CHAPTER 7 — THE BASEBALL GAME

“Maybe we’ll feel better if we walk for a while,” Tammy suggested.
“Good idea,” Tommy said. “We sure couldn’t feel any worse. At least I couldn’t.”
So they got up and wandered aimlessly around the zoo, admiring the endless variety of animals — camels, hippos, giraffes, aardvarks, and others too numerous to name.
“Hey!” exclaimed Tommy after they had walked a long while, “I just realized something. None of these animals are in cages!”
“That’s right,” said Choosy Chicken proudly. “Here in the Land of Choice, we let all creatures go where they want to go.”
“But isn’t that dangerous?” asked Tammy.
“Only to the animals,” replied Choosy Chicken with a flounce of her feathered wings.
The children just looked at each other and hurried on. What could they say to something like that? After a while they grew tired and began looking for a place to sit down. But every bench they saw had the same sign on it, WET PAINT — DO NOT TOUCH, so they kept moving. Finally, exhausted, they found themselves in front of the monkey house.
“Tammy, look,” Tommy whispered excitedly, “there’s a bench over there without a WET PAINT sign on it! Quick! Let’s get it before someone else does!”
They raced across the avenue and eased themselves down on the wooden seat. “Whew!” said Tammy with a long, blissful sigh. “It sure feels good to sit down.”
“I’ll say,” agreed Tommy. “I think I’ll just stay here the rest of the afternoon.”
At that moment a clown flounced along the avenue and stopped in front of them, he had orange hair and was wearing huge floppy shoes and a flower pot for a hat. He opened the tiny suitcase he carried in his hand and pulled out an enormous parking meter. The sign on it said, BENCH TIME LIMIT — FIVE MINUTES.
Smiling and bowing, the clown set the meter in place, pushed a button, and the meter started ticking. Clapping his hands gleefully, the clown twirled around and POOF! he was enveloped in a cloud of bright orange smoke. When the smoke faded away, the clown was nowhere to be seen.
The twins watched the meter as it wound down over the next few minutes. When it stopped clicking, the meter began to make a soft ringing sound that became louder and louder and again louder, until the shriek it made was unbearable.
As the alarm began to ring the twins scrambled to their feet. They covered their ears and stood staring at the bench. What they saw next left their mouths agape in astonishment. When the shriek of the alarm stopped, the bench trembled, collapsed, and folded itself into a small box. The four legs that remained on the ground sprouted small feet and they proceeded to march the box briskly down the street. The parking meter followed close behind it, whirling forward on its one huge round “foot.”
Tommy closed his mouth with a gulp. He looked at his twin, then turned to Choosy Chicken. “I — I think we’d like to go home now,” he said in a small voice. Tammy nodded in agreement.
“Why, certainly,” clucked the shiny purple bird. “Anytime you’re ready. Just follow me.”
Together the three companions started down a winding, tree-shaded path marked SHORT WAY HOME. They walked in silence until they rounded a sharp bend and suddenly found themselves in a clearing. Tammy gasped. “Tommy, look!” she said.
Ahead of them was a gigantic stadium, with hordes of people streaming in the gates. The sign above the box office said, BASEBALL GAME AT 3:30 — ADMISSION FREE.
“Three-thirty!” Tommy exclaimed, as he noticed the huge clock near the entry gate. “Wow! That’s just twenty minutes from now. And look who’s playing! The Sox and the Cubs, my favorite teams.”
Tammy hesitated. All she wanted to do was go home. But she knew how much Tommy loved baseball. “Let’s go,” she said. “After all,” she reasoned to herself, “the path toward home is just outside the stadium. What difference could a couple of hours make?”
Tommy realized that was really tired himself and he wanted to go home, but he knew Tammy had never seen a real live professional baseball game, so he joined Tammy and the crowd waiting to get in. They were so eager to get good seats, that they failed to notice two small signs on the box office window. One said, NO DEPARTURE UNTIL GAME ENDS. The other said, WARNING: RETURN FROM THIS POINT ONLY OVER MOUNTAIN RANGE.
The group located their three wonderful seats behind third base just as the announcer began introducing the visiting team, the Cubs. As each player ran onto the field, the twins stared in astonishment. The players were real-live cubs — bear cubs, wearing baseball shirts and little blue hats with pom-poms on them! And the Sox were just that — red-striped socks, with skinny little arms and legs sticking out of them.
But the strangest sight of all was the umpire. He wore a purple velvet suit, a jeweled crown, and a fur trimmed robe that was so long three people walked behind him to hold it up out of the dust.
“Is that the umpire,” Tommy asked in astonishment, “or an emperor?”
The proud-looking man seated himself on a golden throne behind home plate and gave an imperial wave of his hand. “Play ball!” he shouted.
The Cubs were extremely playful, and were much more interested in rolling around in the grass and chasing each other around the field than they were in playing the game. The first two Cub batters were quickly out. The third actually hit the ball, but he was so excited he jumped up and down at home plate instead of running around the bases, and soon he was tagged out, too.
The Sox, on the other hand, meant business. They hit practically every ball thrown to them. The Cubs in the outfield were so busy playing tag, they just let the balls drop to the ground. When the first inning was finally over, the clock said 5:30 p.m., and the score was 29 to 0.
After two more innings of the same kind of play, the twins had had enough. Tommy stood up and stretched. “Come on,” he yawned, “this is boring. Come with me while I see if I can get a pennant, and then let’s go home.”
They started up the stairs, then noticed that all the exit portals had iron gates pulled across them. Tommy turned to Choosy Chicken. “Why are all the gates closed?” he asked.
“Oh dear,” said Choosy Chicken, as she looked around, flustered. “Didn’t you see the sign on the ticket window? It said, NO DEPARTURE UNTIL GAME ENDS.”
“Oh, no!” The twins said together, then looked at each other in dismay. They opened their mouths to protest, then they thought better of it and returned reluctantly to their seats. They hadn’t even looked for signs.
“How could we have been so careless?” they each asked themselves. Now it was clear that they had to stay and watch the rest of this stupid, lopsided game.
Hours dragged by, and the children grew sleepier and sleepier, but each time they fell asleep, their seats pinched them, so they worked hard to pay attention to the game.
At last, the game that seemed never-ending was over, with a final score of 193 to 0. Yawning and stumbling, the twins filed wearily out of the stadium, just as the first gray light of dawn began to glow in the eastern sky.

Chapter 7 — THE BIG IDEA

For Chapter 7 the Big Idea is: We make some choices for ourselves and some for others.

In Chapter 7, Tammy wanted to go home, but she knew Tommy loved baseball, so she said, “Let’s go.” Tommy, too, was tired, but he knew that Tammy had never seen a professional baseball game, so he agreed to go as well. Each made a choice, thinking the other twin would want to go to the game. From time to time we make choices for others, because we think we know what they want. If we are about to make a choice for someone else, it might be wise to check out our idea with that person.

Think about this Big Idea and figure out how you can use it to make your life better.

To order the print form of In the Land of Choice, and the second novel in the series, The Magic of Choice, use the ORDER LINK below.

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