Thank you to Carol – the bestest beta ever. (And I'm sure if I had her beta my comments, she'd remind me that “bestest” isn't a word, but I don't.)
My apologies in advance for just sort of making up journalism facts as I went along. I did try to do some research to make this “correct”, but wasn't able to find anything helpful.
From Chapter 43
“Except,” Maddie cut in, “when it comes to relationships.” She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “I really don't want to get into all this with you again, Clark, but I care about you. I get the impression your relationship with Lois ended for much the same reason ours did.”
I didn't say anything, just blushed. What was there to say?
“I just want… I guess I want you to be happy, and I feel like that's never going to happen if you don't stop making the same mistakes over and over again. I get that you didn't care enough about me to tell me whatever your big secret is. And I'll even believe that you didn't care enough about Lois either. But at some point, Clark, you're going to need to decide to come clean with someone.
“Just promise me that you will,” she said quietly.
I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.
Chapter 44
“I think I'm going to call Dan tomorrow to see about helping out at the Post this summer,” I told Mom and Dad as I listlessly moved a slice of Lowell County's best peach pie around my plate.
“Clark, you can't count yourself out of the Planet internship yet,” Dad said. “Who knows what might happen?”
I gave him an incredulous look. “Lois is writing an article on the football players cheating. You know what my article is about?”
“You never mentioned,” Mom pointed out.
“That's "cause I don't have one,” I told her.
“What do you mean?” Dad asked.
“I mean the application is three days away, and I have yet to think of any topic worth writing about. Or even not worth writing about for that matter.”
“Maybe something will come to you before then,” Dad, ever the optimist, said.
“It's an investigative journalism internship, Dad. I don't just need a topic. I need a topic that warrants an investigation, and I need to conduct that investigation. How am I going to come up with a topic, investigate it, and write it up all in three days? Or two and a half now. And even if I did somehow manage to do that, what are the chances it would even compare to Lois' article, which she's been working on for a month and a half?” I asked.
Finally seeing the gravity of the situation, Mom and Dad didn't reply. Then after a long moment of silence, Dad said, “You got that recommendation for a reason, son. You deserve this. Don't give up yet.”
“When can I give up?” I asked him. “On the day the application is due when I send it in without a story? Or the day after? Or do I need to wait until Perry White announces that Lois Lane is this year's freshman intern?”
“You'll have a story before the application is due,” Mom insisted. “We're sure you'll think of something.”
I started to protest when I suddenly had an idea. “Maybe I do have a story idea,” I said slowly as I ran it through my mind. Did I have enough information now to call it investigative journalism? I thought I might. “It just might work,” I said, still considering. In many ways it was a bad idea. I knew it was a bad idea, and I knew Mom and Dad would never go for it.
But what was my other option? I didn't have any idea what to write about. I knew of no scandals on campus, in Metropolis, or anywhere else for that matter that were worth investigating. This, though, I knew about. I knew a lot about it. Enough that very little actual investigating would need to be done. And what was needed, I could do easily with the help of my ability to self-propel myself in air.
“What is it?” Dad asked with a smile on his face. He was proud of me for thinking of a story idea – that was clear. He'd be prouder of me still if it worked and I got the internship. Still, despite that, he'd be horrified if he knew what the story idea I was considering was. I had no intention of telling them though. I'd write it up and submit it and then tell them.
And then maybe they could help me figure out how to move forward after I'd not only out-ed myself, but done so to the editor-in-chief of the most influential paper in the world.
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I locked myself in my dorm room when I got back to campus. Against my better judgment, I skipped classes for the next two days, too. I needed to find a way to make up the time I had missed in not only crafting a story, but honing it until it shined. I was sure Lois had finished investigating her story weeks ago, and had probably finished the rough draft last week if not the week before. Since then, she'd just been editing, and editing, and editing some more. I had a lot of time to recoup.
It just made sense, though. If I was going to risk everything for this story by writing about the Boy in Black, why wouldn't I risk lowering my grades slightly in a few classes to make sure I at least got the internship? I was sure Mom and Dad would agree. Well, after they finished tearing me limb from limb for doing this.
