Trolls Prequel Novel (8 page)

“T
he question for you is—” Satin begins.

“—how adventurous are you feeling?” Chenille finishes.

Do they even need to ask? I'm an artiste. We love a little crazy more than the next Troll. I don't even blink before answering, “For sure!”

The two of them speak some kind of twin shorthand as they pull item after item off the rack, holding some up and then letting them fall to the floor as they reach for others. There are fashions strewn everywhere by the time they finally nod at each other. I've been standing just off to the side, not wanting to get in their way, but now they gesture for me to join them. This time, they step through their hair and join me in their makeshift dressing room so they can help me out of one outfit and into the next. I can't see much of what they're doing as they adjust something here and pull at something else there, but I am prepared to be
dazzled.

When they're done, they take me out and spin me to face the mirror. All I can do is stare in wonderment.

My hair has been spiked in every which direction, and a bird's nest (or possibly a fascinator?) has been propped in the center of my head. Little fuzzy branches are sticking out at odd angles. My face is partly covered by a mask over my eyes that swoops up at the edges like dragonfly wings. It has tiny detailed veining outlined in delicate seed beads that curve across the bridge of my nose. Whoa.

But that's not even all. From the tips of my toes to the edges of my fingertips and all the way up to the top of my neck, I'm wrapped in this netting made of…I don't know what. I just know it's beautiful. Some of it looks like grass, and other parts seem to be braided hair, and all over it, brightly colored flower petals peek out.

“We call this
Dawn in the Rushes,
” the twins proclaim in unison.

Satin and Chenille glued bits of feathers with tiny rhinestones onto them to make them dramatic, and I have to give them so many props for thinking of every last detail, like the true artists they so clearly are.

“Like it?” they ask. But their smug smiles tell me they know exactly how wowed I am.

“I wish Poppy were here to see this!”

She would be on her feet, giving Satin and Chenille a standing ovation.

I can barely look away from my reflection in the mirror. “It's so unexpected. And creative.”

I hate to take the outfit off, but it's given me a true sense of what they're capable of, from an exhibit perspective. My gaze becomes a little unfocused as I consider an exhibit of the twins' clothing. “They'd have to edit the looks, that much is clear.” I'm thinking so hard, I murmur out loud. “We'd need to create a distinct collection for display, with its own unique point of view.” I pause and glance around the space. “
How
would we display them? Mannequins? Under glass in a display case, so visitors could get the full 360-degree view?”

I shouldn't be worrying about this just now, because I know there are still more entries to go. Even without Poppy's schedule, I'm sure we—
I,
at the moment—must be way behind schedule. With one last (long!) look into the mirror, I sigh and duck back into the changing room.

I come out in my own smock and gesture at its stark whiteness. “I know this keeps me from wearing my art when I paint,” I say to the twins, “but your clothes made me feel like I was wearing one of my paintings in an entirely different way. I'm in awe of your work. I bow to you both.”

Satin and Chenille wink at each other. “We love that you love it.”

“I do. I really do.”

I let my eyes fall to the piles of clothes on the floor and grimace. “This looks like my pod when I'm making a collage.”

Satin makes a face at the mess, but Chenille just shrugs. “We'll handle it.”

I drop to the ground and begin scooping clothes closer to me. “Don't be silly. I'll help!”

Satin yanks a handful of empty hangers off the rack next to her and passes them down to me. I'm just slipping the strap of a dress onto one when something falls free.

I gasp!

“Mr. Dinkles's hat!”

“What?” Satin and Chenille crowd beside me, and the three of us peer at the teeny-tiny black top hat. I glance up at the closest wall, which is still covered in portraits of Mr. Dinkles.

“There's no denying, it's an exact match,” I breathe.

“No denying,” both agree.

“Omigosh, he must be somewhere in this pile of clothes!” I kneel in front of them and begin tossing pieces left and right. “I hope he can breathe in there! Don't worry, Mr. Dinkles, we're coming for you!”

Immediately, all three of us begin separating tops, dresses, hats, and skirts from the pile, gently but urgently shaking each one out.

“I found it!” I cry at one point, bringing the clothes-tossing to a halt.

“Mr. Dinkles is a
him,
Harper!” Satin says.

I hang my head. “Drat, I know. I didn't find him. I found Poppy's missing clipboard,” I reply, holding it up. The dazzling gems glued to its back catch the rays of sun filtering in. They wink in the light, but it's a hollow victory. Mr. Dinkles is the only missing thing I care about finding right now.

“Oh,” Satin says.

Chenille's forehead wrinkles. “I didn't even know we were looking for a clipboard.”

“We weren't, exactly.” I drop back to my knees and dig into the pile of clothes again. “Come on, Mr. Dinkles. Where are you?”

Both girls smile and resume their own search. We study the items for any signs of movement as we do so. Every pocket gets turned inside out, every sleeve and pant leg examined.

Once all of the clothes have been turned inside out, we have bare floor in front of us, and clothing strewn every which way behind us.

What we don't have is a pet worm.

Or any sign of him.

“This stinks,” I say. “I really thought we'd found him.”

Satin nods sadly, and Chenille's smile is sympathetic. “We'll look through each one just as carefully again as we hang everything up,” Satin says.

I sigh and get to my feet. “Definitely. Let's be twice as thorough. If he's here and we're missing it, I'd feel terrible.”

Allowing for careful rechecks, it takes quite a while to hang each item, but there's no other sign of Mr. Dinkles. Eventually, we all exchange hopeless glances.

“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.

“O
oooof!”

“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, racing 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.