Introduction: I felt inspired to write a little nfic piece for Christmas, so I wrote something I called Super Santa's Daughter. In this elseworlds story, Clark got a job at the Daily Planet, but for whatever reason he and Lois didn't really notice one another. Clark was thinking about donning his supersuit and starting his "career" as a superhero, but he didn't get around to that, either. Instead he dressed up as a flying Santa Claus and was caught in the act by Lois Lane. After this, Lois tracked him down and found out that he was Clark Kent. To make a longish story short, this led to a very heated Lois and Clark encounter of the nth kind, but to Lois's shock, Clark revealed that he was going back to Krypton. Clark left, but Lois had a daughter, Clara Ellen Lane.

This is the first part of a story about Clara. Don't expect too many chapters, because my Christmas holidays won't last much longer. But we most definitely need one more chapter, and possibly two.

So here goes:

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*I’ve done what I can to have Clark’s child. Please, God, let me become pregnant.*

BAAAM!!!

”Oouch!! Damn it, kid, watch where you’re going!”

Ohh… my… oh, I walked straight into a guy as I was reading Mom’s diary!

”Oh, um…sorry!”

”Are you out walking the streets of Metropolis reading a book? Don’t you have a home to do that sort of thing?”

I’m so embarrassed that I just want to disappear, but I want to tell him that…yeah, I have a home. Only I don’t dare to go back there right now. Because I’m in trouble and I need to think, and right now I can’t face Mom, and if I go back there now she won’t let me finish reading her diary. Because I, Clara Ellen Lane, have broken into Mom’s secret drawer and stolen the diary where she wrote down the secrets that she wouldn't share with anyone. And the things I read in there… and when Mom finds out I’ve been reading them…. oh, my…

Okay, so I learnt who my Dad is, which was sort of the reason why I stole the diary in the first place. My Dad is Santa Claus. I’m not kidding you. Mom took a picture of him as he was flying to an orphanage in Harlem thirteen years ago, on Christmas Day in 1993. He looked just like you’d think he would, or pretty much, except he was a handsome young man just dressed up like Santa. But he flew, I tell you, flew, and who else can do that but Santa?

So Mom got interested in finding out who this Santa was, where he came from and all. And would you believe she found out that Santa was really a guy working for the same newspaper as her, the Daily Planet? Santa’s name was really Clark Kent, and he was from a place called Smallville in Kansas.

So, well, Mom broke into Santa’s apartment here in Metropolis and looked around in there, the way she usually does when she wants to find things out. She found a couple of really interesting things which she stole from him, like his Santa cap and beard. And then she wrote an article about him and left it on his desk, so that he could see she was on to him – not that she would print the article or anything. Well, Mom and Santa got together, and, hmmmm, they hit it off – they, uh, they did the sort of things I can’t even begin to tell you about, and when Mom finds out I have been reading about it she'll kill me. But, you know, they did what you do to make a baby, and that way they made me.

Anyway, Mom really, really liked what she and Dad did together – (ugghh – I’m dying of embarrassment just thinking about it) – so she wanted him to stay with her always. But that’s when Dad told her he was leaving, because he’s from another planet, you see, and he was going back there now. Everything was ready, his spaceship was waiting, and he’d be leaving in a few hours, would you believe it? Well, Mom had a fit, and she was screaming and shouting, but he wouldn’t budge. He told her he was an alien, he didn’t belong with her, and he couldn’t have children with her. That’s what he thought!

And Dad started explaining to Mom a bit more about why he had to leave. He told her he’d had a message from his home planet. The people there wanted him to come home, and there was a woman there waiting for him. Her name was Zara, and Dad said she was his wife. Poor Mom!