Finally, no more than two hours before the five o'clock deadline for the application, I had an article that I was proud of. I had prowled through the microfiche section of the library looking for every mention of me I could find. To be fair, this was made much easier by the fact that I knew what rescues I'd appeared at and even where I had done something noteworthy – be it something that was just out of the range of normal human behavior or, more often, by being the only American volunteer aside from the Red Cross. Then I had visited some of the people I had helped who wouldn't know me.
I had started with my first rescue after I started at Met U – the French teenage girl. She had never seen me – her friends and teachers had, but she had been unconscious the entire time. I visited her, telling her I was a student writing a story on gunshot victims and asked what she recalled of the day she was shot. Eventually, she came to tell me about the boy her friend mentioned – the strange American who had watched over her until emergency services arrived. She remembered almost nothing her friend had said except that he was dressed all in black.
I talked to all the people in Metropolis who thought they were helped by an angel that day I had been in Suicide Slum with Lois. And then used the reports from all these people and to suggest there was a link. I didn't go so far as to say I thought the boy in black had supernatural abilities. I just said he had been to all of these places. I couldn't recall what she said the official name for it was, but my article was what Professor Halkuff called a leader piece. If this was a real Planet article, this would just be the first article, but it would stir up interest and other articles would follow.
Professor Halkuff said that was how real investigative journalism worked. If they only wrote up finished investigations, they wouldn't have enough to print. This way major investigations had several articles. I was guessing that if anyone ever did write about me, I'd be big enough to warrant multiple articles.
I wasn't sure how Mr. White would feel about a leader article for the application, but was hoping that his claim that he was looking for someone with a nose for news was honest. If it was, I thought I actually stood a good chance of getting the internship.
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There were two weeks after the deadline before the winner was announced. I spent almost the entirety of that time feeling nauseous. Would I get it? What would happen if I did? How would Lois feel? Did I care?
Well, yes, I did care. Not that her reaction was hard to predict. She'd be hurt – she was probably the only other person at Met U that wanted that internship as badly as I did. She'd probably be surprised as well – last time we talked I didn't even have a topic. While I'm sure she suspected I had found one before the deadline, she had to have assumed it wouldn't be as well written as hers as I wouldn't have had time to investigate it properly. Or if I did, it would have to be a lame topic that required little investigation.
Yeah, it was nearly a sure bet that Lois secretly thought she had this internship in the bag. Even given my stronger performance last semester, her application by all rights should be so much better that given its importance, I wouldn't stand a chance.
Without cheating anyway.
Had I? Maybe. Was it cheating to write about myself? I wasn't sure. I mean, I guess it sort of was, but maybe not. No one ever said that Peter Parker was cheating when he took pictures of himself as Spiderman. He was just hiding his secret identity.
For a moment, my mind wandered as I thought about my life if I could be like Peter Parker. Shy, mild-mannered student by day, superhero by night. He had it all. Well sort of. I couldn't remember if he actually had Mary Jane Watson. I wasn't really a Spiderman fan. If he did, though, did that mean I could have Lois Lane?
Lois Lane? That's who I saw as my Mary Jane? Really? I mean, I cared for Lois a lot, but Mary Jane? She was supposed to be the love of Peter Parker's life. Lois was not the love of mine. If she was, I would have told her the truth.
Although… Peter Parker never told Mary Jane about Spiderman. At least, I didn't think he had.
I laughed. I needed to stop thinking like that. Spiderman was a comic book. My life was real. Besides, even if he had told Mary Jane, he had a scientific explanation of why he was what he was. Plus he knew he was human. That had to go a long way towards acceptance. It was a lot easier to love a human who had been bitten by a spider than someone who had probably never been human at all – whether that person was scientifically engineered to be different and so was sort of like an advanced robot or was the discarded child of aliens.
Right - my situation was nothing like Peter Parker's. Even aside from the fact that it wasn't fiction.
I got up to get my books. I'd been lackluster about classes since I had handed in my Planet application, but I did try to go. My parents were paying for me to be here after all.
I was nearly at the room for my investigative journalism class before I remembered about Lois – how I had considered Lois the love of my life, even though it was just for a moment. It was just a slip, though, right? Just as she was my most recent girlfriend.
I caught her eye as I sat down before she looked away, pretending she hadn't seen me. Right, that was all it was.
