From last part:
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.”***********************
New stuff:
”Under arrest???” I squeak. ”What’d I do???”
”You’re a minor on the run from home,” the sheriff answers, sounding very pleased with herself. You’ve been dodging your mother twice – first when you actually ran away from your apartment, then when your mother had almost caught up with you at a diner. Well, the running stops now, kid.”
”You’re
arresting me for that???” My voice sure sounds like I’m a teenaged kid doing a lousy job of using his grownup vocal cords.
”Think of it as being in my custody until your Mom comes here and collects you. Meanwhile, you’ll have free meals, a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in.”
”You’re locking me up in a
cell!!! You can’t do that to me just because I’ve come here to see my grandparents!!”
”Try me, kid. You telling me you didn’t commit a single crime while you were running from Metropolis to Smallville? Want me to look into that?”
The warehouse, the trees, the car, the holes in the ground…. I’m staring at the floor and I’m not answering.
”Didn’t think so. Welcome to our homy jail. I’ve been saving up our coziest cell just for you. You don’t even have to share it.” She places a hand on my shoulder, and I angrily shrug it off.
”I can see I’m not gonna share!!!” I yell. ”This place is empty! You put
me in jail just cause you can’t find any real lawbreakers! My Mom’s gonna make a fuss when she hears you’ve locked me up like a criminal! And I’m only twelve!” My voice wavers suspiciously on the last word. Damn it! I’m not gonna cry now.
The sheriff puts her hand on my shoulder again, and I shrug it off again. She just smiles and opens a cell door. ”In you go, kid.” I do. She closes the door behind me and locks it.
”Did my Mom really ask the police to look for me?” Oh, damn, if she did… Mom, I’ll never forgive you.
”No… not exactly.”
”Not exactly?? What does that mean?”
”The Metropolis Police was contacted by a well-known informant, known as Bobby Bigmouth, who stated under oath that the twelve-year-old daughter of well-known reporter Lois Lane was on the run and needed to be apprehended, for her own sake.”
Bobby Bigmouth! Again! The snitch! It’s his fault I’m being thrown in the slammer.
”He’s got a big heart, Bobby Bigmouth,” says the sheriff and smiles widely at her own lame, lame joke.
”Yeah, hope he’s getting really major heartburn too,” I say bitterly. ”So how did you know the Metropolis police were looking for me? Am I, like, wanted all over the United States?”
”Nah, I just happened to talk to an old friend of mine from Smallville, who’s now on the Metropolice police force. He and I started talking about old times and people we used to know, like Clark Kent who grew up with us in Smallville. Well, Clark got a job at the Daily Planet, and then a little while later he disappeared. No one’s heard of him for thirteen years. But there’s a rumor he once had a fling with reporter Lois Lane, so that way we started talking about her, too. And then my friend told me that Lane’s daughter was on the run. I asked him to fax over a picture of you, and he did, so there you are.” She’s looking inordinately pleased with herself.
I sigh loudly and plump down on my bunk. I want to say to her that if my Mom had a fling with Clark Kent, then maybe I’m Clark Kent’s daughter. And if I am, then Jonathan and Martha Kent are my grandparents, and I’ve come here to see them, so why can’t she let me talk to them? But it’s late, and the Kents are old, so they’re probably asleep. Suddenly a horrible thought occurs to me. How old are the Kents anyway? What if they are dead?
I can’t help it. I begin to sob just a little.
”Hey, chin up, kid,” the sheriff says, sounding almost friendly. ”I’ll be calling your Mom tomorrow.”
”You’ll be calling Mom
tomorrow??? What about calling her
now???" ”It’s late, kid,” she says. I swear she’s making it sound almost reasonable. ”We all need our sleep. You too. It’s lights out now.” She flips a light switch and the jail is suddenly dark.
My eyes quckly adjust to the darkness. There’s some light coming in through the cell window, and I can see almost as well as when the lights are on.
