Thank you, Carol, for being the best beta ever!!
From Chapter 12
“Where else have you been?” I asked, laughing as I sort of knew the answer.
“Different places. I told my old man that I'd study more, not that I was going to turn into a priest.”
I laughed as we walked into the cafeteria. “Somehow, I can't picture you as a priest,” I told Steve.
“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe one day.” Then his eyes found a redheaded girl in a miniskirt over by the buffet line. “Not today, though,” he said to me, motioning towards her. “I'll meet you at the table,” he added before running over to try to make plans with the redhead. I shook my head. I wished I had the confidence he had with girls.
“Hey,” a soft voice said beside me and I looked over at Maddie as she slipped her hand into mine. Although, I guessed I was doing pretty well for myself for now.
I smiled at her as we walked towards the pasta station and ordered our lunch.
Chapter 13
“So, what are you writing about?” Lois asked as we walked to class after lunch.
I shrugged. “Not sure yet.”
“You're not?” Lois asked, shocked. “Clark, the topic paper is due in two days!”
“Doesn't that mean I have two days to decide on a topic?” I asked her.
“What, are you channeling your roommate now?” she asked me with a smile.
I laughed. “I have an idea, but I don't like it,” I admitted. “So, I'm still hoping to come up with a good one.”
“What is it?” Lois asked.
“What are you writing about?” I asked her.
“No fair. I asked first,” she said.
I sighed. “Okay. Don't laugh. Remember, I told you I knew it was bad.”
“Clark!” Lois said, hitting me on the arm. “Just tell me. I'm sure it's not that bad.”
“They're building a new track on the west side of the football field,” I told her.
Lois looked at me with eyes raised. “Are they using some sort of sub-par blacktop?”
I grimaced. “I told you it was bad.”
“Well,” she said as we entered the humanities building, “at least you have two more days to come up with a topic.”
I laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Lois!”
“Anytime,” she flashed a smile at me as we took our seats.
“So, what about you?” I asked her.
“What about me?” she replied.
“What are you writing about?”
“I'm not going to tell you here,” she said. “What if someone hears me?”
I rolled my eyes at her, although secretly, my heart was sinking. Was her idea that good? I bet it was. Lois was worried someone would steal her idea. Who would steal mine? I shook my head. I had to think of something else or I didn't stand a chance of getting that recommendation.
************************
“Want to come see it?” Lois asked me as we reached the turn off for her dorm after class.
“See what?” I asked her.
“My topic paper, silly!” she said. “I have it mostly written.”
“You'll show it to me?” I asked.
“You're not going to steal it,” Lois said, but then she looked at me carefully. “Are you?”
“Of course not,” I said, although I wondered a little. I couldn't really see myself stealing Lois' idea. On the other hand, if it was good, given my current idea… I shook my head. It didn't matter. I wouldn't steal it – I knew I wouldn't.
I followed Lois into her room. Star's side was still a mass of pink fluffy things. “How do you live with that?” I asked her.
“The pink?” Lois asked, giggling. “I don't know. It's sort of grown on me. I mean, I would never decorate my room like that, but it's not so bad.”
“I guess,” I said, looking at Lois' side of the room which was completely plain. Glancing at the ceiling, I realized Star had rearranged the glow-in-the-dark sticky things on the ceiling. They now matched the Metropolis sky in early winter, rather than fall. “How often does she redo the star things?” I asked Lois, pointing at the ceiling.
Lois shrugged. “I don't know. I don't think they've been moved at all.”
I shook my head. “No, they have. When you first showed us your room, they were showing the Metropolis sky in fall. Now they are showing early winter.”
Lois squinted up at them. “You mean, she's emulating what's really outside?”
I shook my head. “See,” I told her, pointing to a spot just above her head, “Orion's Belt is above your bed now. Earlier in the year, it was over Star's.”
Lois smiled. “I didn't realize you knew anything about astronomy.”
I shrugged. “I don't know all that much.”
“More than me,” Lois said and I had to stop myself from reacting in shock. Had Lois just admitted I might know something she didn't?
“So, where's your topic paper?” I asked.
She thrust it at me, and as she did something crossed her face. I wasn't sure what it was exactly, but I found myself really hoping I was impressed. I didn't want to have to lie to her about what I thought, but I also felt like maybe it was important that I compliment her on what she was showing me.
I needn't have worried about lying. Her topic paper was so good I actually felt myself sink onto Star's bed as I read it. I didn't stand a chance for the recommendation – or the internship for that matter. This wasn't just a good topic, but it was well written. Lois has beaten me at both my strength and hers.
“So?” she asked me as I neared the end of the paper. I looked up to find her watching me nervously.
“I thought you were going to do something from the city?” I ended up saying.
Lois shrugged. “I was. But then I found out about John and…”
“How did you find out about him?” I asked.
