Chapter 2 – Shop until the Sales Assistant Drops.

The new shopping mall turned out to be everything advertising promised. It was a massive multi-story complex consisting of over a thousand different stores and retailers, many of which were exclusive to the new mall and found nowhere else in the country!

In short, there was plenty to stimulate the senses and keep shoppers entertained for hours on end as people got to see, smell, touch, hear and taste everything the mega mall had to offer…

The Andersen family arrived at the new mall just before 11 AM and all three were instantly blown away by the sheer scale of the place.

"Wow…" Riley and Jill exclaimed in unison as soon as they walked in through one of the building's countless glass door entrances.

Bill followed behind reluctantly. After doing a quick, military style survey of his surroundings, he placed one hand on Jill's shoulder and the other on Riley's and uttered in a small voice, "If one of us were to become separated in this place, we'd probably never find each other again! We need to stay together and avoid getting lost at all costs!"

Jill barely heard him as she took in her surroundings with wide-eyed wonder. "Huge doesn't even begin to describe this place! It almost looks as if it goes on forever…"

She shook her head slowly and muttered, "I wouldn't even know where to start!"

Suddenly, Jill's eyes came to rest on a store immediately to her right with posters of glasses adorning the windows. She touched her forehead with her palm and turned to Riley and Bill with a sheepish grin on her face. "Oh silly me! Of course I do…"

Still chuckling at the irony staring her in the face, Jill pointed at the store advertising the glasses and said, "Look! The optometrist is located right next to the entrance!"

"And directly on the opposite side of that is a big homewares store..." She noted with a broad smile, a brilliant idea already starting to form in her mind.

Riley and Bill were looking at her with puzzled expressions on their faces. Jill rolled her eyes and stated with deliberate exaggeration, "You do realize that this mall probably has hundreds of different entries and exits, right?!"

Bill and Riley exchanged nervous glances with each other. Apparently, that thought hadn't crossed their minds up till now and it made them appreciate just how massive this place really was!

Jill sensed their sudden unease and she offered them both a reassuring smile.

"So the reason I'm drawing your attentions to those two stores over there, is so you remember them in case we end up getting lost or separated from each other!" She insisted with a hint of pride in her voice.

"Oh…so what you're saying is that we should try to find this particular entry with the optometrist and homeware store when we're ready to leave, right Mom?" Riley ventured hesitantly.

Jill smiled at her daughter and nodded in confirmation. "That's right sweetie! So remember the H for homewares and the O for optometrist and think of Santa Claus going Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Jill gestured towards those two stores again before declaring with simple self-satisfaction, "And voila! That's our directions sorted!"

Bill was staring at his wife admirably. He was genuinely impressed with her clever use of her immediate surroundings to help them memorize this particular reference point in case of an emergency.

With a playful chuckle, Bill threw an arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek fondly, causing Jill to let out a little gasp of surprise.

"Merci Cheri! Not only are you beautiful, but you're very smart my darling!" He whispered and kissed her on the lips affectionately.

"Thank you honey!" Jill replied graciously as she kissed him back and gently pulled out of his embrace before their public display of affection attracted any more curious glances from passing shoppers.

Normally, Riley would have been embarrassed to see her parents kissing in public. But right now she was too busy admiring the endless sea of shops around her to notice that touching little moment between her Mom and Dad.

She turned in a slow circle, her eyes filled with awe as she stated, "My palms are already sweaty! I don't know where to begin!"

Suddenly, Riley felt a hand touching her shoulder lightly and she looked up to see her mother giving her a knowing wink. "Well let's take it one step at a time sweetheart. For starters, I think the three of us should get your hockey supplies sorted!"

She glanced up at Bill and smiled teasingly before adding, "Surely your ex-hockey coach over here can be helpful with that…"

"Glad to be of assistance my girls!" Bill replied with a proud smile.

He took both of them by the hands and started walking down one of the mall's endless shop-lined corridors with renewed confidence. "Now let's go find that sports store!"

XXX

Inside Riley's Headquarters, Joy and Disgust had made themselves very comfortable at the console.

Disgust closed her eyes and sighed contentedly. "I am so in my element right now Joy!"

Joy laughed and nodded enthusiastically in agreement. "I hear you Disgust! This is going to be great!"

The cheerful Emotion's eyes were darting around the room and her whole body was trembling from excitement like a kid on a sugar rush. "My senses are overstimulated already!"

"Um-hum…" Disgust acknowledged with mild amusement.

Suddenly, Disgust's eyes flew open and she groaned loudly in frustration. "But seriously! Why do we have to go to that lame sports store first?!"

She glanced at the monitor and watched with longing through Riley's point-of-view as their host and her parents walked past one clothing store after another without even pausing to check out all those fashionable clothes and accessories!

"We already passed at least twenty great shops selling clothes, shoes and bags! But no! Riley decided that she would rather go buy smelly sports socks that no one is ever going to see!" Disgust protested, her brow deeply furrowed in disapproval.

Suddenly, Joy gave a high-pitched squeal of excitement that made the green Emotion cringe unpleasantly.

