by Elise Allen
“All he cared about was the candy,” Bing Bong said softly. “Then he twisted this balloon cage and locked me inside.”
I had to help Bing Bong escape. I pulled apart the bars of the balloon cage, but they SQUEEEAKED so horribly I was sure Jangles would wake up. We froze as the giant clown snuffled and snorted…but soon he was breathing deeply again, and we eased Bing Bong out. We were free to go, but just as we started to run away, I realized something. Wait. The train’s not running. I stopped and turned to Sadness. “We still have to wake up Riley,” I said.
“But how?” asked Sadness.
We looked back at the clown and knew what we had to do.
“Oh, no,” muttered Bing Bong.
We walked right up to Jangles and honked his nose. The clown’s eyes popped open. He stood up, towering over me until I felt tiny like an ant.
“H-hey, Sadness, di-did you hear about the p-pahh-party that we’re having?” I said.
“Ohhhh, yeah. Yes, Joy! Isn’t it a ba-bahh-birthday party?” said Sadness.
“Did you say…birthday?” Jangles leered.
“Yes!” I assured him. “And there’s going to be cake and presents and—”
“And games and balloons—” added Sadness.
“A BIRTHDAY?” Jangles roared. He pulled out a mallet large enough to flatten me with one stroke.
“Okay!” I encouraged him. “Follow us!”
I ran as fast as I could, Sadness and Bing Bong right behind me. We raced all the way to the gates of the Subconscious. Jangles bashed down the gates with his mallet, terrifying the guards, who ran away and didn’t try to stop us. We ran all the way back to the Dream Productions set, where I pointed Jangles toward the outside wall.
Jangles demolished the wall with his mallet, then leaned into the camera with his wickedly toothy smile. “WHO’S THE BIRTHDAY GIRL?” he roared.
I saw the dial flip immediately to AWAKE. Riley was up!
“Woo-hoo!” I yelled.
Sadness and I did a little happy dance. Mission accomplished!
“Come on, let’s go!” said Bing Bong.
We sprinted to the Train of Thought, leaving quite a ruckus behind us. Jangles was laughing maniacally while smashing up the sets. Worst nightmare ever!
When we got to the train, it was already moving at full speed. We ran as fast as we could and leaped aboard the last car.
“Ha, ha! We made it! Guess who’s on their way to Headquarters?” I exclaimed, grabbing Sadness and swinging her around in celebration.
“We are!” said Sadness.
Once we were all settled on the train, tucked in among the memories heading up to Headquarters, I turned to Sadness. “That was a good idea,” I admitted, “about scaring Riley awake. You’re not so bad.”
“Really?” Sadness said.
“Nice work,” I said.
Bing Bong had picked up one of the memory spheres that was being transported in the train. It was the twisty-tree memory—one of my favorites! Riley had just finished playing hockey and was standing beside that big twisty tree near the lake, when her whole hockey team showed up and started cheering for her. Mom and Dad were there cheering, too…Riley was so happy and laughing. I loved it.
“Whoa, is this Riley?” Bing Bong asked.
I nodded. I forgot he hadn’t played with Riley since she was three.
“She’s so big now, she won’t fit in my rocket,” Bing Bong said. “How are we going to get to the moon?”
Sadness had been looking at the memory, too. “I remember that day,” she said. “I love that one.”
I couldn’t believe it. Sadness actually liked a happy memory? “Atta girl!” I cried excitedly. “Now you’re getting it!”
“Yeah,” Sadness sighed. “It was the day the Prairie Dogs lost the big play-off game. Riley missed the winning shot. She felt awful. She wanted to quit.”
Sadness noticed my face fall. “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t help it.”
“I’ll tell you what. We’ll keep working on it together. Okay?”
Sadness agreed with a weak smile.
I slipped the twisty-tree memory into the satchel with the core memories. I thought it would be great to have it around Headquarters. I daydreamed about how wonderful it would be to return to Headquarters and put everything back to normal, but then I heard a horrible CREAK. The entire train shuddered. I spun around and saw Honesty Island crumble and sink into nothingness!
