CHAPTER 8 — DECISION

“Hey!” Tammy cried, looking around anxiously in the semi-darkness. “This isn’t the way we came in. Where’s the short way home that the sign told us about?”
“Sorry,” said Choosy Chicken, stifling a dainty yawn with one bright wing tip. “That was just for people who passed up the ball game. It said so on another sign you didn’t notice.”
“But what about us?” asked Tommy, shivering with the cool of the morning and a sense of despair. “How do we get home?”
“Oh, this path will get you there,” Choosy Chicken assured them with a cluck. “It’ll just take a little longer, that’s all.” She smiled behind her wing and made a little chuckling sound deep in her throat. “Come along, children. We don’t have time to waste.”
They walked and walked across peaceful rolling hills. Finally, after climbing to the top of a small rise, they paused to catch their breath and rest their aching feet. A small village lay below them — no more than a dozen or so thatched cottages, surrounded by a low stone wall.
“Oh, boy,” said Tommy. “Maybe we can get something for breakfast down there. I’m starved!”
VILLAGE OF HABIT, said the sign over the town entrance. Except the word HABIT had been crossed out, and the word DECISION appeared above it in boldly-printed letters.
Tammy and Tommy passed through the arched gateway and stopped. The place was a bustle of activity, and after watching for a few moments, the twins burst out laughing. Every person they saw was doing something strange.
“Look at that man over there,” Tommy cried with delight. “He’s taking a shower with all his clothes on!” Tammy turned and saw the man standing under an outside shower that was spraying water full force.
“And he’s bathing with feathers instead of soap!” Tammy added, giggling as she said it. “And look at that man!” she called, pointing, “He’s riding his horse backwards!”
They looked at each other in amazement. “What kind of a crazy place is this?” asked Tommy, as he laughed and clutched his sides.
“I don’t know,” Tammy shook her head, still laughing. “Maybe we can learn something about it if we talk to that lady over there.”
A woman who reminded the twins greatly of Mrs. Sievers, a friend of Grandma’s and their neighbor, was standing in her front yard, stirring the contents of a steaming black cauldron with a canoe oar. As the twins approached, they had to struggle not to burst out laughing once again. The woman wore dozens of large kitchen sponges attached to some kind of undergarment. A bicycle chain and lock served her as a belt, and on her feet were two loaf-shaped baking pans.
“Good morning, ma’am,” Tommy said, his voice shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Good morning!” she shrieked, in a voice that was much shriller than Mrs. Sievers’, and threw up her hands. “Ma’am!” she called. She pulled out a whistle and blew three piercing blasts. “Habit! Habit! Not allowed! Not Allowed!” She clanked around in her baking pan shoes, waved her hands frantically, shouted, and blew her whistle.
“What’s the matter with her?” Tommy asked, turning to Choosy Chicken. “What did I say?”
“You said, ‘Good morning,’” Choosy Chicken replied.
“But what’s wrong with that?” asked Tommy, puzzled. “It is morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s also a habit. And habits aren’t allowed here.”
“Oh, then what should I say, ‘Good afternoon’?”
Immediately the woman calmed down and smiled at them. “Good evening, children. What can I do for you?”
“Well, we were wondering if you could give us some breakfast — um, I mean dinner.” Tommy amended his statement after he began it as the woman grabbed her whistle and looked as if she might begin shrieking again.
“We’ll be glad to work for it,” Tammy offered.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” the woman said pleasantly. “I have plenty of soup or pizza here. I’ll be glad to share it with you.
The twins looked at each other. “Pizza, for breakfast?” said the expression on each one’s face.
The woman nodded and clanked a step or two toward a small oven. It looked like a metal trunk that was propped up and teetering above an open fire. She used her oar to take out the pizza and she cut it in generous pieces, then she held out the oar toward the twins. Each twin hesitated, then took a piece. The pizza looked strange, but they were too hungry to ask about it. They each took a big bite.
“Ugh! This is awful!” Tommy cried.
“God bless you,” said the woman, smiling.
Tommy made a face and started to spit out the pizza, when the woman moved and he noticed a sign that said, YOU MUST FINISH ALL YOU TAKE, so he swallowed it with great effort. “What’s in this?” he asked, forcing himself to take another bite.
“Well, I don’t remember everything I put in it, because I always add different things, but it’s got peanut butter, tuna fish, mustard, green pepper, and maraschino cherries. As I say, I don’t make it the same way each time. That’s against the law here. This is the Village of Decision, you know.”
“You mean,” Tammy asked, struggling to swallow the disgusting concoction, “that you never follow habit here, even if it’s the most sensible thing to do?”
“Goodness, no!” The woman looked shocked. “We make decisions about everything here. We never do anything the same way twice in a row.
“When this was called the Village of Habit, everything was so dull. We all did the same old things every day. No one ever tried anything new. Now, there’s something interesting going on all the time. Still,” she added wistfully, “it would be nice to be able to do some things the same way all the time. Like sleeping in a bed. The floor’s hard, and trees are so uncomfortable. Mind you, I’m not complaining,” she added hastily. “Decisions are best. The law says so.”
“Well,” began Tommy, anxious to get away. “Thank you for . . .”
“Habit! Habit!” shrieked the woman, interrupting him in mid-sentence, then she blew her whistle three times, very loudly.
“Never say the expected thing here,” she shouted.
“Oh! Well, then, uh, you’re welcome. For the, uh, dinner,” he said.
The woman calmed down instantly and smiled. “Please,” she said kindly. “Hello, children. Come back yesterday.”
“Hello,” the twins echoed and turned to leave the yard. They had gone only a few steps when they stumbled and fell. Mystified, they got up and tried again, only to stumble once more. They looked at each other and Tommy scratched his head.
“I have a feeling,” said Tammy thoughtfully, “that when we keep on walking, that’s considered a habit here.”
“All right,” said Tommy. “Then let’s skip.”
So they skipped down the road, past a fat man struggling to get into his house through a tiny window rather than the wide-open door, but soon they began to stumble again.
“Let’s try walking backwards,” suggested Tammy. They proceeded for several steps, walking backwards, and as they did so they moved past a woman planting flowers in a tree.
As soon as they passed through the gate to the village, they stopped to catch their breath.
“Whew!” said Tommy. “What a place. I’m glad we don’t have to make all those decisions all the time. That’s a lot of hard work.”
“Yeah,” Tammy agreed. “Habits are easier. And they make a lot more sense, even if they can sometimes be dull.”
“But,” Tommy argued, “it’s pretty clear that just one or the other by itself doesn’t work very well. We need both. Sometimes habit is best and sometimes decision is best.”
“Yes,” Tammy agreed, “we need to choose the one that’s best at the time.”
Choosy Chicken made a low, cooing sound deep in her throat. The expression on her face could almost have been a smile.
ats 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 8 — THE BIG IDEA

For Chapter 8 the Big Idea is: When making a choice, sometimes habit is best and sometimes decision is best.

What would it be like for you if you lived in the VILLAGE OF DECISION and had to make new choices all the time? What would it be like if you lived in the VILLAGE OF HABIT and had to do everything the same way all the time? Are you a person who follows your HABITS too often, or makes different choices so often that no one knows what to expect of you?

Think about this 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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