Trolls Prequel Novel #2 Read online

  DreamWorks Trolls © 2017 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  rhcbooks.com

  ISBN 9781524713256 (trade) — ebook ISBN 9781524713270

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Early one bright and sunny morning, Poppy stood on the big stage in the center of Troll Village with her arms spread wide.

  “I hereby announce that Super-Scrapbooking Day is OFFICIALLY OPEN!” she proclaimed.

  “Hurray for our awesome Queen Poppy!” the Trolls cheered. “We love Super-Scrapbooking Day!”

  BOOM! Cannons fired clouds of sparkling glitter into the air! Thumping music got everyone moving and grooving, dancing and scrapbooking!

  Another celebration had begun in Troll Village. The Trolls loved holidays, so they had lots and lots of them. Practically every day of the year, they celebrated a special holiday. Super-Scrapbooking Day was a particular favorite of Poppy’s, since she adored scrapbooking. The whole day was dedicated to the tools and materials that made scrapbooking possible. Scissors! Felt! Glue! Glitter! Scraps! Pictures! Drawings!

  Super-Scrapbooking Day was jam-packed with fun activities. Harper, who loved art, showed the Trolls how to make their scrapbooks more artistic. King Peppy told young Trolls thrilling stories about the adventures of scrapbooking heroes in the olden days. Guy Diamond showed everyone how to dance new steps while they added the sparkle of glitter to their creations.

  “Now move your legs like they’re a pair of scissors!” Guy called out in his shimmery voice as he demonstrated the move. “Yeah! That’s it! Cut and cut and snip and snip. Now…glitter!”

  In the afternoon, there was a scrapbook parade with Trolls dressed up as bottles of glue and glitter. The tallest Troll, Biggie, wore a costume that made him look like a giant walking scrapbook. Biggie marched proudly through the village square carrying his pet worm, Mr. Dinkles, who was wearing a matching costume.

  “Oh, Mr. Dinkles!” Biggie cried. “This year’s parade is even more fun than last year’s!”

  “Mew!” said Mr. Dinkles.

  Everyone had put their best scrapbooks on display for all to admire. Judges strolled past, peering at the Trolls’ work and awarding prizes. Prettiest Scrapbook! Scrappiest Scrapbook! Glitteriest Scrapbook! Biggest Scrapbook! Tiniest Scrapbook! On Super-Scrapbooking Day, everyone was a winner.

  While wandering around the village admiring the beautiful scrapbooks, Poppy spotted Branch working hard on one of his own.

  “Branch!” she said, surprised. “You’re making a scrapbook? I thought you were against scrapbooking!”

  Branch looked up, happy to see her. “I never said that!” he insisted. “I mean, maybe once or twice you kind of drove me a little bit crazy with all your scrapbooking, but I never said I was against it.”

  “All right! Good for you!” Poppy said. “May I see your scrapbook?”

  Branch hastily hid it behind his back. “It’s not done,” he said. “I’m not really ready to show it to anyone yet. It’s actually my first scrapbook ever.”

  “Aw, c’mon!” Poppy said, grinning. “Gimme a sneak peek!”

  “Well…,” Branch said, hesitating, “okay. But promise you won’t laugh!” He slowly brought the small book out from behind his back.

  “I won’t laugh—no way! What’s the theme of your scrapbook?” Poppy asked eagerly. “Rainbows? Cupcakes? Oooh, I know! Rainbows made out of cupcakes!”

  Branch rolled his eyes. “Rainbows made out of cupcakes? How is that even possible?”

  “With scrapbooking, ANYTHING is possible!” Poppy enthused. “So what’s your theme?”

  “Rocks.”

  “Rocks?”

  “Yeah. Rocks.”

  Poppy looked confused. She’d seen scrapbooks dedicated to all kinds of things—birthdays, fashion shows, mushrooms, pets—but not rocks. She’d never even heard of a scrapbook about rocks. And she wasn’t sure why anyone would want to make one. But Branch was her friend, so she was willing to give rocks a chance.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Bring on the rocks!”