"Joy! My ears are ringing!" Disgust complained as she shot her yellow co-worker a withering look.

Joy was bouncing up and down and pointing at the screen excitedly. "Oh Dis! Look! Look! Didn't Riley and Jill mention something about going to a music store this morning?! There's one on the left over there, and OH MY GOSH…!"

Joy covered her mouth with her hands as she stared at the screen with intense longing. "Disgust…I can see an accordion in the shop window…" She uttered in a small awe-struck whisper.

Disgust rolled her eyes impatiently and was about to make some half-hearted comment when all of a sudden, she felt Joy grab her arm with such vivacity that she thought her co-worker would pull it right out of its socket!

"They have to come back right?!" Joy demanded manically, shaking Disgust's arm roughly in the process.

Disgust snatched her arm out of Joy's vice-like grip and rubbed it gingerly before remarking, "I'm sure they will Joy…"

She glanced back at the screen and saw that Riley and her parents had finally arrived outside the sports store. Disgust scrunched up her face in distaste and grumbled, "I mean come on…socks?!"

XXX

After purchasing some socks and a brand new sports bag for Riley's hockey gear, the Andersen family decided to get some new work shoes for Bill next. As they made their way into a shoe store specializing in men's footwear, Riley began feeling impatient. She was raring to go and shoe shopping for her Dad was definitely not her idea of fun!

She knew from past experience that her Dad tended to find fault with just about every shoe he tried on. And just as she'd expected, today was going to be no exception…

After spending the best part of forty-five minutes in the shoe store, Bill repeatedly found something wrong with every shoe that Riley and her mother picked out for him. He was unbelievably fussy when it came to his feet and anything that went on them. So he was prepared to take his precious time and try on every single shoe in the store and Riley couldn't stand it anymore!

"Come on Dad!" She whined impatiently. "Those last ones you tried looked good enough!"

Riley waved her arms in exasperation. "If you scrutinize every single pair of shoes in this store, we're going to grow old in here!"

Bill was trying on his thirtieth pair of shoes. After pulling them on, he stood up and took two steps before shaking his head in disapproval and taking them off again.

"Maybe you girls should go and do some shopping of your own while I finish up in here?" Bill suggested as he reached for the next pair of shoes and inspected them critically.

"I'll meet you in front of this shop when I'm done." He said absently and watched the sales assistant, a young dark-haired man in his late twenties bringing out yet another box of shoes for him to try on.

Riley and Jill exchanged a quick look and hurried out of the shoe store before Bill changed his mind and asked them to stay.

"Wow sweetie! That was a good save!" Jill whispered to her daughter as soon as they were out of Bill's earshot. "Your father was really beginning to get on my nerves…"

Riley snorted in agreement. "Yeah, he always takes forever when it comes to buying shoes!"

Jill rolled her eyes and nodded. Then her face lit up as she recalled a particular store they passed by earlier and she tugged at Riley's arm excitedly. "Hey! I saw a swimwear store on our way here. How about we go and buy you that new swimsuit you wanted next?"

"Oh cool! Let's do that Mom!" Riley replied eagerly.

They started walking in the direction Jill said she saw the swimwear store. Along the way, Jill leaned in close to her daughter and whispered in her ear in a softly teasing voice, "And after that, we can get you that most important item that every young lady needs…a bra!"

"Mom!" Riley groaned as her cheeks turned bright red from embarrassment. But deep down, she couldn't deny that she was excited to try on her very first bra…

XXX

Meanwhile in Headquarters, Sadness had decided to join Disgust and Joy at the console.

"That shoe store was boring…" The blue Emotion said with a big yawn.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Joy admitted with a shrug.

Then she narrowed her eye at Sadness, her voice lightly reprimanding as she added, "But you didn't have to press that button and make Riley complain about her Dad taking too long Sadness!"

"I'm sorry…" Sadness mumbled in a tired-sounding voice and averted her eyes to the floor guiltily.

The three female Emotions were so engrossed with watching the monitor, that none of them noticed Fear walking up behind them until he spoke up suddenly, causing all three to utter involuntary cries of surprise.

"I think it's a good thing she pressed that button! At least now Bill can shop in peace because finding the right pair of shoes is very important!" Fear announced matter-of-factly.

"You could seriously damage your feet by wearing shoes that don't fit properly and offer the right amount of support!" Even before he finished speaking, Fear couldn't help glancing down at his own shoes anxiously.

"Speaking of which, my own shoes are starting to get a little worn out..." He noted with a nervous expression spreading across his purple face.

Before any of the others could respond, Anger's irritated voice came thundering from the kitchen doorway. "Oh please! Does anyone have any earmuffs I can borrow for the remainder of this lame shopping trip?!"

XXX

Nearly an hour after leaving Bill at the shoe store to "shop in peace" as Fear had put it, Riley and her mother had both picked out some swimsuits that they liked. Riley even stocked up on some lip gloss in addition to two bras (one was a sports bra and the other just a normal everyday kind.)

