Excerpt: Not Quite Normal

I don’t know what happened to Autumn. She just rang our doorbell. I opened it and she started crying right away. She wants to talk to me alone. Right now we’re going up the stairs. The rest of my family is still standing frozen at the door, just as confused as I am. We go into my room. She’s stopped crying now, but barely.
“What’s wrong, Fall?” I say. I’m worried about her. She’s not the type to cry over any little thing.
She takes a deep breath.
“This is going to sound really stupid, but I’m…Freaked out because…Myfamilyistoonormal!”
What did she say? Something about a “toon”? What? I stare at her blankly.
“Er, what? Why are you freaked out? Slow down, Autumn.”
She takes another deep breath.
“I’m freaked out…Because my family is too normal.”
I almost laugh. That’s the opposite of my freak-outs. She really seems serious, though.
“Your…Family…Is too normal?” I say, still trying not to laugh and feeling guilty for finding it funny.
“I know it sounds stupid.” She says, looking at the floor. “I mean, it’s just, everything is so standard. Their names, even! Linda, Steve, Amy and John? And our house is so average and they all look so average and they do average things and we have average cars and an average dog and-“
I’ve never heard anyone use the word ‘average’ that many times in one sentence. I’m afraid I don’t really understand what she means.
“Er, Autumn, you’re kind of lucky your family isn’t freakishly weird like mine.”
“Your family isn’t weird! They’re just not robots!”
If she knew all my secrets, she wouldn’t be saying that.
“Autumn, Autumn, relax. Your family is not robotic. Is that why you’re so worried? You think they’re robots?”
She starts to cry again.
“I’m such an idiot.”
“No you’re not. Did you watch a scary movie or something? ‘Cause there was that one time I did, remember?”
Good! I got her to stop crying. She laughs and says,
“Oh, yeah! Back in 6th grade. I remember that! Which movie was that, anyway?
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!”
“That’s not a horror movie!”
“No, but it scared me.” I shudder, reminded of Johnny Depp’s creepiness. “Oompa Loompas…Dentists…It could have been a horror movie!”
She laughs again.
It’s great that she’s laughing and stuff, but I do need to figure out exactly what’s wrong.
“But back to your family. What’s wrong with being normal?”
“They’re not just like, regular normal, they’re super normal.” This almost makes me laugh. She continues,
“I’ve never seen them cry, or laugh more than just a chuckle, or do anything that some cheesy family on TV wouldn’t do. They never hug me or tell me they love me or anything! They’re not mean or anything, just…Average! So average that they’re not average!”
Now that I think about it, they are sort of that way. Our parents never interacted much; a typical conversation generally went like this:

Peri: Hello!
Steve: Hi.
Peri: Beautiful day outside, isn’t it?
Steve: For sure.
Peri: Did you see that story on the news about that hurricane? It really breaks my heart how much those guys are going through.
Steve: Well, you know, it’s nature.
Peri: *checks watch* Omigosh! I should have been in a meeting like 10 minutes ago! Bye Lav! Bye Steve!

I realize I’ve been just sitting there, staring at the light blue carpet for too long. She has an expectant look on her face.
“I guess….I mean, that’s weird.”
“So you see what I mean now?”
I do. There’s something wrong here. What caused this to happen? Are they not real? Like robots? Was it a spell? Yes, I admit it, magic was the thing that I didn’t want to get into, but it’s too late now.
“Yeah. I need to talk to my parents about this.”
“NO! Don’t! They won’t believe you and then they’ll put me into a mental hospital!”
That’s Autumn for you, always the type to freak out.
“My parents aren’t like that, Fall. They’ve been through some weird things and they understand.”
It’s really hard staying calm when she’s so frantic. She’s pacing in fast circles around the room, something she always does when she’s uncomfortable. She generally doesn’t sit down, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone pace that fast. It would be rather amusing, should the situation be different.
“Don’t tell them, Lav, please!” She looks desperate. No, I have to tell them. They know more about this than either of us do combined. I mean, Dad’s the king for goodness’s sake. He makes all those big magic decisions and has access to any resources we might need. But of course, can’t tell her that.
“Autumn, I know they’ll really help us. I’m going to tell.”
She glares at me. But I have to tell. I don’t know what else to do.