Guy Diamond and the Rainbow Roundup (DreamWorks Trolls) Page 4

  “You said he’d be here!” Guy Diamond said.

  “I said he might be here,” Cloud Guy corrected him. “Or that he’d probably be here. Actually, I forget what I said.”

  Guy frowned. “All I know is I don’t see a guy who looks like you with a black mustache and a beard, and I don’t see the missing rainbows. We’ve come all this way for nothing!”

  Cloud Guy patted the air with his blue hands. “Okay, calm down. Did you think Evil Cloud Guy would just be standing here with all the rainbows, waiting for us to come and catch him?”

  Guy Diamond looked at his feet. Actually, that was pretty much exactly what he’d been thinking. Or at least hoping.

  “He’s undoubtedly lurking somewhere, scheming in his dark lair,” Cloud Guy explained. “That’s what evil dudes do.”

  DJ Suki took a couple of steps toward the entrances to the shadowy tunnels. “Should we start searching these tunnels?” she asked. “Maybe he’s hiding in one of them.”

  Cloud Guy put a hand on her shoulder. “Uh, no. I don’t think we should start poking around in those tunnels. That’s just asking for trouble. As in, CERTAIN DEATH! Death…death…death…”

  Guy Diamond studied Cloud Guy’s face, trying to get a good read on his intentions. Was he stalling? Would he go off and disappear, then come back wearing a fake mustache and beard, pretending to be Evil Cloud Guy?

  DJ Suki put her face close to Cloud Guy’s. “Then what do you suggest? What are we supposed to do?”

  Cloud Guy smiled calmly. “We won’t go to Evil Cloud Guy. We’ll get Evil Cloud Guy to come to us.”

  Guy Diamond looked confused. “How are we supposed to do that?”

  “Well,” Cloud Guy said confidently, flicking his fingers and lacing them behind his head, “lucky for you, I know exactly how to coax Evil Cloud Guy out of hiding.”

  “And how is that?” DJ Suki asked skeptically.

  Cloud Guy looked around. He beckoned to DJ Suki and Guy Diamond with a finger. They moved closer to him, and the three of them leaned into a huddle, putting their heads together.

  “He can’t resist a chance to be evil,” Cloud Guy whispered. “That’s his weakness. Okay? Since we know that, we can use it against him.”

  “How?” Guy Diamond whispered back.

  “Listen and learn,” Cloud Guy said, straightening. In a loud voice, he said, “Oh, look! A sweet little kid’s drawing! He spent all morning drawing it! He’s SO proud of his drawing! It sure would be a terrible shame if someone ripped it up!”

  He stood still, waiting.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then, up in the sky, they heard chuckling. They looked, and saw a cloud sprout legs and walk down a tree. He was the same size as Cloud Guy. In fact, he looked exactly like him—except for his black mustache and short black beard.

  Evil Cloud Guy.

  “It’s him,” DJ Suki hissed.

  “I guess Cloud Guy was telling the truth,” Guy Diamond whispered.

  Evil Cloud Guy looked around for the child’s drawing he’d heard Cloud Guy talking about. But when he saw Cloud Guy, he walked right up to him and stood there, facing him.

  “So,” he growled, “it’s you.”

  “So,” Cloud Guy said, “it’s me.”

  They circled each other with their hands out, ready for anything.

  “Where’s the drawing?” Evil Cloud Guy snarled, his eyes narrowing.

  “What drawing?” Cloud Guy asked inno-cently.

  “You know perfectly well which drawing I mean,” said Evil Cloud Guy. “The one you were talking about. The one by the sweet little kid, that he spent all morning making. Where is it?”

  “Oh, that drawing!” Cloud Guy said. “Funny thing about that drawing. Turns out it wasn’t a drawing at all. It was a leaf.” He stopped circling Evil Cloud Guy and bent to pick up a leaf from the ground. “This leaf, as a matter of fact.”

  Evil Cloud Guy stared at him. “You mistook a leaf for a child’s drawing.”

  “Yup.”

  “That he spent all morning on.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And that he was really proud of.”

  “Correct.”

  Evil Cloud Guy looked disgusted. “If it were anyone else, I’d say that was ridiculous. But because it’s you, I believe it.”

  Cloud Guy smiled. “Thank you!”

