Inside Out; Teenage Years

Monday Fun-day

The weekend was over and Riley awoke in happy mood, still bubbling from the hockey game. Her mood was over the top. She jumped out of bed and bounded down the stairs, much to her dad's amazement and awe. It was the final third of August and Riley had only been back a week and already so much had happened. There had been ups, and there had been downs but she came out of the first week of school as the cheerful and chirpy girl she had always been. She was back to her usual after a week of general unhappiness but now that she was again happy, she wanted it to stay that way. Joy intended a week of this happiness and wasn't going to let anyone get in the way. Not even the other emotions. Joy knew that it could be a while before real happiness would come along again. But with the words of the Mind Manuel in her head she knew that she would have more authority over anyone.

As expected, neither Mrs Tootley, nor Mr Mackin were at school that day and Riley was glad. She then remembered someone telling her to remain positive, which she was at the time, but it didn't come to her who had said it. Laura came over to meet her at the classroom door.

"Is everything better yet?" Riley asked.

"Feeling much better thank you. Still hurts a little but I'll be back on the ice by next weekend." Laura replied and gave a soft smile.

"Oh that's good", Riley replied. "But again I tru..."

"Don't worry about it, it's fine. I don't like you any less because of it. These things happen, you know? Like things that happen just in the nick of time."

"You can say that again", Fear joked, referring to when Riley nearly ran away. That was over a year ago and Riley was nearly thirteen now. The year had gone quick but so much had happened. It was mid August and she had arrived in San Francisco at the start of September and while it had been a rough starting three days the previous year and a rough first week back at school, she had found true happiness, something Joy was glad she had finally experienced. It had dawned on her during spring break why Sadness was able to change the colour and emotion of each memory. Because all the memories had happened in a place that she no longer lived in, none of them would make her happy, unless they were shown to her while she was asleep. She had also learned that when the old core memories were converted some of the old memories automatically changed as well. It was a power that only Sadness had at the time. Not one of the emotions could change a new memory. It was something Joy thought she should have realised when she was in the Memory Dump. That reminded Joy of something else. Would she remember Bing Bong? She scoured the memories of Riley's early life and tried to find one in which Bing Bong was present. After a couple of minutes of searching, she found one, but it was faded. Joy was hopeful and screened it regardless. Riley made a weird scrunching face. She was trying to make the memory clearer so she could remember it. Joy turned to look at the memory. It was still grey but kept pulsing the five different colours. Riley was trying to remember if it was a happy memory or a different one. The she started rejecting it, and the memory started to shudder. Joy wondered if she touched the memory, would it stay permanently yellow? She tried it and it started to change but as soon as she let go of it it changed back to grey. Joy then took the memory to one side and started rubbing and hugging it profusely. It seemed to glass over with a yellow tint, which as Joy hugged harder, got brighter. She then put it back in front of the projector and it stayed yellow, but you could still see that the faded effect it had. Riley had stopped making the scrunching face and seemed surprised that she could remember back nearly ten years. Joy noticed out of the corner of her eye that Fear was also at the console.

"Yes Joy," he said, "surprise is one of the many things 'fear' counts for." He smiled at Joy with the biggest smile his thin face could manage. Riley had recently learned about the art of flirting and somehow Fear had managed to appoint himself as the leader of this department. None of the other emotions liked it. They all knew that Riley wasn't an overly confident person outside of the ice rink so for the emotion responsible for that lack of confidence to be the Head of Flirting was probably the worst case scenario. He got a letter of congratulations from the mind workers with the designing of the paper clearly from Boy Band Island. "Oh not from there. Anywhere but there," he said when it came through. At the bottom of the paper was a picture of Riley's imaginary boyfriend. He hadn't changed. It reminded Joy about the time when she got a letter of complaint from the mind workers about the massive clean up operation to get rid of the excess amount of imaginary boyfriends. It made Joy laugh and she showed it to Sadness, who was also amused by the letter. That was back in April. Now, four months on, Fear wasn't doing too well at helping Riley practice flirting. At all.

"Fear, you're not very good at this are you?"

"Am I showing off too much? Do I look too confident?" He asked.

"Well you aren't reflecting what Riley is really like are you?" She said.

"That's the whole point is it not? We're supposed to be noticeable so boys will like us."

"No! Not if we are naturally timid. Look, when we find the right boy for Riley we will just be like we always have been. All we have to do is start talking to him. Then who knows what could happen." Joy said, reassuring Fear.

"I guess." He replied.

Joy and Fear went back to what they were doing. Joy called Disgust over as something for her to deal with had popped up.

The emotions carried Riley through her second Monday at school. Riley was no longer troubled like she had been the previous week. Joy was positive that the next week would be Riley's week.