofs another blast of glitter, and then we all freeze when we hear “Aaahhh-aaahhh-aaahhh-choo!”

  This time, I’m ready for it. I spin to my right. “It came from this direction.”

  We creep to the right.

  “Again, Guy!” I order when we’re at the midway point.

  Another poof, another sneeze.

  “There!” exclaims Harper, ra
cing over to one of the hanging portraits of Mr. Dinkles. I squint, but all I see is the picture.

  And then it sneezes.

  Mr. Dinkles!

  Harper reaches over and gently scoops Mr. Dinkles from the photograph. He’d somehow lined himself up perfectly with the image of himself behind it. No wonder none of us had spotted him!

  “Did you fall asleep, Mr. Dinkles?” I ask, taking him from Harper and cuddling him against me.

  “Mew!” he replies, blinking innocent eyes up at me.

  “Oh, Mr. Dinkles. I bet he never even knew he was missing.”

  “He must have been having the best dream ever, because he didn’t hear you calling for him earlier,” said Harper.

  Harper reaches over and places his hat gently on his head, and all three of us coo down at him for a second.

  “We have to get him to Biggie. He’ll be so excited!” I race to the pod opening, careful to keep Mr. Dinkles secure in my curled fingers. “Harp, you’re on your own again.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of making Biggie wait one extra second for his reunion with Mr. Dinkles,” she says, but Guy Diamond steps to the doorway, too.

  “Actuallyyyyyyy, we should allllll gooooo. I can taaaake you to my entryyyy after we find Biggieeee.” He gestures across the treetops, and Harper and I look at him curiously. Take us to it? There’s really no time to ask questions, though, so we hop through the doorway and run after him, in search of Biggie.

  Harper

  Poppy is uber happy one hundred percent of the time, so I’m pretty used to uber happy. But even her over-the-top joy could never compare to Biggie’s when we put Mr. Dinkles back in his arms. His happy tears could form an actual river.

  We all take a moment to celebrate with everyone who gathers around to welcome Mr. Dinkles back to his rightful spot, cuddled into Biggie’s shoulder. Biggie’s happy tears are back, spilling off his cheeks and soaking Mr. Dinkles, who doesn’t mind at all.

  “Oh, Mr. Dinkles, I’m just s-s-so happy I could cr-cry,” stuttered Biggie. “That is, if I weren’t already s-sobbing with joy.”

  With that good deed done, there is nothing in the way of seeing Guy Diamond’s entry.

  I am really excited to see this, whatever it is. Even the fact that he has to take us to it, instead of the other way around, is very intriguing and unexpected. I love the unexpected. The whole spirit of it is so…artistic.

  My insides fill with lightness. It’s just like Guy to think outside the box. I notice Poppy’s step is every bit as springy as mine.

  He leads us nearly to the complete opposite end of Troll Village. As we trail along the winding path, a gathering of Trolls joins in behind us, which is so typical when Guy’s around. Probably none of them know what they’re in store for or why they’ve dropped everything to skip off down a trail, but Guy Diamond does tend to have that effect on us. Where he goes, we follow.

  In single file, we loop our hair onto branches to swing high across clearings and dash under tree canopies.

  Finally, we push through a thicket of felt ferns into a sheltered little alcove. It’s surrounded by butter-soft leaves and swishy grasses, and beneath our feet are bouquets of fleecy wildflowers.

  “I like it here,” says Poppy, and I can only nod in amazement. How did he find this spot?

  Guy Diamond smiles. “I knowwwwwww, riiiight? But this isn’t theeeeee best parrrrt. Wait until I aaaaadd to iiiiiit.”

  My eyes grow rounder and my ears prick up. Guy gestures to the other Trolls to move back. When Poppy and I start to join them, Guy Diamond shakes his head.

  “Noooo, nooooo, you two staaaaand right underrrrr here.”

  He takes us by our shoulders and positions us so that we’re both perfectly centered underneath a summer-green toadstool dotted with huge red spots. Poppy and I clutch hands. I can hardly wait for whatever is about to happen.

  “Closssssse your eyyyyyesss,” Guy Diamond says.

  Eyes closed. Check!

  “Whennnn I sayyyyy ‘Now,’ opennnn theeem.”

  I can feel Poppy’s excitement when I curl my fingers around hers and she squeezes in return.

  “Aaaaaand NOWWWW!”

  My eyes fly open, and before I can even utter a sound, Poppy beats me to it with a super loud “Ooooh!”

  “Ooooh” is right! I look around in a daze.

  “It’s like being inside a snow globe,” Poppy says, her voice full of wonder.

  I can only nod. Guy Diamond has created a glitter shower from above the toadstool. From every angle around us, we’re all wrapped up in this sparkling wonderland as twinkling silver glitter rains gently down.

  “It’s magical,” I say, when I can finally manage words.

