Originally posted by ShayneT:
Well, what do you think? Bonus points for recognizing canon events and characters in this chapter. 
Of course there is Joe, Annette, and LoLo from IASWAF. Did Annette mention the humiliating scene from the cafeteria in one of her monologues? I vaguely remember some reference to Lois and Joe maybe dating in high school.
Joe better redeem himself, because he's acting like a jerk. Actually, ALL the football team should be suspended for their activities... especially their bullying of Annette.
The football player slid into the empty seat beside her and grabbed the banana from her lunch box. “I can’t believe you eat that crap…raw fish is nasty.”
“Sushi isn’t…” Lois began before forcing herself to stop talking. “At least I’m not a walking heart attack like you and the rest of the boys.”
That's an interesting choice for sack lunch. The local sushi place here doesn't do take out or delivery (one of the two) because of temperature concerns for the raw fish.
He put his hand on Lois’s back and she flinched. Breathing the fingers of the team’s star quarterback wasn’t going to win her any points with the team or with the rest of the school.
I'm sorry.
How is Lois 'breathing' Joe's fingers when they're on her back?
“I’ve heard that you aren’t exactly pulling for the team,” Joe said. His hand remained where it was on her back. “That you aren’t showing a lot of school spirit.”
Twisting out from under his hand, Lois turned to look at him. “I’ve got as much school spirit as anybody.”
“So why don’t you come to the game tonight? Prove it to everyone.” There was something in Joe’s voice that Lois hadn’t heard before, and Lois looked him in the eye. “The Lions are loyal, isn’t that what they say?”
Now, Joe. I'd say that sounds suicidal.
Lois looked down at her meal. Without the banana, she was going to be hungry. It was just another sign of how her day was going. “Maybe we can talk about this later.”
And another sign of how Joe wasn't thinking about HER but only of himself.
Lois had no doubt that Malloy was playing the good cop, but she’d heard the threat underlying what he’d been saying. If people got the wrong idea about her loyalty to the lions, others might not be as magnanimous as Joe.
Clearly, "some people" need to take a chill pill. It's just football, people. /dodges tomatoes/
The girl had managed to drop her tray without spilling her bowl. The player bent down and reached into the bowl with his hand. He smeared oatmeal from the girl’s dropped lunch onto her face.
“Hey! It’s an improvement!” he said, staring at the girl who was glaring up at him, frozen.
Tom Church! Future Candidate for prison.
There was a sudden burst of wind, which shouldn’t have happened in a closed room like the cafeteria, but Tom Church reacted as though he’d been slapped in the back. He stumbled and fell, shoving his knee into the bowl of oatmeal.
Somehow, his own meal went flying and hit him in the back. A combination of sloppy joe mix, chocolate milk and cheese fries slithered wetly down his back.
Tom Church scowled and looked around wildly, as though daring anyone to laugh. In spite of that, Lois heard a few sniggers from behind her, and as he stood up and headed out of the room, there were isolated laughs, even from the players table.
Yea, Clark!
He better watch out or Annette's gonna crush on him.
She wanted Lane to be as much a household name as Woodward and Bernstein, or Norcross and Judd.
She wasn’t going to get there by cowering in her room, or by hanging all over the arm of the local football hero.
Going to the game was going to be tricky; she’d have to make sure that she was never alone at any time.
She also wouldn't get there if she was dead and nobody knew why.
Dropping her trash in the gray thirty gallon bucket by the door, she was startled to realize that Clark Kent was behind her, slipping his tray into the window where the lunch ladies collected them from the students poor enough or dumb enough to actually eat the cafeteria cooking.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
She turned toward him and said, “I don’t suppose you’d want to go to the game tonight, would you?”
The one thing she’d learned about him this morning had been that he was a quick thinker. He was strong, and she had a feeling that he was brave, although she couldn’t be certain.
He looked at her for a long moment, and for a second Lois had the feeling that he’d been listening in to her conversation with Joe. That was impossible, of course, as he’d been all the way across a crowded, noisy room. He hadn’t even been looking at them, so he obviously wasn’t a lip reader.
“Not a date,” she hastened to add. “Just…friends.”
He was silent for a long moment, and Lois got the impression that he was struggling within himself. The student behind him grumbled, waiting to put his tray away. Finally he shrugged and said, “I’ve got a little time free.”
Yep, this is new territory for Clark, going out with a girl, even as "just friends". Does he know she wants him there as her protector? Is he hesitating because he doesn't want to draw attention to himself being seen with Lois would give him, especially since he is known to be in the locker room with the jocks first thing in the morning? Is he worried about the money? Or that he knows that Lois will go without him if he says 'no'. I'm betting it's a combo of all the above.
So why did she feel a little flutter in the bottom of her stomach?
Because she's seen him naked?
