"Great! We've got nothing to do!" Anger complained.
"I'm sure we can think of something to do if we think long enough and hard enough," Joy countered.
"What makes you so sure?" Sadness asked.
"Rome wasn't built in a day," Joy answered.
"Well, we're stuck here for the next two full days all by ourselves," Disgust reminded. "And we're not allowed to have any friends over. We have no chores to do, we've already seen all the videos and photos in the house, we've done Riley's homework..."
"Homework! That's it!" Joy shouted. "We can read ahead in the textbooks and see if we can figure out how to answer the questions Riley hasn't been assigned yet."
So Riley did. She made the most progress in her math textbook. She also read ahead in her other subjects, such as chemistry, history, and English literature.
She did that for the rest of the day until it was time to go to sleep.
Then came the morning. Riley continued to work further ahead in her subjects. In English literature and history, she got all the way to the end (there were only a few weeks left in the school year). She reached a point in her math textbook where she could go no further. She also encountered a stopping point in her chemistry textbook.
So it was Saturday, and she was stuck in the house. Her parents would not be home until Monday. She was allowed to leave the house to go to church at the Grace Cathedral on Sunday, and to head to school on Monday, obviously, but that was it.
Her emotions set about pondering what to do next.
"I guess we'll just have to sit around and wait for Sunday," Sadness moped.
"No we don't. We just need to look around and find other things to do," Joy answered. "Where haven't we looked yet?"
"We haven't been in Mom and Dad's rooms yet," Sadness responded.
"Let's see what's in there!" Joy said.
First stop was the office. She went through all the drawers, but was very careful to put everything back where she found it.
Next stop-her parents' bedroom. There she turned to her mother's closet. She saw some relatively ordinary clothes on hangers. Those clothes included some casual clothes such as T-shirts, jeans, and jean shorts. There were also a several nice blazers with matching skirts. One was red, the second was blue, the third was yellow, and the fourth was purple. But above the metal pipe where all the hangers hung from, there were additional items. One of those items looked like a big white box.
That box caught Riley's eye.
She stood on her tiptoes and brought the box down to where she could see it. Then she set the box on the bed and started to open it. When she opened it, what she saw made her gasp.
It was her mother's wedding dress.
And it was beautiful. She took it out of the box and laid it out flat on the bed.
"Let's try it on, let's try it on!" Joy cried out excitedly.
"It's not Riley's, it's her mother's!" Fear protested.
"What's the point?" Sadness asked. "What's the point in trying it on if we're not going out of the house with it?"
"We can take pictures," Joy suggested.
So Riley put on her mother's wedding dress. And then she took a picture of herself in it with her smartphone.
Looking at the picture, she realized she forgot something. She was still wearing her tennis shoes.
So she looked around to try and see if her mother had any white high heels around. She did. Another picture.
Was there a veil? If so, where was it?
She started looking around to see if she could find the veil. It wasn't in the box with the rest of the wedding dress. It wasn't in the closest either. Maybe it was in her mother's chest.
Then the doorbell rang.
There is still more to come.
