Trolls Prequel Novel Read online

  I gather my stuff before leaving the gallery behind and zipping my way to my home pod.

  “I’m home!” I call to my potted flower. “Man, did you miss some day!”

  As I chat, I pull out a fresh canvas and plop it onto my easel. The second I have wet paint on the tips of my hair, I feel a million times better.

  I brush paint onto the canvas and let my mind get wrapped up in all the tiny little decisions: where to dab the next bit, which color to choose next, how light or how heavy a stroke to use. My brain starts to hum and I’m in a zone. My breaths deepen. I’m not thinking about galleries, or exhibits, or really anything beyond the here and now.

  After an hour or so, I step back.

  “What do you think?” I ask, biting my lip as I concentrate on the picture from this viewpoint. I receive a happy hum from Flower in return.

  “Yup, I agree,” I say, stepping close to the canvas again.

  I’m painting a landscape of the view from my pod, and I’m trying to capture the velvety texture of the leaves that dangle just outside the opening—only, something’s not quite right. I think I need to add a minty green on top of the forest green I’ve used.

  This is the stage of a painting that I love the most: when the initial image is captured, but then I get to tweak and add here and there to give everything more depth and make the work pop off the canvas. It’s the combination of all those layers working together that—

  I sit down hard on my floor, not even caring that I’ve landed in a wet glob of paint that dripped from my hair earlier.

  Oh.

  Oh, whoa.

  That’s it!

  I rush over to Flower and grab him off the windowsill, clutching him to my chest and spinning us in circles. “I know exactly what would make the PERFECT exhibit for the gala.”

  He does a little dance with his petals.

  “Poppy was right—I DID have it in me!” I exclaim. “I just had to get out of my own way and step back and do my own thing for a bit.”

  The fizziness is back in my belly. I can’t decide if it’s more from excitement over the exhibit itself—because now I can see it all unfolding in my mind and it’s whoa to the seventh degree!—or pride over having figured it out on my own, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve finally got it!

  I whip my hair ahead of me, using it to swing myself out of the pod and across the treetops. I have no time to waste and a thousand things to do.

  This gala is going to be amazing!

  Poppy

  Harper’s making me laugh with her endless to-do lists of stuff we have to complete before the gala. I may have left her alone to make the final decision on the exhibit, but I would never abandon her when it comes to prepping for the big night.

  The most pressing order of business is letting all of Troll Village know something big is about to go down. After all, you can’t very well throw the party of the century if no one knows about it, now, can you?

  Clearly, this requires an invitation. My specialty. Ordinarily, I would spare no embellishment. But this time is different. I want to set the tone for the evening by giving the other Trolls exactly the opposite of what they’ll be expecting.

  Yep. I will go minimal. For the first time ever, EVER.

  The invitation I create is as stark as can be. It’s a simple white card—not even one rainbow sticker—with only two words in its center: Come experience.

  That’s it.

  I can just imagine everyone’s eyes going all wide when they get their invitation, their chests burning with curiosity. That’s the effect I’m going for and the attitude Harper wants every Troll coming to the gala with.

  Of course, me being me, I can’t resist stuffing the envelopes with masses of hot-pink confetti. After all, you have to give your audience a little idea of what to expect.

  Harper

  It’s here. The big night.

  The opening of my gallery, and I…might just skip it. I don’t think anyone would notice. I’m a giant bundle of nerves, so it might be better for everyone if I just sit this one out.

  “Hold still, Harper! We have to make some final adjustments,” Satin says.

  Chenille asks, “Can you please pass us those hairpins?”

  “Of course,” I answer, not letting on about how hard it is to speak over the giant lump in my throat.

  Okay, so a few people would notice if I wasn’t there, such as the twin Trolls, who are currently in my pod, making me sparkly for the occasion. They tuck and pull, and tug and shift, and then they step back to admire their work.

  “Beautiful,” they say together, spinning me to face my mirror.