  Branch flipped through the thick pages of his scrapbook, showing Poppy what he’d done so far. Most of the pages featured lumpy gray rocks made of felt.

  “I think rocks are great!” he said. “You might even say that rocks rock!” He waited a moment for Poppy to laugh at his little joke. She didn’t. “Or you might not.” He frowned slightly.

  “I guess rocks are pretty cool,” Poppy said. “Kind of. I guess…um…like when you stub your toe on one and the fuzzy rock-felt squishes up between your toes and makes you giggle.”

  “Rocks are great for all kinds of reasons,” Branch said. “You can build a house with rocks. You can make a fire pit with rocks. You can hold things down so they don’t blow away….”

  “You can skip rocks across water,” Poppy suggested.

  “Really?” Branch asked. “Are you sure? Seems like they’d sink.”

  Poppy touched one of the rocks in Branch’s book.

  “Well, I think your scrapbook’s great!” she said.

  “You do?” Branch said, pleased. “Thanks!”

  “Just one small suggestion?”

  “What?”

  She looked around to see if anyone was listening. “More glitter,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Branch said, rubbing his chin. “Most rocks aren’t very glittery.”

  “But some are,” Poppy said. “And in my experience, you can never have too much glitter! Especially on Super-Scrapbooking Day!”

  With Branch participating, the holiday was an especially great success. The Trolls finished it off with a big bonfire, lots of cookies shaped like scrapbooks, and a special oversized scrapbook they made together to help them remember the occasion. They went to bed happy that night, even if they were worn out from all the scrapbooking, partying, dancing, and singing. But they had to rest up and get their strength back quickly, because New Hair’s Eve was just around the corner!

  Meanwhile, in Bergen Town, nobody had celebrated Super-Scrapbooking Day. It wasn’t a Bergen holiday. As a matter of fact, no day was really a Bergen holiday anymore.

  In the past, the Bergens had one big holiday: Trollstice. But they’d canceled it forever when they became friends with the Trolls, as Trollstice had unfortunately involved the eating of Trolls. Poppy and Bridget had shown the Bergens that being friends with Trolls made them happier than they’d feel eating them. And as King Gristle had said when he’d announced the permanent cancellation of Trollstice, “You can’t be friends with someone and eat them, too.”

  Not that the Bergens never had fun nowadays. They weren’t nearly as miserable as they’d been before the Trolls had helped them find the happiness inside themselves. They were perfectly capable of being happy. They just weren’t very good at it.

  One Bergen’s idea of fun was to organize a picnic at a mud puddle. Nobody came. In fact, even the Bergen who’d invited everyone to the picnic didn’t show up.

/>   Another Bergen thought it might be fun to play soccer with a wooden cube. She ended up in the hospital.

  One little Bergen discovered that when he hit an empty log with a stick, it made a nice sound. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! He tried to make up a happy song to go with the thwacking, but then the stick broke.

  Some Bergens invented a board game called Roll the Die and Move Your Piece Around the Square. But it wasn’t much fun, even if you won—which was hard to determine, anyway.

  None of these things seemed worth celebrating as a special holiday.

  So while the Trolls were having a wonderful time on Super-Scrapbooking Day, the Bergens had simply gone about their usual business, doing chores and the like, not anything particularly special.

  But what about Gristle, the king of the Bergens, and Bridget, his true love? What were those two lovebirds up to? Were they happy? Excited? Joyful? Thrilled?

  Actually…they were bored.

  “Boring! Boring!” cawed a big black Cawkoo outside a castle window. It fluffed up its black feathers and peeked in to see if anyone was listening. They weren’t.

  Inside, King Gristle and Bridget slouched on two thrones set up next to each other in the throne room. By the room’s dim light, Bridget read a copy of Bergen Beat magazine. She wore a small crown, a royal robe with a white fur collar and a jeweled clasp, and pink slippers. Gristle had a little keyboard on his lap. He was trying to play “Chopsticks,” but he couldn’t get past the first part without making a mistake.