I twisting and turning on my bunk. I’m so lonely. Where’s Rick? Did he make a run for it when he saw the sheriff coming for me? Did he just dump me? I’m crying for real now.
I’m sure I could break out of this cell. The steel bars really don’t look like they could stop me. If I could fell two trees and make holes in the ceiling of that car as easy as pie, surely I could take care of the steel bars of my cell? But if I do, the sheriff will know that I’m… different. Boy, that’s not something I want
her to know. No. I’ll wait for Mom to come for me tomorrow.
I may as well make use of the time. It’s pretty dark in my cell, but not too dark for me to read Mom’s diary. I wonder what things were like for her just after I was born?
****************
December 26, 1994: I’m so exhausted, but I’m so unbelievably happy, too. I seem to be wrapped in a pink fog of weary happiness.
Today they all came to see you, my little daughter. Well, no, not all of them. Your grandfather, Sam, has not been here yet. But all the others came. Your grandmother Ellen stayed just a little while, but she told me you seemed to be an easy baby who didn’t make too much noise. Your aunt Lucy turned up with her new boyfriend, Joey, and they looked at you, giggled, proclaimed you were a cute baby and left.
Perry and Alice visited me and brought roses and chocolate and lovely little baby clothes. Alice told me you were the most adorable baby she had ever seen. Maybe she was being polite, but she really seemed quite taken with you. She offered to babysit for you when I needed someone to look after you, and I was just so moved by her kindness that I got all teary-eyed.
Perry seemed troubled, they way he has been with me ever since I told him I was pregnant, but he did tell me you were a lovely baby, and I think he meant what he said. He said, too, that he would do what he could to give me my job back, but right now he didn’t have any openings.
Jimmy was here, too. Oh, my little girl, you are so going to love Jimmy when you are older! He was simply staring at you as if you were the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. He asked to hold you, and you snuggled into his shoulder and threw up on him. Jimmy was ecstatic, like you had given him a wonderful present! Darling Jimmy! Perry and Alice were still here, and Alice helped Jimmy with his jacket. Like I said, he might have kept that stain there if it had been up to him, but Alice insisted he get rid of it. Then you needed a change of diapers, and Alice changed you while Jimmy looked on, absolutely fascinated.
January 1, 1995: My darling little baby. I can’t believe that you are here, and you are mine. I can’t get enough of looking at your tiny little face, your dark hair, your innocent dark eyes and your perfect little mouth. I trace the whorls of your little ears and count your fingers and toes – there are ten of them, every time.
You sleep a lot, because you seem to be exhausted – just like I am, to tell you the truth. But you are not crabby or angry or anything. You cry when you are hungry and when you need to be changed, but otherwise you seem to be content. You seem to like being with me. Can you believe what a compliment you’re paying me?
Changing your diapers is no problem for me. I used to think it would disgust me, but after a few tries – the first of which were icky, I grant you – I felt like a pro. Breastfeeding is a little more of a problem. The first day I was almost panicking because you didn’t seem to know how to suckle me, but you quickly learnt, and now everything is working almost
beautifully. I have to admit that you hurt me a little when you suckle. Your gums are hard, and you are biting me, little one! Ah, but Doctor Klein has given me a salve for my breasts, and it seems to be helping already.
Today, the first day of the new year, when you are exactly one week old, I have chosen your name, my little daughter. Your name is Clara Ellen Lane. I had no problem picking your first name, believe me! Who would I name you after but your father? Dearest, darling little Clara. Will you ever meet the wonderful man who is your father? Will you ever meet Clark Kent from Smallville and Krypton?
As for your middle name… I really don’t know if your grandmother, my mother, deserves the honour of seeing her grandchild named after her. It’s not as if she has taken any interest in you, or in me after I became pregnant, for that matter. But maybe… maybe one day she will feel differently about you. And anyway… there is something about being named after one’s grandmother (or, if you had been a boy, after your grandfather). It underscores the ties that bind you to your older relatives. I myself am named Joanne after my
grandmother. And I have to tell you, my little Clara Ellen, that I have never been more interested in my grandmother Joanne than I’ve been since I learnt I was expecting you.
