Chapter  10

When the sky finally brightened, Joy was still dragging Sadness through the winding¹ memory shelves. "Riley's awake," Joy said with a sigh. She couldn't believe they had walked the entire night and they were still trying to get through Long-Term Memory. She wondered if they were any closer to getting out than they had been when they started.

Joy dropped the core memories and Sadness reached out to touch them. "Ah ah ah, don't touch, remember? If you touch them, they stay sad," Joy reminded her.

"Sorry," said Sadness. "I won't."

Joy looked back to see all the bottom rows of the memories on the shelves they had passed: they were now all blue.

"Starting now," Sadness added.

Joy dropped her head in her hands. "Ugh," she groaned². "I can't take much more of this."

But then she brightened as she heard voices among the shelves. "Mind workers!" she said, racing³ off in search of the voices.

"But, Joy, we're almost… ," Sadness called after her. "Ohhh."

Joy slipped down an aisle⁴ and found two pear-shaped mind workers wearing helmets and goggles⁵. They were vacuuming memories off the shelves. One held a clipboard while the other sucked up memories with the vacuum. "Look at this," said the first worker, pointing out some memory spheres. "Four years of piano lessons."

"Yeah, looks pretty faded," said the other worker, assessing them.

"You know what?" the first worker said. "Save 'Chopsticks' and 'Heart and Soul' and get rid of the rest."

ZOOP! The worker used the vacuum to suck up the memories. Joy was shocked. She asked them why they were vacuuming up perfectly⁶ good memories.

The workers introduced themselves—they were Forgetters. They explained that their job was to clear out Riley's faded memories and send them to the Memory Dump.

"Nothing comes back from the dump," the Forgetter holding the clipboard said. "When Riley doesn't care about a memory, it fades."

"Fades?" Joy asked, confused. This was the first time she had heard about memories fading.

"Happens to the best of 'em," the Forgetter said.

"Except for this bad boy!" the other Forgetter said with a chuckle⁷. "This one will never fade." Grinning, he pulled out a memory from a nearby shelf and showed it to Joy.

"The song from the gum commercial?" Joy asked. The memory was of the Tripledent gum commercial and it had a catchy⁸ tune⁹.

The Forgetters laughed as they played the memory again. "You know, sometimes we send that up to Headquarters for no reason," the first Forgetter said.

"It just plays in Riley's head over and over again," the other Forgetter added. "Like a million times!"

They laughed as they watched the commercial again, and cracked up even more as they sang along.

Joy watched as the workers put the memory on the shelf and pushed it toward the back. FWOOM! It shot through a tube out of the top of a shelf and up toward Headquarters.

Meanwhile, Riley was in her bedroom on her laptop, talking to her best friend Meg from Minnesota.

"Do you like it there?" Meg asked. "Did you feel any earthquakes? Is the Bridge cool?"

"Yeah," Riley replied somberly. "It's good.… What happened with the playoffs?"

Meg went on to tell Riley that the Prairie Dogs had won their first game. She told her about a new girl on the team. "She's so cool," Meg said.

"Oh, she did not just say that," Disgust said, her voice dripping with attitude.

"A new girl?" Fear said, panicking. "Meg has a new friend already?!"

"GRRRRRRRRRR!" Anger growled¹⁰.

"Hey, hey, stay happy!" Disgust coached. "We do NOT want to lose any more islands here, guys."

But Meg continued to tell Riley how she and the new girl passed the puck to each other without even looking. "It's like mind reading!" Meg said.

Anger grabbed the controls. "You like to read minds, Meg?" he shouted. "I got something for you to read right here!"

"Hey, no, no, no, what are you doing?" Disgust asked.

"Let's just be calm for one second," Fear advised as Anger pulled Fear's nose out and let it snap back like a rubber band.

With no one holding him back, Anger pushed the gear full steam ahead.

"I gotta go," Riley said, cutting Meg off. Then she slammed down the lid of her laptop and hung up on her.

Joy, still listening to the Forgetters laugh about their gum commercial prank¹¹, heard a horrible crrrreak from outside the memory shelves. She ran to see what it was.

"Oh no," she cried, taking in the sight. Friendship Island was falling apart!

Joy looked down at the Friendship core memory in her arms; it was fading. Inside the memory sphere she could see the faint image of little Riley and Meg, skipping over cracks in the sidewalk, laughing and having fun.

Joy watched as the broken island completely sank into the darkness below. "Ohhh, not Friendship," she said.

Sadness walked up to her, having witnessed the whole thing. "Oh, Riley loved that one," she said. "And now it's gone." Sadness couldn't help herself, and she continued. "Goodbye, Friendship. Hello, loneliness."

Joy's expression fell. Then she scanned the area. She eyed Hockey Island in the hazy¹² distance and set her sights on a solution. "We'll just have to go the long way," she said.

"Yeah," said Sadness. "The long… long… long way. I'm ready." She collapsed¹³ onto the ground and kicked her leg up, offering it to Joy.

Joy sighed as she once again started to pull Sadness by the leg through the winding memory shelves. "There's gotta be a better way," she said.

She heard someone humming, and in the distance she could see a large pink elephant happily grabbing memories from the shelves.

