Trolls World Tour

by David Lewman

  “Uh, guys?” Poppy called to them from her position at the raft’s steering wheel. “Look!”

  Branch and Hickory looked at her. She was pointing at the sky. A giant spaceship was hovering over the river!

  “AAAAAH!” Branch screamed, popping into an action pose.

  “What in buttered biscuits?” Hickory said.

  “Wait,” Poppy said, pulling out her map of the Trolls lands. The spaceship above them resembled an enormous chrome clam—just like the one pictured in Vibe City on the map. Colorful wavy stripes circled the top and the bottom. “I think we’ve found the Funk Trolls!” she said. But how were they going to get up there?

  Waving her arms, Poppy tried to get the attention of the occupants of the huge spaceship. “Hey! Hey, down here!”

  Her efforts worked. FWOOOM! A floodlight shot down from the ship.

  “AAAAH!” Poppy screamed.

  “Poppy!” Branch shouted.

  A clear bubble formed around Poppy, lifting her up into the air.

  “Well, how-dee—” Hickory started to say, amazed. But then a bubble formed around him. He tried fighting it off with his guitar, but it sucked him up into the air, too.

  Branch couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then a bubble formed around him. He tried punching it, but it carried him off the raft, just like the others. The three bubbles floated straight up to the gigantic spaceship!

  * * *

  The bubbles arrived in a sleek, modern observation room with a big window. POP! Poppy’s bubble burst. She dropped into a beanbag chair. PLOP!

  POP! Hickory’s bubble burst, and he was dropped into a beanbag chair right next to Poppy’s. PLOP!

  POP! Branch’s bubble burst. But he missed his beanbag chair entirely, hitting the floor. THUD!

  A voice said, “Welcome to Vibe City.”

  Poppy, Hickory, and Branch turned to see a Troll who looked just like Cooper, except he was wearing a gold-colored baseball cap over his dreadlocks, his neck had yellow stripes, and his chin sprouted a wispy beard. “You are hereby cordial guests of Prince Cooper,” he announced politely.

  “Cooper?” Poppy said, amazed. “What are you doing here?”

  “You mean what am I doing over here?” Cooper said from the other side of the Trolls. When Poppy turned and saw her friend, she realized the Troll in the gold cap wasn’t Cooper, even though he looked just like him. She kept turning her head from one Troll to the other, astonished to see two Coopers.

  Branch was amazed, too. He tilted his head and smacked his ear as though there were water in it. “Okay,” he said, “maybe all the jazz hasn’t left my brain yet.”

  Laughing, Cooper took a step forward. “Oh, come on, Branch! It’s me! Turns out I’m actually from Vibe City, just like my twin brother.” He ran over and put an arm around the Troll with the gold cap. “Meet Prince D!”

  “What’s poppin’?” Prince D said, grinning. He and Cooper laughed and wrestled each other to the ground.

  “I’ve got a twin brother!” Cooper said happily. He couldn’t believe it!

  Neither could Poppy. “How is this possible?” she asked.

  Prince D stopped wrestling with Cooper. He stood up and explained. “When we were babies, Cooper’s egg was carried off by a bird, and Mom and Dad could never find him. You guys raised him as one of your own.” Prince D and Cooper laughed and put their arms around each other.

  “So,” Poppy said to Cooper, “that means you’re a Funk Troll?”

  Cooper shrugged. “You don’t have to be just one thing. I’m Pop and Funk.”

  “Or maybe you’re Hip-Hop,” Prince D suggested. “Like me!”

  “Hip-Hop?” Poppy asked. “Like Tiny Diamond?” Wondering how many Hip-Hop Trolls there were, she took the map of the Trolls lands out of her hair and inspected it closely, looking for a Hip-Hop Trolls land.

  “Oh, Hip-Hop’s not on your map,” Prince D said, taking a look. “I think your map’s a bit outdated.”

  “Hmmm…,” Poppy said, still studying it.

  Branch took the map and looked at it. Then he looked at Poppy. “Oh, yeah, he’s right. It still has Disco.”