  DJ Suki had heard enough of this talk about a drawing that didn’t even exist. She ran up to Evil Cloud Guy and pointed at him. “Why did you steal the rainbows?” she said.

  Sneering, Evil Cloud Guy slowly turned and looked DJ Suki up and down. “And just who are you supposed to be?”

  “I’m not supposed to be anyone,” she said, shrugging. “I am DJ Suki.”

  Evil Cloud Guy raised his eyebrows. Then he laughed. “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  Guy Diamond stepped up next to his friend. “What’s so funny? She asked you a question! Why did you steal the rainbows?”

  “Who are you, Sparkle Nose?” Evil Cloud Guy asked, giving Guy Diamond a withering look.

  Guy folded his arms across his chest, matching DJ Suki’s pose. “I’m Guy Diamond,” he said in his strongest voice. “The Troll who’s asking you why you stole the rainbows!”

  Putting his hands behind his back, Evil Cloud Guy took a couple of slow steps away from Guy and DJ Suki. “Well, I’d never heard that Trolls are so rude. You barge into my evil clearing without knocking or saying hello. Then you accuse me of being a thief! Without the slightest shred of evidence, I might add.”

  Cloud Guy noticed something. “Um, excuse me, but you’ve got something in your fluff.” He reached over to the back of Evil Cloud Guy’s head and pulled out a small, colorful scrap. He held it up for all to see.

  “Look at those colors!” DJ Suki cried.

  “Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet,” Cloud Guy observed. “In that order.”

  “That’s a piece of rainbow!” Guy Diamond exclaimed. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Gimme that!” Evil Cloud Guy snapped, snatching the striped scrap out of Cloud Guy’s hand. “That’s not a piece of rainbow! It’s a piece of…gum!”

  “Fine,” Cloud Guy said. “Chew it.”

  Evil Cloud Guy looked at the colorful fragment in his hand. Then he looked at the others, who were staring at him, waiting. He popped the scrap into his mouth.

  PTOOEY! He spat it out onto the ground. “Yuck! Who knew rainbows tasted so bad?”

  “Rainbows!” Guy Diamond said accusingly. “AHA! I knew it! Where are they? What have you done with them?”

  Evil Cloud Guy began to slowly back away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Then he turned and ran!

  “After him!” DJ Suki shouted. Again, this was unnecessary, since Guy Diamond and Cloud Guy had started chasing Evil Cloud Guy the second he took off.

  Guy had thought Evil Cloud Guy would run straight into one of the dark tunnels, but he didn’t. Instead, he ran deeper into the Increasingly Dark Forest.

  True to its name, it got increasingly darker.

  For one thing, it got so dark that DJ Suki was glad Guy Diamond was super glittery; otherwise, she might not have been able to see to follow him as he pursued Evil Cloud Guy.

  The temperature kept dropping. It got colder and colder as they went deeper into the woods. Running helped keep them warm.

  The wind howled and blew into their faces, and their long Troll hair was blown straight back behind them. They couldn’t whip it forward to wrap around a branch if they tried.

  “STOP!” Guy Diamond shouted into the roaring wind. “Come back here, Evil Cloud Guy!” But his only answer was an evil laugh as he kept running beneath the gloomy trees, which were bent low over the path.


  “I agree with the shiny dude!” Cloud Guy said, breathing hard. “Stop! I like working out as much as the next guy, but this is WAY too much running.”

  “Where’s he going, anyway?” DJ Suki asked.

  “I’ve got a feeling he’s going to lead us straight to the stolen rainbows!” Guy Diamond shouted. Evil Cloud Guy ran around a bend in the path.

  “Keep up with him!” DJ Suki said. “Don’t let him get away!”

  Guy Diamond pushed himself to run even faster. But when he reached the bend, he saw…

  The path ahead was empty! Evil Cloud Guy was nowhere in sight. Guy Diamond stopped running.

  WHUMP! WHUMP! DJ Suki and Cloud Guy bumped into him.

  “Oops!” DJ Suki said.

  “Sorry!” Cloud Guy said.

  DJ Suki looked at the empty path. “Hey, where’d he go?”

  “I don’t know,” Guy said. “It’s like he just disappeared.” He turned to Cloud Guy. “Is that possible? Can Evil Cloud Guy disappear?”

  Cloud Guy shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him do it, but maybe he’s been practicing.”

