Well, it's coming along steadily right now. After a rather dry spell (I think I already mentioned that I started this back in early November), things have been flowing pretty freely this last week and a half or so.
From part 3:
Lois presented her Met U student ID card and driver’s license at the bank, and was directed to Mama’s safe deposit box. Taking a deep breath, she fitted the key into its place and opened the box.
---
The Girl Next Door, part 4:
There were two things inside: a shoebox, wrapped in brown paper with her name written on the outside, and a small envelope. With shaking hands, Lois opened the envelope.
In Mama’s familiar writing was a short note:
Happy twenty-first year, my beautiful girl!
I’ve saved some things for you, but do not open the box here at the bank. Take it home and only open it when you are sure you will be undisturbed.
All my love, forever,
Mama
Lois carefully lifted the package out of the box, and then returned the box to its place. She left the bank and hailed a taxi. Poor student or not, this was definitely a taxi situation. She wasn’t going to ride the bus with her precious package.
When she got home, she went directly to her room. Neither Sam nor Ellen was home, of course, and the only live-in staff, the cook, was probably in the kitchen somewhere. Lois locked the door of her room, and then sat on her bed.
She took a deep breath, then tore the paper off the box, careful to save the piece that had ‘Lois’ written on it in Mama’s writing. She lifted the top off and looked inside.
There was another envelope, this time a legal-sized one. Her name was written on it, again in Mama’s writing.
Under the envelope was a folded pale blue cloth of some kind, silky-looking and very soft. Lois lifted it out and unfolded it. It was a tiny one-piece baby garment, sort of like a nightgown. It had a collar edged with something that looked like a cross between lace and crochet-work, in the same pale, pale blue. There was a small, strange crest of some kind pinned on the collar. The crest was mostly a pale yellow, with a symbol that looked like a stylized S in the center, in pale red.
There was also a baby blanket, loosely woven of threads in those same three colors. And there were two intertwined chains – gold? – about adult-wrist-sized. One had the S-crest incorporated into it and the other had the same crest shape, but this time with what looked sort of like a W or a pair of crossed V’s in its center.
The last item in the box was a small photo album, the kind that held one photo per page. With trembling hands, Lois opened it and began to turn the pages.
Photos.
Photos, some a little blurry, obviously taken by an amateur. Photos of a small, dark-haired, smiling baby – her. Photos of her as a toddler. Grinning from under a blanket, and sitting in the old-fashioned buggy. Feeding the ducks. Curled up in Mama’s big chair, asleep.
And there were two photos of Lois and Mama. In one, they were sitting together in Mama’s chair, and in the other, at the old kitchen table. Lois stroked her finger gently over the photo Mama’s face.
She remembered the one taken at the kitchen table. Their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Burch, who baby-sat Lois when Mama was at work, had been visiting. Mama was already ill by then, but was feeling pretty good that day. Lois had been playing dress-up. The women had chatted over tea, and Mrs. Burch had offered to take their picture.
At the back of the album, behind the pages with photos, there were a few keepsakes tucked into the clear plastic photo pockets.
A lock of dark hair.
A pressed wildflower.
A folded sheet of paper, that when unfolded revealed a child’s drawing of a pond, and trees, and two smiling stick figures, one large and one small.
A small, faded, pink construction-paper heart, with ‘I LoV YoU MAMA ’ written on it in shaky letters.
And two more folded up papers, an inexpertly drawn Princess Elizabeth and a building with many windows. There were dragon faces peering out of each window.
Lois laughed out loud, remembering. She and Mama had colored those in after Mama had drawn them at Lois’s request.
< Mama, will you draw me Princess Elizabeth, and then draw me her stable? >
< Does Princess Elizabeth have a stable, sweetie? >
< Of course. You remember, Mama – where she keeps the dragons. >
< I didn’t know Princess Elizabeth keeps dragons in her stable. >
< Yes, Mama, remember? You told me she doesn’t kill them. She jes’ stables them. >
She remembered Mama’s sweet laughter, and her loving hug.
< Oh, sweetie, I said Princess Elizabeth *disables* them. That means she fixes them so they can’t hurt anyone or anything. She makes their fire burn out, remember? >
< Oh. >
Lois remembered her little-girl-disappointment. The idea of a stable full of dragons was just so appealing.
< But you know what, sweetie? May she *does* stable them. After all, they do need somewhere to go, don’t they? >
And with Lois looking on happily, Mama had drawn the stable with smiling dragons looking out all the windows.