 

第 10 章

天终于亮了，乐乐仍拖着忧忧在曲折的记忆架间穿行。“莱莉醒了。”乐乐叹了一口气。她不敢相信她俩已经走了一整个晚上，而且还没走出长期记忆存储库。她甚至都不知道跟她们的起点相比，有没有更靠近目的地一些。

乐乐放下核心记忆球，忧忧伸出手想摸一下。“啊，啊，啊，不准碰，还记得吗？只要你一碰它们，它们就会变成悲伤的蓝色。”乐乐提醒她。

“对不起，”忧忧说，“我不会这样了。”

乐乐回头看了看，发现她们经过的记忆架最下面几排的记忆球都变成了蓝色。

“刚说的话现在才开始生效。”忧忧补充了一句。

乐乐双手掩面。“啊，”她抱怨起来，“我再也受不了了。”

但随即她情绪便高涨起来，因为她听到记忆架里传来了说话声。“大脑工人！”她赶紧朝声音传来的方向跑去。

“但是，乐乐，我们就要到……”身后的忧忧喊道，“噢!”

乐乐滑下一段通道，发现两名戴着头盔和护目镜的梨形大脑工人。他们正从记忆架上吸走记忆球，一个拿着控制板，另一个则用真空管将记忆球吸进去。第一名大脑工人正指着一些记忆球对另一名工人说：“看看这个，四年钢琴课的记忆。”

“是啊，看上去褪色够严重的。”另一名大脑工人一边检查一边回应道。

第一名大脑工人说道：“要不这样吧？留下‘筷子’记忆球和‘全心全意’记忆球，剩下的都清理掉。”

哧溜一声，记忆球被大脑工人用真空管吸进去了。乐乐惊呆了，问他们为什么要把如此美好的记忆清除掉。

大脑工人向乐乐做了自我介绍——他们是遗忘小人，而他们的工作就是清理莱莉脑中那些褪色的记忆球，然后把它们送到记忆清理库。

“它们会永远留在清理库。”拿着控制板的遗忘小人说道，“当莱莉不在乎一段记忆的时候，相应的记忆球就会褪色。”

“褪色？”乐乐疑惑了，这是她第一次听说记忆球褪色的事情。

“碰巧还是那些最好的记忆。”遗忘小人说道。

“除了这个坏家伙！”另一个遗忘小人笑着说，“它怎么都不会褪色。”他从附近的架子上拿出一个记忆球递给了乐乐。

“口香糖广告曲？”乐乐问。那是一段关于“Tripledent”口香糖广告的记忆，其广告曲朗朗上口。

遗忘小人笑着将这段记忆播放了一遍。第一个遗忘小人说：“你知道吗，有时候我们会将这个记忆球发送到情绪总部，到底为什么我们也不清楚。”

“这段记忆在莱莉的脑海中一遍又一遍地重复，”另一个遗忘小人补充道，“差不多有上百万次了！”

他们看着广告又一次捧腹大笑，甚至情不自禁地跟着曲子哼了起来。

乐乐看着遗忘小人将记忆球放在架子上并推往里面。突然，咻的一声！记忆球沿着管道射出记忆架顶部，朝情绪总部冲去。

与此同时，莱莉正在卧室里和她在明尼苏达州最好的朋友梅格视频聊天。

“喜欢那儿吗？”梅格问，“有没有碰上地震？金门桥酷不酷？”

“还不错，”莱莉沮丧地答道，“金门桥挺好的……季后赛怎么样？”

梅格告诉莱莉草原土拨鼠队拿到了第一场比赛获得了胜利，告诉她队里来了一位新成员，梅格说：“她酷极了。”

“噢，她刚说的不是真的吧。”厌厌的声音里满是不屑。

“新队员？”怕怕慌了，“梅格这么快就有新朋友了？！”

“哼——啊——！”怒怒咆哮道。

“嘿，嘿，高兴点！”厌厌教训他们，“伙伴们，我们不能再失去更多的岛屿了。”

但是梅格仍在滔滔不绝地告诉茉莉她和新队友如何在没有对视的情况下就成功地把冰球传给对方：“就像有心灵感应！”

怒怒抓住控制台。“你喜欢读心是吧，梅格？”他叫道，“正好，也让你来读读我的心。”

“嘿，不，不，不，你在做什么呢？”厌厌问道。

“大家能不能都冷静一会儿？”怕怕提议道，但是怒怒一把扯住怕怕的鼻子，拉长，然后让它像橡皮筋一样弹了回去。

没人敢拦着怒怒，他开足马力，将控制杆推到底。

“我得下线了。”莱莉打断了梅格，“啪”的一声合上电脑，结束了视频。

乐乐还在听遗忘小人嬉笑着打趣口香糖广告。突然，她听到记忆架外传来一声可怕的巨响。她跑过去想看个究竟。

“噢，不。”眼前的场景让她哭了起来，友情岛正在崩裂！

乐乐低头看着怀中的友情核心记忆球，它正在慢慢褪色。球里的记忆隐约可见，那是小莱莉和小梅格一起跨过人行道上裂缝的记忆，她们欢笑着，很开心。

乐乐看着解体后的岛屿完全沉入底下的深渊。“噢，友情岛可不能没了。”

忧忧走上前，站在乐乐旁边目睹了整个过程，她说：“噢，莱莉珍爱的友情岛，现在竟然没有了。”忧忧情不自禁地继续说：“再见了，友情岛。你好啊，孤独。”

乐乐冷静下来，察看了整片区域。接着，她的目光落在了远处若隐若现的冰球岛上，她找到了解决方法。她说道：“看来我们只能走那条远路了。”

“好吧，”忧忧说，“远……远……远路，我准备好了。”她躺倒在地，向乐乐伸出腿。

乐乐叹了一口气，重新抓住忧忧的腿，拖着她穿行在蜿蜒曲折的记忆架里。“一定会有更好的方法。”乐乐说道。

她听到有人在哼唱，她看到远处有一头粉色的大象，正快活地从架子上取下记忆球。

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