“NO!” I screamed, but my voice was swallowed by more creaking and squealing as the crumbling island shook everything around us so violently that the entire Train of Thought plummeted off its track!
Bing Bong, Sadness, and I screamed as the train fell. We crashed and fell among the cliffs of Riley’s mind…landing right back where we’d started.
“That was our way home!” I wailed. “We lost another island…what is happening?”
Then one of the workers who had come to clean up after the crash said, “Haven’t you heard? Riley is running away.”
I couldn’t even speak. Riley wasn’t a girl who ran away. Riley was happy! Why was everything falling apart?
“Joy, if we hurry, we can still stop her,” Sadness said.
Yes, she was right. We had to move. We had to get to another island, then get to Headquarters from there. But what islands were left? I looked around desperately until I saw it.
“Family Island,” I said. “Let’s go!”
We ran as fast as we could toward Family Island, but it was already starting to shake and crumble.
“No!” I moaned. “That’s our only way back!”
Then I saw one of the shelves in Long Term break, exposing a recall tube! That would take us directly back to Headquarters. We all ran toward it. Family Island was falling apart around us, so we had no time. I entered the recall tube, holding my satchel of core memories tight. Sadness crammed herself into the tube right beside me, but it was too tight a squeeze. She pushed up against the core memories, and when I peeked into the bag, I saw them start to turn blue!
“Whoa, whoa!” I snapped. “Sadness, stop! You are hurting Riley!”
I pulled out one of the core memories to show Sadness how it was changing, and she stepped back, stunned.
“If you get in here, these core memories will get sad,” I said.
I looked at Sadness, then at the memories, and then at Family Island, which was nearly gone. For a moment I was frozen—I didn’t know what to do! Then I thought about Riley, and I knew there was only one choice.
“I’m sorry. Riley needs to be happy,” I told Sadness. I placed the memory sphere back in the satchel, sealed it tight, and then pulled the recall tube closed. I began to ride up the tube…alone.
Unfortunately, the tube wasn’t strong enough to handle the earthquake of Family Island falling to shreds. It broke apart and I fell out just as the ground below the tubes gave way and collapsed. Sadness panicked and leaped back from the new crevasse. Bing Bong leaped forward and reached out to me. But he ended up falling, too.
I don’t know how long I dropped. It seemed like forever. Then I landed with a thud. When I opened my eyes, I saw only dim light from up above, and more memory spheres than I’d ever seen in one place. They seemed not as bright as most memory spheres, but maybe I was just getting used to the darkness. Panic coursed through me as I realized I’d dropped the satchel of core memories, but then I saw them a few feet away and quickly slung the bag over my shoulder.
I looked up. What I saw almost knocked all hope out of me. I was so deep in the Memory Dump, I could barely see the light from above.
“No, no, no, no!” I cried. I tried to race up a hill of memories, but it was too short to reach the top and too steep to climb. I only slid back down. I couldn’t stop trying, though. Again and again I clawed my way up, but I never got any higher, never any closer to that light up above.
“Joy?” a voice called. “Joy.”
It was Bing Bong. I’d forgotten he had fallen down there with me.
Forgotten?
No, that couldn’t be right.
I looked down at the memories at my feet. They had seemed dimmer than usual, but…
Suddenly, one faded away to nothingness.
Gone.
Forgotten.
I had failed for the first time ever, and my insides were churning around like crazy. Then I saw the blue core memory lying on the ground. It was the memory of Riley crying in front of her class. I picked it up and watched tears pour down Riley’s cheeks. I fell to my knees and began to cry. My heart was broken.
There were so many faded memories around me. Most of them were moments so tiny I hadn’t even thought of them in ages. I watched two-year-old Riley sticking her tongue out while she was coloring.
“I just wanted Riley to be happy,” I told Bing Bong, “and now…”
I sobbed. I don’t think I’d ever cried before. Maybe a sniffle or two when Riley was hurt, but this was different. It was like my whole body was heaving up and pouring out through my tears. Bing Bong sat there next to me and rubbed my back a little, but the tears just kept coming until I didn’t have any more. When I was done, I felt like a wrung-out washcloth.
