CHAPTER 2
Clark took immediately to the role of superhero as if he was fulfilling the role that destiny had set for him. Superboy rapidly became a defining symbol of altruism and an inspiration to the world. Unfortunately, the more natural the role of Superboy grew the more unnatural the role of Clark Kent became.
In order to preserve his secret and maintain some measure of privacy and safety it became necessary to differentiate between the two personas where the public was concerned. To help gain the trust of the public all three of the Kents agreed that Superboy should not wear a mask. Openly showing his face would short-circuit many of the “conspiracy theorists before they even started as it demonstrated that he had nothing to hide and meant that people wouldn’t necessarily be looking for another identity as he was obviously not trying to hide his. The trouble was that if he didn’t wear a mask then how could they keep him for being recognized as Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas.
To that end a few months before Superboy made his public debut Clark Kent began wearing glasses and behaving a bit more timid and introverted. The latter was not much of a change because due to the nature of his secrets Clark and the Kents tended to keep to themselves anyway. They were friendly to everyone and would go out of their way to lend a hand to a neighbor, but didn’t invite any “outsiders” into their own lives. Timid, however, was not something in the young Kryptonian’s natural instincts and was often a difficult character trait to swallow.
Considering his incredible powers and astounding intellect it was easy to forget that Clark was a teenager with all of the trials and tribulations attached. Indeed, when in the role of Superboy the majority of the public treated him like an adult, which sometimes made the transition back to plain, ordinary Ol’ Clark all the more difficult. For Clark, pretending to be timid and having to suppress his natural tendencies and abilities for leadership half or more of the time was often a frustrating task. This became even more difficult when the thrill of being Superboy died down and Clark began to notice girls. Especially the girl next door, Lana Lang.
Clark and Lana’s friendship had been steadfast since childhood, but their romantic relationship over the years was on and off at best. Often being more off than on. The necessity of disappearing at a moment’s notice in order to deal with some emergency coupled with usually inconvenient timing and an inability to explain that same disappearance more often than not led to arguments and vows on Lana’s part never to agree to go out with Clark again. Vows that Clark worked extremely hard to circumvent with every ounce of the “Kent charm” he could muster.
Lana usually gave into Clark because in truth she was interested and truly cared for him, but she tried each time to make it clear that she wanted a boyfriend and not just lip service to the idea. For his part, Clark wanted to be able to commit to Lana, but didn’t yet feel comfortable enough to reveal his secrets. Part of him realized that soon he would be faced with the choices of adulthood and even more responsibilities with his alter ego. None of his options seemed to offer much for a relationship and he was hesitant to burden Lana with the responsibilities inherent with knowing the full truth while not being able to offer her a true future together.
But, youth tends to lend itself to the belief that there will always be time to worry about things later, so when Clark screwed up yet another date with Lana he spent the next several weeks trying to convince her to give him yet *another* chance. He would not, he swore, mess up Homecoming.
The day of the dance Clark spent a large part of his time scanning the news for reports of any incidents that might require his attention in the hopes that he could fix things quickly should they arise and hopefully leave his night free. Jonathan, seeing that any hopes of getting Clark’s attention long enough to get any work done was fruitless, shoved him out the door with a laugh and told him to go on patrol so at least he would be of use to someone.
It seemed, however, like the entire world was at peace and Clark had performed only few interventions by the time he returned home to start getting ready.
Martha looked up at her son coming down the stairs in his rented tux and remarked, “My word, Clark, what are you dressed up for? Are you going someplace?” before continuing to set the table for dinner.
As his footsteps faltered and stopped on the staircase Martha looked up into his dumbfounded expression and deadpanned, “Oh, that’s right, the Homecoming dance. I had completely forgotten because you hadn’t really talked about it this week.”
“Ha, Ha,” Clark said realizing he was being ribbed and continuing down the stairs. “I haven’t talked about it that much.”
“No,” Martha said, “I guess you really haven’t. Only the few times you’ve came through the front door or came down the stairs, or…”
“I get the picture, Mom,” Clark said with a grin.
“I was sure you would, son,” Martha replied unsuccessfully masking a grin as she continued about her business in the kitchen.
“Where’s Dad?” Clark asked.
“Oh, he took the truck to get some feed at the store.”
“The truck?! But, I’m supposed to…” Clark stopped when he saw Martha’s shoulder’s shaking with laughter as she kept her back to him.
“You’re having wa-ay, too much fun with this,” Clark said with a sour look on his face.
“I’m sorry, son,” Martha said “but, I haven’t seen you this excited since you first put on your costume and maybe not even then.”
“Uniform,” Clark corrected automatically and his expression soured even more as Martha’s laughter increased to the point that she had to sit down at the table.
“I think I’ll just go ahead and leave now before I cause you to accidentally injure yourself from too much laughter.”
The ringing of the kitchen phone interrupted Martha’s reply and Clark picked up the receiver from its place on the wall.
“Hello?”
“Clark?”
“Lana,” Clark said smiling involuntarily and then freezing as possible reasons for her calling started to come to him.
“Is something wrong? Nothing’s happened has it?” he asked.
