Inside Out; Teenage Years

Every School Lies to Children

Since the ordeal with the first ethics lesson of the year, Riley's mum requested the she be put into a separate classroom away from other students, should she be upset by any of the videos. Riley only suggested it and didn't expect her mum to ring the school about it, but she had. Although it was just a suggestion, the more Riley thought about it the more she sort of wanted to be on her own for the class rather than in the class with other people where nearly all of the boys were expecting her to start crying again. This group of boys were the ones everyone, even the more popular girls steered clear of. These were the types of boys that were everywhere. The annoying group of boys that were smaller than everyone in their year. They were the ones that always got on people's nerves, thought that all the girls fancied them (to which the answer was no) and yet at least one of them had a girlfriend. The one that would move away from the group at about 14 years of age. There were a few decent boys in her ethics class this year but none of them she really wanted as a friend, never mind anything else. She didn't really think about boys that much. Just the odd time but it was when they were making stupid noises and wondered what possessed them to do it.

Riley went to a meeting about why she wanted to have a class on her own. It was only short. The teacher she had been to see, Mr Mackin, said that all the information that she had given was confidential and that no other teacher apart from him and Mrs Tootley would know this. She trusted what he had said and she went on her way. Riley had only found out that Mr Mackin was the Vice Principal in the last few days of the previous year and now he was the Principal after Mr George Rice, who had obtained an OBE from the Queen of England for his services to British charities, had retired early at the ripe age of 55. So to say that she trusted Mr Mackin was an understatement. She left his office wanting to feel happy that she had told someone else but was slightly bemused as to why she had to tell the Principal and not one of the child support teachers. She thought nothing of it and went back to Science.

Meanwhile in her little noggin, Fear was thinking to himself that he didn't trust what Mr Mackin had said. He didn't say it out loud though and kept it to himself. He didn't want to ruin Joy's recovery plan. Joy was in command at that time and put Riley into a sort of autopilot mode. All Riley had to do in science was just listen and didn't have to write anything down. She was a bit in between with science. She didn't like it but didn't hate it. She just got through it normally. All the emotions were relaxed apart from Fear, but that was as expected. Anger was reading his newspaper, Disgust was choosing Riley's outfit for tomorrow, Sadness was re-reading the Mind Manuals but would look out for anything that came up for Riley and Joy was skating around in front of the console. The Train of Thought stopped by and dropped off some daydreams for Joy. She stopped skating and took them and loaded them. They were pretty interesting, compared to the useless one's she usually got. All was calm in both the world and Riley's head.

Most of the day had passed and Riley was now in Metal Work, her most hated lesson. But she had a teacher that she liked so it wasn't all bad. Her classmates were the same as in her ethics class but there was no mention of her or any of what were in the videos. She was using a hammer to make a hammered bowl. It was taking shape nicely and then the tannoy system kicked in. It was Mr Mackin.

"Hello boys and girls. We seemed to have got the the tannoy system fixed you will pleased to know. We hope that none of you will have the stupidity to mess with it."

Riley remembered back to when a student at the top of the school short circuited the system on the last day of school in such a way that it took ages to replace all the wires and then hook it all up again.

"That is all," he said.

Mr Mackin thought he had ended the tannoy brief but it turned out that not everything had been fixed, and it had been left on. All the kids thought it was funny that he couldn't tell that it was still on because his door was sound proof. At the time he had Mrs Tootley in his office, discussing Riley's class movement. For the whole school to hear. He stated to her that Riley was upset at the videos because they scared her and she didn't want to grow up. To which Mrs Tootley said,

"Oh that's just ridiculous!"

Mr Mackin and Mrs Tootley started laughing to each other. Mr Hicks then opened the door to Mr Mackin's office and said,

"The tannoy is still on, sir."

At that moment Mr Mackin stopped laughing and turned it off. Time then seemed to move slower for Riley as Sadness and Anger took to the console and a sense of betrayal came over her. She dropped the hammer and it landed on her classmates foot, just as the rest of them started laughing at her. Her classmate, who's name was Daniel Carbunkle, toppled over into another girl as she fell into one of the machines and sent it into overdrive. Sparks started flying everywhere as Riley rushed for her bag. The machine was already broken, with a liability to explode. And that is exactly what happened. All the students were well clear of it when it did. Riley had already run into the playground as her class was near an emergency exit. The rest of her class ran screaming out of the workshop. Anger and Sadness were working like mad trying to get Riley home in the state that she was in. It was her lowest point in just under a year. Riley's mum and dad weren't home at that time so she let herself in. She threw her bag into her kitchen and rushed upstairs into her room. She slammed her door and got under her duvet and started crying like a wolf eating salad. She cried and cried and cried for hours until she ran out of tears and fell asleep. An eighth core memory was then made. One consisting of Sadness and Anger. It rolled up and then down into its special runoff and into the core memory storage, and Broken Trust Island was made. The emotions looked at it in shock. The island looked ugly. It was all black and full of split hearts. It overshadowed the rest of the islands in how tall it was but it wasn't that wide, making it look horribly abstract. It would take Riley days to recover from this. Joy's plan had failed.