Driven by Emotions Read online

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  Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-4847-1918-3

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  Contents

  Dedication

  Joy

  Disgust

  Fear

  Anger

  Sadness

  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 o
l’ 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!

  What was going on?

  Then I heard something rolling on the floor behind me. I looked down, and what I saw was so unbelievable, I was sure I had to be imagining it.

  “A core memory!” Fear cried.

  Yes. A core memory. Sitting on the floor, out of its holder. We all knew what that meant. We ran to the window and saw Goofball Island go dark. Without the core memory in the core memory holder, Goofball could not be powered up. That’s why Riley hadn’t slid down the railing. The Goofball part of her was powered down.

  At that moment, I noticed that the core memory holder was open, and Sadness was right next to it.

  “Sadness!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “It looked like one was crooked,” Sadness said, “so I opened it and then it fell out!”

  I put the core memory back in place and Goofball Island whirred to life. Thank goodness. I looked back at the screen and saw that Riley had jumped onto the railing and was sliding down.

  Then Sadness reached out again for one of the core memories and it started to turn blue!

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said, grabbing her hand. “Sadness, you nearly touched a core memory. And when you touch them, we can’t change them back!”

  Sadness apologized and said she didn’t know what had gotten into her, but obviously she was a disaster waiting to happen. That wasn’t a bad thing; it was just something that needed to be handled. So I handled it. I gave her some mind manuals to read. Who doesn’t love mind manuals? With titles like Long Term Memory Retrieval, Volume 47, you just know they have to be fascinating! Okay, maybe not fascinating, but they gave Sadness something to do. Plus, that corner with the mind manual shelves is far away from the memories. I have to keep them safe!

  So that took care of Sadness for the moment, but by bedtime, she wasn’t the only one having trouble. The move had been really hard on everyone, and even though I reminded them we’d been through worse, they didn’t see it. Disgust couldn’t get over the weird pizza, Fear was still freaking out about the missing moving van, and Sadness piped up that all of Riley’s friends were far away and we’d never see them. Anger was so upset he wanted to shout that one curse word we knew. I was really struggling to keep them together, but then Mom came in to kiss Riley good night, and you know what she did? She thanked Riley. Mom was so proud of Riley for being joyful through the difficult move. She said, “You’ve stayed our happy girl. Your dad’s under a lot of pressure, but if you and I can keep smiling, it would be a big help. We can do that for him, right?”

  At that moment, I couldn’t have been more proud. We had a higher purpose now—we needed to support Dad. Of course we could do that! I stepped up to the console and began driving.

  Riley told Mom she’d definitely keep smiling.

  “What did we do to deserve you?” said Mom, and she gave Riley a kiss good night.

  The other Emotions agreed that Mom was right. And I was satisfied that we were all on the same page again…Team Happy!

  After that, we were all tired. Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear went to sleep, but I had Dream Duty, which meant I took the night shift. I sent all the day’s memories down to Long Term for storage, then settled in to watch the show that the Dream Productions team had put together. It played on the big screen, the same one where we watch Riley’s memories.

  I’m a big fan of Dream Productions. They come up with some great shows—super original, real cutting-edge comedy, crazy action sequences. I have a whole list of favorites I call up from time to time. But that night’s was not one of their best. It was, in fact, a nightmare about the new house, which was not okay at all. It was the last thing Riley needed after her day. So even though I’m not supposed to mess with dreams, I made an executive decision. I pulled the plug on the dream and called up a memory for Riley and me to watch while she slept. It was one of my favorites: the time when Riley showed off her skating moves to Mom and Dad. She did twirls and jumps—she was brilliant! And Mom and Dad were so proud; they smiled as they watched her. Riley was so happy she couldn’t stop laughing.

  I watched the memory all night long. I even skated with her, gliding in time with little Riley around Headquarters like it was a rink.

  “Don’t you worry,” I told her. “I’m gonna make sure that tomorrow is another great day. I promise.”

  I meant that promise, too. The next day was the first day of school, and I had huge plans for how to make it the best day ever.

  And what better way to start the best day ever than with an accordion serenade? I have to say, I’m quite fabulous on the accordion. I don’t play it so much as hug it. The melodious sound of my accordion made my fellow Emotions jump to their feet and emerge from the break room.

  “Okay, first day of school!” I cheered. “Very, very exciting! I was up late last night figuring out a plan. Fear, I need a list of all the possible negative outcomes on the first day at a new school.”

  “Way ahead of you there,” Fear said, writing on a notepad. “Does anyone know how to spell ‘meteor’?”

  “Disgust,” I said, “make sure Riley stands out today…but also blends in.”

  “When I’m through, Riley will look so good the other kids will look at their own outfits and barf,” Disgust assured me.

  I told Anger to unload the Train of Thought, which had just arrived at Headquarters. It’s an actual train that goes around the giant landscape of Riley’s mind delivering daydreams, facts, opinions, lightbulb ideas, and memories. At the moment, it was delivering extra daydreams. I’d ordered them in case things got slow in class.

  “Sadness,” I then said, with excitement in my voice, “I have a super-important job just for you.” I led her to a spot in the back of Headquarters and drew a chalk circle on the floor around her feet. “This is the Circle of Sadness,” I said. “Your job is to make sure that all the Sadness stays inside of it.”

&nb
sp; She wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but then again, when is she ever thrilled about anything? I knew it was a great plan.

  As for me, I tasked myself with driving the console and making sure Riley stayed happy all day long. “All right, everyone,” I cried out to my fellow Emotions, “fresh start! We are gonna have a good day, which will turn into a good week, which will turn into a good year, which will turn into a good life!”

  Yep, I had everything in place. By the time this day was over, I was positive Riley would have people clamoring to be her best friend. She’d probably get thirty birthday party invitations. Forty, maybe!

  The others weren’t quite as sure as I was, especially when Riley’s teacher made her stand up and introduce herself. Not a problem. I worked the console, and Riley stood up and smiled.

  “My name is Riley Andersen,” she said. “I’m from Minnesota. And now I live here.”

  Good. Charming. The other kids were loving her already!

  Then the teacher asked for more information. She wanted to know about the weather. I knew Riley would have no problem with that one. She smiled and said, “Yeah, it gets pretty cold. The lake freezes over, and that’s when we play hockey…”

  As Riley told everyone about playing hockey with her best friend, Meg, I helped her out. I called up a memory of the whole family skating together and played it on the big screen. It was so beautiful I couldn’t stop grinning.

  “It’s kind of a family tradition,” Riley continued. “We go out on the lake almost every weekend.”

  Then, suddenly, the screen in Headquarters turned blue!

  “Or we did, until we moved away,” Riley said.

  Wait. That shouldn’t be happening. The screen shouldn’t be blue. Riley shouldn’t be sad. This was a happy memory!

  I spun around to see the projector. There was Sadness, with her hands on the memory sphere!

  “Sadness!” I snapped. “You touched a memory? We talked about this.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know,” Sadness said. “I’m sorry.”

  Unbelievable! I sent her back to her Circle of Sadness and frantically pushed some buttons on the console to get the now sad memory out of the projector, but it wouldn’t budge. And the longer it sat there, the more upset Riley got. Soon she wasn’t even speaking. But she was still standing. In front of the whole class. About to cry! And as Disgust so helpfully pointed out, all the cool kids were whispering.