  Gristle looked over at Bridget and sighed. He asked, “Anything interesting in your magazine?”

  “Not really,” she said, listlessly turning the pages. “Having fun with your keyboard?”

  “I think maybe it’s broken,” he answered. “It keeps making mistakes.”

  Bridget yawned. King Gristle started to slowly pick out the notes to “Chopsticks” again.

  A few more dull days went by….

  In Troll Village, Cooper walked around on his four Troll legs (twice the usual number for a Troll), collecting mail.

  “Mail!” he called cheerfully. “Bring out your mail!”

  After he’d gathered it all, he quickly delivered it. This was easy, since most of the time he only had to walk over to the next pod and hand its owner a card or a party invitation. “Here’s your mail!” he’d say cheerfully. “Enjoy!”

  But today’s batch of mail had a colorful envelope addressed to “King Gristle and Bridget, The Castle, Bergen Town.”

  “Bergen Town!” Cooper exclaimed. “Time to use the Zip Beetle Express!”

  Now that the Trolls and the Bergens were friends, they occasionally sent messages back and forth. It was a long way from Troll Village to Bergen Town (especially for a Troll), but luckily, some Zip Beetles were happy to help out. They loved nothing better than running, so if a Troll wanted to send a message to a Bergen, he or she had only to ask a Zip Beetle to carry it there.

  Cooper headed to the edge of Troll Village and shouted into the forest, “Zip Beetle Express, please!”

  In no time at all, a Zip Beetle appeared and took the envelope from him. Before Cooper could thank the critter, it had zipped off into the woods toward Bergen Town. When it started to slow down a tiny bit, another Zip Beetle took the envelope and zoomed away on its fresh, rested legs. After passing from critter to critter, the card reached the Bergen Town Post Office in record time!

  Unfortunately, the Bergen in charge of delivering mail was not speedy at all. When the Zip Beetle arrived with the envelope, the mail carrier roused himself from a soothing nap, stretched, and ambled across the room to the waiting critter.

  But when he saw who the envelope was addressed to, the carrier’s manner changed instantly.

  “King Gristle!” he yelped. “Gotta go!” He ran all the way to the castle as fast as his stiff Bergen legs could carry him, at one point leaping over a mud pud-dle, where no one was having a picnic. (Well, the Ber-gens never had picnics there.) Exhausted, he handed the envelope to one of the tall guards at the front gate.

  “For the king!” he said, gasping for breath.

  “Yeah, I figured,” the guard said. “Since you were running. For once.”

  Inside the castle, King Gristle and Bridget were still sitting on their thrones. They’d tried trading seats, but then determined that it didn’t make a difference.

  BOOM! The big wooden doors to the throne room swung open and hit the walls. An old family painting fell to the floor. CRASH!

  Gristle jumped. “How many times have I told you not to slam those doors?” he complained. “We really should install doorstops. The walls are getting all marked up.”

  Two guards strode across the vast room, their heavy steps echoing off the walls. One of the guards carried the envelope, which was covered in stars, rainbows, stickers, and glitter. Glitter stuck to the guard’s hand and fluttered to the floor.

  “Got another card from Troll Village,” he said, handing it to King Gristle with a respectful bow.

  “Oooh, yay!” Bridget cooed, leaning over to peek. “A card!”

  “Thanks, Todd,” King Gristle said.

  “I’m Chad,” the guard said. He pointed a thumb toward the other guard. “He’s Todd.”

  Todd waved at the king. “Hi,” he said sheepishly. Since he and Chad were identical twins dressed in identical uniforms, it was very difficult to tell them apart.

  But King Gristle kept trying. “Yup, got it. Chod and Tadd.”

  The guards shrugged and didn’t correct him. After all, he was the king.

  Bridget pointed at the sparkly envelope. “Oooh, look, Grissy,” she said happily. “It’s another holiday card from my friend Poppy!”

