And Other Stories Read Free Page A

blood-dark sleigh behind them. Poppa Fred’s blast
of silver buckshot took out the leader. With it hanging in the
traces, the rest were easy targets.
    We smoked and ate the stringy
little deer, all except the mutated one with a glowing nose. In the
Oldthing’s sack, we found toys and tools and clothes and all kinds
of wonderful things, just perfect for each of us. Since we didn’t
know who it’d stolen them from, we had to keep them for
ourselves.
    That would’ve been the most perfect
Krizmiz ever if Grams had lived. We found her in the living room. I
find it comforting to know that the last thing she saw was me
killing the evilest of the Oldthings.
    Before her stroke, Grams had often
said that if we survived the bad Oldthings coming back, good
Oldthings might follow. I think she was right. Early this spring,
when the last of the little deer had been eaten and we were afraid
we’d all starve, a giant rabbit with a basket of eggs showed up on
our lawn. That gave us meat for a month.
    It’s a fine new world. I only wish
Grams was here to see it.

 
    Brian and the
Aliens
    Will Shetterly
    A boy and his dog were walking in
the woods when they saw a space ship land. Two space aliens came
out of it. One alien was blue, and one was green, and they were
both covered with scales, large red eyes, and long tentacles.
Otherwise, there was nothing unusual about them.
    The aliens walked into the middle
of the clearing and jammed a flag pole into the ground. The flag
had strange colors on it that hurt the boy's eyes, and odd
lettering that looked like "We got here first.
Nyah-nyah."
    The boy whispered to his dog, "I'm
not scared. You go first."
    The dog said, "Rowf!
Rowf!"
    The boy thought the dog meant,
"Yes, you are, you can't fool me." So the boy said, "Am not," and
he walked toward the aliens. (What the dog really meant was, "If
you'd throw a stick, I'd chew on it until it was soft and slimy,
and then I'd bring it back so you could throw it
again.")
    The blue alien said, "Hello, native
person. I am Miglick and this is my partner, Splortch. We have
discovered your planet."
    "Yep," said the green alien. "We
did. It's ours."
    "And we name it Miglick Planet,"
said Miglick.
    "Yep," said Splortch. "We do. No,
wait! We name it Splortch Planet."
    The boy said, "It has a name. It's
Earth."
    Miglick told Splortch, "Perhaps we
should name it for our home. We could call it New
Veebilzania."
    "Boring!" said Splortch.
    "Everybody calls it Earth," said
the boy.
    "Rowf! Rowf!" said the
dog.
    Splortch said, "Are these
Splortchians trying to tell us something?"
    Miglick said, "The little
Miglickian said 'Rowf!' I believe that means they'd like to give us
all their gold." (What the dog really meant was, "Are these aliens
friendly? Do they want to roll in some mud?")
    "Um, we don't have any gold to give
you," said the boy.
    "That's too bad." All of Miglick's
eyes squinted. "Then what were you saying, Miglickian?"
    "My name's Brian. And I'm a human
on Earth. This is Lucky. He's a dog."
    "His name's Pry-on," Splortch told
Miglick. "He's of the tribe of Splortchians called hummings. This
clearing where we landed is called Urp. The littler Splortchian is
extremely fortunate. Its tribe are called ducks."
    "I know that," said Miglick. "I
heard everything the Miglickian said."
    "No, you didn't," said Brian. "The
entire planet is called Earth. The people who live on it are called
humans. My name's Brian, his name's Lucky, and he's a dog.
Okay?"
    Most of Splortch's eyes squinted in
a frown. "Excuse me. If you want to name things, discover your own
planet."
    "But humans were here first," said
Brian.
    "Okay," said Miglick. "Whenever we
can't think of a better name for something, we'll use the old
humming name. Isn't that fair?"
    "That's fair," said Splortch,
squatting on its tentacles to look at Lucky. "You don't have much
to say, do you, fortunate duck?"
    Brian said, "Ducks fly. They have
wings. Lucky's a dog."
    All of Splortch's eyes squinted in
a frown. "I