I looked around. Faded memories kept disappearing. Every second, more bits of Riley’s past went away. It was too awful to watch. I pulled out my favorite memory from the satchel—the one at the twisty tree. I started to watch it, but a last tear fell onto the sphere. When I wiped it away, the color of the memory changed from gold…to blue.
That was strange. That had never happened before. Had Sadness done something to this memory?
The image on the screen wasn’t familiar anymore. Riley wasn’t with the whole team; she was sitting in the branch of the twisty tree with Mom and Dad, and she looked…sad.
I must have rewound the memory when I wiped away the tear. I rewound it further now. Riley was all alone, sitting in the tree and crying…sobbing, just like I had been a second ago.
I remembered what Sadness had said about that memory: that Riley had missed the winning shot in the game and felt so awful she wanted to quit. Then Mom and Dad came to talk to her—because of Sadness! They came to talk to Riley because of Sadness. My entire favorite happy memory…it wouldn’t have happened if Sadness hadn’t gotten Mom, Dad, and the team to comfort Riley—the same way Sadness had comforted Bing Bong in Imagination Land.
Riley needed Sadness. The same way she needed me. In fact, maybe Riley’s Joy was even more joyful because she also had Sadness in her life.
It was crazy enough to make my head want to explode, but all of a sudden, I knew for a fact that it was true. I had to find Sadness and bring her back to Headquarters right away!
“Come on, Bing Bong!” I shouted, leaping to my feet. “We have to get back up there!”
“Joy,” he said sadly, “we’re stuck down here. We might as well be on another planet.”
Another planet. Yes! Another planet! Bing Bong had wanted to take Riley to the moon in his rocket…a rocket that was already thrown into the dump and ran on song power! I started singing as loud as I could. It took a while, but then we heard the rocket beeping back at us! We ran to the sound and dug down through fading memories until we found it. Then we dragged it to the perfect spot, a place in the dump with two giant hills of memories: one we could ride down to gain speed, and one we could zoom up again. If we got the rocket moving quickly enough, we could soar off the top of the second hill and shoot all the way back up to the Long Term Memory cliffs!
We pulled the rocket to the top of the first hill and climbed in. As we rolled down, Bing Bong and I both sang his song. The rocket gained power with each word. It roared to life, picking up speed as it raced down one hill and up the other. It was moving so quickly at the top of the second hill that it soared into the air…
…and crashed to the ground long before it got anywhere near the cliff’s edge.
I couldn’t give up, though. Bing Bong and I dragged the rocket all the way back to the first hill. We sang even louder, even stronger, and the rocket felt more powerful under our bodies. I just knew this time we’d make it out.
Except we didn’t. We crashed again. We needed something more—a way to get more power—but I didn’t know what to do.
“Come on, Joy, one more time,” Bing Bong said. “I’ve got a feeling about this one.”
So we tried again. We did things a little differently this time. Bing Bong found the steepest memory hill, and we dragged the rocket all the way to its tip-top. We both climbed into the rocket and sang Bing Bong’s song, and when the rocket roared to life, we sang even louder. We whipped down the first hill and zoomed up the second one. Suddenly, it felt like we shot forward with an extra boost of energy. The rocket flew off the top of that second hill, soared into the air…
…and made the jump! The rocket flew all the way out of the dump and landed on the cliff’s edge. Bing Bong and I were saved!
“Woo-hoo!” I cheered. “Bing Bong, we did it! We—”
But then I turned around and realized Bing Bong was gone.
“Bing Bong?” I called. “Bing Bong!”
I heard laughter. I looked down into the dump. He was there. Bing Bong. He was dancing and smiling and happier than I’d ever seen him.
“Ya-ha-ha!” he cheered. “You made it! Go! Go save Riley! Take her to the moon for me, okay?”
He waved good-bye…then disappeared. Riley’s imaginary friend was gone forever.
“I’ll try, Bing Bong. I promise,” I said.
Suddenly, I understood. That’s why the rocket had been so fast on the second hill. Bing Bong had jumped off. He’d sacrificed himself for me. For Riley.
It was the most loving thing I’d ever seen anyone do.
