Trolls Prequel Novel (2 page)

M
y nose is the first part of me to clear the doorway, and it gets a pretty sticky surprise. It bumps into an envelope, which is hanging from the branch above my doorway.

Approximately 143 percent of the envelope is covered in stickers, and a couple of them are peeling at the edges.

“Oof!”
I hop back and swat at the air, batting the envelope free and catching it with a lock of my hair just before it flutters to the ground.

I hold it up and peer at the decorations. There are cupcake stickers and rainbow stickers and flower stickers. And cupcake-with-a-side-of-rainbow stickers, and rainbows-covered-in-flowers-and-cupcakes stickers and flowers-the-color-of-rainbow cupcakes stickers.

That's not all. When I shake it just a little, the envelope
ba-dum-dum
s.

I know
exactly
who this is from. I slide a finger underneath the tiniest bit of white edge poking out in one corner and gently peel the bottom layer of rainbow/cupcake/flower stickers until I can reach the contents. The whole thing erupts into an elaborate 3-D design of cut paper that forms the words
YOU'RE INVITED
!
Naturally, the invite is accompanied by a catchy jingle that spills out across the trees and mingles with the happy tunes already in the air.

I grin. I don't have to read the attached sheet fluttering free to know who it's from, but I peek anyway.

Yo, Harper!

What in the
hair
are you still doing at home reading this? Hop on a Caterbus and zip on over to your gallery, where you are cordially invited to join me in selecting the most fantabulous, the most splendiferous, the most perfectly perfect art exhibit ever! BYOA! (In case you forgot, this means Bring Your Own Awesome.) See ya soon!

Love and hugs,

Poppy

No surprise there. Poppy is mildly obsessed (in a good way) with anything related to scrapbooking and invitation-making. I'm fairly positive if her father, King Peppy, ever crowns her queen, every step of every day will be accompanied by elaborately decorated invitations. Such as:

To be honest, I'm not that positive the princess
hasn't
created invitations for these very things. Which I applaud. Creative expression at its finest.

There's another thing Poppy's right about. What
am
I still doing at home? There's work to be done—lots of it—if I want my gallery to open without a hitch. And wow, do I want that.

This time there are no obstacles in my way as I slip through the circular opening in my pod and straight onto the tufted leaves of the tree. I sink in only slightly before tumbling onto my very own slide, which winds and curves me around the trunk and deposits me—with a tiny hop on my part—onto the top of a velvety mushroom cap. I jump down onto a carpet of fuzzy grass.

Before I even have time to look around for one, a yellow-and-green-striped Caterbus, all silken hair and multiple, fast-moving legs, wanders by, and I hop aboard the transport.

I swivel my head left to right as we go, taking in my amazing village. The bright sun shines spotlights through the trees onto the Trolls swinging about on their hair, singing through their day. Flowery blossoms, leafy leaves, and vibrantly colored Troll pods sway gently in the breeze. A kaleidoscope of happy hues greets me wherever my head turns. Every last inch of Troll Village induces happiness.
My gallery will add even more!
It just has to. I really, really can't let
anything
stand in the way of that.

H
arper's gallery is like, whoa!

Or at least it
will be,
just as soon as we get through with it. At the moment it's a little, well…

Empty.

What I can see of it, anyway, since the entire back wall of the enormous pod is hidden by a big, billowy curtain with an
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
sign taped to it.

I itch for my scrapbooking supplies—I can practically hear it crying out for stickers.
Help me, Poppy! I need BeDazzling!

The same way the blue walls of this pod are calling out for more. They're a pretty blue; don't get me wrong. They're somewhere between the cornflower blue of my headband and the early-morning-sky blue of the eyelet dress I'm wearing. But they could also use dashes of warm summer greens and sticky gumdrop yellows and fruit-ripened reds and passionate purples and a plethora of pinks to rival my own color, and more and more and more, until there's not a single, solitary spot that doesn't scream “Fun!”

“Poppy? Are you in here?”

I stop, slowly spinning in place to take in the entire gallery, then turn toward Harper's voice.