  Two older Trolls entered the observation room. They resembled Cooper, but one was female and the other was male, and they both wore crowns and royal outfits. The male had a gold cape, a blue beard, gold goggles, and three toe rings. The female wore a beautiful white cloak with a gold-and-purple lining. Her silver headdress looked like fireworks.

  Cooper smiled when he saw them. “Poppy,” he said, “I want you to meet the King and Queen of Funk…my mom and dad.”

  Poppy gave a little curtsy.

  “We want to thank you for taking care of our son for all these years,” Queen Essence said.

  “Wow, Cooper,” Poppy said, “you look just like your dad.”

  “That must be why he’s so good-looking,” King Quincy said. “Ha, ha, ha!”

  “Was that a dad joke?” Cooper said joyfully.

  He ran to his parents and gave them a big hug. Prince D joined in, too, and they all wrapped their long necks around each other’s necks. “Shower me with kisses!” Cooper said, and Queen Essence happily obliged. Then she and King Quincy walked over to Poppy, Branch, and Hickory.

  “If there’s anything we can do to repay you, anything at all, it would be our pleasure,” King Quincy offered.

  “Yes!” Poppy said gratefully. “We need your help in uniting the Trolls world to save all music from Queen Barb.”

  “All right,” Queen Essence said. “What’s your plan?”

  “If we combine our music, she’ll see that music unites all Trolls, and we’re all the same, and that she’s one of us,” Poppy explained.

  The Funk Trolls stood there a moment, not saying anything. It was an uncomfortable silence.

  Finally, King Quincy spoke. “Poppy, I mean no disrespect, but King to Queen, anything but that.”

  “What?” Poppy said, taken aback. “Why not?”

  King Quincy and Queen Essence exchanged a knowing look.

  To answer Poppy’s question, the Funk Troll royal family led the Pop Trolls to Vibe City’s Hall of Records. As they walked, Queen Essence said to her husband, “Now, Q, the Pop Trolls were good to our son.”

  “And for that I’m grateful,” King Quincy acknowledged. “But it doesn’t erase what they did to our music.”

  They entered the hall, which was full of shelves holding thousands of old-fashioned record albums. King Quincy pulled one off a shelf. It had a colorful cover that read HOW IT WENT DOWN.” He opened it, then he turned to his son. “Let’s tell ’em how it was, Prince D.”

  A beat started playing, and Prince D rapped a hip-hop song about the early history of Trolls music. It was very different from the history King Peppy had read in the Pop Trolls’ ancient scroll.

  In the early days, according to Prince D’s lyrics, the Trolls from different tribes had gotten along. And even though the styles of music were unique, new sounds often came out of them playing their styles in tandem.

  King Quincy pointed to a drawing on the album illustration that showed different colors coming together to form a magical instrument.

  Prince D rapped that the Pop Trolls started making music so simple and catchy, it started to push the other styles of music out of the way.

  The Funk King pointed to another picture. It showed a Pop Troll looking at colorful waves of music coming from a dark night sky.

  Prince D then proclaimed that the strings had been separated to save all music from the Pop Trolls.

  In the album’s final illustration, the Trolls each took a string and ran. “The Trolls never lived in harmony again,” King Quincy said sadly.

  Poppy stared at the album in disbelief. Hickory looked down at the ground, embarrassed for the Pop Trolls. Branch frowned.
/>   “But this wasn’t in our scrapbooks,” Poppy said.

  “Scrapbooks are cut, glued, and glittered by the winners,” Prince D said.

  Queen Essence spoke gently but firmly. “It may be hard for you to believe, but Pop Trolls tried to destroy our music.”

  “Just like Queen Barb is trying to do,” Branch realized.

  “As queen, I should have known,” Poppy said. “But I can make it right.”

  “We can handle our own business, thank you very much,” King Quincy said.

  “But history is going to keep repeating itself until we make everyone realize that we’re all the same,” Poppy insisted.

  King Quincy and Queen Essence made sour faces that showed they clearly disagreed. “But we’re not all the same!” the king said.

