Trolls: Gladiola Trollkonge
Chapter 11: Painting With Peril
Licene knocked on the door. It opened, revealing Willy's head. "You're sure nobody else other than Art will realize her presence here?" She asked him. Gladiola sat stiffly on her shoulder.
"Yeah. Patrick's off on this field trip for his filmmaking class and Art's at the library right now," Willy said. "Gladiola should be safe with me."
"OK." Licene picked up Gladiola and held her in her palms. "I'm not crazy about this either, but I can't bring you with me to my interview. Besides, Chef's goons would have to be idiotic to try to attack the residence hall." Licene had an appointment for a part-time job interview taking place at least five streets away from the AURA. Gladiola had to grimly accept the fact that with all the craziness currently going on for her human friend, the last thing that could happen to Licene would be to fail the interview and be labeled crazy for talking to a Troll doll.
Licene passed the princess onto Willy's hands. It was a bit of an awkward situation for them, since Willy's hands were currently covered in paint from currently working on a project. Gladiola actually had to stand on her tiptoes.
"You got my number, you bought the berries, and you swore that under no reason you'd leave your apartment unless it's to go to the food court or if danger comes," Licene told Willy sternly. "If Gladiola gets killed or captured, I'll make your life miserable for eternity! Got it?"
"Yes, chief." Willy nodded.
"I should hopefully be back about an hour after lunch." To that, Licene left. Willy closed the door and placed Gladiola on the dining table, right next to a bowl of fresh strawberry and blueberry salad. The Troll's eyes beamed eagerly at the sight of the salad. Faster than one's own blink, she made a run for the closest strawberry, making Willy chuckle.
"Make yourself comfy, it'll be a while until I finish my painting project," Willy said. He then went to a canvas that was laying on the floor covered by masses of paint-stained plastic. Gladiola stopped feasting on the berry salad to have a look at Willy in work. Almost like the sole Troll painter Harper that she knew back home, Willy didn't use paintbrushes. He either used his fingers or Chinese chopsticks to dip in the paint and spread it in the canvas, creating amazingly thin strokes or volumed shapes. For a moment, she was captivated by how the curved strokes he painted looked so familiar.
"The strokes look like Troll hair." She smiled.
Willy returned that smile with a nod. "After seeing yours move around in whichever way you wanted, it made me think a lot about the strokes of the painter Van Gogh, only...yours are more colorful." His comment made her blush. Gladiola went back to observing his work.
She lost her blush and frowned. Willy was painting someone that looked like a ebony brown haired clone of him dressed in some sort of colorful, candy-themed waistcoat and outfit. The clone was sitting on a field of diverse candy, which appealed very much to the princess' tastes, only for the clone ruining it by kneeling on crushed peppermints while attempting to rip his hair off and chocolate colored tears draining the black mascara out of his eyes. It poured down his body and stained the candy wonderland like a river of bad blood. For a moment, Gladiola felt like it was purely depressing, but at the same time, it reminded her of the stories her father told her whenever she was a child. 'Life isn't all cupcakes and rainbows, Gladiola. Remember.' It didn't help that he used it as a moral for whenever he recounted how he had to the deal with his idealist wife to the point that she and their entire race turned grey. Gladiola would have woken up screaming about the nightmares she had of losing her colors and her parents would argue for the rest of the day. So in a way, Willy's painting reminded her that life wasn't all cupcakes and rainbows just by looking at the blood staining the candy.
Willy saw her expression. "My teacher told us to paint the who we hate about ourselves," he said.
Gladiola frowned as she kept looking at the 'Willy clone'. "The 'who you hate about yourself'? What is that supposed to mean?"
"I know, it's weird." Willy decided to take a break and went to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. "My teacher is also a philosophy teacher for seniors, so she sometimes mixes her humanistic studies classes with her studio classes. Last week, she read us this paragraph about this philosopher that nobody remembers but that she's a big fan of. Basically, the guy's main idea about life is that our lives are only part of one layer among other living layers that form existence itself. That each layer is in other words existing forms that only exist presently in our locked minds but exist in theirs."