Well, Dad said he was sorry that he’d done what he did with Mom – the baby-making stuff, you know - but he’d done it because he couldn’t resist her. I’m really disappointed and sort of angry that Dad left for Krypton, but I’m glad that he couldn’t resist my Mom. I think that’s sweet. And he gave her a communication thingy that could send messages from the Earth to Dad’s home planet, which is called Krypton by the way, although Dad wasn’t sure how the communication thing worked. And then they, Mom and Dad, did *that* again – the things I shouldn’t even know about because I’m only twelve years old – and then Dad left. Went back to Krypton. Vamoosed. And I’ve never seen him. But Mom went straight to a place called Star Labs and got herself a fertility drug there, because she really, really wanted to have a baby with Dad. I think that’s sweet. I mean, she loved Dad so much that she wanted to have his baby, now that she couldn’t have him. She wanted to have me, you know. So she got herself that drug, which would make it easier for her to become pregnant. (She stole it actually - she fooled a poor doctor there into thinking he had an upset stomach, so he ran off to the bathroom and she just took the drug – my Mom is so cool.) But now I can't tell you any more about my Mom and Dad, because that’s as far as I’ve got, reading Mom’s diary.

And now I don’t want to go home. And I want to find somebody to talk to. And it can’t be Mom. I mean, she’s kept all these things from me! Besides, I can’t look her in the eye right now that I’ve read about all the racy stuff she did with Dad. So I need to be away from her for a little while, and think for myself. And I need – I need – to meet my grandparents. Dad’s parents. Jonathan and Martha Kent, from Smallville, Kansas. I need to see them, because I got to ask them about Dad. How do I get to them in Smallville?

Yeah, how? That’s a tough question. I’m a twelve-year-old kid, I have – let’s see – twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents in my pocket – and I want to get from Metropolis to a place in Kansas called Smallville, for crying out loud – and I want to do it so that not a single adult will notice. Particularly not my Mom. How do I do it?

I guess I could try to find some information in the library. (I could ask the librarian: Do you have a guidebook about how a kid can run some 1,500 miles away from home on $27.50? And by the way, how do I find this place Smallville anyway?) Not a good idea, eh? Besides, if I go to our local library, everybody knows me there – and Mom will have issued a search warrant for me by now.

So I don’t know what to do, and I’m out wandering the streets, and I’m really feeling kind of low. This is not how I wanted to celebrate my twelfth birthday, or Christmas Day, for that matter. (It’s Christmas Day today, and it’s my birthday too, if I didn’t tell you.) Well, at least the streets look pretty with Christmas decorations everywhere. And it’s getting dark and all these lights are coming on. But I’m not really in the mood for any of that cosy-looking stuff, so I turn away from the main streets and head for the gloomier parts of Metropolis.

After a while, I find myself in Hobb’s Bay. I kick a few pebbles and feel right at home. There aren’t that many streetlights here and no Christmas decorations at all. There are all these kind of suspicious-looking warehouses, and there’s a bit of rubble here and there, sort of matching my mood. Every now and again, you can hear a car somewhere, and you have to wonder what those people are doing here anyway. Maybe they are like me, they don’t want to talk to the police right now. Or to their Moms.

I look out over the water. Today the Atlantic Ocean is as calm as anything and just lapping gently at the quays and piers of Metropolis. Like it was a kitten lapping up its milk or something. It feels peaceful, as if I could just fly away above the sea and forget about my troubles. Too bad that Smallville is in the other direction.

And then I feel a hand on my shoulder.

”Hey, kiddo, whadda you doing here?”

”Eeeep!!!” I yell. I swear I jump three feet up in the air. I didn’t know I scare that easily.

”Hey, hey, kid, easy! You’ve met me! Bobby! Bobby Bigmouth. Your Mom’s favorite tattletale. Whaddaya doing here?”

I just stare at him. My heart is pounding like it wanted to punch a hole clear through my ribs.

”B-Bobby?”

”That’s it, kid. You remember me, don’t you?”

Bobby Bigmouth! What a relief. Yeah, I remember him all right – I’ve met him twice actually, when Mom took me along to get information out of Bobby when she didn’t have a baby-sitter. The first time I was probably only five or something. You should have seen him when he saw me – like someone had shown him the world’s cutest puppy or koala bear. He didn’t want to eat any of the food Mom had brought him, and he wanted to buy Mom and me dinner at a restaurant instead. His treat. Mom looked quite pleased that he was so taken with me, but she told him it was not a good idea if people saw me in the company with someone like him, a well-known snitch. He seemed really disappointed. The second time I met him with Mom I was ten, and he was just as happy to see me.