Those pictures had hung on their refrigerator art gallery the longest, Lois remembered.
With a huge lump in her throat, Lois turned her attention to the envelope. Inside was a letter:
My beloved Lois,
In this box are the few things I found with you. You were wearing the little pastel outfit and the blanket, and the chains were tied into a corner of the blanket. I don’t know what the symbols mean, but the S was also on the outside of the ship. I don’t know anything more about where you came from or why.
I can’t give you a family history, but I can tell you my story. I grew up in foster care. I don’t remember anything about my parents. I was found on the steps of a church at about two-years-old. I was too young to tell anybody anything, not even my name, so the state gave me a name and a birthday.
As soon as I was eighteen I moved out of my foster home. I was already working at the library. When I wasn’t working, I spent a lot of my free time at the park or the library. It was free entertainment, and you can never run out of stories to read and things to learn.
Then I found you. I was scared to tell anyone how I found you, or even that I had found you at all. What if they took you away? What if they were looking for you? Were you some kind of government experiment? I’d been in good and bad foster homes, and I knew there were people out there who might do something like sending a baby into space!
Well, I was going to keep you. You were meant to be my little girl. I knew it the moment I opened your spaceship. You must have been so scared and hungry and cold, but you smiled at me. I think I fell in love with you right then. You were so sweet! I swore I was going to protect you. I went to a free clinic with you about a month after I found you, and pretended I was sort of dumb, and said I had you at home. I got you a birth certificate that way; I got a lecture, too, about proper health care and all that, but that was a small price to pay to make you legally mine. Nobody ever suspected any different!
I changed jobs right after I found you. I was lucky; I found a job as a filing clerk in a law firm. I liked my job at the library, but while it was okay for people to think I was an unwed mother - that was what I wanted them to think so I could keep you – everyone at my old job would have known I’d never been pregnant.
The law office did a lot of estate planning. I thought it all sounded so interesting, so I did a lot of reading. I learned about stuff like safety deposit boxes and life insurance. I wanted to make sure you would never end up like I had, so I got a life insurance policy. My boss fixed it so that the premiums came right out of my paycheck. That was actually kind of unusual, I think, for those days, but it was one of the advantages of working for a law office.
Then I found out I was dying. The doctors never came out and said that, but I knew it was true. I was so scared! I had to find someone who would take care of you. Mrs. Burch loved you, but she was too old to raise a small child. Dr. Lane – I knew they wanted a baby, but she said she would take you, and would even adopt you. I know they weren’t perfect, but they could give you an education and advantages you otherwise might not get.
I never, ever told anyone the truth about you. I thought it would be safer that way. I hope it hasn’t been too hard on you. You always were a strong little thing; I admired that about you from the beginning.
Remember what I always told you? You can do anything you decide you want to do. Don’t ever be afraid to do what’s right, what needs doing. Don’t be afraid to fight dragons. And always, always remember how much I love you!
All my love, Mama
By now tears were streaming down her face, but Lois read the letter again, and then a third time.
“Oh, Mama,” she whispered around a sob, “I miss you so much! I wish I could tell you how much I love you. How much I thank you for those wonderful years and all the things you taught me.”
She carefully tucked everything but the photo album back into the box. She put the box in the bottom – lockable – drawer of her desk, and locked it.
She put the photo album in the bedside table drawer, next to Princess Elizabeth’s story, so that she could look at it last thing at night whenever she wanted.
---
Unofficially, there was another very good reason why Lois should have her own place, although she didn’t discover that reason until she’d been living in her small apartment for about two weeks.
Studying for a test in one of her classes, she dozed off while sitting on the couch – a couch that was much more uncomfortable than she had anticipated when she picked it out. Furniture stores should let you test their couches the way you’d really use them.
With your sock feet on the coffee table, watching TV and eating pizza.
Sprawled out with one leg hanging over the arm while you talked on the phone.
Or sound asleep after that all-nighter you’d just pulled.
But no, they expected you to sit briefly and then decide to buy the thing. You couldn’t wiggle around and get comfortable, sort of mash the pillows down and settle in. So you didn’t know how awkward and cramped you’d get when you actually fell asleep on it until you had it in your own living room.
So, in retrospect, what happened next wasn’t too surprising.
And it wasn’t at all surprising that she reacted the way she did.
