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Sorry, y'all. Life is life-ing. Here's chapter 8!
And if you need it:
Link to TOCLink to Chapter 78
By early Saturday afternoon, the storm finally subsided, and the clouds cleared up outside, the sun bringing with it a pleasant warmth.
Martha took the opportunity to coax Clark out onto the front porch, and the three of them sat outside and had a late lunch of sandwiches, strawberries, and fresh-out-of-the-oven brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Jonathan spoke quietly while they ate, telling Clark a little bit about the farm. He explained that the farm had been in Jonathan’s family for four generations and that their main crops were corn, wheat, and apples. He told Clark about the pond, how he’d love to take Clark there and show him how to fish sometime. And he explained how he’d helped his dad rebuild the barn after a fire had destroyed the original structure when he was just about Clark’s age.
Martha watched silently as Clark picked at his food, not with disinterest but with…discomfort, maybe? He kept eyeing the cookie on his plate and then attempting to take another bite of his sandwich, but he seemed…
Her eyes widened with realization, and she sighed, a little too loudly. Jonathan cut off mid-sentence, and Clark glanced up at her briefly, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.
“Martha?”
“Sorry, Jonathan,” she said, forcing the smile back on her face. She looked at Clark again, who was now staring at his plate, his jaw clenched tightly. “Sweetie, hey, are you…still full from breakfast and your snack a couple hours ago? You don’t have to eat your whole sandwich before you have your cookie.”
And Clark did what he usually did when he was unsure. He closed his eyes tightly and didn’t say anything, his little body tensing up as though he was preparing to…what? Get in trouble?
She frowned as she glanced up at Jonathan, who watched Clark with a soft expression.
“Hey, buddy, how about this…” Jonathan started, and he paused until Clark opened his eyes just a little and shot a careful glance Jonathan’s way. Then Jonathan smiled brightly at him. “You take…one more bite of your sandwich—it’s really yummy, isn’t it?”
Clark nodded quickly.
“Yeah, Martha makes the best sandwiches. Anyways, you take one more good bite, and then you can have your cookie. How does that sound? Do you think you can do that?”
“Y-yes, I—I think so.”
“Great! Martha, what do you think?”
The child turned to look at her, and she saw the tiniest bit of hope in his beautiful dark eyes. She really didn’t want to put any stipulation on him getting to eat his cookie, but she understood why Jonathan had made the suggestion, and that broke her heart even more. So she just smiled brightly and nodded.
“I think that’s a great idea. One more good bite should be plenty.”
Part of it was that Clark really needed to eat. Doc McMillan had told them he was indeed severely underweight, small for his age in a way that Doc suspected had nothing to do with Clark just being a small boy.
Also—and she understood this, but again didn’t really like it one bit—Clark seemed to need to have a “rule” or…something. He obviously was not used to being given options, to being given…anything. And she could easily see the uncertainty, the unease he felt whenever he was given a choice or asked some opened-ended question. She definitely didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.
She also didn’t want him to feel obligated to make himself uncomfortable—to make himself eat more than his body could currently handle—just to get the “reward” of being allowed to have his cookie.
And Jonathan seemed to understand her concern, even without her saying anything out loud. He gave her a tight smile and nod as though to reassure her, and her discomfort faded just a bit. She took the final bite of her own sandwich as she watched Clark pick up his sandwich with trembling hands. He took a big bite, as though he felt that was required of him, and then ate the last strawberry on his plate, for good measure.
Then, after he swallowed, he reached for the cookie, some eagerness in his eyes and a small smile on his lips. He paused just before his fingers touched the cookie, and his face fell as he looked at Jonathan.
“Can I…?”
“Of course, buddy,” Jonathan answered, sounding stoic and confident. But Martha heard the hitch in his breath as they both saw Clark’s expression light up—just a little.
“Th-thank you,” Clark said, and he glanced at Martha briefly before picking up the cookie and taking the tiniest of bites.
He didn’t say anything, but his face told it all—his eyes closed lightly as he chewed, and his lips curled up at the corners.
“It’s good, right?” Jonathan said, smiling at Clark.
Clark nodded and opened his eyes, and they flickered with a brightness, an eagerness that made Martha’s heart soar.
She blinked back tears and turned her attention back to her now-empty plate in her lap. Jonathan had to go do the afternoon chores—feed the animals, milk the cows, get started on just a little bit of the cleanup he had to do after the storm. And she had some cleaning and a few other things she needed to get done. Clark was still supposed to be resting as much as possible—orders from Doc—but she was reluctant to suggest he go take a nap or to leave him on his own for any amount of time.
And she really wasn’t quite sure why the reluctance. He was a ten-year-old boy. Certainly he would be used to… She closed her eyes tightly and tried to steady herself as her heart stuttered.
He wasn’t a normal ten-year-old boy. He hadn’t had any sort of normal childhood. She knew that, just from how he acted and what Jonathan had told her about that house he’d lived in. As far as they knew, he hadn’t had any formal schooling, and she was fairly sure he didn’t know how to read or write, add or subtract… She recalled too how awkward he’d looked trying to color in the dinosaur coloring book that morning—like his fingers weren’t even sure how to hold the crayon. Once she’d shown him, he figured it out pretty quickly, but…
“I’ve gotta get out to the barn,” Jonathan said, pulling Martha out of her introspection. She looked up at him and nodded. “And I spoke with Wayne this morning. The storm really tore through overnight, knocked down several trees and part of the fence line at the back of his property, where it meets up with old Schuster’s field. He asked if I might help him out to fix that up this afternoon too. Actually…” Jonathan paused, and his eyes darted briefly to his watch and then Clark. “I maybe should go do that first. But if you need me to stay close by…?”
