Read Driven by Emotions Online
Authors: Elise Allen
Driven by Emotions
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ISBN 978-1-4847-1918-3
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Contents
To Maddie,
All her emotions, and her
glorious islands of personality.
Love always,
Mom
To my parents,
Thank you for
letting me draw.
Jerrod
Have you ever
looked at someone and wondered what is going on inside their head? Well, I know what’s going
on in Riley’s head. Mainly because I live inside it. I’m Joy, one of Riley’s Emotions. There are five of us: me, Fear, Disgust, Anger, and Sadness. We’ve been with her from
the very beginning: the minute she was born. We all hang out at Headquarters in Riley’s head, where we take our turns at the control console. The console’s like the dashboard of a
spaceship, with all kinds of dials, knobs, wheels, and levers. We Emotions use the console to help Riley find the best ways to make the most out of each glorious day.
Did I say “
we
Emotions”? I did, didn’t I?
Okay, well, the truth is that I have always been the one
really
in charge. Fear, Disgust, Anger, and Sadness are
super
great and
important
, but the main goal was always
keeping Riley happy…which meant I drove the console most of the time. After all, why shouldn’t Riley have been happy? She had super-fun parents who loved her like crazy; she had
terrific friends like Meg; and she lived in Minnesota, which is only the coolest place ever to skate and play ice hockey and have the best time in the world!
So, for a long time, everything was great. Better than great—it was perfect.
Then something happened.
I’m not saying it was a horrible something. Of course not! But it was something, and it was pretty big.
When Riley was eleven, her family moved to San Francisco. Which is a
long
way from Minnesota.
Yes, I know—total big deal, very surprising, and not the best news in the world at first, but, hey—it didn’t have to be a disaster. Oh, sure, the other Emotions had little
panic attacks when we all found out, but I knew that if Mom and Dad were making this decision, there was a good reason, and we’d all be as happy in our new home as we were in the old one.
The move started out with a road trip, which, as you know, is the most fun way to spend several days. Yes, Riley was a little cramped sitting in the backseat forever, but you know what? It gave
us
lots
of time to think about what our new house would look like! I was so excited to see it! I knew it would have balconies, and gables, and maybe even a moat we could cruise through in a
speedboat…
As it turned out, the house wasn’t
quite
like we imagined it. It was kind of small…and kind of dark…and it had the eensiest,
weensiest
little dead mouse in one
corner…but it had
potential
! Once I saw Riley’s room, I knew we could dress it up with her butterfly curtains, and her hockey lamp, and those supercool glow-in-the-dark stars we
like to stick on the walls to make everything look like outer space. It would be amazing! All we had to do was get our stuff from the moving van and load it in.
Unfortunately, the moving van got lost on its way to San Francisco, and Riley wouldn’t have her things for a few days. Everyone was upset: Fear, Anger, Disgust, and, of course, Sadness.
Even Mom and Dad were frustrated and stressed out. But I had a stroke of genius! I grabbed a lightbulb and plugged it into the console, which is how Riley gets ideas. And you know what she did
next? Our girl grabbed her hockey stick and threw a wad of crumpled-up paper on the empty living room floor, right near Mom and Dad.
“Andersen makes her move,” Riley said. “She’s closing in!”
Riley batted the paper around like a hockey puck, and the minute Dad saw it, he wanted to play, too!
“Oh, no, you’re not,” he said, grabbing a broom.
Soon Riley and Dad were skating all over the house, trying to score a goal in the empty fireplace.
“Come on, grandma!” Riley called to Mom.
“Ha!” Mom laughed. “‘Grandma’?” Then she put up her hair and grabbed a pillow so she could play goalie. Now the whole family was skating across the floor on
their socks, playing and laughing so hard they didn’t even care about the missing furniture.
As the three of them played, a bright yellow sphere rolled into Headquarters.
It was a memory. A happy memory.
When things happen to Riley, new memories are made, and each memory is the color of its strongest emotion. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but most of Riley’s memories come in
bright yellow. That’s my color. It means her memories are joyful, just as they should be.
