The Real Ugly Duckling

Hi everyone! I’m just a little duckling swimming in a lake in British Columbia, Canada just trying to grow up to be a normal little duck. However, it looks to me like my life will never be normal and hasn’t been normal since the day I was hatched.

See, before I was hatched and when I was still inside my egg, a goose, who had just lost her family of goslings to predators, came along and stole me from my mother, who was a mallard duck. The day I hatched I knew something was different about me. I didn’t honk like a goose, I quacked like a duck. I didn’t seem to be growing as quickly as my cousin, goslings. They were about three times the size of me. I was a different colour than they were. I just knew I was different.

Because I was different, I got picked on right from day one. One of my aunts, who was a goose, knew I was different than the rest of the family. One day, while I was swimming, she grabbed me by the neck and tried to push me into the water. I ran to shore as fast as my little webbed feet would go and when I got to the shore I squawked like crazy. My goose mother came to my side and made sure I was okay and after that day my goose mother rarely left my side. She was angry at my aunt for trying to hurt me.

As I grew up, I would see my family growing up and it was definitely clear to me that I was different. Along the lakeshore I would see families of geese and then I would see families of mallard ducks. I knew I was not a goose. I knew I was a mallard duck because I looked just like them.

Despite being different than the rest of my goose family, I did end up growing up into a beautiful male mallard duck and I ended up raising a family of my own. However, I still respect my goose mother and goose father very much and see them quite often. They have since had lots of little goslings to raise and have been very happy in their life. Despite our differences, they have always been there for me and they love me unconditionally as I do them.