Of course… I could have named you after your other grandmother. Your grandmother Martha Kent. Martha Kent, who doesn’t even know she has a grandchild. I know I should tell her about you. I should.
Oh, I’m too scared! What do I tell her? ”Hi, Mrs Kent, you are a grandmother… and I’m the unemployed and homeless mother of your son’s baby, so I'd like you to send me a lot of money to me…” No, I can’t. I can't do that. Okay, maybe, maybe I can do it. Oh, I'll not call her and tell her the things I said right now, but maybe I'll tell her she's a granny.... I’ll think about it.
I’ll wait and see. If I can’t fend for myself at all, and if I can’t take care of you the way you deserve, then I’ll go to the Kents. I think… I think they might not like the idea that you are not adequately provided for.
January 3: Today Dr Klein asked me if I’d like him to try to send a message to Clark to tell him that he has become a father. Yes!!! Of course I want Clark to be told about that!
So Dr. Klein explained to me how it would be done. Clark’s world, Krypton, is orbiting a star known to us Earthlings as Epsilon Eridani. Epsilon Eridani is located a little less than ten and a half light years away in the constellation Eridanis, southwest of Orion. Dr. Klein would direct an extremely powerful and extremely tightly collimated jet of laser pulses straight at Epsiolon Eridani. Using Morse code, alternating between long and short pulses, they would send the following message over and over for at least an hour (because of the huge energy requirements they could probably not keep sending any longer): Clark Kent, you have a daughter on the Earth. Clark Kent, you have a daughter on the Earth.
Unfortunately, because Krypton is ten and a half light years away from us, and since the jet of laser pulses will travel no faster than the speed of light, it will take the message ten and a half years to reach Krypton. Ten and a half years! My little Clara, you’ll be half grown up before your father knows about you! If he ever does.... What if no one is listening for a message from the Earth during that one hour when it can be heard on Krypton?
”But how is it possible that the message will take ten years to reach Krypton, when Clark told me that his spaceship would reach Krypton in only about one year?”
Dr. Klein looks grim. ”That’s because of the Kryptonian technology involved. The key element is something that I, for lack of a better word, have named Kryptonium. Kryptonium has some truly remarkable properties, in that its unique quantum-magnetic surface charges can reach into hyperspace and latch onto tachyons, theoretical particles that were predicted by Einstein and which will always move faster than light. That way, Kryptonium will effectively become a faster-than-light propellant, turning your spaceship into a hyper-velocity spacecraft.”
”Wow! Amazing! So thanks to this Kryptonium-whatsit, a person can actually travel much faster through space than an ordinary message can be sent through it? Dr. Klein, please, wouldn’t you consider sending me
to Krypton in a spaceship like that? Then I could tell Clark about his daughter in person!”
”No! Absolutely not! Kryptonium is a quite unstable element. The risks are huge. If it reacts with a particularly energetic tachyon particle it will decompose into two other elements, which I have tentatively named Kryptonite and Earthite. Kryptonite will probably be highly poisonous to persons from Krypton, such as Clark Kent, and Earthite would be similarly poisonous to Earthlings.”
”Does that mean… Does that mean Clark may not have made it all the way to Krypton? You mean he could have died in space? Poisoned by that Kryptonite?”
”That’s possible, yes.”
”Is there… isn’t there any way we can find out?”
He sighs. ”No. I don’t think so. Nothing, apart from sending an ordinary message to Krypton, wait ten and a half years for it to arrive there, and then wait another ten and a half years for a possible reply from Krypton.” He is looking very seriously at me. ”Do you still wish me to send that message about your daughter to Clark? Because if he survived the trip to Krypton, he may want to come back to the Earth when he learns that he has a daughter here. And if he makes another trip through space, he will face the same deadly risks all over again.”
I look down at my hands. ”I don’t want him to die,” I whisper.
”But…?”
