"Great job, everyone," said a black woman wearing a yellow shirt and her hair in an afro. The Wiggles had just finished recording their latest album, and next week, they'd start filming another home video to be released alongside it. "Would anyone mind getting a head start decorating the stage?"

"Sure thing, Tsehay," said a green dinosaur with yellow spots, white gloves, and a gardening hat with a rose in it. "Care to help, Henry?"

"I'd love to, Dorothy," a purple octopus replied. He was wearing a plaid suit with the four main colors, yellow, red, blue, and purple, as well as a matching top hat. He also wore a black shoe on each hand and foot. While everyone else headed home, the duo was put in charge of decorating the set over the next week.

Dorothy carefully looked over the blueprint. The centerpiece was a recreation of Wiggle House, with a replica of it's talking door, Flora. To the left was a leafy archway with dozens of red and pink roses growing out of it, in front of a backdrop reminiscent of Dorothy's garden, and to the right was a replica dog house that looked just like the one their friend Wags would sleep in. "I'm gonna go get some roses from my garden." She knew everything didn't have to be real, but attention to detail was important to her. "In the meantime, would you mind bringing out some paint buckets? They're right down the hallway, second room to the left. And stay out of the vault."

"You got it," Henry replied with a smile. Dorothy was just about to leave when Henry remembered something she said. "Wait. What's this vault you're talking about?"

"That's where they keep all the creepy stuff. Early animation reels, old costumes, puppets, you name it."

"Old costumes?"

"You don't need to know that part!" Dorothy frantically shouted, trying to keep her friend from questioning reality. "But whatever you do, don't let the puppets out. You'll immediately regret it."

Once she left the building, Henry had several questions in his head, and "What colors does she need?" was the least of his concerns? The vault sounded like a horror house, but he was dying to know what was in there. The room he needed to go inside was a very short distance, but he could see a giant door at the end of the hallway. It looked like it was made of iron, and had a huge metal wheel. The paint can wait, he thought. I need answers. He ran over to the door, and spun the wheel with all his might. Eventually, it opened up, and he discovered what looked like a large attic. There were dusty old boxes everywhere, and even a wardrobe up against one of the walls. He opened up one of the boxes, and in his hands was a 1995 model of his own head. His eyes were bigger, and his friendly smile looked more like a scary grin. "Maybe this wasn't the best idea," he told himself as he threw the head back down. He was going to run out until something caught his eye: a gemstone-encrusted treasure chest. Surely, something as majestic-looking as that didn't belong in the creepy old vault. There was no key, which made him even more curious.

"Uh, Henry? Where's the paint?"

He slipped the treasure chest in his suit, and made a mad dash shouting, "I can explain!" when suddenly, and invisible force tripped him, shattering the chest, and letting out three small, but deadly puppets.

"At last!" yelled a yellow-shirted, black-haired puppet. "Puppets, what time is it?"

"Iiiiiiiiiiit's," he and a red-shirted, brown-haired puppet started.

"Lunch time!" yelled an enthusiastic blue-shirted puppet.

"Seriously, Anthony?" The yellow-shirted puppet asked in frustration. "We've been practicing this for twenty-five years. It's 'showtime,' Anthony, 'showtime.'"

"You guys try starving for two and a half decades," he argued.

"You're nothing but a parody," the equally-annoyed red-shirted puppet told him. They then turned their attention to the purple-shirted Jeff puppet still in the chest's remains, sound asleep.

"One…" said the yellow-shirted Greg puppet, "two… three…"

"Wake up, Jeff!" The trio shouted.

"Huh? Did I miss anything?" asked the Jeff puppet.

"Wiggly puppets," said the Greg puppet, "our plan for world domination begins!" They all flew out of the studio letting out many evil laughs.

"What the heck, Henry?" Dorothy asked.

"I know you're mad, but…"

"I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed."

Just disappointed? That's even worse. Henry thought. He would much rather Dorothy be mad than disappointed. Heck, he would rather have all her spots turn into spikes, and have her charge at him at full force than to earn her disappointment. "They… they can't go very far, right?" He wondered, trying to make the situation better.

"They can travel through pictures on the internet," said Dorothy. "That's why nobody googles them."

Realizing what he had just done, Henry said, "I need to fix this."

"No," Dorothy said. "We need to fix this."

"But how?"

After a long pause, Dorothy took a deep breath and said, "I don't know how, but we're gonna find a way."

Author's Notes:

At some point, I wanted Henry's role to be filled by Shirley Shawn the Unicorn, a fairly-new non-binary character introduced through The Wiggles' "We're All Fruit Salad" movement to promote diversity in the group. I didn't include them because I didn't wanna go through all the research, although it would've made sense for the new guy to be so curious about the vault.

Stay tuned for Chapter 3- "In a Small Town Called Newville."