Nebula Awards Showcase 2013 Read Online Free PDF

own. She made the shark, but he flapped about on the table unhappily. I filled the sink with water, and put him in. He swam around and around happily. However, after a while he became soggy and translucent, and slowly sank to the bottom, the folds coming undone. I reached in to rescue him, and all I ended up with was a wet piece of paper.
    Laohu put his front paws together at the edge of the sink and rested his head on them. Ears drooping, he made a low growl in his throat that made me feel guilty.
    Mom made a new shark for me, this time out of tin foil. The shark lived happily in a large goldfish bowl. Laohu and I liked to sit next to the bowl to watch the tin foil shark chasing the goldfish, Laohu sticking his face up against the bowl on the other side so that I saw his eyes, magnified to the size of coffee cups, staring at me from across the bowl.
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    When I was ten, we moved to a new house across town. Two of the women neighbors came by to welcome us. Dad served them drinks and then apologized for having to run off to the utility company to straighten out the prior owner’s bills. “Make yourselves at home. My wife doesn’t speak much English, so don’t think she’s being rude for not talking to you.”
    While I read in the dining room, Mom unpacked in the kitchen. The neighbors conversed in the living room, not trying to be particularly quiet.
    â€œHe seems like a normal enough man. Why did he do that?”
    â€œSomething about the mixing never seems right. The child looks unfinished. Slanty eyes, white face. A little monster.”
    â€œDo you think he can speak English?”
    The women hushed. After a while they came into the dining room.
    â€œHello there! What’s your name?”
    â€œJack,” I said.
    â€œThat doesn’t sound very Chinesey.”
    Mom came into the dining room then. She smiled at the women. The three of them stood in a triangle around me, smiling and nodding at each other, with nothing to say, until Dad came back.
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    Mark, one of the neighborhood boys, came over with his Star Wars action figures. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber lit up and he could swing his arms and say, in a tinny voice, “Use the Force!” I didn’t think the figure looked much like the real Obi-Wan at all.
    Together, we watched him repeat this performance five times on the coffee table. “Can he do anything else?” I asked.
    Mark was annoyed by my question. “Look at all the details,” he said.
    I looked at the details. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say.
    Mark was disappointed by my response. “Show me your toys.”
    I didn’t have any toys except my paper menagerie. I brought Laohu out from my bedroom. By then he was very worn, patched all over with tape and glue, evidence of the years of repairs Mom and I had done on him. He was no longer as nimble and sure-footed as before. I sat him down on the coffee table. I could hear the skittering steps of the other animals behind in the hallway, timidly peeking into the living room.
    â€œ Xiao laohu ,” I said, and stopped. I switched to English. “This is Tiger.” Cautiously, Laohu strode up and purred at Mark, sniffing his hands.
    Mark examined the Christmas-wrap pattern of Laohu’s skin. “That doesn’t look like a tiger at all. Your Mom makes toys for you from trash?”
    I had never thought of Laohu as trash . But looking at him now, he was really just a piece of wrapping paper.
    Mark pushed Obi-Wan’s head again. The lightsaber flashed; he moved his arms up and down. “Use the Force!”
    Laohu turned and pounced, knocking the plastic figure off the table. It hit the floor and broke, and Obi-Wan’s head rolled under the couch. “ Rawwww ,” Laohu laughed. I joined him.
    Mark punched me, hard. “This was very expensive! You can’t even find it in the stores now. It probably cost more than what your