Read Online Driven by Emotions by Elise Allen - Free Book Online Page B

was right, we’d had it pretty good in Minnesota.
    Fear suggested we sleep on it. I was cool with that. Beauty sleep always helped. This time, though, I didn’t sleep well at all. And when I woke up, Fear was quaking under the console.
“What is going on?” I asked.
    “We were at school,” he blabbered, “and we were naked, and there was a dog, and his back half was chasing him…and then we saw Bing Bong.”
    “You idiot!” Anger screamed. “It was a
dream
! This is ridiculous, and we can’t even get a good night’s sleep anymore. Time to take action.” He grabbed
the idea bulb he’d had earlier—the one about running away. “Stupid Mom and Dad,” he grumbled. “If they hadn’t moved us, none of this would’ve
happened.” He moved the idea to the console, where he could plug it in and make it an official live idea in Riley’s mind. “Who’s with me?” Anger asked.
    I thought about it for a moment. Running away was a big deal. But honestly, things couldn’t get any worse.
    “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
    Anger plugged the idea into the console, and Riley sat up in bed, inspired. She pulled out her laptop.
    “So how’re we gonna get to Minnesota from here?” I asked.
    “Well, why don’t we go to the elephant lot and rent an elephant?” Anger railed.
    Seriously, the sarcasm I have to deal with. It’s like a joke.
    “What do you think?” Anger continued. “We’re taking the bus!”
    The smelly, crowded bus. Private jet would be more my speed, but I guess that wasn’t so much an option. Honestly, I didn’t even know if a bus was an option. “A ticket costs
money,” I noted. “How do we get money?”
    “Mom’s purse,” Anger said.
    “You wouldn’t!” I gasped.
    “Oh, but I would,” Anger assured me. “Where was Mom’s purse when we saw it last?”
    I’d never really thought of Riley as a thief—thieves are pretty disgusting—but Anger had a point. Mom and Dad got us into this mess, so it made sense they should pay to get us
out.
    Anger had the controls, and he led Riley downstairs. Mom was on the phone, and the purse was on the table. It was seriously simple to pull open the purse, slip out a credit card, and run back
upstairs. I was pretty impressed. Oh, sure, Honesty Island crumbled to dust the minute we did it, but at this point, what was one less island?
    The next morning, instead of loading books in her backpack, Riley packed some clothes. We were serious about running away now, and that had Family Island pretty shaky, but Mom and Dad were kind
of getting what they deserved on that score. I mean, really, weren’t they the ones who’d hurt Family Island by moving us away? Yeah, I thought so, too. Sure, Mom and Dad acted all nice
and said they’d see us after school. But that only proved how clueless they were! How could they be so cheery? Didn’t they know how much trouble they’d caused by changing
everything on us?
    Riley didn’t go to school that day. After she packed her backpack (I made sure she had a good selection of outfits—after all, she was going to have to get by with very little for a
while), she walked out the front door without saying a single word to Mom and Dad. She then headed for the bus station. The bus wasn’t scheduled to leave until much later in the afternoon, so
we had some time to kill.
    Fear was paranoid that we’d get lost once we got to Minnesota, so he steered Riley into the public library to borrow some maps. And while she was there, she decided to flip through books
about runaway kids. Again, one of Fear’s brilliant ideas. He wanted to know what was in store for us, and ended up giving himself an anxiety attack.
    As freaky as those books were, they didn’t deter Riley from carrying out our plan. She put the books back on the shelf and left the library. Thank goodness. Public places are
gross—totally full of germs. I mean, who knows how many people could have picked their noses and wiped their boogers on