From last part:
And then suddenly there is a hand on my shoulder, and I yell and fly up so hard that I break clear through the ceiling of the car.
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New stuff:
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”Eeeeeep!!!!!” I yell.
”Holy sh*t!” someone else is shouting.
I stare into a pair of dark blue eyes. Dark, dark, dark, blue eyes. Gleaming like – I don’t know, like sapphires glinting off the moonlight in the night?
”Hey, um…Clara? You all right?”
The blue eyes are backing off slowly. C’mon!! Nobody’s got eyes like that. Dark bottomless pools, with some totally amazing blue highlights in them.
”Um, like…maybe you’ve hurt your head?” Blue Eyes is sounding concerned. ”You hit the ceiling, you know? And the car doesn’t look so good where you hit it.”
I slowly, reluctantly put the brakes on my plunge straight into the blue-black depths of the eyes of Blue Eyes. Instead, I glance quickly at the ceiling. Yup, there’s a big hole where my head went through. Big deal. Like anyone wanted this car anyway.
”That’s cool, you know,” says Blue Eyes, kind of reverently. ”Didn’t think I’d ever see anyone do that.
”Hey –” I sound all squeaky, like I was a boy and my voice was breaking – ”hey –” I pitch my voice really low this time – ”this car is, like, the worst rustbucket you ever saw. Ever. In your life. Anyone could push their heads through this ceiling.” To emphasize my point, I ball my fist and pound at the ceiling. My hand promptly goes right through it.
”Really? I got to try that!” And before I know what’s happening, Blue Eyes is sitting next to me in the front seat and aiming a really fat punch at the ceiling. ”OOOUUCH!!!!!”
”Did you hurt your hand?” I ask, concerned. ”The ceiling is kind of spotty – it's got weak spots and some really hard spots….”
He’s blowing on his hand like it hurts him quite a bit, but he’s looking at me like he’s really impressed. ”Hey – you really broke that ceiling! That’s so cool!”
I almost panic. He wasn't supposed to see that! How do I distract him? How do I make him forget what he saw? ”Um, eh… how’s your hand? You sure it’s okay?”
He’s grinning. ”Yeah. Hey, I’ve had a good teacher. Batman told me how to pull my punches.”
”Batman?” Batman! Now that's interesting. Wow. Look at that boy. He’s suddenly gone all pale. Makes his eyes look even more amazing.
”Batman? Did I say Batman? No, uh, I mean…uh, Bateman. Yeah, right, Bateman. Yeah, old Bateman was my… my… my martial arts teacher. He taught me… he taught me... how to, eh, pull my punches.”
”You’re lying!” Wow, this is so great!!! This guy who just found me on Interstate 70 is – what? Batman’s son? ”You’re Batman’s little boy!” I giggle.
”And you are Santa’s little girlie! Aren’t you?”
Suddenly I’m all frightened. And cold.
”Got nothing to say for yourself, Santa Baby?”
”You’re the baby!” I shoot back. ”I’m too old for fairy tales. You’re the little baby – you’re Batman’s little baby! Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
Suddenly he's kind of deflating, like he was a balloon and you punched a very small hole in him. He’s looking down at his hands and I can’t see those amazing eyes of his. ”I’m not his boy,” he says. ”I’m not his son.”
”What are you, then? You the kid he’s training? Is he your coach?”
”Guess so,” he says. He’s still not looking up. Damnit, but I miss those eyes!
”How did you meet him? Did he just come home to you one day and told your parents he’d like to be your coach?”
”My parents are dead,” he says.
You know there are some things that people say to you that leave you all stupid and silent. Because there’s nothing you can say back to them.
”I’m… I’m sorry,” I tell him.
”Yeah.”
”I mean it. I’m really sorry.”
”I know.”
”You, eh… you want to talk about it?”
”No.”
”Oh.”
”Maybe later,” he says. ”Maybe I’ll talk about it later.”
”So, uh… you’re living with Batman, then? He’s your adoptive father?”
”I live in his house. I’m not his son exactly. I’m his ward. What about you? You Santa’s daughter?”
”Yeah,” I admit.
”You living with Santa? At the North Pole?”
”I live in Metropolis. And I’m not living with Santa. He’s gone.”
”I knew that,” he says.
”So why did you ask? Hey, you said Batman’s your coach. Whaddaya training for?”
He’s suddenly smiling. I can see his eyes again. They look all warm and happy. ”I’m gonna be his sidekick. That’s so cool. That’s what I’m training for.”
I don’t know what’s come over me, but suddenly I’m just giggling.
”Yeah? Better stay in training for a long time, buster. I don’t think the baddies gonna pee their panties when they see you.”
As soon as I’ve said it, I want to take it back. So maybe he doesn’t look that big and strong, but jeepers, he is unbelievably cute. Those eyes of his are so incredible. Like glints of blue in lakes of blackness. And that black hair of his, like wowsers, could it ever be as silky as it looks? And his nose looks like Justin Timberlake’s, only much nicer, and his lips… well, his lips are kind of pouting now, but they still look just so.... I’d like to trace that Cupid’s bow with my finger… but…naaah.