“Don't laugh,” she said.
“Okay,” I told her, although I did not feel in the slightest danger of laughing.
“His little brother is in my sister's class in high school.”
“He's going around announcing this?” I asked, gesturing to her paper. “Is he an idiot?”
Lois giggled. “Isn't the point that he's really smart?” Lois asked. “Wasn't that what Paul's article was about last week?”
I nodded. The front page article of the Met Titan last week, penned by none other than Lois' idol, Paul Bender, was about the newly elected class president. Apparently, John Bridgeworth was the first Met U student body president in recorded history to have a GPA of over a three-point-five. I had found it sad that that was news – so it was important to be a poor student to be elected president? Not that anything under a three-point-five was bad, but apparently, the average GPA of previous presidents was a two-point-one.
“So, is he gaming the system?” I asked Lois.
She shrugged. “I don't know all the details yet, but I don't think so. I think his GPA is real. He's just sort of abusing his power.”
“But how…” I shook my head, still shocked. “How can he still be eligible to be class president if he's withdrawn from school?”
“I know!” Lois said. “But according to his brother, Ben, he got into a fight with one of his teachers who wouldn't let him make up the midterm and rather than fail, he decided to withdraw.”
“Why did he need to make it up?” I asked.
Lois smiled. “I looked it up. There is a rule on the books that professors are allowed to give students exemptions from exams on election day if they are running for office.”
“They are allowed to?” I asked. “Or they have to?”
“They're allowed to,” Lois said with a smile. “I guess John just assumed his professor would do that for him and was wrong.”
“That's insane. And so he withdrew from the entire semester?
“It's too late to withdraw from a class,” Lois said. “I checked with admissions. The last date for that was weeks ago. So, his only choice was to fail the class or withdraw for the semester.”
“That's insane,” I said again.
Lois nodded. “I need to check it out, of course, but if it's true…”
“Wow, Lois,” I said, trying to infuse as much happiness into my voice as I could, “this is really great.”
“I'm sure you'll come up with something good, too,” Lois assured me.
I gave a hollow laugh. “What? You don't think my story on the new track is on par with yours?”
Lois shrugged – apparently she could be generous when she knew she was winning. “The topic is only twenty percent of the grade anyway, Clark. And you're a good writer.”
I sighed. Somehow I doubted that was going to help me. Particularly when I looked at the paper in my hands. Lois' writing wasn't exactly bad and with a topic like this…
************************
“I need a new topic,” I told Maddie that night. “I don't stand a chance at the internship right now.”
“It's a paper, Clark. Not the internship,” Maddie told me.
“But they are related. The recommendation is nearly essential for the spot at the Planet.”
Maddie nodded, “I understand that and I get why you're so stressed, but maybe given the importance of the writing for this assignment, you should worry less about the topic and start working on the writing now.”
“Or I can just assume Lois is going to get the internship and stop stressing all together,” I said.
Maddie put a hand on my arm. “Come on. Lois is good, I'm sure, and yes her topic does sound more newsworthy than yours. But that doesn't mean she has the internship all sewn up.”
I nodded my head. She was right, sort of. “Maybe. But her topic paper is really well written,” I said.
“Didn't you tell me you felt this way when you read her submission to the Titan as well?” Maddie asked me.
“Yes. And I didn't get on the paper,” I pointed out.
“Neither did Lois. Maybe you're not being completely objective here. I mean, I'm sure Lois' paper is good, but maybe you're downplaying yours.”
“How can I downplay mine?” I asked. “I don't have anything written.”
Maddie laughed at me, which did nothing to make me feel better. “Come on, Clark. Sit down. Jot down some ideas, start your paper, or move on to a different assignment completely. But stop pacing. This isn't getting you anywhere.”
I sighed, sitting beside her on the bed. She was right. I knew she was right. Not that it helped at all.
“Hey,” Steve said as he came into the room. He gave us a furtive glance as if afraid of what he might find, but then seemed to realize that not only were we completely clothed, but we were just sitting next to each other, and he relaxed. “Are you stressing about this journalism assignment, too?” he asked me.
“Yes,” Maddie answered for me. “Who else is? You're not taking journalism, are you?”
“No,” Steve said. “I just bumped into Josh. He's not even sure he wants to be a journalist, but he's acting like this assignment is going to decide his career.”
“He's not the only one,” Maddie said, nudging me.
I glared at her. “That's because it is. This assignment is key to getting a recommendation for the Planet internship.”
“And if you don't get the internship your career as a journalist is over?” Maddie asked me pointedly. “Clark, I get that this is important. I really do. I'm just saying that I think you're letting yourself get too worked up about it.”