  “It’s why all of our strings are different,” Queen Essence said, stepping aside to reveal a bass guitar strung with one string—the Funk string. “Because they reflect our different music.”

  “Denying our differences is denying the truth of who we are,” King Quincy said.

  Poppy took all this in. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” she admitted.

  DOOWEET! DOOOWEEEET!

  Sirens went off! The King and Queen looked alarmed. “Rock has arrived! It’s on!” said Prince D.

  King Quincy shouted, “Prepare for battle!”

  “Oh, no!” Poppy cried.

  “Assemble the crew!” Queen Essence commanded.

  King Quincy turned to the gathered crew to give them his battle orders. Cooper took Poppy and Branch aside. “I’m going to make sure you get to safety,” he assured them. He played a musical phrase on a keyboard, and two bubbles emerged, starting to surround Poppy, Branch, and Hickory.

  But Poppy dodged the bubbles, trying to run deeper into the spaceship.

  “Poppy!” Branch called. “What are you doing?”

  “Not leaving!” she yelled back.

  Branch ran after her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her into one of the bubbles with him. The bubble started to float out of Vibe City. “Poppy, we should go,” he told her. “They said they don’t want our help.”

  “No!” Poppy said, hammering against the bubble. “I want to make it better!”

  “We’ve done enough,” Branch said.

  “No, Cooper!” Poppy protested.

  “I love you, Poppy,” Cooper said. “But I love them, too.”

  “No, no, no!” Poppy cried, banging her fists against the bubble.

  Prince D handed Cooper a guitar to take into the musical battle with the Rocker Trolls. FWOOMP! The room was plunged into darkness.

  “Rock cut the power!” Queen Essence shouted.

  “They’re fighting dirty,” Prince D observed.

  Poppy and Branch were shot out of the spaceship in one bubble, while Hickory was launched in another. The bubbles floated away from the ship.

  “Hickory!” Poppy called to the Country Western Troll.

  “Don’t worry!” he called back. “I’ll find you guys.”

  The bubbles floated off in different directions. Then Branch spotted the Rocker Trolls coming right at them. “Poppy!” he cried. Rock music blasted.

  “Rock on!” Queen Barb called from her perch in one of the menacing fishlike Rocker vehicles. The spiny fish-creature pushed right past Poppy and Branch’s bubble, jostling it as the Rockers headed for the Funk Trolls’ spaceship. Queen Barb didn’t even notice Poppy and Branch.

  Poppy helplessly watched the Rocker Trolls go by.

  “Nooooo!” she howled.

  Poppy and Branch’s bubble floated above the battle now raging between the Rocker Trolls and the Funk Trolls. The two Pop Trolls pressed against the side of their bubble, watching the mayhem below. Then Poppy turned to Branch in desperation.

  “We have to get back down there!” she said. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t let me stay and help fight!”

  “It’s not our fight, Poppy,” Branch said, sitting back against the bubble.

  Poppy threw her hands up in frustration. “There’s still hope! We could still fix this!”

  Branch shook his head. “I’ve listened to you and done it your way. Now it’s your turn to listen. It’s time to get back home.”

  “I’m not like you,” Poppy said. “I can’t just give up.”

  “Give up?” Branch said, hardly able to believe his ears. “I want to protect our friends and family!”

  “I can’t go home and face my dad now,” Poppy said. “Not until I’ve proven myself as a good queen.”

  “So that’s what this is really all about?” Branch said. “This whole thing has been about proving something to your dad?”

  “Why are you so upset?”

  “Because your dad was right,” Branch said. “And Biggie was right. And Queen Essence was right. And I’ve been backing you up, even when you ignored them. But you never listen to me.”

  “Branch, what are you talking about?” Poppy asked, genuinely confused.

  “You wanna be a good queen?” Branch asked. “Good queens actually listen. Know what I heard back there? Differences do matter. Like you and me. We’re too different to get along. Just like all the other Trolls.”

  Poppy looked stunned.

  POP! The bubble hit the ground and burst. Branch and Poppy tumbled out.

  Standing and brushing off her dress, Poppy said, “We are really different.”