"That makes no sense," Gladiola said.
"It doesn't at first until the teacher translated as 'he believed that aside from our own existence, other realities exist and who we aren't live there'. Just like how in your world, your people are species who bring happiness to all, but in our world, you're a children's toy."
"That makes more sense." She looked back at the painting. "So, this is what your 'alternate personality' is?" She air-quoted the before last two words. "What's with the candy?"
"I hate candy. In another existing universe, my other self would love candy, unlike me."
"Why do you hate candy so badly?"
"Back when I was a kid in Texas, the teachers in school read us a book called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I loved it until other students started picking at me and making fun of my name because it sounded like one of the characters' name in the book, Willy Wonka."
"Was he a bad person?" Gladiola jumped on the couch and made sure that no signs of paint were on her before she decided to lay down on one of the pillows.
"No, he was one of the good guys." Willy opened the fridge and pulled out a can of root beer and a berry smoothie bottle with a straw to go with it. He sat down and adjusted the straw in the bottle for Gladiola to drink as they talked. "He was very eccentric if not crazy and a master chocolatier who created the story's chocolate factory that he later gives away to the book's protagonist. Kids picked on me, teasing me about how I was a 'Texas Wonka' and stealing my lunchbox to see if I had any homemade sweets. One time during a Career Day lesson when I was eleven, one of my classmates' older brothers joined the fun and said: 'Willy here needs no Career Day! He's got his job already!' And others said: 'Yeah! He'll make chocolate for a living!'" Willy sighed. "I was never able to go to a candy store or eat any sweets. Whenever I went to someone's birthday party, my mom would pick me up ten minutes before the birthday cake came. As for my own birthday, I stuck with oatmeal with sprinkled raspberries. Helped my parents save money."
Sympathy took over Gladiola. Now she understood the depressing painted candy. She pictured a miniature Willy being bullied into a chase by giant humans taunting him with a melting birthday cake and wrapped candy armed like spiked maces. The picture then led the mini Willy into what seemed to be the mixture of more than a decade's worth of birthday parties and pastries that Gladiola was spoiled with throughout her life. She always found the baking contest and giant cakes the Trolls and Bergens made her and Calico for their royal special days to be a wonderful treat but now...
Willy snapped his fingers in front of Gladiola, nearly making her choke on the straw. "You OK?" He asked worriedly. "You look like your life flashed behind your eyes."
"It did..." Gladiola muttered. "My spoiled life tried to murder you with cake."
The young human blinked his eyes in awkwardness. "That's probably the weirdest thing I ever heard after 'I have the stretch marks that say otherwise'."
They said nothing for a few minutes until Willy decided to go back to the painting. He stuck a chopstick in a patch of dark oak brown paint and began tracing dark shades in his painting clone. "My other me not only loves candy, but he's very cynical and bitter. He..." Willy stopped talking. "I said nothing."
"He gets his cynicism from his dad?" Gladiola guessed. She figured that Willy wanted to avoid recalling the argument they had back at the Hourglass building on the first day, where she had called him off for shattering his father's hopes of making Willy the next owner of the livestock ranch. "By the way, I'm sorry I judged you for the...thing."
"I don't blame you given our opposing statuses." He wiped the chopstick to dispose of the brown paint once he was done shading the hair.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Gladiola frowned.
"Glady, you're a princess." Willy stopped painting to look at her as he spoke. "You're born and raised with responsibilities that only country leaders face. You have access to so many resources, luxuries, and advantages that most commoners have to work hard for to receive it themselves. You want to be what your people want to be and that's fine with you because you genuinely want to be their fair leader. I'm just one commoner out of a million human commoners with parents who already risk a large sum of money to send me to a private school like AURA several states away from them. My dad was the main source of our family's payments since my mother doesn't make much as a teacher, and he grew up as a practical human, believing that only real labor was a living. He was probably a jerk, but...he sacrificed a quarter of his earnings to get me a painting kit...And...Art supplies aren't exactly..."