  “Wait a minute,” DJ Suki said, looking at the ground. “What’s this?”

  Behind a rock, there was a big hole.

  “Is it a tunnel?” Guy asked, peering in.

  “Nope,” Cloud Guy said. “Not a tunnel. That is a hole.”

  The three of them stood around the hole, looking into it. They couldn’t see very far.

  “Evil Cloud Guy could definitely fit in there,” DJ Suki said. “HEY!” she yelled into the hole. “ARE YOU IN THERE, EVIL CLOUD DUDE?”

  Silence.

  “I guess one of us could go into the hole and look,” Guy Diamond suggested, though he didn’t much like the idea of jumping into a dark hole in the ground.

  Cloud Guy quickly touched his nose. “Not it!” he declared.

  “Maybe we should all go together,” DJ Suki said. They stood at the edge of the hole, thinking. No one was enthusiastic about the idea of going down into a dark hole. But they didn’t want Evil Cloud Guy to get away, either.

  “Hey, do you hear that?” Cloud Guy asked.

  “Hear what?” Guy asked.

  “Down in the hole,” Cloud Guy said. “I hear something. Like something’s…coming.”

  They each took a step back from the hole. They all could hear it now. Something was moving under the ground, sliding against pebbles and clumps of dirt. Then—

  A long, colorful creature slithered out of the hole, headfirst. Its big mouth was wide open!

  GRAAAARRRRRGH!

  “It’s a Coilencrawler!” Guy cried. “And it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen!”

  “The biggest one ANYONE’S ever seen!” DJ Suki yelped.

  More and more of the orange-and-yellow beast emerged from the hole. And riding on its patterned back was…Evil Cloud Guy!

  “Ha!” he cried triumphantly. “Say hello to my great big hungry friend!”

  GRRROOORRRGH!

  “No thanks!” Cloud Guy said. “Sorry, guys, but you’re on your own with this one! I’m outta here!”

  He turned around and ran back the way they’d come, as fast as his skinny blue legs could carry him.

  The Coilencrawler lunged at Guy and DJ Suki. They leapt out of the way and took off down the path, going the opposite direction from Cloud Guy.

  They were headed deeper into the Increasingly Dark Forest.

  Guy Diamond and DJ Suki could hear the Coilencrawler coming after them, with Evil Cloud Guy on its back, laughing.

  “Should we hair-swing?” Guy asked as they sprinted along the rocky path.

  DJ Suki looked up at the branches of the trees lining the path. They were gnarled and crooked, covered in webs and slime.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t want my hair anywhere near those branches. We’d just get stuck. And I’m pretty sure Coilencrawlers can climb trees!”

  The Coilencrawler was gaining on them, getting closer and closer….

  GRRRROOAAARRRGGH!

  “We can’t outrun that thing,” Guy said. “Eventually it’s going to catch us!”

  “You’re right,” DJ Suki admitted. “And I don’t think it wants to be friends!”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Guy said. He started rubbing his hands together furiously, building up a ball of glitter. “But I’ll need to use your hair as a sling.”

  “No problem!” she said.

  “Okay,” said Guy, “when I say ‘now,’ we’ll jump off the path and get behind the biggest rock we can find. Got it?”

  “Got it!”

  GRRRROOOOAARRRGH!

  As they ran, Guy scanned the woods ahead for a rock big enough for them to hide behind. He soon spotted one off to the right.

  “NOW!”

  Guy and DJ Suki jumped off the path and hid behind the rock.

  From his perch atop the Coilencrawler, Evil Cloud Guy smiled a thoroughly evil smile. “Fools!” he sneered. “You think you can hide from me so easily. I saw where you went! Come out from behind that rock—or we’ll come and GET YOU!”

  “Fine!” Guy said from behind the rock. “Come and get us!”

  Evil Cloud Guy shrugged. “If that’s what you want. HEE-YAH!” He dug his heels into the Coilencrawler’s orange-and-yellow sides, urging it forward. It slithered off the path and toward the rock.

  GRRRAAAAUGH!

  When Guy heard the Coilencrawler draw within range, he popped up from behind the rock. His glitter ball was in the sling he’d made with DJ Suki’s hair. “EAT GLITTER, COILENCRAWLER!” he shouted as he let the ball fly.

  FWAM! The glitter ball flew straight into the Coilencrawler’s wide-open mouth and burst, filling its mouth with glitter!

