Superman

by Matt De La Peña

  Clark replayed the scene in his head for the hundredth time. How he’d collided with Paul at full speed. How they’d skidded across the wet pavement and into the tire of a parked van. For the past week he’d been trying to decide if there was a way he could’ve saved his ex-teammate without injury. But each time he thought about it, he came to the same conclusion: the violent tackle was unavoidable.

  Wasn’t it?

  The football team didn’t see it that way. Kyle and Tommy hadn’t spotted the SUV until it crashed into a retaining wall built to protect the new Mankins headquarters construction zone. And Clark hit Paul with such force that they had ended up clear on the other side of the street. So the other players didn’t understand how Paul could have been in any real danger in the first place. Especially when the police believed the Mankins construction site had been the man in brown’s intended target. Not that they could have asked the man himself. He was in a coma. And doctors didn’t expect him to survive.

  Now some guys on the football team thought Clark had blasted Paul on purpose, out of jealousy. And maybe they were right. Not about the jealousy part, but it was possible the SUV wasn’t going to run over Paul.

  Maybe Clark had miscalculated.

  It felt like every time he tried to help, someone got hurt. And he came out looking like the bad guy.

  As if the universe were trying to mock him, Clark now heard the faint crying sound of someone else who might need help. It was coming from a girl, he was pretty sure. But none of the female faces around him seemed the least bit upset.

  Bored to tears, maybe, but not upset.

  Mary Baker was smacking gum and covertly texting beneath her desk.

  Olivia Goodman was biting her fingernails while staring longingly out the classroom window.

  Sherry Miller was sketching some kind of dark unicorn scene in the margins of her poli sci textbook.

  “Clark,” Lana Lang whispered beside him.

  The crying sound reminded Clark of Paul’s quiet whimpering as the four of them watched a rescue crew use the Jaws of Life to free the man from the mangled SUV. Not only was Paul’s shoulder in bad shape, but the skin on his arm and the side of his face had been badly scraped up when he and Clark slid across the wet pavement.

  Clark, of course, didn’t have a scratch.

  Even his glasses, which had fallen off in the collision, had come out unscathed.

  “Earth to Clark Kent,” Lana whispered more forcefully. “Dude, what’s your deal?”

  This time he turned to look at his best friend. She was wearing the oval moonstone necklace her mom had given her on her sixteenth birthday and a T-shirt that read THE FUTURE IS FEMALE. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail, like it always was at school, and the closest thing to makeup she had on was lip balm.

  Who, me? Clark mouthed to her.

  “You’re, like, all over the place today,” she whispered.

  More crying. He wondered if Lana could hear it, too. Or…maybe it was coming from somewhere outside the classroom?

  Lana motioned toward Paul. “He’s going to be fine,” she whispered. “If it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t even be here.”

  Clark shrugged and turned back to their teacher, trying to focus on Mrs. Sovak’s marathon lecture. She was breaking down the evolution of migratory work in America. “Agricultural migrant work started as far back as the 1600s,” she explained. “These were the indentured servants coming from England. Of course we can never forget the monstrosities of slavery, when African people were brought to this country against their will. And in the 1840s, tens of thousands of Mexican workers began coming across the border to take labor jobs. This particular group, as I mentioned earlier, will be the focus of our final unit….”

  It wasn’t that Clark was uninterested. His problem was that he couldn’t stop staring at Paul’s sling. Replaying the incident downtown, thinking about the man with the knife. And now he was also fixated on the subtle crying he kept hearing.

  Mrs. Sovak stopped and eyed the class. “I’m not telling you all this for my health, you know. It’ll be on our final.”

  Clark sat up straight as her gaze briefly fell upon him.

  “I’m sure you’re aware of the protests downtown,” she went on. “This stuff is as relevant as ever. How we choose to address the situation today will significantly impact the future of your town and family farms….”

  Clark tried to isolate on the crying sound, but everything else was getting in the way. Jessica Napier was whispering to a friend in the back of the class. “Tommy’s party next weekend is gonna be huge. Everyone’s gonna be there….”

  Out in the hallway, a student walked by with headphones, listening to an old country song Clark vaguely recognized.

  Clear across campus, Kyle made a joke about bulldozing right over Willie Moore during yesterday’s spring scrimmage. One of Kyle’s cronies snickered loudly, and then a locker slammed shut.

  Clark could even hear a small plane somewhere in the sky. A single-engine prop plane, to be exact. He could tell by the whipping sound of the front propeller. The plane was flying somewhere over a neighboring community. Like Noonan, maybe—

  No, that was impossible. Noonan was the nearest town, but it was still more than thirty miles away.

  Great, now his mind was playing tricks on him.

  He rubbed his ears with the heels of his hands and stared at Mrs. Sovak.

  It wasn’t just his hearing ability that was changing. All his powers seemed to be getting stronger. Two days ago he’d seen right through a wall, into the classroom next door. He’d watched a freshman girl pass a note to another girl, who laughed without sound. These new abilities both thrilled him and scared him to death.

  But it was his hearing that he was focused on now.

  Somewhere on campus, a girl was crying.

  Her soft sobs sounded so broken and desperate that they eventually drowned out everything else in Clark’s head.

  He needed to find out who she was. And why she was so sad.

  “Clark,” Lana’s hushed voice interrupted again.

  This time Clark waited until Mrs. Sovak was writing on the board to turn to Lana. He found her staring at him, her large green eyes narrowed with concern.

  “You’ve been acting really weird lately,” she said. “Even for you.”

  Clark shrugged, ignoring the dig. Lana had a sixth sense when it came to reading people. It’s what made her such a good reporter. And it’s what made Clark sometimes feel anxious around her. There was so much he needed to keep hidden.