  Branch was hurt. He’d said they were different, but he didn’t really want Poppy to agree with him. He wished she’d argue with him. He didn’t tell her that, though. He just stood up and said, “So different.”

  Deep down, Poppy didn’t really believe she and Branch were all that different. But when he’d said that she didn’t listen, and that she wasn’t a good queen, it had made her mad. She’d said they were different, so she was sticking with that, at least for now. “Completely out of harmony,” Poppy said.

  “Completely,” Branch echoed. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He didn’t like where the situation was going, but how could he stop it?

  Poppy didn’t know why Branch was acting so strange. She was confused. “I don’t even know why we’re friends,” she blurted out.

  “Neither do I,” Branch said. He started to walk away. But then he turned back, and for a moment, he spoke from his heart. “So why do I care about you more than anybody else in the world? Weird, right?”

  He sulked off into the woods, leaving Poppy alone, standing there with her mouth wide open.

  * * *

  Branch trudged through the forest, hoping to somehow find his way home. Inspired by Hickory’s sad song, Branch began to make up his own mournful ballad about his love for Poppy. (Despite feeling terrible, he thought his song was pretty good.) As he sang, he imagined dancing with Poppy.

  DING! His Hug Time bracelet went off, but there was no one to hug. He knelt by a creek, alone and heartbroken. For a moment, he sat in the clearing next to the burbling creek.

  Then…music. K-Pop music.

  In the forest?

  To his surprise, a gang of K-Pop Trolls emerged from the trees and surrounded Branch, wrapping him up so he couldn’t escape.

  “Who are you guys?” he asked.

  “We’re the K-Pop Gang,” their leader answered. “And we’re taking you down, Pop Troll!”

  “Uh, aren’t we all Pop Trolls?” Branch asked, confused.

  “No, we’re K-Pop,” the leader snarled. “It’s completely different.”

  But before the K-Pop Trolls could do anything, another gang of Trolls emerged from the other side of the clearing: the Reggaeton Trolls.

  “Reggaeton Trolls!” the K-Pop leader challenged. “You want him, you’re gonna have to dance for him!”

  “You’re on!” answered the leader
of the Reggaeton Trolls.

  The two gangs of Trolls danced, showing off their best moves, trying to top each other. Branch joined them. In the end, both groups of Trolls were impressed.

  “Respect,” the K-Pop leader said.

  “Respect!” the Reggaeton leader said, getting an idea. “Why don’t we split him?” The K-Pop and Reggaeton Trolls loved it. They closed in on Branch.

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” Branch stammered. “Why does Barb get to decide which music gets to be saved? All music should be saved.”

  The K-Pop Trolls and the Reggaeton Trolls stared at Branch. Is it working? he thought. Am I getting through to them? He hadn’t had much luck changing people’s minds lately….

  They murmured in agreement. The Reggaeton leader, Tressillo, spoke. “All right, okay…I’m listening, Pop Troll.”

  * * *

  Poppy sat on the ground, sad and alone. She pulled the pop string out of her hair and plucked it. TWONNNG! “Differences do matter,” she said to herself.

  RUSTLE, RUSTLE! She heard something moving in the woods behind her. Quickly hiding the string in her hair, she jumped to her feet, ready to face whatever emerged from the forest. From behind a big tree came…Hickory!

  “Poppy!” he said, smiling. “There you are!”

  “Hickory!” she said. “It’s so good to see you!” She ran and gave him a big hug.

  Hickory looked around. “Where’s Branch?”

  “We had a fight,” Poppy admitted sadly. “He’s gone. He’s heading back to Trolls Village.”

  “That’s a shame,” Hickory said.

  Poppy turned away. “I was so desperate to be a good queen that I stopped listening to anyone but myself. Including my best friend. It’s all because of this stupid string.” She reached up and pulled the pop string out of her hair. It glowed.

  Hickory stared at the string. “Poppy, take your string and run as fast as you can! You hear me?”

  “What are you talking about?” Poppy asked.

  “Trust me,” he pleaded. “Just go, please!”