”But I really would like him to know about Clara.… Can’t you… can’t you warn him about the risks of trying to come back to us?”
Dr. Klein nods solemnly to me. ”I’ll do that. I’ll send him the message.”
January 6: Today is the day of the Three Kings, of the Magi who gave presents to baby Jesus. Well, today I found that there are two ”magi” here at Star Labs who have given me wonderful presents. I’m talking about my knights in shining armour, Doctor Bernard Klein and Doctor Roger Kingley. They know that I’m homeless and unemployed, so they have offered me to stay right here at Star Labs, if I wish. In Doctor Klein's personal apartment, no less! I may move in there with my little Clara right away and stay as long as I need to. When I told them that I couldn’t, because where would Dr. Klein himself live if I took over his apartment? – they just smiled and told me that the two of them are going to share Doctor Kingley’s Star Labs apartment. Can you believe how kind they are to me?
Not only that. Doctor Klein has told me that I may do some part-time work here at Star Labs and get paid for it. I couldn’t believe it. Aren’t there labor unions that would put a stop to such a thing? And would I really be qualified to do scientific work at Star Labs? Doctor Klein just smiled and told me that he had every confidence in my ability to do a lot of useful work. As for the labor unions, they might be harder to deal with, but if need be he and Doctor Kingley would give me a little of their own salaries. I told them I absolutely couldn’t accept that. He smiled again and said that he hadn’t expected me to, but at least he hoped I would would stay in his apartment, which I would not have to pay rent for, and share his and Doctor Kingley’s subsidized food.
So, my dear Clara, today you and I moved into Doctor Klein’s vacated apartment. Afterwards, I carried you to the small chapel here at Star Labs where you were baptized in the presence of your two godfathers, Doctor Kingley and Doctor Klein. But I’m going to teach you to call them Uncle Roger and Uncle Bernard.
They adore you, you know. Your two uncles. Uncle Bernard and Uncle Roger. I think they feel almost like they were your fathers. Uncle Roger provided me with a fertility drug that was probably necessary for me to become pregnant with you in the first place, and then he and Uncle Bernard saved both your life and my life when I had my almost-miscarriage. I think they are as besotted with you as I am, and they want to make sure that you are well provided for.
Now that my financial problems have become so much easier to deal with, and now that I have a place to stay and people who care about me, I feel optimistic about my future. I think I’m going to be a reporter again. I think the old Lois Lane is coming back. Not right away, I’m sure, because as long as you, my daughter, are so very little, I want to stay close to you here at Star Labs and do only as much work as I can find time for while I’m caring for you. But later I will be be a reporter again, and you know what? I’m going to be brilliant - the most brilliant reporter in Metropolis. Oh, my beautiful Clara. I feel so excited about my future, and about your future, and about our future together. We are going to have so many beautiful adventures together, you and I.*********************
Uhh… wha..?
Felt like I was… falling down…
Where am I? What’s this… a cell?
Oh! I’m in Smallville, in jail! That **!#&* !!! sheriff locked me up!! For doing nothing!!! Okay, it’s not exactly as if I’ve done
nothing wrong, but I don’t have to tell her about the warehouse, the trees, the car, the holes in the ground….
What’s that sound outside?
Mom…?
”Mom! MOM!!! I’m in here!!!”
”Clara! CLARA!!! My baby!! I’ll get you out of there right now!”
Mom’s got her picklock thingies with her, wouldn’t you know? I can hear some clanging and scraping noises from the front door, and a lot of muttering and swearing from Mom.
”Eh…Mom? Shouldn’t we just wait for the sheriff?”
”The sheriff? The SHERIFF!!! When I get my hands on him, he’s gonna regret the day he was born, and the day his dad was playing hooky with his mom….”
”She’s a woman, Mom. The sheriff’s a woman. Rachel something.”
”Yeah? Then I’m gonna grab her by the **** and teach her about the finer points of womanhood….”
”Mom!!! You’re not supposed to say those things in front of me!! I’m only twelve!”
