Saturday 5 June 2010

Happy Land 2

The Happy Landers love sports so much. They can’t live without playing sports. The people on the island are tall and their skin is tanned because they go to the beach a lot. There is a big football championship that takes place on the island every year. The team that wins the championship gets a trophy from the President of Happy Land. The King and the Queen also attend the final match but the law says that the President takes the trophy from the palace where the King and Queen live and hand it to the winning team. As for the team that loses, the law says that the players have to train harder for the following season. The players are not allowed to see their girlfriends for one month or talk to them on the phone.

The King and the Queen go to watch the final match in a convoy that consists of 100 carriages. The King and Queen’s carriage is gold plated and drawn by 20 white horses. The President’s carriage is decorated with flowers. He and the first lady and their children wave to the cheering crowd from the windows of the carriage. The children are not allowed to eat ice cream while they are going with their mum and dad to watch the final football match. The law says that if the children don’t do well at school before the match, they are only allowed to watch the match at home on a big plasma TV and not go to the stadium.

Most of the people who live on the island of Happy Land are honest. They don’t sign contracts when they buy or sell things. They only promise to pay the money on time if they are too lazy to print the money at home. If a person doesn’t pay the money on time, he or she rides on a donkey and wears a sign that reads “Dishonest” and goes on a parade around the island. It’s always a big shame for the family to have a member who is dishonest. The last person who was dishonest on the island lived there 100 years ago.

The Happy Landers love music. They have a Spring Carnival every year. They have nice music but they invite singers from other countries too. They invite singers from nearby islands to maintain peace in the area. The singers have to be of good character and must never have had any previous convictions before. The singers send CDs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before they get selected. The Foreign Affairs Minister forms a committee to listen to the songs and decide which singers are allowed into the island. It is usually a difficult task to choose good songs and the committee members can claim overtime for working long hours to choose the songs.

The Prime Minister has special jobs to do on the island. He looks after the government and has to go everywhere to make sure that the people on the island are happy. He doesn’t get elected. The position is taken by anyone who wants to apply for it. Most of the people on the island don’t like to apply for the position of Prime Minister because the person has to work hard. Working hard means that the person will not have time to have fun or be happy.

Every year the whole country celebrates the King’s birthday. There is a long public holiday for one week. People don’t go to work. They go outside the palace to see the king and the Queen waving from the balcony of the big palace at the capital city of Happy Land. They present the king with bunches of flowers that they plant in the gardens of their homes. The law says that for each flower you pick on the island, you have to plant two. That’s why there are so many flowers everywhere on the island. The people on the island export most of the flowers to other countries overseas. They send a lot of flowers to countries that are at war with each other. The governments of the countries at war think that they get the flowers from the other country they are at war with and stop the war.

The King of Happy Land has a big cake for his birthday. He makes sure he brushes his teeth after eating a piece of the cake. He also has a big meal that has all kinds of healthy food. He shares the big meal with all the people on the island. Tables are set in the streets and people share the special food they cook for the occasion. Young boys and girls play music and dance in the streets to celebrate the occasion of the King’s birthday. The King also gives a surprise visit to one family on the island each year on his birthday and tells the kids in the house nice stories before he puts them to bed.

Each year the king chooses to visit one poor family on his birthday to make everyone in the family feel special. Everyone on the island keeps hoping that the King and the Queen will come to visit them.

After everyone in the house falls asleep, the King and the Queen go back to their palace and get a good night's sleep. At night no one is allowed to leave their homes on the island of Happy Land. This makes the country safer and lets the people have a rest. If anyone is caught walking outside their home at night, he or she gets sent to hospital and takes a special medicine to find out if they are sleep walkers or not. The people of Happy Land don’t have bad dreams when they sleep. They feel that what they have on their island is much better than what they can see in their dreams.