Chatting about their purchases happily, mother and daughter made their way back to the front of the shoe store to meet Bill. But upon their arrival, they received quite a surprise to find that he was nowhere in sight!

"That's strange? Your father said he would wait for us right here as soon as he was done buying his shoes…" Jill ventured whilst looking around listlessly, her brow creased with worry.

She was just about to go and ask one of the shop assistants inside the shoe store if they knew where her husband was. But as soon as she entered the shop, she got her answer without even needing to utter a word…

There was Bill, surrounded by a mountain of shoe boxes and talking to the same young sales assistant they met earlier, and he was no longer smiling and cheerful. In fact, the young man now looked very red-faced and decidedly out-of-breath for some reason.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for Jill to figure out just what the cause of his distress was; Bill! Incredibly, he was still trying on shoes almost an hour after they'd left him! That poor young sales assistant would probably need counselling after this harrowing experience with a customer like Bill…

"For crying out loud!" Jill exclaimed as she looked at Riley with an expression of disbelief. "That man sends me up the wall with his antics sometimes!"

Riley followed her mother into the store and gasped in amazement as she saw her Dad still trying on shoes after all this time.

Jill shook her head and sighed. "Come on sweetie…let's rescue that poor sales assistant from your father. Look how red he is! The poor guy looks like he's going to have a heart attack any minute!"

Jill put her hand on Riley's shoulder and they walked up to Bill with forced smiles on their faces as he glanced up and greeted them cheerfully.

"Oh hey girls! You're back already?" Bill asked with a slightly puzzled look on his face. "I thought you would have taken a bit longer with your shopping…"

Jill cleared her throat and pointed to a shoe box containing a pair of casual, but nice-looking black leather shoes.

"Honey, I think this first pair you tried on were actually the best." Jill stated with an encouraging smile.

Bill regarded the shoe box she was pointing to with a thoughtful expression.

"You know, I think you might be right Jilly..." He stroked his chin with one hand and after a few seconds, he finally nodded in agreement.

"Yeah! I'll take those!" Bill told the sales assistant with a pleased smile.

The young man let out a deep sigh and looked extremely relieved. "Certainly sir…"

After paying for the shoes, Riley and her parents walked out of the store and discussed what they should do next. By now they had quite a few shopping bags between them and Jill suggested that they should take them all to the car before resuming with their shopping. Then she would go to the optometrist to pick out some new frames for her glasses while Bill got his haircut at the barber.

"That will give Riley some time to shop on her own and buy those t-shirts she wanted." Jill offered with a small smile.

"I don't know Jilly…is it really such a good idea to let Riley go off on her own?" Bill asked worriedly. "I mean this place is so big! What if she gets lost?"

Jill patted his arm reassuringly and said, "It's okay honey. She'll be fine! Remember what I said about the entry with the homewares store and optometrist nearby…"

"Of course Mom! H for homewares and O for optometrist and think of Santa Claus going Ho! Ho! Ho! That way I'll remember where to find you when I'm done!" Riley recited cheerfully.

Jill squeezed her husband's hand gently and assured him that everything would be fine. Bill was still looking a little apprehensive about letting Riley go and explore on her own, but he finally nodded and agreed reluctantly.

"Okay then...but let's get all these bags to the car first." Bill said. He picked up some of the shopping bags and started walking in the direction of the carpark.

Jill waited until he had gone a few paces ahead of them before she winked at Riley and mouthed the words "Dad's present…" to her silently.

Riley smiled and gave her the thumbs up sign. Then she and Jill collected their shopping bags and followed Bill outside to take their purchases to the car together.

XXX

When they returned to the mall a short time later, Bill put his hand on Riley's shoulder and asked her hesitantly, "Are you sure you'll be okay shopping on your own sweetheart?"

Riley nodded and smiled at him reassuringly. "Sure Dad! I've got my cell phone with me and I promise I won't take too long."

She took her phone out of her pocket and waved it in front of Bill's face. "When I'm done, I'll give you a call and we'll meet up in front of the Ho...Ho…Ho… entrance!"

"Okay sweetie! Have fun!" Jill called out chirpily. She grabbed Bill by the arm and started dragging him towards the barber to have his haircut.

Riley waited until her parents were out of sight. Then she fist pumped the air in excitement and hurried off in search of that music store they had passed by on their way to the sports shop earlier.

In Headquarters, Joy and Disgust were watching the monitor with barely contained exhilaration. The two Emotions cheered in delight and gave each other a high-five as Riley made her way through the crowds of shoppers happily.

"Let's do some shopping!" They exclaimed in unison.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

It looks like things are about to get very exciting for Riley and at least some of her Emotions! Sure Joy and Disgust may be the only ones who are really thrilled about this shopping adventure, but I can assure you that all five Emotions will be required at the console soon enough!

Riley is about to discover that not everything about the mall is fun and exciting…sometimes it can be stressful and even scary!

I hope you are all enjoying the story so far and I would like to thank Orangebird124, Tripledent and jloew1993 for the reviews to the first chapter :)

Also thank you to everyone who has been reading this story so far and I hope you all decide to stick around to see what happens next :)

Svinorita.