CHAPTER 8

Trouble in Tiara Land

More pranks littered Doomsday’s trash trail. Ellie and Super Fluffy went by a sewing store that had been yarn-bombed. They passed a pool that was filled with otters. They saw a pizza that was wearing a pepperoni frowny face. Finally they trailed back past the mayor’s statue, which was now dressed in the mayor’s underwear.

The mayor, not surprisingly, was still frowning.

Along the way, Ellie scowled as she picked up Doomsday’s garbage. “I’m not sure which villain is worse,” she said. “Doomsday or the Litter Bug.”

Finally, the trail came to an end. Super Fluffy grabbed the last popcorn box. Then Ellie flew up and dropped everything into a passing recycling truck.

“Doom Street,” Ellie said, reading the street sign. It should’ve said Mood not Doom, but thanks to Doomsday, all of the signs were spelled backward. “Hey, Hannah lives on this street.”

Hannah! Ellie had been so busy searching for Doomsday that she’d completely forgotten about her best friend. Hannah was stuck at home helping with her sister’s birthday party.

Hannah might not be chasing super-villains, Ellie thought, but she’s probably running around after candy fiends. It was hard to say which was worse.

Just then a man dressed like a court jester stomped over. Jingle jingle! The bells on his shirt rang noisily. “I quit!” the jester cried.

Ellie was royally surprised. “What’s the matter?”

“Someone ruined my show!” he replied. “During my juggling act, he threw rotten tomatoes at me. Then he took my face paint. Guess what he painted on everyone’s faces? Frowns!” The jester yanked off his pointy hat. “I’ll never perform at another birthday party!”

“Birthday party?” Ellie repeated.

The jester nodded. “It was a princess party, so I made balloon crowns. But he popped them all!”

As the jester jingled away, Ellie’s super ears rang. Face-painted frowns? Popped balloon crowns?

“C’mon, Super Fluffy!” she said. “It sounds like there’s trouble in Tiara Land!”

With her trusty sidekick at her heels, Ellie shot down the street to Hannah’s house. Peeking into the backyard, Ellie cried, “Doomed dragons!”

Out back, where there should have been a pretty princess party, there was a flattened bouncy castle. There were frowny-faced finger sandwiches. There was a banner that read Happy Sad Birthday Cece! L Worse yet, there were ten little girls who looked grumpier than the Troll King in Princess Power, Protector of Sparkle Kingdom. It was a fairy tale party gone way wrong.

“This birthday party is HORRIBLE!” Cece cried, the grumpiest of them all.

Spotting Ellie, Hannah ran over with a broken dragon piñata. “Ellie! I need your help. There’s a party monster on the loose!” Super Fluffy poked his nose into the piñata and sniffed around. “Hey, did you get a dog? He looks a lot like your stuffed animal.”

“Um, yep. I guess so,” Ellie replied. Hannah didn’t know Super Fluffy was really Super Fluffy!

“Anyway, it’s a guest,” Hannah went on. “He’s taking the fun out of everything! He took all the piñata candy. You know what dropped out instead? Toothbrushes! And he put too many lemons in the lemonade. It’s sour enough to make your toes curl!” Hannah pointed to a table that was full of goody bags. “Look! Now he’s stuffing the goody bags with spelling tests!”

Ellie turned, and her face soured like a lemon with extra pucker-power. “Hannah, that’s no guest,” she said. “He’s the Master of Misery. The Guru of Gloom. The Sultan of Sadness. Meet… Doomsday!”