She woke abruptly with a startled jerk when the telephone rang. But Lois’s startled jerk didn’t knock the telephone off the end table, or her coffee cup off the table in front of the couch.
No, Lois Lane’s startled jerk knocked *her* out of the *air.*
In a frantic tangle of waving arms and legs – and wits - she crashed down apparently from thin air about two feet above the table, sending her books, papers, pens, *and* the coffee cup flying. Disoriented and in utter shock, she fumbled automatically for the phone, mumbling “Hello?” into it in a shaky voice as she brought her feet around, off the coffee table, and stood up.
“Lois?” Ellen Lane asked, “What’s the matter, my dear? Are you ill? You sound… I don’t know, shaky. Out of breath.”
“No,” Lois said in a stronger voice, pushing her tangled hair back out of her eyes. What had just happened?!
“Lois?” Ellen’s voice came again.
“I’m fine,” Lois said quickly. “I was just… um, unlocking the last of those locks you insisted on, and I heard the phone ringing, and…” She hoped that sounded believable.
It must have. “Oh,” Ellen said. “I imagine it does take a little extra time, but what I said made sense, you know, Lois. It’s wise to be a little extra cautious in this day and age.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lois said. The locks were a pain but she could deal with it. Maybe she’d just lock *some* of them. If somebody tried to pick her locks, maybe they’d end up locking the ones she left unlocked.
“Well, anyway,” Ellen continued, “I just called to see how you were settling in.”
“Uh, can I call you back?” Lois asked quickly. She needed to think about what had just happened. She scrambled for a believable excuse. “I’m… I… um, I’ve got something I have to do…” That was actually the truth. She had to figure out what was going on. Had she just been… *floating* in midair?!
“A date?” Ellen asked.
Lois forced her attention back to the phone. “No…” she said, and heard Ellen’s sigh of disappointment.
“Lois, take some time to… to go out, to meet people,” Ellen said. “You can’t just focus on school all the time. Why don’t you meet me for lunch, and we can talk about introducing you to some nice young men…”
Lois had heard all this numerous times before. She didn’t want to hurt Ellen’s feelings but a relationship with *anyone* was out of the question. She had no idea if she could ever have a normal relationship with any man.
How could she be sure it was safe to tell someone else her secret? And what if… what if she lost control of one of her abilities? Could she even *have* a… physical relationship safely?
And now there was this new thing. Thank goodness this hadn’t happened while she lived at home!
“Ellen,” Lois said in increasing desperation, “I have to go, I’ll call you back later, okay?” And on Ellen’s goodbye, she hung up the phone and collapsed onto the couch.
She sat and stared at the mess around her. Coffee had soaked into the rug between the couch and the coffee table. Papers littered the carpet and her Press and Politics textbook lay on its face, pages crumpled, under the table.
It could have been worse, though. At least the table wasn’t one of those glass-topped ones.
So what *had* really happened? She was almost positive she hadn’t been dreaming. Besides, how did she explain… landing on the coffee table?
She’d been – she’d been… floating.
And why was this so hard to comprehend? Especially after all the other things she could do.
She took a deep breath.
Okay.
She sat straighter on the couch and thought ‘up’.
Nothing happened.
“Okay,” she muttered resolutely. “I will figure this out.”
What if this only happened when she was unconscious? When she was asleep? That could be really awkward. It really, *really* was a good thing she’d moved out.
Maybe she just had to be relaxed. She certainly wasn’t really very relaxed right now - actually, she was feeling a bit highly strung at the moment.
< Highly strung… not the same as floating. >
Lois forced back her increasingly hysterical thoughts.
“All right, Lane, deal with this,” she said fiercely. “How can this be any more freaky than fire-starting eyes, after all?” She made a conscious effort to relax and clear her mind. Maybe she would float automatically.
A half hour later, she acknowledged that nothing was happening. She sighed and stood up. It was time to start cleaning up the spilled papers and coffee. She still had to study for her test.
She’d have to deal with the rest – the floating – later.
---
Her studying didn’t go as smoothly as she’d hoped. It was difficult to keep herself focused on her notes when thoughts of her newest… skill continued to float in the back of her mind.
< *Float*? Cut it out, Lane! >
Lois gave up. No more studying. She was going to bed. Maybe if she slept on it, she’d have more answers in the morning.
Lying in bed, she let her mind wander. Random thoughts…
She sat up abruptly. What if it really was involuntary? If she had no control over the floating, she couldn’t go out in public… She’d be… trapped forever in her apartment...