“Sure am!” My words bounce around the cavernous space, and I chase after them as I rush to greet Harper in the doorway. “Harper, this whole place is WOW! I can't believe you envisioned all of it in your head and now you're bringing it to life before our eyes!”

I wait for my friend's face to light up, but instead she bites her lip and her eyes dart around the pod.

“Do you really think it works?” Harper asks, and I catch a note of doubt in her voice.

Oh,
this
needs fixing fast. What the situation requires is a Poppy-patented pep talk, pronto. Luckily, I'm almost as good at those as I am at scrapbooking.

I pop my fists onto my hips. “Harper! Are you kidding me? You're following your biggest dream in the whole world—of
course
it's gonna be perfect! You had the exact vision for what you wanted, and just look!”

I fling my arms wide to indicate the enormity of what she's already done. “All this place needs are some final touches, and your gallery will knock out all of Troll Village at next week's opening! The gala's going to be the biggest thing to happen since…since…well, I can't even think of a since, because that's how enormously big it's going to be! Every single Troll in the village will be here!”

Harper tugs at her earlobe and grimaces. “That's kind of what I'm afraid of. That means every single Troll in Troll Village could be a witness to my failure. It's a lot of pressure. What if I can't pull it off?”

I can't even. How can she not see how amazing she is? “What exactly are you worried about, Harp?”

She sighs. “That I won't find the perfect exhibit to wow everyone.”

“We,” I reply breezily.

“Huh?”

“You mean that
we
won't find the perfect exhibit, which we will, since that's what I'm here for today. To help. I'm not going to let this opening be anything less than perfect, since that's exactly what you deserve. Plus, not finding an exhibit isn't even a possibility, because we have a zillion Trolls signed up to show off their creations today. Wait here!”

I put up my hand to tell her to stay there while I run across the pod to the opposite wall. Then I grab the clipboard I tucked underneath a mushroom stool I dragged in here earlier. The jewels I used to decorate the back of it capture the light pouring in from the open door of the pod and send twinkling sparkles onto the ceiling.

Hmm.
I wonder if we could do something with those light effects. I pause for a second to think about the supplies we'd need, but then I quickly snap out of brainstorming mode when I catch sight of Harper's frown.

“Look!” I say, rushing over to her, sticking the sign-up sheets right under her nose. “One, two, three, four…” I pause, lick my finger, and separate the top sheet from the one below. I flip to the next page. “…five, six, seven, eight…” I lick my finger again and prepare for more flipping. “Do I need to go on?”

Harper's face
finally
relaxes into a smile. “No, I get it. You're right; it's simple math. With this many to choose from, somewhere on that list has to be
the
exhibit. Thanks, Poppy.”

I hug her. “Don't mention it! Now let's get ourselves all set up. How about in front of that mysterious curtain you've got up back there? Which you can feel free to spill the dirt on anytime now…” I pause to see if she's going to give me any hints, but she just shrugs, a little grin dancing at the corner of her lips.
Hmph.
Good thing I like a surprise as much as the next Troll.

I pick right up where I left off. “Or over there, where it's quietest, so we can hear each other. Ooh! Do you think instead of talking out our opinions for each submission, we should use rating cards?”

I flip past the sign-up sheets to the next bundle of pages on the clipboard. “I had a little spare time, so I whipped up some options with my scrapbooking supplies. Okay—with this version, we can use a sticker system. Put one heart on this square here for ‘love it, love it, love it' and two for— Oh, ick, I left the stickers behind in my pod. Okay, doesn't matter because I also have these cards here, which use flowers to indicate— Why are you laughing at me?”

Harper smiles and shrugs. “You're just so…you.”

I make a goofy face at her.

“No, I mean that in a good way,” she says. “You're going to make today really fun, when it could have been so much more stressful. Thanks.”

“It's what I do,” I say nonchalantly. When Harper laughs, I grin. “So, should we call in the first Troll or what? Let's get this party started!”

“Go for it,” she agrees.

Eek!
This is going to be So. Much. Fun.

“
Hair
we go!”