Since Riley does tons and tons of things, memories roll into Headquarters all day long. They fill up racks in the back, and at the end of the day, I make the announcement: “That’s
what I’m talking about—another perfect day! Nice job, everybody! Let’s get those memories down to Long Term.” Then we pull a lever that sends the spheres down to Long Term
Memory for storage. When we want to help Riley remember something, we just call them back up again.
That’s how it works for basic memories, but there are also core memories. Those are big-deal, life-altering events in Riley’s life. The core memories are stored in the core memory
holder—a very special place in Headquarters. Each core memory powers a different aspect of Riley’s personality—parts of her that are so important they grow into their own
islands
. We can see them from the big glass windows in Headquarters. There’s Goofball Island, Friendship Island, Family Island, Hockey Island, and Honesty Island. They’re all
amazing because they’re the things that make Riley…Riley!
The memory that rolled in when the family played hockey on the floor was a great memory, but it wasn’t a core memory.
The moment didn’t last. Dad soon got a call and had to leave for work. So what did Sadness say?
“Oh, he doesn’t love us anymore. That’s sad.”
A little overly dramatic, right? Then Sadness wanted to drive the console, which is always a bad idea. Whichever Emotion is driving is the one Riley’s feeling the most. As I said, I like
to drive. But sometimes it makes sense for someone else to take the wheel for a while. Fear keeps Riley safe; Disgust keeps Riley from being poisoned physically and socially; and Anger makes sure
things stay fair.
But Sadness…I’m not actually sure what Sadness does. And I’ve checked, but there’s no place else for her to go, so…she’s good. We’re all good.
It’s just best if she doesn’t drive.
So when Sadness tried to drive the console after Dad left, I may have kinda sorta blocked her way a bit. But it’s only because I was remembering a pizza place we saw in the neighborhood,
and I wanted Riley to suggest it to Mom for lunch! It was a great idea, and way better than letting Sadness drive. I mean, really—who doesn’t love pizza?
Well, it turned out
we
didn’t love pizza. At least not San Francisco pizza, because it had broccoli on it, which, yes, is a little weird. Riley was disappointed, and soon the
memories rolling in were all the colors
except
yellow, which I hated to see.
“What was your favorite part of the drive, Riley?” Mom asked on the walk home from the pizza place. She was talking about the cross-country road trip we had just gone on.
Good ol’ Mom. Leave it to her to try to cheer up Riley with happy thoughts. It was a great plan, and I knew exactly what memory to pull from Long Term. I punched some buttons on the
console, and a memory popped up and began to play on the projector. Now Riley would remember it, and all of us Emotions could watch it on Headquarters’ big screen.
I have to tell you, that memory was
hilarious
! Riley and her parents had pulled off the highway to see this giant cement dinosaur on the side of the road—already funny, right? While
Dad knelt down to take a picture of Riley and Mom in front of the dinosaur, the car started rolling away! Dad had forgotten to put on the emergency brake! The car rolled backward downhill until it
slammed into another dinosaur. Its tail went right through the back windshield. Can you believe it?
We were laughing like crazy thinking about it: me, Disgust, Fear, Anger. Even Riley was laughing.
Until she wasn’t.
All of a sudden—out of nowhere—Riley got quiet and sad. I turned around, and you know what I saw?
Sadness
.
Sadness had her hands on the memory, and it was turning
blue
! A happy, joyful, golden-yellow memory was turning Sadness-colored
blue
! I grabbed the memory and tried to wipe away
the blue, but it wouldn’t change back to yellow. It would be blue forever. Whenever Riley thought about that time with the dinosaur, she wouldn’t feel happy anymore. She’d feel
sad.
I couldn’t believe it. Nothing like that had ever happened before. When a memory is happy, it’s supposed to stay happy.
I didn’t like it one bit, but I didn’t have time to think about it. Riley was sad and I needed to make her happy right away. I told Sadness to keep her hands off the memories and
turned my attention back to Riley. She was walking toward some very steep stairs with a long railing.
Okay, I could work with that. One of Riley’s favorite things was sliding down railings. This was a great opportunity to make her happy again! I saw Goofball Island start up as Riley sat
down on the railing—perfect!
But instead of sliding, Riley got off the railing and walked down the stairs.
Walked!
When she could have
slid
!