So, well, all of him looks just wow… but right now he looks really put out, too.
”If you’re making fun of me I’m leaving,” he says.
”No! Please stay! I… I’m really glad that you’re here,” I tell him. ”So, eh…I’m Clara. Clara Ellen Lane. What’s your name? You didn’t tell.”
”I’m Dick Grayson,” he says, and suddenly he’s blushing like a tomato. ”I mean, Rick Grayson. That’s not funny,” he says when I can’t stop laughing.
”Sorry,” I’m spluttering. And then I’m almost doubling over because I’m laughing so hard.
”That’s it,” he says, walking with dignified steps over to the hottest-looking black motorcycle you ever saw, parked by the shoulder of the road. ”I’m leaving.” He gets up on the cycle and kicks it into gear. Then he takes off with a roar that makes my teeth rattle like castanets. Of course, it doesn’t take many seconds before I’ve caught up with him.
”Hey, I’m sorry,” I yell as I’m running beside him. He tries to shake me off by going even faster, but I put myself in a higher gear, too.
”I really can’t let people see me running like this,” I shout at him. ”You give me no choice, Dick! I mean, Rick!” I jump onto his pillion. He yelps. I scare him so that he loses control of his bike, and we skid and start falling. Well, I put my foot down onto the road and push us upright again.
”Jeeez!!! You’re trying to kill us!!!”
”Stop, Rick! Please?”
He stops. We’re both out of breath.
”Sorry, ” I say. ”I mean, really. I’m sorry. And I’m really, really glad that you’re here.”
He draws a shaky breath. We get off the bike, and he sits down on the shoulder of the road. Suddenly I see that his shoulders have begun heaving. ”Hey, Rick…”
Then he just falls forward, and I think he has fainted. I sort of panic, because what if he’s hurt? What if he got hurt when his motorbike was skidding, even if I didn’t notice anything?
Then I hear he’s laughing. I’m so relieved my knees feel faint, and then I’m angry at him for scaring me.
”When you – when you were running next to my bike – I swear, Clara, you looked crazy!!!
”Yeah? Hey, you should have seen what you looked like –”
”Clara?”
”Yeah?”
His eyes look so happy and beautiful and downright amazing that I can’t look at them, but I can’t look away, either. Damn, but I’m drowning in them!
He’s holding out his hand to me. ”Friends?”
Friends. Yeah. Friends. Friends is good. I smile at him and grab his hand. At least I can shake his hand harder than he can shake mine!
”Ooouuch!!”
”Oh, sorry.”
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We sit on the shoulder of the road, munching sandwiches that Rick has brought along.
”Are they contacts?”
”What?” he says, looking totally confused.
”Your eyes. They aren’t really that color, are they?”
”’Course they are! Would I wear contacts just to get a funny eye color? What kind of weirdo do you think I am?”
”I don’t think your eyes are a funny color,” I tell him. ”I think they are…very beautiful.” We both blush.
”Have you heard of Paul Newman?”
”Paul Whoman?”
”Never mind,” he sighs. ”He used to be an actor. Makes his own pasta sauce, too. Anyway… he was famous for his blue eyes.”
”Really?”
”Yep. And there was this woman who spotted him at a gas station or something. And he was wearing sunglasses, really dark ones. So she went up to him and asked him to take them off, so she could look at his eyes and admire their color.”
”That’s some nerve!” I say, indignantly.
”Yeah,” he agrees. ”So Paul Newman says to this woman that yes, he’ll take off his glasses so she can look at his eyes, if she’ll take off her bra so he can look at her breasts.”
”That’s some nerve!!!” I say, downright shocked.
”Yeah,” Rick agrees. ”I guess Paul Newman meant that it’s kind of humiliating when people only like you because of your… body parts. When they want to stare at your…assets.”
”Am I staring? Is that why you told me this?”
”No!” He’s blushing. ”You haven’t stared… and anyway… I wouldn’t mind if you did.” He’s blushing even more. It’s probably time to talk about something else.
”How old are you?” Sheesh. Why did I ask him that? Not the best thing to ask if want to be, uh, less personal. He’s blushing again.
”Fifteen,” he says.
”Really?”
”No,” he sighs. ”I’ll be fifteen in, uh, seven months.”
”So why are you here?” I ask him. Might as well get straight to the point. ”And how did you find me?”
”Well, Batman got a phone call. Only he wasn’t home. Our, uh… Alfred… took the call. I was listening in on an extension. It was a call from someone called… Bobby Bigmouth, can you believe it? Anyway, this… this Bobby Bigmouth…said that a twelve-year-old girl was missing. Clara Ellen Lane. Daughter of Lois Lane. Now, I know… Batman doesn’t know I know, but I do… that Lois Lane is one of those people who are, umm, important. So last year I checked a number of those ”important people” out on the net. Your Mom is sure one sharp cookie – uh, sorry, I mean she’s your Mom and all – but you know, she’s won five Kerths and a Pulitzer. And she got the Pulitzer for writing an article about why we don’t need Santa Claus. But, you know, I found your Mom is kind of into Santa Claus herself. Or she used to be. She’s even taken a picture of him. And the guy was flying in that picture.”
