After checking out, the Andersens began to walk home; Mom carried her and Riley's books in a cloth shopping bag, while Dad carried his books.
"Okay, dear, do you want to tell Riley the news?" Mom spoke as solemnly as she could muster, but her mouth kept twitching slightly, as though her emotions were barely keeping themselves off their console.
Riley's Disgust leaned forward. "News?" Her other emotions began to pay more rapt attention to the feed.
"I don't know. Are you sure this is the right time?" Dad valiantly maintained a neutral face; unfortunately, his neutral face tended toward a frown.
"Oh no, we're in trouble," Sadness began to wilt.
"The house burned down while we were away!" Fear guessed wildly.
"That quack of an eye doctor probably decided we need glasses!" Anger grumbled.
"Now hold on, it probably isn't that bad. Oh, maybe someone is coming to visit from Minnesota!" Joy tried to keep things positive, to little success. As the emotions clamored, filling HQ with noise, Riley just looked tense.
Mom looked pointedly at Dad, clearly communicating the charade had gone on long enough. Thankfully, Dad got the hint. They both broke into grins.
"The Moving van is four hours away, and will arrive tomorrow morning!" Dad revealed, and Riley, Mom, and all of Riley's emotions cheered.
"We're finally going to sleep in a real bed again!" Disgust rejoiced.
"No more jury-rigged furniture to worry about!" Fear commented.
"We'll find out exactly how much of Riley's stuff comes out unscathed." Sadness put in, as close to elation as she could summon. Joy was practically bouncing off the walls, occasionally stopping at the console long enough to put a spring in Riley's step, or tweak the huge grin, and a pure gold memory rolled into the rack. Anger whooped and smiled, then retrieved his newspaper whence he had left it before going into the library. Then he thought of something.
"Wait, won't Riley be in school then?"
Joy paused. "Maybe Mom and Dad will let us stay home to help move in."
"Let's ask." Disgust moved a slider.
Riley pursed her lips. "Can I stay home and help move in?"
Dad took a big breath and looked at Mom, who sighed. "No, sweetie, you have to go to school. We can't take you out for this."
Anger and Sadness reached the console at the same time, causing Riley to loose a sigh simultaneously exasperated and disappointed, "Aw!"
Before Joy could intervene, Dad added "Hey, you'll get to come home and arrange your room. Mom and I will have to drag the big boxes and furniture around!"He grinned again.
Mollified, Anger withdrew, commenting that that was fair. Sadness gave one last button press then stepped back. Joy was again the only one manipulating a portion of the console.
"That's true," Riley agreed, cheering up again.
"By the way," Dad said, "I picked up a book for you while I was in the library." He drew a hardcover book off the top of his short stack, shifting the rest of it to the crook of his left arm. "This was the story that really started me into the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Since you liked the movies so much, I thought you would like it." He handed it to Riley.
Riley, and her emotions, inspected the cover. It was an impressive composition: A white-bearded man releasing power from his fingertips, under which were arrayed the faces of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca, as well as a set of X-wings, a squad of Stormtroopers running from an explosion, and what appeared to be a blue-faced Imperial officer. The background was a field of stars; the title: Heir to the Empire.
Disgust moved her hands back to the console. Fear looked sideways at her. "Disgust, don't you like it?"
"Of course, obviously we all do, but as I've been telling you, we can't let Mom and Dad know!"
Riley smiled slightly after considering it. "Thanks Dad. It looks good." She said with feigned nonchalance.
"How about I carry it with the others?" Mom held out the bag, and Riley deposited the book on top.
Soon they arrived at home, and dispersed throughout the house. Dad went to his home office, currently hosting his laptop on a fold-able card table surrounded by external hard drives, Mom to the kitchen to begin dinner, and Riley to her room to begin homework. Once Riley started her Earth Science chapter, taking meticulous notes, the emotions left the console to stretch and take their break. Joy surveyed the memories, a healthy mix of all the colors showing that everyone was doing their jobs, even if the majority shone pure gold or sported gold accents. Her practiced eye traced the day's events, noting the usual patterns: reds and greens dominating the morning, chaotic mixes with almost constant small streaks of purple throughout the heightened alertness of the school morning, blue and yellow alternating through lunch due to a rather unappetizing meatloaf sandwich, returning to a similar chaotic mix of colors, though far less purple as the after-lunch drowsiness made class less about keeping up and more about staying awake.
Another memory rolled in, a dull copper indicating Riley's default, apathetic fact tallying. Joy frowned at looked over at the console; it must be so boring not to feel anything. She quickly darted her eyes about HQ, and saw no one but Sadness, who was staring out the windows at the Fiction Island. The little blue emotion had taken a renewed interest in it as more characters were added, including mostly tragic ones. The latest addition was a statue of Long John Silver from Treasure Island, recently finished as a school assignment. Joy turned back to the console; now she had an excuse to be near it. She took out a Mental Note, humming to herself.
Reaching for a pen, she quickly glanced around once more and gave a quick twirl to a control, then grabbed the pen. Glancing around once more, she was sure she was home free. She had promised she wouldn't use the console while the others were on break aside from dream duty, but Riley needed to enjoy her work, right?
Joy quickly jotted down "Outline Treasure Island Essay" and stuck it to the console. Then she turned and walked over to Sadness.
"Hey Sadness! How're you liking the island expansion? Pretty neat, huh?" She struck what she thought was an inspiring pose, hands on her hips and back ramrod straight, smiling radiantly. The other simply sighed peacefully, and said,
"Well, it could be worse."
Joy didn't even flinch; she was used to Sadness' idea of optimism by now. "What're they doing right now?"
"Oh, they're clearing space for characters from the new book. I hear it's really tragic."
"The one about the mice?"
"Yeah, and men."
"Come on, mice are fun! Remember Cinderella? They sing, and get into hijinks, and-"
Anger suddenly called out from behind his newspaper. "And steal food!"
Joy jumped. "Anger! How long have you been there?"
"Long enough." He looked over the top of the paper.
Sadness was confused. "For what?"
"Joy knows, and it's enough that she knows that I know." He scowled at Joy. Sadness looked back and forth, and shrugged. Apparently she didn't need to know. Joy shrugged sheepishly, and apologized. Anger simply returned to his paper, justice having been served.
Disgust emerged from the bathroom, having applied a fresh coat of makeup. "Is she almost done yet? Fear walked from the kitchen, carrying his afternoon tea. As the emotions took their places once again, he gave Riley an impulse to check that her notes were securely stowed in her binder.
"All accounted for!" He asserted proudly.
"Then let's crack open one of the books!" Joy suggested. Riley reached over and pulled the top book from the short stack where her mom had left them. It was Heir to the Empire. Joy flipped a lever, and Riley flipped open the book, eagerly skipping the copyright page, timeline, and contents page. Disgust added a dampener with a single press, making sure Riley stopped on the first page, then pulled a wire from under the console and handed it to Joy. Joy then plugged it into the daydream slot. This feed allowed them to see Riley's visualization of the events of the book, as a theater troupe in Imagination Land acted them out in real time. Anger surreptitiously donned reading glasses, reminding himself to put in a request for contacts. Joy pulled out a sparkly pair of opera glasses. They all read along with Riley's internal voice.
"Captain Pellaeon!" The voice called through the port-side crew pit, through the hum of background conversation. "Message from the sentry line: the scouts have just come out of lightspeed!
"Ooh, this sounds good already" grinned Anger, only to be furiously shushed by the others. He harrumphed and resumed listening.