  “Oooooh!” Well, that does kind of settle it. There’s no way this dress can skip tonight. And if I’m being perfectly honest, there’s no way I’d really miss tonight, either. I’m way too excited to see everything I envisioned come to life under one roof. And to see every Troll’s face when it does! I cannot let my nerves get the best of me now.

  The dress is a Satin and Chenille original that the fashionistas have named Big Night. I’m standing before the mirror in a shimmery floor-length gown made from a silk so light, it ripples like water at my slightest movement. The material twinkles when any light catches it, as it does now when I spin slowly while craning my neck to watch my reflection.

  And my hair! They twisted it into a complicated style that is part braid and part bun, and ties at the nape of my neck. As a finishing touch to cap off the entire look, they draped me with a chiffon scarf painted to mimic a swirling galaxy.

  It is worthy of one thousand exclamation points.

  “You guys are amazing,” I say, and my voice cracks a little.

  “No time for getting goopy on us,” Satin says, “because—”

  “—we need to hurry,” Chenille adds. “We still have tons of setting up to do for our collection once we reach the gallery. You ready?”

  I take a look around, then sneak one last peek at my reflection. I smile. “Yes!”

  Flower waves goodbye with his leaves as we exit the pod. We step onto a branch, and our eyes immediately go to the sky, where tall beams of light are crisscrossing the stars in wide, sweeping arcs that go all the way to the horizon. The lights are a glittering beacon that screams, “SOMETHING VERY VIP IS HAPPENING HERE!” And the lights are coming from MY gallery. My heart swells, and my cheeks flush with pride. This rivals the best feelings I’ve ever had!

  We waste no time sliding to the ground and hopping on a Caterbus, even though that is a slightly tricky task in a floor-length gown. We cross Troll Village quickly, and when we pull up below my gallery, there’s a crackling and zipping energy in the air. It sends a happy shiver up my spine, and the nerves are now completely gone. I can’t believe tonight’s finally here!

  Even though we won’t be letting anyone in for a bit yet, the first bunch of Trolls are beginning to gather at the end of the long red carpet that unfurls to the tree trunk that’s home to my gallery. Poppy and I are the only ones who know for sure that the carpet is red, though, because at the moment, every last inch of it is covered in a bed of pale pink flower petals deep enough to hide a Troll’s entire foot and his or her ankle, too.

  The twins hop off the Caterbus. “Coming, Harper?” they ask, smiling from ear to ear. “You don’t want to miss one minute of your big night, do you?”

  “You go ahead. I just want to take all this in,” I tell them. I know they have tons of final details to wrap up, and so do I, actually, but I promised myself I wouldn’t be too preoccupied to enjoy every bit of tonight.

  Satin and Chenille wink at me. “See you in there.”

  I crane my neck to watch the lights in the sky, then let my eyes follow them down to the hanging gallery pod, which dazzles under the fairylike lights of a hundred sparking Glowflies lining the entrance and all the edges, twinkling happily.

  “It’s so perfect,” I say. “Better than I dreamed!”

  “Eep! I’m so psyched to hear you say that!” a voice squeals behind me
, and I spin (also not easy in a floor-length gown) to find Poppy standing at my side. Her grin matches mine.

  I grab her and give her the biggest squishy Troll hug to put every other Troll hug ever given to shame. And that’s saying a lot, because Trolls hug basically all the time.

  “We did it!” I say.

  “You did it.” Poppy casually flicks a bit of hair from her face and winks at me. “Of course, I never doubted you.”

  “Yeah, well, I may have picked the exhibit, but you have to claim half the credit for everything that came before and after.”

  Poppy smiles, doing a little dance. Then her smile flattens and she turns serious. “I’m just glad you get to enjoy tonight the way you deserve to, knowing you found the perfect opening exhibit.”

  I sigh happily. “I really did, didn’t I?”

  Poppy bounces on her heels. “All on your own. Also, you look fantabulous. My outfit is still backstage, because I didn’t want to get it dirty while I handled setup here. Well, and I was waiting for Satin and Chenille to help me figure out how to put it on. I can neither confirm nor deny that I might have attempted it myself already, but trying to get the straps in the right places was like trying to untangle one of Smidge’s complicated crochet projects.”