“No, I just wanted to make sure nothing was going on at your end either.”
“Lana, I told you nothing was going to interfere this time. I’m going out the door right now as a matter of fact. I figure I’m a health hazard to my mother at the moment and need to get out of here,” he said glancing at his mother who had started laughing again.
“You promise?”
“I’ve got the keys in my hand and I’ll be over in just a couple of minutes. I promise, nothing’s going to ruin tonight.”
“Ok, I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”
“Bye” Clark said and then replaced the receiver on the wall hook and gave his mom a quick kiss on the cheek.”
“I won’t be very late.”
“I had no doubts about that. I just want to be warned if your father and I have to tether you to the bed tonight so we don’t find you on the ceiling in the morning.”
“Seriously, Mom. Letterman’s not retiring for awhile.”
“Ok, Ok, I just wanted to remind you that you have a secret identity and floating while you and your date dance isn’t the best way to keep it.”
Clark chuckled and gave his mom a hug.
“Ok, maybe you can get Carson’s job.”
“And leave the glamour of Smallville? Not on your life.”
Clark flashed his mom a final smile and headed out the door. Once he had started the truck and put it in gear his hand automatically reached for the radio, but he stopped himself. Nothing had been happening up till now so he probably shouldn’t tempt fate. Besides, he told himself, even a Superboy needs a night off every now and then.
**********
Despite arriving early the school’s gymnasium was already quite crowded.
“Clark, Lana!” a voice yelled at them from across the room as they entered the gym.
Turning toward the source of the yell Clark saw his best friend, Pete Ross coming toward them pulling his date, Jessica Drake, in his wake.
“I told Jessica that it wasn’t a dumb idea to come early. Can you believe all of the people that are already here?”
“Yeah,” replied Clark “I guess everyone else had the same idea.”
“Which makes no sense because nothing’s even started,” grumbled Jessica.
“Hey,” Pete said, “it’s the mingling portion of the evening. In a little while you won’t even be able to hear yourself think let alone talk to someone else.”
“Yeah,” added Lana pointing toward one end of the gym, “looks like the sound guy’s already getting everything ready for the DJ.”
The gym’s speakers suddenly came to life and music played for three seconds before cutting off again to be replaced by a loud hiss from the system, which in turn was quickly shut off.
“Looks like it may be a bit before they do get it up and running though,” Clark said. “I think I’ll take that moment to get some punch. You guys want anything?”
“No,” Lana said and then added giving Clark a pointed look, “just don’t stray too far.”
“Worry-wort,” Clark said with a grin, which prompted a smirk from Lana.
Clark set off across the gym toward the table of refreshments near the DJ booth. The sound system came on and then went off twice more before he arrived at the table. A radio was sitting to one side tuned to a local radio station and the same song that the sound man was attempting to get right on the overhead system was coincidentally coming to an end just as Clark began pouring himself a glass of punch. Before he could start back toward his friends, however, his attention was drawn to the news report that came on after the song had ended.
*Repeating the lead news story of the hour, a 727 crashed shortly after take off from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport a short while ago. The plane went down in a residential area and now the neighborhood of…*
Not going was never even an option. A plane crash was always serious work and considering the involvement of a residential neighborhood he shuddered to think how many homes and lives were involved. He looked back toward Lana and the others, but stopped himself before he could head back over to them. He didn’t even have time to come up with a decent excuse anyway. Every second counted especially since he was getting the news late. If only he had turned on the truck radio when he started to. If only. And he was going to be leaving Lana in the lurch. Again.
He was in uniform and airborne seconds after hearing the news and crossing the Illinois border seconds after that. His personal life would have to take a backseat to more important matters. Enough people had already been hurt because of his lack of attention.
**********
While Pete focused his conversation on Jessica, Lana took a look around the gym. Where was Clark? It had been almost 10 minutes and he still wasn’t back. He wasn’t near the punch bowl and she couldn’t locate him in the crowd anywhere.
“Hey,” Jessica suddenly said, “what happened to Clark?”
Lana caught off guard by the question, the same one that she had just been asking herself, was at a loss for words.
“Uh…I’m sure he probably had to go to the bathroom or something,” Pete stammered. “Heck, knowing how clumsy Clark is he probably spilled the punch all over himself. I’m sure he’ll be right back.”
Something in the way Pete said that made Lana look at him closely. He and Clark were often thick as thieves and sometimes Lana got the feeling that Pete knew a lot more about Clark’s sudden disappearances than he let on. Thinking back she could remember several times when Pete came to the rescue with some type of excuse for Clark. Often times it was also a totally different excuse than Clark himself told when he finally showed back up again. Was Pete just being a good friend trying to cover-up for Clark’s behavior or was there more to it?
Even as she was thinking this Lana found herself saying, “Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Clark never disappears for long.”
The more she thought about it the more the wheels of her imagination began to turn and an old suspicion began to rise. It couldn’t be could it? She’d had the thought in the past, but had always been proven wrong. If it was true though she had a lot of serious thinking to do in terms of this relationship.
“Yeah,” Pete agreed “Clark will probably be back long before they even get that darn sound system working.”
TBC...
