Inside Out; Teenage Years

Riley's Big Change

Everything was quiet inside Riley's head. No emotion dare speak, the Personality Islands stopped working, even though the core memories were still in their storage, but did not turn grey and stayed the same colours. Broken Trust island started to emit an aurora of negative energy and black smoke poured out of it like an airborne infection. The faces of Mrs Tootley and Mr Mackin showed in the centre of the island. More figures appeared alongside them but didn't have any faces on them. It was like it was waiting for more people that would break Riley's trust to come into her life. Joy slumped down on one of the sofas. Her plan had been to get Riley onto her feet again but that plan was no more. She started to contemplate whether to push the button early or get Riley to recover first. On one hand it would seem logical to push it now as it might cheer her up quicker but at the same time it would be too soon a change to take place and might just make things worse as she had learnt in past experiences. She stood up and addressed the others. Disgust, Anger, Fear and Sadness all turned to her and listened with the look of shock still on their faces. They all knew what Joy was going to say before she even opened her mouth. Even after Joy had let Sadness play the part that she had needed to play all these years, they all still knew that Riley was Joy's, and that nobody could take that away from her. Riley performed best with Joy in charge so they couldn't change that.

"Don't worry people, we'll get over this. Just another step towards something better."

Exactly what they thought Joy would say. Joy knew what she was going to do. She couldn't let Riley go to school. She looked over to the Personality Islands and blocked out Broken Trust. The way to get Riley back to how she is supposed to be is to get her to watch her favourite vampire films, to take her mind off of it all. It was all part of a bigger plan that the emotions had planned for a long time. And it wouldn't be long before Joy could start that plan.

A couple of hours later, Riley's parents got home. Her mum about five minutes before her dad. She was in the kitchen making a sandwich when her mum walked in. She'd had had a phone call from the school saying that Riley wasn't present during the register after the explosion as they were worried that she was still inside the classroom when it went off. Her mum was about to question her about it but when she saw that Riley had clearly been crying she left it and asked a different question.

"So how was school?" she asked in a questioning voice.

"If you really want to know ask Mrs Tootley or Mr Mackin. They'll certainly know. After they laughed about it over the tannoy to the whole school!" Riley she snapped.

Riley's mum knew what she was on about since she had told Mrs Tootley about it herself. Riley's mum's emotions were in distress. Her Anger was especially profound in what she said.

"We are going to phone that school right now and try to understand more of what the hell has happened! We can't have our poor Riley like that!"

Meanwhile inside Riley's head, Anger and Sadness knew what was going to happen. They began a countdown until they heard Riley's mum speak. They got it spot on ten seconds. They ignored what she was saying and they both turned to Joy as they put Riley into autopilot. Joy had to make a decision now.

"Leave it a few days or do it now, Joy. It doesn't matter which option you choose, Riley won't be the same for a period of time."

"And if the Mind Manual is anything to go by then hitting it now will cause me and Disgust to take over and have Riley in self-loathing stage," Sadness pointed out.

It wasn't a tough decision to make. Joy knew what she was gonna do. She went over to the far right side of the console and looked at the button. It just sat there staring at her. The emotions bowed their heads as they knew that Riley would never be the same again. Joy took a deep breath and then a smile lit up her face. She had remembered the increased resistibility to the other emotions once they were on the other side of this process. She wasn't longing for power. She was an emotion. She was just happy that her input would be more important than the others and that she would still be lead emotion by the end of Riley's teenage years. Joy was also relieved that the plan that they had ready for Riley could still be put into action after the next day had passed. Riley wouldn't be in such a self loathing mood for long. And according to the Mind Manual, it would be a lot better to initiate the plan, rather than just leave Riley get worse as the next half week rolled by. Then, with a beaming smile on her face, Joy pressed the button. It made a loud clicking noise and nothing seemed to happen immediately but then it started to kick in. The Personality Islands started to shake and memories started to fall off of their shelves. A klaxon sounded and numbers flashed everywhere. The ceiling of headquarters started to morph into one big white light with different coloured streaks every now and then. Sadness recognised them as Riley's hormones. To Riley, nothing was happening but felt a slight mix of emotions. Back inside her head, the hormone streaks started to move faster and become more frequent and a noise started that sounded like a jet engine spinning up. Then everything went white and the ruckus stopped. The emotions opened their eyes to see that nothing much had changed in headquarters. The idea bulbs were all the same, the console hadn't changed but there was an option to have seats fitted. Joy looked around at the others and they all shook their heads. Joy also noticed that she had become more radiant and shone brighter than before. They all looked up at the ceiling and it had resumed its normal procedure, with little coloured dots appearing every so often. These were not connected to the emotions. The Personality Islands had stayed where they were and they could see mind workers restacking the shelves with all the fallen memories. Broken Trust island didn't stick out so much anymore and Joy realised that it had been accepted as part of Riley's personality and it was here to stay. The islands had started to work again and Joy was happy to see that Goofball Island was still in full swing. All the emotions sensed that Riley's downward spiral wouldn't last long with Joy still in charge. And that Joy would front the plan that would lift Riley back into her normal state. But she would still trust people less. Joy felt like Joy again.