  The creature coughed and sputtered, spitting out glitter. PTOOEY! PLAH! PLAP!

  The Coilencrawler turned away from the rock, heading back toward its hole in the ground to work on getting all the glitter out of its mouth.

  “Where do you think YOU’RE going?” Evil Cloud Guy raged. “Turn around! Get back to that rock! GET THOSE TROLLS, YOU WORTHLESS TUBE OF SLIMINESS!”

  He bounced up and down on the Coilencrawler, kicking it with his heels, trying to make it turn around. Still spitting out glitter, the beast bucked Evil Cloud Guy off, sending him flying!

  “AAAAHHHH!” Evil Cloud Guy yelled as he sailed through the air before landing, facedown, on the path. “OOF!”

  The Coilencrawler slithered to its hole, leaving a trail of gleaming silvery glitter.

  Evil Cloud Guy shook his fist at the creature. “Come back here!” he yelled. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE MY EVIL FRIEND!”

  “Come on!” Guy Diamond whispered to DJ Suki. “Now’s our chance! Let’s get him!”

  They ran out from behind the rock, planning to launch themselves at Evil Cloud Guy and tackle him. But they couldn’t help stepping on the sticks and twigs that covered the ground, so the villain heard them coming. He turned and sprinted down the path, heading even deeper into the Increasingly Dark Forest.

  “Come back here!” DJ Suki shouted.

  “No!” Evil Cloud Guy yelled without looking back, still running. Guy and DJ Suki were growing tired, but they forced themselves to take off after him, trying not to let him out of their sight. They both felt they’d come way too far to give up now.

  Before too long, though, the path ended. They caught glimpses of Evil Cloud Guy, but they had no idea where he was leading them.

  “Where’s the path?” DJ Suki asked. “Are we going the right way?”

  “I’m not sure,” Guy admitted. “There really isn’t a path anymore. But I just saw Evil Cloud Guy a second ago, right by that toadstool up there. Come on!”

  Guy led the way to the toadstool
Evil Cloud Guy had passed a moment before. But now the plants around them were close together, with thick, thorny stems. Guy couldn’t see very far ahead.

  And he couldn’t see Evil Cloud Guy anywhere.

  “Do you see him?” Guy asked DJ Suki.

  She shook her head. “Maybe if we’re quiet for a moment, we’ll hear him,” she suggested. They stood still, listening to the wind and the strange sounds of unseen animals. They couldn’t hear anything that sounded like Evil Cloud Guy’s footsteps. But then they heard his evil laugh.

  “Heh, heh, heh, heh…”

  “That way!” DJ Suki whispered, pointing.

  They carefully moved through the sharp plants in the direction of the laughter. DJ Suki kept getting her clothes caught on the spikes and thorns, but they managed to slowly press forward. Then, right in front of them, they saw a low tunnel made of brambles and briarwood. By getting down on the ground and crawling, they could enter it.

  Guy didn’t hesitate. He crawled into the thorny tunnel, inching forward. He felt sure Evil Cloud Guy had come this way. DJ Suki followed right behind him.

  They crawled for what seemed like a long time, but it was hard to measure distance in the dark, twisting tunnel. Suddenly, the tunnel ended at a round chamber, where they were able to stand up and look around. The chamber was a dome made of sticks and branches tightly woven together. The sticks were covered in sharp thorns.

  Evil Cloud Guy wasn’t there.

  “What is this place?” DJ Suki said.

  “I don’t know,” Guy answered. “Maybe it’s where Evil Cloud Guy lives.”

  “Then where is he?” DJ Suki asked. “And where are the rainbows?”

  WHAM! Behind them, a slab of stone dropped in front of the tunnel, blocking their way out. The Trolls ran to the stone and tried to slide it aside, but it was way too heavy and wouldn’t budge.

  Then they heard a familiar laugh.

  “Heh, heh, heh, heh,” Evil Cloud Guy chuckled from somewhere outside the chamber. “How do you like my little trap?”

  “I DON’T like it!” DJ Suki shouted. “Let us out of here! RIGHT NOW!”

  Evil Cloud Guy only laughed more. “Heh, heh, heh. No, I don’t think so. I think I’ll leave you right there. You know, all that running made me hungry. I’ll go have a nice meal. Goodbye.”