She’s just muttering something, and then the lock clicks open, and she’s flinging open the door and running inside. I swear she’s bellowing like a cow with cholic when she sees me, and she’s at my cell in an instant and sticking her arms in between the bars and I run up to her and we just hug each other and we hug the bars too and we cry. I think Mom’s crying even harder than me, and my face and shirt are getting all wet.
”Forgive me,” she hiccups. ”Don’t leave me again…don’t leave me….”
I want to tell her that I’m not angry at her, but maybe I am a little, and I love her to bits, and she must forgive me too because I’ll die if she doesn't, but none of that is coming out at all, so I’m just crying into her shoulder.
”How’d you… how’d you know I was here?” I ask her when I can speak again. It’s sounding muffled because I’m speaking into her jacket, which is all wet and yucky with tears and maybe snot and spit, too. Bet I haven’t messed up her shoulder like this since I was a baby and threw up on her.
She is speaking into my hair, which is feeling a bit wet and icky with tears and stuff too, truth be told. ”Got a call from Perry. He told me he’d had an anonymous tip that you were locked up in a jail in Smallville, Kansas.”
”Yeah? How’d’ya get here so fast? What time is it anyway?”
”Let’s see, six in the morning. Well, I got myself straight to the airport, and there was a flight for Wichita right away, and when I got off at Wichita airport I bought a map of Kansas and rented a car, and, well, here I am.”
”Well, well, well! What have we here?” The voice makes me jump three feet up in the air. Since I’m holding Mom, I’m pulling her up in the air with me. And since I’m also holding the bars of my cell, I’m pulling a few of them clear out of the floor, too.
”Mom!” I yell in horror! ”Did I hurt you?”
Mom looks slightly startled, I got to say. Then she is looking at me and at the scrap metal that used to be the bars of my cell, and she’s smiling like one of those cherubs in church who’s being secretly kissed under his toga.
”Never better, honey!” She winks at me like we’re sharing the niftiest secret in the world. Guess we would be, to, if it hadn’t been for that *!#%!! sheriff staring at us and seeing what I’ve done.
”Destruction of public property… breaking into a county jail with the intention of freeing a detainee…I’ll have both of you thrown in the slammer for ten years for this!”
Mom’s turning on the sheriff. I don’t know how she does it, but now she’s looking like a big fat cat who’s going to catch a little mouse. And make no mistake, the sheriff is the mouse and she knows it! Hah!
”Yeah?” Mom purrs dangerously. ”You arrest a twelve-year-old little girl… MY little girl… for no reason at all? You arrest her on no charges? You keep her locked up all night? You don’t let her make a phone call? You don’t let her call ME, her mother? You don’t deign to call ME and tell me you’ve arrested my daughter? You don’t ask for my parental consent to lock her up?”
Mom has been slowly advancing on the sheriff while she was saying all of this. And the sheriff’s been backing away, until she’s backed into a wall behind her. Mom is shorter then the sheriff, but she is leaning in on Ms. Law Enforcer of Smallville and wheezing like the snake and showering the sheriff with all these little drips of spittle. Boy, if looks could kill, the sheriff would be six feet under already.
”All right, all right…” says a kindly voice from the door. And there is an old gray-haired man standing there. His eyes glitter as if little bubbles of laughter were rising from his belly and making their way all the way up to his eyes. ”Tell her you’re sorry, Rachel. And please accept her apology, at least for now, Ms. Lane. And… please… my dearest little Clara.… May I please look at you? I’m your grandfather, you see…. May I give you a hug?”
**********************
As I hope you can see, this story is not finished. And yes, I
will finish it. However, tomorrow I'll be back at school, and the way things look now, I doubt I will have almost any time at all for this story until... the end of February, probably. So... if any of you would like to do some nagging (that would be flattering, you know
), please don't start until the
last week of February. Maybe not until around the beginning of March.
Last but not least... I stole a little something from Mellie's feedback on part three of this story, and put her words into this part. Mellie, can you spot them?
Ann