”Yeah,” I mutter, my teeth actually chattering. ”I recognize you.” I’m not cold, but I guess I’m still scared, and maybe lonely and upset, too.

”Out all alone on Christmas Day, kid? Clara, I mean. Hey – Christmas Day? It’s your birthday, right? How old are you today? Twelve?”

”Yeah,” I answer again. Damn! I’m actually glad to see Bobby Bigmouth, because I was feeling so lonely and lost, but I don’t know what to say to him.

”Twelve,” he says, somewhat dreamily. ”Congrats, kid. And now that your Mom’s not around I’m really buying you something to eat. C’mon! There’s a cosy place just round the corner. You can have a real nice hamburger and a Coke there.”

I don’t protest, so we walk around the corner, and there it is – Mama’s Kitchen, of all names. But it looks nice. It’s small, but clean, with red and white table cloths on small round tables and friendly looking bracket lamps on the walls and candles on the tables. A big black woman is talking kind of soothingly to a small, seedy man at one of the tables, but she looks up and lights up like a lamp when she sees Bobby and me.

”Bobby! Well, well, well! Finally decided to pay your Mama Mandy a visit, hmmmm?” She surges towards us like a mighty cruise ship and sweeps Bobby into an enormous hug and lays a big wet smooch on his cheek. She lets go of him and looks at me like I'm good enough to eat. ”Who’s the lovely young lady?”

I squirm. I don’t want to talk about myself right now. Bobby comes to the resuce, bowing deeply to Mandy and kissing her hand.

”A Very Merry Christmas to you too, lovely Madame,” he says, eyes twinkling. ”This young lady celebrates her birthday today, so she wants your juicest hamburger with fries and a Coke.”

Mandy looks at me and pats my arm. ”Congratulations, honey,” she says in a raspy voice that’s so friendly that I feel as if her vocal cords are wrapping me in one big bear hug. Damn! I feel my eyes tear up. Can’t take friendliness right now. And then she just opens her arms to me, and I kind of disappear into her big, soft bosom. Jeepers… I wonder what her cup size is. And then I can’t think about that anymore, because I’m just so comfortable when she’s holding me like that, and I cry just a little. Finally she lets go of me. She pats my cheek and winks at me, like we share a secret, and she puts a tall glass with a lot of ice and big bottle of Coke on the table in front of me. Then she disappears into a small kitchen. ”Hamburger's coming up, dearie.”

Bobby and I sit down at a table. ”So,” he begins. ”You and Mom have a nice Christmas?”

”Yeah,” I mutter. It was nice enough until things started going wrong. I got both my Christmas stocking and my chocolate birthday cake, as usual, and Mom gave me a cell phone, and Uncle Perry gave me a laptop, and then Mom and I went to the Zoo together, and she held her arm around me, and she told me about the animals we looked at and about her job and some cases she worked on and Uncle Perry and Uncle Jimmy and Grandma and Grandpa, and we laughed and giggled and went to a café and shared a big hot chocolate mocha latte, and then we went to the public skating rink and hired skates, and we spent an hour fooling around on the ice, and Mom was like Bambi on ice sometimes and I was just laughing and laughing. But then Mom got a call from a source, and it was just so important that she had to leave straight away. So I got home on my own, and then I just started to look around a bit in our apartment, and suddenly I just found her picklocks, and I decided I would open that secret drawer that she’s never let me see. And I found all kinds of weird stuff in it, and Mom’s diary, too. And I started reading her diary, and I learnt that my Dad is Santa Claus, and he and Mom did all kinds of X-rated stuff to make me. And I found that I can fly just like Santa Claus, or sort of, and then Mom was coming home, and I just grabbed some money and some dark clothes and Mom’s diary and scrammed. And I learnt that my Dad’s name was Clark Kent, but he left for his home planet Krypton before he knew he was going to have a daughter. And now I just have to, have to see my grandparents, my Dad’s grandparents, Jonathan and Martha Kent of Smallville, Kansas, but I don’t know how to get there.

I look down at the table cloth. ”It was nice,” I repeat.

I’d like to ask him if he knows how I could get to Smallville, but I don’t trust him. He’ll tell Mom where I’m off to if I do, won’t he?