He stopped talking. He didn't notice Gladiola leaving the couch, but he did feel her spreading her arms over his cheeks as if to hug him. Warmth went through his skin from that hug.
"Feel better?" Gladiola asked quietly. She gently pulled back and sat on his shoulder.
"Thanks." Willy rubbed his fingers together. "Hey, Gladiola. Out of curiosity... How different would things have been if I were a Troll or a Bergen? Would our friendship remain as it is or...would we be more?"
Gladiola felt her ears burning. If I were a Troll or a Bergen. Would we be more? Was he...indirectly telling her that he liked her past the friend zone? Gladiola knew that their current state would make any possible relationship on that level impossible. They were from complete different species with different forms of reproduction and the fact that they came from two separate worlds, with his turning any Troll from hers into a plastic toy gradually, did not help. So yeah, cross off any potential star-crossed romance.
She thought of his previous question. "I guess if you were a Bergen, we'd be friends. Very close, but just friends," she told him. "I mean, Trolls and Bergens are now closer than ever, but because of our..."
"Different mating rituals, I remember." Willy lowered his head in slight disappointment. "And if I were a Troll."
Gladiola slightly smiled in amusement. "I'd say you'd have as much chance as any other male Troll among my people," she chuckled. "I bet the local Troll painter Harper could have hired you as one of her assistants."
"Would I have been too low for you?" Willy used his finger to trace a golden 'W' with curled tips at the end of his painted clone's waistcoat.
"Don't be ridiculous, Trolls don't believe in class difference! My own mother wears simple dresses and my father was a commoner survivalist until he and my mother dated and married." Gladiola said. "As long as the happiness and love are genuine in the couple, a Troll royal can marry anyone among their subjects."
"I bet you have a lot of guys back home trying to woo you." Willy assumed.
"True, but I'm not in a hurry to get married. I know that eventually I'll have to bring blood heirs to take the throne after me when they turn eighteen or twenty, but I'm still trying to juggle with dealing with my own royal responsibilities. How could I handle my own children if I don't know yet how to handle my own people once I become queen?"
"You'll learn someday," Willy said encouragingly as he put the finishing touches to his painting. "Even humans don't immediately jump into parenting. They first need to make sure that they find their place in the world and learn how to handle things own their own before adding in other people into their lives and make a family. And sometimes, some find other ways of happiness and many are just grateful for what they have than what they want."
Gladiola smirked. "You know, Willy, you may not be a Troll, but you definetly talk like one."
"Thanks." Willy smiled.
Meanwhile
"Thank you again for the interview." Licene shook her hand with the one of the manager of the art shop she had gone to for the interview. "I do hope to make it through."
"Honestly, you seem to be a fitting candidate," the manager said. "After I make some calls to confirm your credibility, you should be able to start next week. With midterm exam coming up, our shop always gets packed with students seeking more materials, we could use an extra hand here."
Licene grinned. She was sure to have nailed this interview. By next week, she'd be able to work as one of the part-time student employees of the most popular art store in the neighborhood. This was definetly worth celebrating with the others when she got back. Maybe I should stop by the local bakery, she thought. They sell some strawberry custard pies that I bet Gladiola would love.
SWING!
Licene was lucky that the knife aimed for the wall and not her skull, but just seeing the flashing blade appear right before her and right at her nose's tip was enough to give her a freak attack. She rubbed her nose, making sure that she was not injured or something. Her head turned clockwise and saw a figure standing at least fifteen feet away from her at the local parking lot.
Normally, seeing figures standing in places wasn't such a problem for Licene. Heck, she could assume it was just one of those street freaks that always hung around in places that just ended up being labeled as 'the unsafe places for college students because of the freak population'. She could have just walked away easily and ignore the figure.
But how could she ignore that figure when it was Dårlig with his female Troll associate sitting on his shoulder. But right now, Licene was more worried about all the knives he had strapped over his grey cooking uniform. From where she was standing, she could count twenty-four knives hanging on him, and if she counted the knife she just got near the nose, that made twenty-five.