I wanted to take a moment to sit there and think about him, but the world around me started to rumble, and I knew I didn’t have time. I had to get back to Headquarters, and first I needed to find Sadness. But where? I darted back into the Long Term Memory shelves and noticed all the memories on the bottom shelves were blue—as though someone very sad had been running her hands over them as she walked.
“Sadness!” I called, and took off running, following the blue path. Soon I found her, far up ahead, and I knew she’d run to me when I called her, and we could get to Headquarters right away. “Sadness! Sadness!”
Sadness turned and saw me, but instead of running toward me, she ran away.
“Sadness!” I cried.
“Just let me go,” she said. “Riley’s better off without me.”
“Come back!” I wailed, but Sadness was still running, and she had a huge head start. I chased her all the way through Long Term Memory and into Imagination Land. She lost me in the French Fry Forest, then I found her again in Cloud City but she grabbed a cloud and soared too far overhead for me to catch her. Soon she was floating above the remnants of Family Island, which at this point was little more than some debris and the trampoline that used to support the whole structure.
The trampoline…
I suddenly had the craziest idea ever in the history of crazy ideas. I ran to the Imaginary Boyfriend Generator I’d seen earlier when Bing Bong had taken Sadness and me on the Imagination Land tour. The boyfriend was still moping next to it, peeling petals off a flower.
“You!” I said. “Did you mean what you said before?”
“I would die for Riley!” he moaned. “I would die for Riley. I would die—”
“Yeah, yeah.” I shushed him. “Time to prove it.”
I scooped the imaginary boyfriend into my bottomless satchel, then started up the generator to turn more and more of them out. As they came down the conveyer belt, I caught each one in my satchel. Then I ran along the cliff’s edge toward Friendship Island. Once I had Sadness in sight, I aligned myself with her and poured out all the imaginary boyfriends from the satchel. They quickly stacked up below me—standing on each other’s sh
oulders—until they formed a very wobbly tower. And I was at the very top!
“Whoa!” I yelled. The tower was so unsteady I nearly fell!
“This is crazy, this is crazy…” I muttered to myself. “No, no, no! Joy! Be positive!”
I made the mistake of looking down again.
“I am positive that this is crazy!” I said.
I looked out at the trampoline on Family Island, then at Sadness floating just past it, and then at Headquarters high above her. If I just timed everything right…
“NOW!” I yelled.
All the imaginary boyfriends leaned forward, launching me onto the Family Island trampoline. I bounced off it, then zoomed into the air at the perfect trajectory to catch Sadness.
“Joy?” she said, surprised.
“Hang on!” I cried, because we weren’t done yet. We were still soaring up, up, up…until we smacked into the window of Headquarters.
We quickly slid down the window and, at the last second, grabbed the window ledge. I then managed to reach up and bang on the window until I saw Fear, Anger, and Disgust rush over. They were all wide-eyed with shock.
That was when I realized a little error in my plan. The windows of Headquarters don’t open! How were they going to let us in?
I honestly have no idea how it happened but, suddenly, a giant circular hole appeared in the window, big enough for Sadness and me to climb through.
“Thank goodness you’re back!” Fear cried.
I looked past him and saw what was happening with Riley on the view screen.
She was on a bus, all by herself. Running away. And I knew I couldn’t stop her on my own.
“Sadness,” I said, “it’s up to you.”
“Me?” she asked. “I can’t, Joy.”
But I knew she could. I led her to the console. It was her turn to drive. She held her hand over the controls and removed the idea bulb. Riley’s face changed. It went from pinched and angry to open and sad. Her eyes welled. And after a minute, she jumped up and told the bus driver to stop the bus because she wanted to get off. The bus driver listened, and Riley ran all the way home. Mom and Dad had been so worried they didn’t know whether to hug Riley or scream at her when she got there, but I knew what to do. I handed Sadness all of Riley’s core memories, the ones I’d been protecting all this time. When Sadness touched them, they turned completely blue. And as she placed each memory in the projector, Riley remembered each one of them. She recalled baking cookies with Mom and Dad when she was little. She remembered running around the living room with her underpants on her head, and Dad chasing after her with a towel. She remembered the time when she scored her first hockey goal, and when she used to skate on the frozen lake with Mom and Dad.