She heard all the words he didn’t say, of course. And she smiled and shook her head. “Go on over to help Wayne. Clark and I will be fine hanging out here, won’t we, sweetie?”
Clark had just stuffed the last of his cookie in his mouth—having foregone his tiny bites for much larger ones, and his mouth was completely full. He stopped chewing and looked at her almost nervously, but nodded.
Jonathan grinned. “Good then. I’ll be back before dark.” He stood and picked up all of their plates. “Lemme take these inside for you, and then I’ll head out.”
“Thank you, Jonathan.”
A few minutes later, she waved goodbye as Jonathan climbed into the pickup and then started it up and drove off down the driveway toward the main road. A light breeze set the wind chimes jingling, and she took a deep breath and then stood up herself, turning to Clark with a smile.
“I’ve got some chores of my own to do, but first…” She hesitated as she watched him bite his lower lip and drop his eyes. What was going on in that little mind of his, and how could she…make him feel better? She took another deep breath, and he looked back up at her.
God, his eyes… They were so full of so many things, and she felt a fierce protectiveness come over her like nothing she’d ever felt before. She reached out her hand. “Come on, sweetie, let’s head inside and… Say, do you like Legos? Jonathan picked up a really neat rocket ship Lego set from Sadie’s while he was out this morning.”
Clark took her hand slowly, but his face showed confusion as he stood with her help. “I—I don’t know wh-what Legos are,” he said quietly. And before she could respond, he asked, “C-can you…show me?”
The question was both heartbreaking and hopeful, and fresh tears threatened as she nodded enthusiastically. “Of course! Oh my, you’re in for a big treat! Legos are so fun!”
And he held onto her hand tightly as she led them back inside.
***
“Here, now, turn the page, and let’s see how it ends…”
Clark eagerly reached up and turned the final page, keeping a steady hold on the book as he leaned back against Martha’s chest. She looked over his shoulder, smiling at the familiar words. She had read this book to the first-grade class from Smallville Elementary when they had gone on a field trip to the library several weeks ago, and they’d all loved it just as much as Clark seemed to.
She tightened her arm around him in a small hug, and he pointed to the first word in the sentence, which was written in all capital letters.
“What does it say?”
“It says, ‘“SO, catch!” calls the Once-ler. He lets something fall. “It’s a Truffula Seed. It’s the last one of all. You’re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds. And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs. Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care. Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air. Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.”’ The end!”
“Oh, wow,” Clark said, his voice low. He looked up at her in awe, the biggest smile she’d seen from him yet plastered on his face. His eyes almost sparkled. “The Once-ler was…not a good person, but he…changed.”
Martha nodded. “Took him a little while to figure it out. He didn’t care at first how his actions affected others, right?”
Clark nodded and looked back down at the book, his tiny little fingers reaching out to trace under the first few words on the last page.
“But then,” she continued, “he realized how he was hurting all the animals and plants, and how damaging it was.”
She watched quietly as Clark seemed to process this, and he frowned.
“But…but one little boy…isn’t enough to—to ch-change…” His voice was small, and he seemed to shrink into her a bit, closing the book.
“Oh, sweetie, no. One person, little or not, certainly can change the world. Even if that just means changing the world for one person, making one person’s life better.”
Clark touched the front cover of the book and then smiled a little, and Martha’s breath caught. The expression—the little hint of a smile on his lips—seemed to be getting easier for him, and each time, it seemed to last a little longer.
She hugged him tighter again, her heart feeling so happy and full when he didn’t tense up this time. She wanted to tell him how much he’d already changed her world—how much he’d already made her small part of the world so much better. But she held back, watching him as he traced the letters on the front of the book with one finger, his smile slowly fading.
“What are you thinking, sweet boy?” she asked quietly, and his hand stilled.
He shook his head but then mumbled, “Um, I…” and tapped his finger on the first word, “The,” at the top—a red word set in the yellow tufts of a Truffula Tree.
“Do you…know all the letters?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head again, and this time she did feel his body tense up. “N-no. I…I’m not…not smart, and… Pa said—”
“Do you want me to teach you, sweetie?” She hated interrupting him, but a strong wave of anger had flowed through her when he mentioned not being smart, and even though she probably needed to learn all she could about how Clark had been raised, she really had no desire to hear what Jacob Peterson had told Clark about himself. Or to have Clark have to repeat whatever those untruths had been now.
“Y-yes, p-please,” he answered, unsteadily, but with a little hope in his voice. “I know…this is—is a T.” He pointed to the first letter in “The” and then looked up at her, uncertainty in his eyes.
“That’s absolutely right. It’s the letter T. And the way it’s written there is called ‘capitalized.’ Every letter has two forms—uppercase or capitalized and lowercase.”
Clark bit his lip and lowered his eyes back to the page, moving his finger to point to the next letter. “Wh-what is this one?”
“That’s an H, but it’s lowercase, and the next letter—”
“Is an E?”
“Yes! Very good. And the letters T-H-E together spell the word ‘The,’ as in
The Lorax.”
“T…H…E… ‘The.’” He pointed at each of the letters as he said them and then looked up at her, the hint of hope in his expression again.
With a huge smile and another nod, she brought both arms around him and hugged him gently. “Yes, sweetie, that’s so great! That’s just right.”
He let her hug him, and then quickly, as though he were worried she would soon tire of this, he pointed to the next word. “This says, ‘L-Lorax’?”
“Exactly. The letters are…”
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