I'm Very Aud

A perfectly ordinary girl named Audrey lived in a topsy-turvy town where cats chased dogs and fish swam in the sky. Everyone called her Aud, which was terribly ironic because, in a world of oddities, Aud was anything but odd.

Aud's parents wore their shoes on their hands and gloves on their feet. Her teacher wrote on the ceiling and read books upside down. Even her best friend, Bartholomew, insisted on walking backwards everywhere he went, bumping into lamp posts and mailboxes with gleeful abandon.

But Aud? Oh, Aud was dreadfully normal. She wore her clothes right side out, ate her peas with a fork, and always remembered to say "please" and "thank you." It was all very distressing.

One day, as Aud walked to school (forward, of course), she decided things simply had to change. "I'm very Aud," she declared to a passing butterfly, who was busy trying to crawl across the sidewalk. "I'm the oddest Aud there ever was!"

The butterfly, preoccupied with its earthbound adventure, paid her no mind.

At school, Aud's teacher, Mrs. Topplebodom, was standing on her head, reciting multiplication tables in reverse. "Nine times seven is... three!" she exclaimed triumphantly.

Aud raised her hand. "Excuse me, Mrs. Topplebodom, but nine times seven is actually sixty-three."

The class gasped. Mrs. Topplebodom's eyes widened with delight. "Why, Audrey! How delightfully odd of you to be so very correct!"

Aud beamed. Perhaps being odd wasn't so difficult after all.

At lunch, she ate her sandwich crust first and apple core first. "I'm very Aud," she announced to her classmates, spitting out apple seeds.

Bartholomew, who was busy trying to drink his milk through his nose, looked at her quizzically. "But Aud," he gurgled, "that's just how we always eat our food. How terribly ordinary of you!"

Aud's face fell. This oddness business was trickier than she'd thought.

After school, she walked home on her hands, repeating "I'm very Aud" with each wobbly step. She passed Mr. Fumblefingers, the mailman, who was busy delivering letters to the wrong houses with great enthusiasm.

"Why, Audrey!" he exclaimed. "How perfectly normal you look today! Your parents must be so proud."

Aud tumbled to the ground, exasperated. She couldn't win!

That night at dinner, as her family ate soup with forks and twirled spaghetti with spoons, Aud had an epiphany. She stood up on her chair and declared, "I'm very Aud, and that means I'm going to be perfectly, wonderfully, extraordinarily normal!"

Her parents exchanged bewildered glances. "Oh my," said her father, balancing a pea on his nose. "How odd!"

"Isn't she just the quirkiest thing?" her mother agreed, stirring her tea with a celery stick.

And so, in a world where oddity was the norm, Aud discovered that her very normalcy made her the oddest of all. From that day forward, she embraced her ordinariness with gusto, becoming the most extraordinarily ordinary girl in all the land.

Which, of course, made her very Aud indeed.