  I giggle, and Poppy puts a hand to her mouth. She gestures at the curtain hanging above the entrance. “Hey, speaking of Smidge…before we head in, did you mean for that to stay up there? What’s it covering, anyway? When I got here, Smidge said I wasn’t allowed to mess with it until you arrived.”

  I smile and waggle my eyebrows. “Well…I needed to keep one tiny surprise from you. Remember how you were giving me a hard time for not including any of my own art at the gallery? And about not having a name for it?”

  “Hard time? That isn’t exactly how I remember it.”

  I roll my eyes, laughing. “You know what I mean. I was listening, and—”

  I raise my fingers to my mouth and let loose with my signature whistle. Smidge appears almost instantly.

  “You rang?” Smidge says in her deep voice.

  I grin at her. “It’s showtime.”

  “On it!” she replies. She flexes her muscles and cracks her knuckles, then grabs hold of the bottom of the tree trunk and shimmies effortlessly up to the pod. She loops the ends of her hair once, twice, three times around the branch and drops herself so she’s lined up perfectly with the top of the entrance.

  “Ready?” she calls down to me.

  I turn to my left. “Poppy, may I be the first to welcome you to…”

  Then I nod at Smidge, who whisks off the sheet to reveal a painted sign that reads FOLLOW YOUR ART GALLERY.

  Poppy whoops and claps. “Okay, you get the mike drop on this one. That name’s a zillion times better than any of my suggestions. And the paint! Whoa!”

  I made each letter end in curlicues that look like elaborate vines with teardrop-shaped leaves. Hidden in the design and bursting out of all the open spaces inside the Os and the As are butterflies I made using every color of the spectrum. Critters march along the edges. As we watch, real butterflies that have been positioned perfectly on top of their painted versions suddenly take flight, and actual ladybugs move into place on the borders. The overall effect is that the whole sign is a living, breathing thing.

  “Wow” is all Poppy can manage, and I sigh in satisfaction.

  “I know, right? They’re going to keep doing that all night while everyone arrives.”

  Poppy takes it all in for another moment, then turns to me. “Speaking of arriving Trolls, we’d better get in there if we want the inside of this gala to match the incredible outside.”

  “Agreed,” I reply.

  We link arms and glide along the red carpet and up to the entrance of the gallery, where everything—and then some—awaits us.

  Poppy

  The first thing Harper and I see when get inside is chaos. Utter and complete setting-up chaos in every direction we look.

  Luckily, Harper seems calm, now that she’s here and taking it all in.

  We head immediately for the back wall of the pod, which was mysteriously hidden on the day of judging. Now it’s on full display for everyone to see. I can see why Harper wanted to keep it a secret.

  The entire wall is one cascading sheet of water collecting in a narrow little pool filled with rocks at the bottom. Behind the waterfall, a zillion different words and quotes about art and creativity shimmer in silver paint. And she’s got these spotlights on them, so the whole pod glows and shimmers.

  It’s perfect. I’m so proud of her!

  I look away from it just in time to avoid bumping into the raised runway that juts into the center of the pod, and I veer us both around it and point us toward the far corner instead. That’s where I’ve set up a makeshift backstage to put Satin and Chenille’s racks filled with awesome fashion creations.

  “Who’s ready to diva me up?” I joke, poking my head behind the divider and startling both twins.

  They recover quickly. “Oh, we’re prepped for you, Poppy.”

  In about two seconds, they have me dressed in a funky yellow dress that looks awesome next to all my shades of pink. So. Rad. The crisscrossing straps I couldn’t figure out at all earlier are a cinch for the twins. The fashionistas wind the straps this way and that until they meet in a happy bow at my waist. L-O-V-E it!

  I twirl for Harper, who clasps her hands together in front of her lips. “Every time I think those two have outdone themselves, they rock it again.”

