Fooling Everyone. Or Not.
by Alicia U. <lxu2@cwu.edu>
“What the hell is that blue thing up there?” a short, portly man exclaimed, pointing up in the air.
His buddy gazed into the sky and shrugged. “I have no idea. Is it a big blue bird?”
“I think it’s a man in tights. Flying.” After a pause, he shook his head. “I must be toasted.”
“Yeah you must be. It’s gotta be a bird. A big, human-shaped bird.”
“Right.”
Clark Kent raced through the sky, hearing every word of the conversation below him. So far, so good. He was happy having people think he was a bird. At least they didn’t see Clark Kent flying above them.
Without wasting any time, he landed near the shuttle launch sight and sprinted towards the doomed space craft.
Just then, Lois Lane stepped out of the Messenger’s control room and stared at her partner. “Kent?” She pointed to the large red ‘S’ on his chest. “What the heck are you wearing?”
Clark froze in his place. All thoughts of the doomed spacecraft flew from his mind. He no longer heard the annoying beeping coming from the control room so she must have done something to save the day, and, more importantly, she knew who he was. The disguise hadn’t worked. At least not with her.
“Clark?” He could hear a hint of laughter in her voice. Even worse, she was pointing at him like he was a freak. “Tights? And a cape?” Now she wasn’t even trying to hide her amusement.
What was he supposed to say? “Um . . . yeah?”
He could hear his father’s words echoing in his brain, “I don’t know about this costume thing, Clark.”
But he had ignored the warning. In fact, he’d been almost cocky. Sure, no one would recognize him because it wouldn’t really be *him*. Huh. Yeah right. How could he be so stupid? Why did he think Lois Lane, the best reporter in the world, wouldn’t recognize him instantly?
Her voice interrupted his thoughts, “What are you trying to prove, Kent?”
He shrugged, unable to speak.
“I mean spandex?” Her eyes widened in apparent horror. “Not exactly a good look for you.” She ran her hand along his right arm, and he was too stunned to move. “And bright blue?”
“Well . . . I guess I thought I looked good in blue?” What else could he say?
He could feel her gaze drift down from his arms to his chest and then even lower. Never before had he felt this exposed.
“Wow,” Lois breathed. “They don’t call them tights for nothing!”
His mother had said the same thing, only she’d thought no one would be looking at his face. How wrong they all were. “Um,” was all he could say. How was he supposed to react? What could he possibly say?
She still kept her eyes locked on his lower body, but her tone was no longer breathless. It was more like mocking. “Clark, blue is not your color,” she snapped. “And red underwear – on the outside! You do know that’s supposed to go *inside* your pants.”
“I guess . . . I know.” He ran a nervous hand through his hair. Oh, this was bad. Very bad.
Before he had a chance to respond to the underwear charge, she was already attacking another part of his outfit. “And a cape? Those are *so* nineteenth century!”
He looked at her pleadingly. “You don’t like the cape?” He’d told his mother the cape wasn’t a good idea.
Without answering his question, she continued, “And tall red boots? What are you, a woman? A hooker?”
“No,” was all he could manage to say. “They’re men’s boots,” he said softly.
Lois ignored him and continued, “What are you trying to be, a cartoon Superhero?”
She paused long enough for him to think of an answer. “Well, Lois, you told me to bring a change of clothes to work! And this is my, uh, spare outfit?”
The End
This little story comes from a conversation I had on IRC the night Pam, Wendy and Sara were writing their round robin story. Wendy sent me the file to read, and as soon as I opened it, I read “No-one had pointed at his Spandex outfit and laughed their heads off. No-one had yelled, 'What's Clark Kent doing dressed up like that?'" And I immediately thought, ‘But what if they had?’ And this is my answer. It was written in about 10 minutes before I had to leave for softball practice :p .