She tried to do the math in her head. Her residence hall was only five streets away, and the campus safety would never allow Dårlig inside, especially after throwing a knife at a student. She only had her purse with her, so she wouldn't be weighed down by a backpack if she ran. The only problem was the one with the knives. She could picture him throwing them all at her and not bothering to pick them up or actually recollecting them. She hoped for the second one, it could slow him down.
Dårlig took some steps ahead. His hand cautiously slipped out one knife and made its aim. If I time it right, Licene mentally muttered.
A Mercedes drove by and inadvertently got hit on the passenger door. Licene didn't hesitate and made a run for it. The driver got out and complained to Dårlig, who merely ran to pluck off his thrown weapons and threw them right at Licene. She managed to dodge them before they hit her ankles.
Maybe if I run in zigzags up the street, I can mess with his target shot. She got off the sidewalk and started running in zigzags in between parked cars. She was barely lucky to dodge a passing motorcycle, with the driver obviously shouting at her to watch it.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
"Gah!" Six knives flew past her, aligning into a sharp barricade that impaled the street, forcing her to stop in her tracks. Licene looked behind her, but all she could see were a bunch of nearby pedestrian looking in confusion at the sight. But where was the knife-thrower?
"Mommy, look!" She heard and saw a little boy pointing upward. "A purple ogre ninja!"
The kid's words 'purple' and 'ogre' hit Licene, prompting her to look up and see Dårlig moving from tree to tree with his Troll associate using her hair to swing them around like a colorful vine.
"I'm not staying here!" Licene shouted and made a run for the nearest sidewalk. When she hit the mark that reminded her she only had four more streets to go before reaching campus, she briefly turned her head and saw the Troll using her hair to grab the knives and hand the lot back to Dårlig. The duo then did the most insane thing ever: the female Troll swung her hair in an arc form that Dårlig held in his hands. Licene was confused for a moment until she saw him placing the knives he had collected and... used her hair as a bow and, as if they were arrows, shot the knives at Licene. She narrowly dodged them, but the oak tree near her didn't.
Why on earth are they trying to kill me? Licene mentally screamed as she ran up and down, left and right, and nearly getting killed by flying knives.
Maybe he thinks I have Gladiola on me? That part almost made sense until she remembered that Chef wanted Gladiola alive. If she sent Dårlig and his ally to hunt down the princess and bring her back, he surely wouldn't use knives to catch a Troll.
Out of nowhere, a knife caught Licene's collar, pinning her to a nearby brick wall. Two more knives pinned her by the sleeves when she tried reaching out to get rid of the knife on her collar.
"W...What do you want from me?" Licene stammered as Dårlig walked towards her, leaving her in a quite trapped state.
"Bait," he simply said. The Troll female spit something out of a tube. At the last minute, Licene realized as she fell unconscious that it was a dart spiked with a sleeping drug.
Hours later, back at the AURA campus
The boys had ordered a bunch of pizza and strawberry flavored ice cream for dinner since Licene still hadn't come back from her interview. While Willy came back to his apartment with the received deliveries, Gladiola was watching something that Art and Boogie Max's gang called 'Youtube'.
"Check it out," Boogie Max said. "All footage of you singing back at the party got at least five hundred thousand views and four thousand and nine hundred ninety-nine likes!"
"Girl, the 'I Feel Troll-tastic' number was such a hit!" One of his female hip-hop friends clapped her hands. "Everyone on the Internet is calling you the 'Princess of Troll'."
"Wow." Gladiola was amazed. With these strange webs that humans made, the Troll Princess had become a singing sensation all over the human world.
She looked up at the small clock on the microwave in the kitchen, the time indicating 12:30. "Licene's running late," she said.
"She said she'd be back around an hour after lunch," Willy said as he opened the box full of hot, steaming cheese pizza. "I bet she's about done with her interview."