  I grin. “Yup. Lucky model here. Now that we’re both looking fabulous, let’s start the show.”

  I give Satin and Chenille quick hugs, then let them get back to work. Harper and I cross the pod once again, and when we reach the entrance and look down, we see a line of Trolls that stretches practically into tomorrow.

  “Wow,” breathes Harper.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  She takes a super-deep breath and then exhales with a smile. “Mm-hm.”

  “Okay, party people, get your hair in here!” I yell down.

  It takes about three seconds before the entire pod is filled with excited Trolls. This is going to be fun!

  “Microphone’s all set—I tested it earlier,” I tell Harper. “Whenever you’re ready…”

  “Awesome,” she answers, and leaves me to step up on the runway. At first nobody but me notices she’s up there because they’re so busy chattering and hugging hellos.

  She holds the mike close to her mouth. “Excuse me, everyone?”

  I can barely hear her words over the volume of talking in the pod.

  I watch from below as Harper puts two fingers in her mouth and takes a deep breath in around them.

  Wheeeee­eeeee­eeeee­eeetttt!

  The silence is both instant and total. I’m tempted to giggle about that, but Harper looks completely unfazed as all eyes turn to her. She taps the microphone twice and then speaks into it, looking more confident than I’ve ever seen her.

  “Welcome to Follow Your Art Gallery,” she says, “and thank you all for being here to share this special night. When I first envisioned this space, the nitty-gritty details of it were quite fuzzy to me, but I knew one thing: I wanted it to celebrate the art that is all around us in Troll Village. There’s so much art we surround ourselves with every day here—singing, dancing, hugs, friends, love…” She pauses and winks. “And hair…”

  Riotous laughter from the crowd. She has them wrapped around her finger. She smiles, then grows serious. “And to be very honest, initially I thought I had to pick just one example of the wonderful art here so I could highlight that tonight and wow you all. If I could just tell you how hard I was on myself trying to figure all this out…It took Poppy, some painting on my part, and seeing a whole bunch of you talented Trolls, one after the other, to open my eyes to something. And that’s this: if what I really wanted was to celebrate the art all around us, then the perfect opening exhibit should be just that. All the art. All around
us.”

  She stops dramatically, just like we practiced, and puts her hands up above her head. There’s still a hush over the crowd, and a few Trolls jump when she claps her hands sharply.

  The lights above snap off, and the whole pod gets plunged into total darkness. Everyone gasps out at once, and there’s a collective “Oh!” from the crowd. A rustling sound lets everybody know that something is happening, but aside from a handful of us, no one knows what it is.

  There’s another double clap, and the entire runway lights up the second DJ Suki’s brand-new dance beat pulses through the space. From the ceiling, a whirling figure drops down by her hair, tumbling through the air. It’s Smidge, and when she hits the runway, she launches into a crazy-complicated tumbling routine of flips and roundoffs that rockets her from one end of the runway to the other and back again. Every bounce and tumble is in perfect time to the music.

  Exactly as I predicted, the whole audience explodes into cheers. Ha! They don’t even realize that this is only the beginning of what’s to come. Now all the lights in the pod come up and everyone turns in place as it hits them that they’re surrounded by art anywhere they look.

  Every wall is covered with Biggie’s pictures of Mr. Dinkles, which we hid behind curtains Harper painted to perfectly match the inside of the pod, so no one even realized they were there when they came in. And Cooper and his helpers are threading through the audience with trays of his brand-new cupcake flavor, Rainbow Reveal, in honor of Harper and her big night. Smidge takes her act to the air above everyone, leaving the runway clear for Satin and Chenille’s newest clothing collection, which is marched down the aisle by a parade of Trolls who model all the different looks.

  If my heart is about to burst out of my chest from all this excitement, I can only imagine what Harper must be feeling. I have to find her!

  As I weave through Trolls craning their necks to look every which way until I get to the base of the runway, I find Harper giving Guy Diamond last-minute instructions for the glitter show that will transform the pod in a few minutes.