  Gristle peered at the card, reading the message inside. “ ‘Happy Catch Your Friend Day’? What if you drop her? I mean, we’re not insured for that kind of thing.”

  “Oh, I would never, ever drop Poppy,” Bridget said, placing the card on the fireplace mantel next to the dozens of other holiday cards from her Troll friend. “Never.”

  “Whatevs, babe,” King Gristle replied, shrugging. “The Trolls have so many holidays! Too many, if you ask me.” He walked over to the mantel and picked up a card at random. “Look at this one. It says ‘Happy Happy Holidays Day!’ For reals? Not for me. I mean, come on!”

  “Well, I think it’s kind of nice,” Bridget said, “having so much to celebrate.” She looked sadly at all the cards.

  Gristle saw that Bridget looked unhappy, so he tried to cheer her up.

  “Hey, Bridgie—we do cool stuff, too! I mean, what about all the awesome cards we’ve sent back to the Trolls? Huh?”

  At that very moment in Troll Village, Cooper was delivering a card from the Bergens to Poppy. Poppy eagerly tore open the plain brown envelope and looked at the card. She saw an awkward picture of Bridget and Gristle. The king held a handwritten sign that said MONDAY.

  “ ‘Monday,’ ” Poppy read. “Well, that’s…consistent.” She placed the card on the fuzzy wall of her pod next to several others like it. All the Trolls had pictures of Gristle and Bridget holding up signs with the days of the week written on them. “Branch…Bridget, um, sent another card….”

  She turned and saw Branch looking at himself in her mirror. He was making a face that looked tense. Painful, even.

  “What are you doing?” Poppy asked. “What’s happ-ening with your face? Are you about to barf? I’ll go get a trash can….”

  Branch shook his head. “No, I’m practicing my smile.” He saw his friend looking confused and tried to explain. “You know, I’m new to this whole being happy thing.”

  He tried again, stretching his lips open tightly. It didn’t look like a smile. More like a grimace. Or like he was about to bite someone. Poppy winced.

  “Oh! Well, here—let me help,” she offered. “Smiles are my jam!”

  “No, that’s okay. I can—” Branch protested.

  But Poppy put her hands on his face, trying to show him the right way to
smile. She pushed up the corners of his mouth. “Hmm…nope.” She pulled up his cheeks. “Gettin’ there…almost!” She pushed and pulled, moving the blue skin on his face around. “Cute, but not quite. Weird. Your face is being very frustrating.”

  Branch pulled away, shook his face, and tried to change the subject back to the greeting cards from the Bergens. He walked over to the wall and studied the dull cards Poppy had pinned up.

  “What is the deal with all these?” he asked. “ ‘MONDAY,’ ‘FRIDAY,’ ‘SUNDAY,’ ‘MID-MORNING’?”

  Poppy shrugged. “It’s like ever since Trollstice was canceled, the Bergens don’t have anything to look forward to! I feel really bad for them.”

  Poppy thought about the Bergens having nothing to look forward to, and it made her very sad—especially when she thought about her best friend, Bridget, never getting to celebrate a wonderful, fun holiday. She just had to do something for her bestie.

  Then, as if an explosion of colorful jelly beans and sparkling glitter had gone off in her head, Poppy got a GREAT BIG EXCITING IDEA!

  Branch saw the ecstatic look on Poppy’s face and instantly grew alarmed.

  “No, no, no!” he protested, holding both hands up. “I know what that look means. You’re about to hatch an elaborate plan that involves a lot of hugging, singing, dancing, and glitter!” He said the last word through tightly clenched teeth.

  Poppy grinned from ear to ear. “You know it!”

  Branch held up his hands again, this time in a calming gesture. “Poppy, please,” he said quietly. “I’m going home now. Promise me you’ll sleep on it before you rush into something, like you always do.”

  “Okay,” Poppy promised. “I won’t do anything.”

  But that night, Poppy lay in her bed with her eyes wide open and shining in the dark. She couldn’t possibly sleep. She was way too excited about her idea! She tossed and turned.