One of the seedy-looking men who’s been sitting at a table close to ours suddenly gets up and comes over to us.

”I heard it was your birthday,” he says, clearing his throat and looking a bit embarrassed. ”Don’t have a present for you exactly, but if you don’t mind, I’ll sing this song for you.” And he starts singing. His voice is just slightly off key, but it’s nice to hear him anyway.

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you

If your heart is in your dreams
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star as dreamers do

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you thru
When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true

I feel my eyes tearing up again. What is my heart’s desire? Why must I go to Smallville? What good will that do? I guess I hope it will help me figure out a lot of things, like why my Dad left, and what sort of person he was, and why my Mom’s never told me the truth, and how I and Mom can ever again be the sort of wonderful friends that we used to be, and who I am anyway.

A car is pulling up outside. I know, I just know, that it’s Mom. I fly up, turning over the chair and sending the glass with all the ice crashing to the floor.

”You called her,” I yell at Bobby. ”You traitor! Mister Snitch!!!"

I burst through the door and I can hardly see, because my eyes are so full of tears. The traitor! When did he call her? Why didn’t I notice?

Mom’s outside, just getting out of the taxi. Well, I gave her the slip when she was coming home to our apartment, and I’ll do the same thing now. She’s staring at me, and her face is sort of contorting, sort of full of pain and sorrow, and I can hear her cry, ”Clara!!”, and my heart feels like bursting. And then there is a voice, sort of muffled, saying ”I have a favor to call in….”, and that’s the last thing I hear, because I’m running away as fast as I can.

Everything is just a blur. I feel like I’m running on a rush of adrenaline and panic and I can’t really see where I’m going. Suddenly there’s an awful crash and the world goes up in a cloud of dust and splinters and broken boards and stuff. Jeepers! I’ve run straight into one of those warehouses here down at Hobb’s Bay. Hot damn, I’ve totalled it! Someone is going to be really angry tomorrow.

Okay, I’ve got to pull myself together. First thing, I got to pick myself up, dust myself off, so’s my dark clothes will look dark again. Let’s see, nothing hurts. I can take a pretty mean punch without flinching, right? Bet I could become the world’s heavyweight champion for women, even though I’m only half the size of the big ladies. Heck, I bet I could become the men’s heavyweight champion, too. Imagine me, skinny twelve-year-old girl, taking out all the big strong guys in the world. Oh, Dad. What kind of freak am I? Why did you leave me? Why couldn’t you stick around so I could ask you things?

Oh!!! Where's Mom's diary?? Did it get lost in the rubble of the warehouse? Oh, oh!! If it's gone I can never go home... and ... I'll never get to know all that stuff about Mom, either... Oh, oh, oh, hot damn, here it is!! Full of dust and pulverized plaster, but I guess it'll be all right. Oh, if it'd been lost... I'll guard it with my life from now on!

Okay. Deep breath. Take it easy. Hold on to the diary. Think. Okay. I’m fast, I’m really fast. And I can slam into a warehouse and level it without hurting myself. And I can, well, I can fly. Can’t I? Dad could fly, and I sure hit the ceiling of our apartment. What if I… what if I try to fly to Smallville? On my own? That way I won’t have to try to squeeze past all those guards and security controls at the airport and try to explain why a twelve-year-old kid wants to buy a ticket to Smallville for $27.50 even if she isn’t sure how to get there in the first place.

All right. Flying it is. But I’ve got to find a quiet place to start from. And remember, I’m on the east coast, and right now I’m as far east as I can go without ending up in the Atlantic, but I’ve got to fly west. And I don’t want to fly across the busiest parts of Metropolis, with all the searchlights scanning the skies and ghettobirds circling. I should try to follow the coastline until I get to a part where the city thins out. Where it doesn’t feel like the city anymore. And when I get there, I should probably fly a couple of test runs before I try crossing half the continent.

I move south, sticking close to the water all the time. I move as fast as I can, staying in the shadows in my dark clothes. I’m getting pretty good at this, moving fast and silently.

The warehouses thin out. There are fewer buildings here in general. The arching bay of Hobb’s Bay is already behind me. The shoreline looks more and more unused, and the roads curve away from it.

I have reached my starting point. Smallville, here I come.

tbc...