He’s looking at me, sort of pointedly, before he goes on: ”That picture of the flying Santa Claus – your Mom took it thirteen years ago. So, uh – how old did you say that you are…?”
”Yeah, yeah,” I sigh. ”I told you already. I’m Santa’s daughter. Okay, get on with your story. Why did you go looking for me? And how did you find me? Did I give myself away?”
”I just thought it was cool,” he says, sort of dreamily. ”Lois Lane’s daughter. And I wondered about you – that picture of Santa that your Mom took thirteen years ago, and it was such a coincidence that you were born a year later… like your Mom and Santa hit it off after she took the picture. So anyway, I just started looking, kind of just for fun, for a way to track you down. I checked out if there were any recent disturbances in the Metropolis area – Batman has this really powerful computer and search engine – and I found out that there had been a series of very weak seismic disturbances south of Metropolis. A whole series of them. I just had to check that out, so I took one of Batman’s motorbikes – ”
”You did what???”
”Hey, easy! I’ve removed the tracking transmitters from this baby. It won’t be so easy for Batman to track us down.”
”You mean he won’t find us?”
”Oh, he’ll find us all right. He’s Batman, you know. No, I just meant he won’t find us all that quickly.”
”How long?” I ask, suddenly nervous. I’m not sure I like the idea of Batman finding me at all.
”I’m sure we still have a couple of hours –”
”A couple of hours!!!" I yell. ”We need to get going now!!!"
”Where are we going?”
”To Smallville! That’s where I’ve been trying to go all the time.”
”I’ve never heard of –”
”Never mind. Just take us to Kansas, all right? We’ll be seeing my grandparents. We’ll be seeing Santa’s Mom and Dad.”
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I’m sitting behind Rick on the motorbike, my arms wrapped around him. He’s wearing his leather jacket and leather pants, and he’s got a helmet on, too. He’s even brought along another helmet for me, and he says he won’t drive me unless I wear it. So I do. And my arms are wrapped around him, and I'm sitting so close to him, and I can feel how nice and strong he feels through his jacket. He is so warm, and I’m so comfortable. I feel so safe, too. Rick is taking care of me. He is taking me to Smallville. His bike has a built-in computer, and we have used it to locate Smallville. So we know where it is, now. And Rick is taking me there.
He’s told me how he found me. He went to the place of the mini-earthquakes and found all those craters in the ground that I made when I practised flying. Then he found the trail I made when I started running for Smallville. When he found the trees I’d felled he was sure he was on the right track! He almost missed the car I was sleeping in, but he knew I must have stopped somewhere because my trail just disappeared.
But now we’re on our way to Smallville. And we’re almost there. We’re out of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, and we’re now in Kansas. Yes, like, Rick, Toto, we’re really in Kansas now. Eat you heart out, Judy Garland.
The motorbike is droning on. I could do this forever – just sit and relax behind Rick, when he’s just driving on and on and on…. When he's taking me to new amazing places. When he’s taking me to Smallville. When he's taking me to my grandparents. To the home I didn’t know I had. I tighten my arms around him.
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”Hey, sleepyhead,” he says, shaking me gently. ”We’re there now. We’re in Smallville.”
”Wh… wha…?”
”You’re such a baby,” he says so you can hear him smiling. ”You get so tired in the evening.”
”I’m… I’m not that tired…”
”Oh yes, you are.”
”Well… my Mom sends me to bed in the evening…. I guess your…your Batman… keeps you up all night.”
He drops a kiss on my hair. Damn him! What’s he doing that for?
”Hey, easy! Okay, sorry. I won’t do it again. Just wanted to wake you, okay?”
”Where are we?” I’m not really ready to forgive him, but I don’t want to talk about it, either.
”Sheriff’s office. I figured we could ask the sheriff how we find your grandparents.”
We get off the bike and park it, then we walk up the steps to the door of the Sheriff’s office. I knock. The door is opened by a woman.
”Well well,” she says. ”What have we here? What do you want, kiddos? Aren’t you out past your bedtime?”
”We’re looking for – ” I’m about to tell her that we’re looking for my grandparents. That might not be such a great idea. ”We’re looking for Martha and Jonathan Kent.”
The woman is staring at me. Her eyes are narrowing. ”What’s your name, kid?”
”I, eh – ” Suddenly I don’t want to talk to this woman at all. I want to turn around and leave, but her eyes’ve got me all frozen.
”You’re Clara Ellen Lane, aren't you?” she says. ”Okay, kid. I’m Sheriff Rachel Harris. You are under arrest.”
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tbc....