“Deep breaths,” she whispered. “Remember what Mama said? ‘Concentrate, Lois, take deep breaths.’ Okay. I am. I’m taking deep breaths.” She lay down again, forcing herself to breathe evenly and deeply. “Think of Mama…” she repeated. She began to sing Mama’s song softly. Gradually, she began to calm down, began to relax.
Was that -?
What -?
She felt herself begin to rise, and immediately tensed up. At once she sank – bounced - back down onto the bed.
Deliberately, she loosened her tense muscles. She sank bonelessly into the quilt, and tentatively thought ‘up’ again. To her increasing delight, she came steadily up off the bed until she hovered a foot or so above it. She looked up at her bedroom ceiling, and in moments had drifted high enough to touch it. She was *floating*!
“Oh, this could be so much *fun*,” she exclaimed, laughing out loud, feeling more lighthearted than she’d been in a long, long time.
Placing one palm against the ceiling, she pushed off, instinctively righting herself, and drifted down until her feet touched the bed. She sank down into a sitting position, settling fully onto the quilt, and then began to experiment in earnest.
By 5 am she had the rudiments down. She could take off fairly gracefully from any position – lying down, sitting, or standing. She could land okay – mostly. She did knock over the bedside lamp a couple of times, and once she misjudged the distance to the floor and landed on her rear.
And she could do more than just drift up off the floor, the bed or a chair. She could also move horizontally… like… more like *flying* than *floating*.
She needed – wanted - to keep practicing. But where? She needed more space than her small apartment provided.
She could go somewhere… a park, maybe? Not Centennial Park, though - that was too risky. Too many chances that someone might see her.
And if she was going out somewhere to practice, she ought to go at night, and wear dark clothes. She certainly didn’t want to be seen.
She could… take off from her apartment roof? But that was so much higher than her bedroom ceiling. What if she fell?
Invulnerability… how far did that extend? Was she truly, completely invulnerable? Utterly? It wasn’t like she’d really tested it… by, oh, being shot at, or… stepping in front of a train…
She couldn’t take time off from school and travel someplace remote, like the mountains, to practice. It was the middle of the semester. And summer was coming up, and with it her highly prized internship at the Daily Planet. There was *no way* she’d give that up.
“Think Lois,” she grumbled.
What if she were to start small? Like maybe… the roof of the Lanes’ house? It was only two stories tall. Couldn’t she start there? Yes, she could walk over there at night. And maybe… try floating up until she reached the roof.
“Ugh. How am I supposed to *wait* until tonight?” she groused. “And I can’t blow off class because it’s the midterm!” < You’ve *never* blown off a class, Lane. > She stomped into the bathroom to get ready for school.
-----
Lois discovered fairly quickly that she could, indeed, do more than merely float.
After a couple of practice sessions on the Lanes’ roof, she grew gradually bolder and began to experiment with height and speed. She could rise into the air from any spot as fast as she could run – which was pretty fast. She also practiced landing.
Naturally graceful, Lois found that there were almost no limits to what she could do. She could swoop and soar and even hover. She could fly slowly, and so fast that her stopwatch couldn’t time her speed. She could take off abruptly or slowly, and land so lightly that she disturbed nothing around her.
Even the sky itself was no limit.
She could go wherever she desired – as long as she was extremely careful to avoid being seen. She quickly assembled what she thought of as her ‘flying clothes’ – black jeans, black t-shirt, black socks and shoes.
When she could, she experimented with speed and distance, finding that she could literally travel across the country in a matter of minutes.
The only drawback was that she wasn’t always able to figure out where she was. The actual states didn’t have those helpful black lines drawn around their borders the way they were on maps. Or those handy contrasting pastel colors that so many maps had.
Obvious landmarks made some locations easy to figure out – the St. Louis Arch, Chicago - situated as it was on the lake, Washington, DC with its monuments, and San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge.
But with the smaller towns and cities, she sometimes had to look for a newspaper stand in order to figure out if she’d correctly found her intended destination.
She began to research flight, looking for an effective way to keep her bearings, and soon focused on the ancient sailors’ methods of steering by the stars. She studied star charts and brushed up on her geometry, and tested herself by choosing and correctly finding several destinations.
Flying quickly became a way for her to relieve the stress of daily life complicated by incredible abilities she had to keep hidden.
-----
To be continued