  “Totally,” agrees Poppy.

  Art is one of those things that’s hard to define. One person might love what someone else doesn’t love. Is a thing called art because it seems really hard to do, like an elaborate sculpture, and not art because it seems really easy to make, like a squiggle on a piece of paper? To me, at least, what’s art and what isn’t is pretty simple. Art is anything that makes someone feel something. Possibly a good something, possibly an uncomfortable something, but always a something.

  Right now, as the glitter swirls and whirls around me, I’m feeling so much joy.

  “Way to close the day with a bang,” Poppy says.

  “Or more like a…How would you describe the sound of falling glitter?” I ask.

  We both hold perfectly still, straining our ears to listen to the glitter swish by our ears, but it’s raining down so gently, there isn’t any sound at all. It’s just amazing.

  Poppy

  We head back to the pod, and it is quiet and empty. To be honest, I was hoping by this point in the day, Harper would have had an “aha” moment about one of the entries. In my opinion, any one of them would be astounding for the gallery opening!

  But I have a few strategies up my sleeve to help. In fact, I have a whole list of reasons why this is all going to work out just fine.

  Here they are:

  1. I’m here to help in every way I possibly can.

  2. Harper is an artist, and everyone knows sometimes artists can get a little adorably daydreamy when it comes time to get down to business, and I’m here to focus her.

  Also:

  3. I have snacks. Three cupcakes still sit on the tray under the chair. It would be a total shame to let them go to waste. A tragedy.

  4. Snacks help focus attention by providing an essential energy boost.

  5. Lastly, I have a plan.

  Which is good, because one look at Harper, currently wringing her hands, and I can tell she has a list of her own that goes something like:

  1. Freak out.

  2. Freak out.

  3. Freak out some more, while standing on head.

  “Let’s be systematic about this,” I continue. “If you want to give me thirty seconds, I can whip up a stylish pros-and-cons chart. Obviously, I could create something way better if I had my scrapbooking supplies on me, but I’m a ‘make do with what you have’ kind of Troll, so it’s all good.”

  Harper stays inverted, but manages a nod, which…Good for her. That’s not so easy to do while in a headstand.

  I grab the sketchbook off the table and get to scribbling. What I wouldn’t give for a few photo corners. Or my sheet of butterfly stickers—so stinking cute. Or some satiny fabric. Or some double-sided tape. I’d give the kingdom for a pair of tweezers that make getting all those delicate objects into the right place a piece of cake.

  Oh, well. As pros-and-cons charts go, this one is perfectly serviceable.

  “Okay, Harper!” I cheer. “How do you want to start?”

  Harper flips upright and stares at me for a moment, and then her face falls. “That’s the problem. We saw tons of great entries, but I still don’t know. How am I supposed to pick the opening-night entry if I can’t even figure out where to start? This is hopeless. I should just give up now and forget about picking an e
ntry or having a gala or…even having a gallery.”

  Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. She’s in her head deeper than I thought. “Rein it in there, sister! We haven’t even begun, so you can’t go quitting on me yet.”

  Harper sighs.

  “We have ridiculously awesome options here. We just have to focus our thinking.”

  I grab the pros-and-cons chart and start writing the names of everyone who presented an exhibit. “We’ll go through all the entries in order and discuss the good and the even better parts of each. I’ll bet the decision will become crystal clear just from this.”

  I join Harper on the ground and plop the chart in front of us. I uncap the hot-pink pen I’ve stashed in my hair and put its feathered cap between my teeth.

  “ErkayweshtrartwichCorperrr.”

  Harper wrinkles her nose. “Huh?”

  I open my mouth and let the cap fall into my hand. “Whoops. Sorry. I said, ‘Okay, we start with Cooper.’ ”

  Harper still has a hesitant look on her face.

  I grab the clipboard that still has my rating cards from earlier on it and begin flipping through them.

  “Poppy, all of these cards match.”

  I glance over. “What now?”

  Harper puts her hands on her hips. “You rated every entry you saw ‘twenty thumbs up’!”

  “Well, sure, because I really, really, REALLY liked all of them. So much!”

  Harper sighs, but she can’t keep from grinning.

  I shrug and grin back. “Okay, so let’s get to work. We go in order, starting with breakfast. I mean, with Cooper, who happened to bring breakfast.”

  Harper laughs. “You mean dessert!” Then she quickly adds, “Not that I’m complaining. I’d be totally fine starting every morning with Tangerine Fudge Brownies!”

  Poppy nods. “And if you think about it, those French Toast Swirl Danishes with the bacon topping incorporated lots of breakfasty items: French toast, bacon…”

  Just thinking about that Danish makes me chew on the end of the pink pen in my mouth. Whoops! I absentmindedly swapped the cap for the pen, and now my mouth, lips, and tongue are an even hot-pinkier shade than normal.