I sighed. She wasn't wrong; I knew that. Even if I didn't get the internship, the Planet made other offers. Even other internships were available at the Planet after freshman year. And of course, there were other papers. But I wanted to write for the Planet. “But I want to write for the Planet,” I repeated my thought out loud, knowing that I sounded like a whiny child.
“I know, but this is not your only chance to do so. Plus, I'm not sure why you're so focused on counting yourself out on this chance. Lois hasn't written her article yet. Maybe the rest of it won't be that good.”
“How can my article on the track compare to hers?” I asked Maddie.
“You're writing about the new track?” Steve asked. When I nodded, he said, “Josh is, too.”
I lay down on the bed with my arm over my eyes. My life was over.
************************
“It's just not fair,” I heard one of the girls behind me whine as I walked to class the next day. “I'm paying just as much for my education as any of those guys!”
“I know,” her companion said. “But you must have known before you came here, right?”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
There was silence for a moment and I thought perhaps the girls had turned onto a different path before I heard the second one speak again. “Well, I mean, it's not published or anything, but I thought everyone knew. Met med school is a great place to get a degree from, but you come here for the name if you're a girl, not the education.”
“You mean it's not going to get better?” the first girl asked.
“I doubt it. I've heard it just gets worse in the later classes. You think it's bad now just cause some of the profs won't call on you in class? Wait until we start doing rounds and they ask us to stand in the back.”
I turned around. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I wasn't meaning to eavesdrop, but what did you mean you don't come to Met med school for an education as a girl?”
One of the girls shrugged. “It's just sort of a rumor, but a well substantiated one, that the doctors and professors here don't take female med students seriously.”
“I wish I had known that before I applied,” the other girl said. “I'm sick of listening to Bradley What's-His-Name bumble his way through answers I know perfectly well.”
“And later on, the girls are asked to stand in the back?” I asked.
“During rounds, so the boys can see better,” the girl who seemed to be in the know explained.
“That's completely unfair!” I said. “Do all the professors do this?”
The girl shrugged. “That's what I heard.”
“Even the female ones?” the other girl asked her.
The first girl nodded. “I heard they have to. Apparently, there was a female instructor at Met General a few years ago who didn't do that. They fired her for being a bad teacher and used the student reviews to back it up. The male students had all complained about her.”
“But surely the female students praised her,” I said.
“We're only about 25% of the med school population,” she said. “So even if they all did, it would still look like the majority of the students didn't like her.”
I held my hand out. “I'm Clark. I'm a freshman here. Any possibility I could interview you for a paper I'm writing for a journalism class? I would keep your names out of it.”
The girls looked at each other uneasily.
“It's just for a class assignment and I promise I won't use your names or any identifying information,” I said.
The second girl shrugged. “I guess so. Can we see what you wrote to make sure we're comfortable with it?”
I nodded, “Definitely.”
“If it's good maybe they'll put it in the paper,” the first girl said. “That would be awesome. I mean as long as you can't tell it was us. I'd love to be able to speak in class.”
************************
Lois leaned over to sneak a look at the grade on my topic paper. It didn't mean anything – it was mainly a way to gauge how impressed Professor Matthews was with your topic and what you had written so far. Still, it was classic Lois to want to make sure her grade was better than mine.
“You got an A?” she asked me.
“Well, for this part of it anyway,” I said. “Didn't you?”
“Well, yeah, but I mean…” Lois trailed off. I knew she was disappointed, but it showed a real improvement in our friendship that she wasn't angry at me for it.
“I didn't write about the track, Lois,” I told her.
“You didn't?” she asked me. “Why didn't you tell me?”
I shrugged. “I don't know. I didn't think about it, I guess.”
“So what's your topic?”
“Sexism at the med school,” I told her.
“There's sexism at the med school?” she asked me, so I handed her my topic paper. She read it quickly, paling a bit as she did. I hoped that was because she was impressed, not because she was horrified that this piece of drivel had gotten the same grade as her paper. “This is really good, Clark,” she said to me, her voice soft. “Really good.”
“On par with yours?” I asked her, although I knew I was pushing her.
“Maybe better,” she said quietly.
“Hey,” I said, feeling badly now. “That's not true. You know it's not.”
“It's really good,” Lois said. “I mean, if you could substantiate that, I could see it being picked up by a paper outside of campus. Maybe not front page, but I could see it running in the Planet. But Perry White is not going to care that our student body president dropped out of school for the semester.”
“You can always get the recommendation next semester,” I echoed her words from last week, smiling at her.
“Very funny,” she said, but she was smiling back at me, so I knew she wasn't upset.
“So you're not mad I changed my topic?” I asked her. I mean, not that I would have stuck with the new track even if she was.
“No,” Lois said as she handed my paper back to me and we made our way to the dorms. “This just means I need to step up my game.”
I smiled at her. Only Lois would be able to recover that quickly from thinking she wasn't good enough.