Well, that and the fact that I was in love with her.
I was in love with Lois Lane. In a way I never had been in love before. Seeing Lois was like the rush I used to feel when I saw Lana, and the comfort I felt when I saw Maddie. She was perfect for me.
And I had let her slip away by not telling her the truth.
And if I had done what I set out to do, I had also taken her dream internship away from her.
I should fix things if I really felt that way. But for what purpose? It wasn't like she would ever want me.
I was nearly out of my chair, ready to go talk to her. Not that I had any idea what to say. But before I could, Professor Halkuff came into the room. And she wasn't alone. Perry White was with her. This was it. We were going to find out who got the internship now.
I took a seat. It was okay. I'd talk to Lois after class. It would be easier, even. I could congratulate her on getting the internship – I mean, I thought I had done an admirable job given how late I had been in getting an idea, but I didn't really think I stood that much of a chance. I mean really, what was the chance that Mr. White wouldn't think my article was just stupid? So, I'd congratulate her and apologize for my bad behavior. She'd react coldly, letting me know she was still angry, but I'd persist, follow her out of the room and invite her out for a brownie at Angelina's. She'd start to say no, but then reconsider – it as a brownie from Angelina's. She'd give in, letting me know if was only for the brownie. And then…
Well, and then, somehow in Angelina's I would tell her a little bit about myself. Not a lot, especially in some place so public, but enough that maybe I'd know how she felt. If she was completely repulsed by me or not. And if not… who knew? Maybe I'd tell her the rest tonight even.
I couldn't believe I was even thinking about this – telling Lois my secret that is. And more than that, that I thought there was any chance she could accept me once she knew.
Wow, my mind really was in fiction-land today, between dreaming of being a superhero with a secret identity like Spiderman, and now thinking that Lois would love me even if she knew what a freak I was.
I shook my head. Professor Halkuff had been speaking, and I hadn't been listening.
“So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Mr. White,” she said. The class gave a smattering of polite applause for Perry White, but it was clear everyone was too nervous to be excited about his being in our classroom.
“Other papers, particularly important papers like the New York Times and Washington Post, don't give internships to college freshman,” Mr. White opened with. “They don't feel that seventeen and eighteen year olds with only a year of training behind them have what it takes to even start contributing to a newsroom in any real way.
“Every year at this time, I'm amazed by how wrong they are. Maybe I'm just lucky to be the editor of a paper so close to Metropolis University, but I always get more than one submission from someone who shows true talent, and I just know will be a great contributor to a major newspaper one day.
“This year was no exception, and although the freshman internship can only go to one student, I urge all of you to apply for internships next year. I expect to see more than one of you in my newsroom next summer.
“Thomas Owens?” he asked, and a tall dark-skinned boy stood up in the back of the class, looking startled.
“The internship didn't go to Lois or Clark?” someone called out.
Mr. White didn't reply. “Mr. Owens, your article on the recent rise of pickpockets on the subway was well researched and well written. You're observations were right on. I passed your article on to a friend at the Metropolis Police Department as I thought you might have pointed out some things that will be useful in catching the perpetrators.
“Catherine Grant?” he asked and Cat, who had arrived late and snuck into the seat next to me, stiffened. I nudged her with my arm. “Get up.” I reminded her. “This is a good thing.” Cat blushed, which was surprising to me, but she rose.
“Your article on the antics and eventual dismissal of the Titan's editor was riveting. It was an entertaining read, in addition to being informative and newsworthy.”
Cat thanked him so quietly I'm sure Mr. White didn't hear her before she sat down.
“Lastly, Lois Lane,” he said, and I glanced at Lois to see her pale. I felt a bit pale as well. “Lastly, Lois Lane,” he had said. So, Lois had gotten the internship. I wasn't surprised at that, but I hadn't even warranted a mention? I had thought I had pulled through in the end and written a decent article. Forget the nausea I'd been feeling for the past two weeks, I really thought I might throw up now. This was it. It was over. I hadn't gotten the internship, or even a notice. Despite my recommendation, and the article I had in the Planet last semester, Mr. White was so under-impressed with my showing for the application he hadn't even mentioned my name.
I should just give up now. That glacier living idea was getting more appealing by the second.
