Nebula Awards Showcase 2013 Read Online Free PDF Page B

dad paid for your mom!”
    I stumbled and fell to the floor. Laohu growled and leapt at Mark’s face.
    Mark screamed, more out of fear and surprise than pain. Laohu was only made of paper, after all.
    Mark grabbed Laohu and his snarl was choked off as Mark crumpled him in his hand and tore him in half. He balled up the two pieces of paper and threw them at me. “Here’s your stupid cheap Chinese garbage.”
    After Mark left, I spent a long time trying, without success, to tape together the pieces, smooth out the paper, and follow the creases to refold Laohu. Slowly, the other animals came into the living room and gathered around us, me and the torn wrapping paper that used to be Laohu.
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    My fight with Mark didn’t end there. Mark was popular at school. I never want to think again about the two weeks that followed.
    I came home that Friday at the end of the two weeks. “ Xuexiao hao ma? ” Mom asked. I said nothing and went to the bathroom. I looked into the mirror. I look nothing like her, nothing.
    At dinner I asked Dad, “Do I have a chink face?”
    Dad put down his chopsticks. Even though I had never told him what happened in school, he seemed to understand. He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No, you don’t.”
    Mom looked at Dad, not understanding. She looked back at me. “ Sha jiao chink ? ”
    â€œEnglish,” I said. “Speak English.”
    She tried. “What happen?”
    I pushed the chopsticks and the bowl before me away: stir-fried green peppers with five-spice beef. “We should eat American food.”
    Dad tried to reason. “A lot of families cook Chinese sometimes.”
    â€œWe are not other families.” I looked at him. Other families don’t have moms who don’t belong.
    He looked away. And then he put a hand on Mom’s shoulder. “I’ll get you a cookbook.”
    Mom turned to me. “ Bu haochi? ”
    â€œEnglish,” I said, raising my voice. “Speak English.”
    Mom reached out to touch my forehead, feeling for my temperature. “ Fashao la? ”
    I brushed her hand away. “I’m fine. Speak English!” I was shouting.
    â€œSpeak English to him,” Dad said to Mom. “You knew this was going to happen some day. What did you expect?”
    Mom dropped her hands to her side. She sat, looking from Dad to me, and back to Dad again. She tried to speak, stopped, and tried again, and stopped again.
    â€œYou have to,” Dad said. “I’ve been too easy on you. Jack needs to fit in.”
    Mom looked at him. “If I say 'love,’ I feel here.” She pointed to her lips. “If I say ' ai ,’ I feel here.” She put her hand over her heart.
    Dad shook his head. “You are in America.”
    Mom hunched down in her seat, looking like the water buffalo when Laohu used to pounce on him and squeeze the air of life out of him.
    â€œAnd I want some real toys.”
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    Dad bought me a full set of Star Wars action figures. I gave the Obi-Wan Kenobi to Mark.
    I packed the paper menagerie in a large shoebox and put it under the bed.
    The next morning, the animals had escaped and took over their old favorite spots in my room. I caught them all and put them back into the shoebox, taping the lid shut. But the animals made so much noise in the box that I finally shoved it into the corner of the attic as far away from my room as possible.
    If Mom spoke to me in Chinese, I refused to answer her. After a while, she tried to use more English. But her accent and broken sentences embarrassed me. I tried to correct her. Eventually, she stopped speaking altogether if I were around.
    Mom began to mime things if she needed to let me know something. She tried to hug me the way she saw American mothers did on TV. I thought her movements exaggerated, uncertain, ridiculous, graceless. She saw that I was annoyed, and