"I don't know, I kinda agree with Gladiola here." Art folded his laptop. "She has an afternoon class later at four. Knowing her, she'd probably avoid anything just to make sure she gets to class on time."
"You don't think...something bad happened to her?" Gladiola bit her nearly plastic-felt lips.
"I'll try calling her." Willy pulled out his cell phone and quickly dialed Licene's number. The others watched silently as Willy waited for a minute or so before he solemnly turned off his phone. "She's on voicemail."
A banging noise hit the front door. Boogie Max quickly hid Gladiola in his jacket's pocket while Willy went to open the door. Alice and Mattie dropped on the floor, panting hysterically.
"WE GOT KNIFED!" Mattie shouted against her own personality. Willy quickly closed the door while Gladiola got out of her hiding spot.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Mattie and I were just leaving the cafeteria when Dårlig threw a knife at us!" Alice pulled something out of her backpack. It looked like a white envelope and a brown pouch, each with a loose string dangling. "These were hung on the knife that he threw. Apparently, it's for you." She gave the envelope to Gladiola. Sure enough, in capital letters, it had her name on it. Unsure at first if whether or not this was a trick, Gladiola risked everything and pulled a scrapbooking pair of scissors to cut the envelope open.
"Yo, who else saw this?" Boogie Max asked the girls.
"No one!" Mattie said. "By the time anyone came in the street, he was gone and we were madly running for our lives!"
"There's worse. Check out what's in the pouch."
Everyone watched as Alice's shaking hand pulled something out of the pouch. Gladiola dropped her scissors in horror. She instantly recognized the thing that made annoying noises just to wake Licene up every morning.
"L...Licene's phone..." she choked. She looked down at the envelope and, imitating Alice's shaking, pulled out the small ripped piece of paper that was just her size. Her eyes widened in further horror as she read the letter. "'Life ain't cupcakes and rainbows, princess. Meet Chef, Creek, and Mr. Darwin at Edgar Allen Poe's grave, tonight, at midnight, and alone. Fail any of the requirements and your human friend has it coming.'" Brown hair strands were taped to the note. "Licene's been captured," she said. "I should have never let her go on her own."
"It's clearly a trap," Willy said. "They're using Licene as bait to lure you in. Remember the tale? They want you because of the Night Soul Tree."
"I give 'em some credit," Boogie Max said. "The freaks must know that we wouldn't groove all the way to the cemetery in the dark. Baltimore ain't a safe spot for college students at night."
"I have to go." Gladiola stood up. "Licene protected me ever since she found me. It wouldn't be fair if I didn't help her in return..."
"Gladiola, you can't be serious!" Willy protested.
"I'm the Crown Princess of the Trolls!" She shouted at him. "I have to do what's right!"
"Hold on!" Alice made a time-out sign. "Let's not forget that the cemetery also holds the portal to Gladiola's world. This may be an opportunity to sneak our way into preventing the bad guys from using the Night Soul Tree."
"That's right." Gladiola realized. "We could try to leave for the cemetery and arrive there at least a couple hours before the villains do. With the time we have, we try to locate the portal, and when the bad guys come, I'll present myself and they'll take me with them. I just hope they free Licene."
"They may or may not, depending if they want to use her to keep you in line," Alice said. "But at one point, they'll have to take you back with them to your home and we'll follow you. While they are busy with their evil business, we'll see if we can use our digital copy of the map to locate the Night Soul Tree and destroy it before Chef, Creek, and Mr. Darwin reach do."
"But it's in riddles." Art pointed out.
"Then one of us will have to go back to the Shop of Mystics and ask for a clue from the weird ladies."
"I got no classes today, I can hit their crib." Boogie Max volunteered.
"I have a cousin who works at a pawnshop near the old man's grave," one of his hip-hop followers said. "I could call him and ask him to check out the place once in a while. See if there's anything fishy."
"Sounds like a plan." Gladiola nodded. "I don't care what it takes, but I'm saving Licene and taking those villains down."