  “Honestly, though, is everything okay? I’m here if you need to talk.”

  “Thanks,” he told her. “But I’m good. I just—”

  The final bell rang, saving him from having to finish the thought. He smiled at Lana instead, doing his best to look normal. Anyway, it’s not like he could confide in her that he heard someone crying on the other side of campus.

  She wouldn’t understand.

  Nobody would.

  As they filed out of the classroom, Lana reached up to brush something off Clark’s collar, saying, “Oh, get this. The inequity within the athletics department runs even deeper than I first thought. I just found proof of an attempted cover-up last summer.”

  “Like, in the accounting?” Clark asked.

  “You got it.” Lana was already the editor of the school paper as a junior. She was good at asking questions. And even better at getting answers. “Can you believe something like this could be happening right here under our noses? At Smallville High?”

  Lana’s current story centered on how much of the school budget was spent on athletics. More specifically, male athletics. Even more specifically, football.

  This was the way it had always worked between Clark and his best friend; whatever story she was currently working on became a b
ig part of their conversations. Lana liked using Clark as a sounding board, and Clark enjoyed being part of her investigative whirlwinds.

  “Is Rice cooperating?” Clark asked, referring to their principal.

  “Oh, yes, she is.” Lana waved her phone in front of his face. “She’s sent me three emails over the last two periods.”

  Clark grinned. No one could make a powerful adult sweat quite like Lana Lang could.

  The hallways were filled with students excited for the weekend. Clark and Lana swerved around a group of JV defensive linemen doing some kind of pre-practice chant Clark vaguely remembered from freshman year. They ducked past a group of loud pom-pom-wielding cheerleaders. After a while he was able to filter out all the peripheral noise and focus solely on the crying girl.

  What was wrong? he wondered. Was she hurt?

  “Listen, Lana,” Clark said as they neared the front doors, “there’s something I gotta do real fast.”

  “Sounds mildly intriguing. What’s up?”

  “It’s not a big deal. Just have to check if I, uh, left my—”

  “Lana?” Speak of the devil, Principal Rice was standing in the doorway of the front office, wearing her usual gray power suit. “Can I have a quick word?”

  Clark and Lana shared a knowing glance, and Clark whispered, “Meet you at the front steps in ten?”

  Lana nodded and turned to Principal Rice. “Of course, ma’am. Would you like to speak in your office?”

  Clark watched Principal Rice and Lana start toward the office, then turned his attention back to the crying. He followed the sound through the freshman locker hall and past the gym, where the women’s basketball team was warming up. The sound eventually led him to an empty classroom halfway across the school.

  He recognized the girl right away.

  Gloria Alvarez.

  A senior he’d always admired from afar. She was one of the few people at Smallville High who were able to navigate effortlessly across multiple social groups. One day she’d be eating lunch in the library with the Latinx Book Club. The next day Clark would see her laughing in the halls with a group of white cheerleaders. He also knew she was one of the smartest kids in the school and so good with computers that she codes.

  Gloria sat at a desk in the front row, hunched over, wiping tears with a bundled tissue. At first she didn’t notice Clark in the doorway, so he simply stood there and watched her, feeling awkward. She clearly wasn’t in any danger. But the depth of her sadness was so gut-wrenching that he couldn’t pull himself away. He wondered if he’d ever felt anything so intensely.

  Was he even capable?

  In a way, he actually envied her sadness.

  He took a tentative step forward and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but…are you okay?”

  Gloria looked up at Clark, startled. Her eyes red, cheeks streaked with tears.

  “Sorry,” Clark mumbled, averting his gaze. “I just—I was passing by or whatever and…” He studied her again. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.” Gloria stood up, then froze, staring at him. “People are disappearing,” she snapped, “and no one in this town even cares.”

  Her words caught Clark completely off guard. “Who?”

  She shook her head and pushed past him, out the door. Watching her hurry into the crowded hallway, Clark felt confused.

  And helpless.

  People were disappearing from Smallville?

  After school that day, a small helicopter whirred above the field of the Kents’ rural farm, just a few miles south of Smallville. Clark and his dad watched it pass overhead yet again. Third time in the past twenty minutes.

  This didn’t sit well with Clark.

  He’d always felt protective of the farm. And his aging parents. The feeling had only intensified as he’d gotten older.

  Helicopters were a rare sight in the area. Most farmers no longer dusted crops by air. But what really bothered Clark was the way the chopper weaved across the gray sky in a distinct pattern—flying over their small farmhouse, past the pond and the cornfields and the chicken coop, and then dipping lower near the large crater that butted up against their old barn.

  Whoever was up there was looking for something.

  But what?

  When Clark had brought up his concern earlier, his dad shrugged it off. “Can’t say I appreciate it either, Clark. But there’s no law against flying over someone’s property.”

  So Clark stuck with the other law-related subject they’d been discussing: the controversial new stop-and-search issue on the ballot in Smallville. It had already been passed into law in a couple of neighboring towns, but Clark refused to believe the residents of Smallville would support it. Would they? “So the police would be able to stop anyone?” he asked his dad. Clark was thinking about what Gloria had said about people disappearing. “At any time? With no cause?”

  Wiping his brow on the shoulder of his flannel shirt, Jonathan Kent turned to Clark. Clark thought his dad had been looking older lately. There was more gray in his hair. More puffiness under his eyes. All the years of backbreaking farmwork were catching up to him. “The population’s changing, son. And some communities…I think they’re scared about where this change might leave them.”

  “But it’s racist.”

  His dad studied him for several seconds before saying, “Well, it’s probably a little more complicated than that. But still, I’m voting no on the issue.”

  Clark nodded and drove his shovel back into the ground. Even in his annoyance, he was careful not to use too much force. He’d already snapped a half dozen shovels this spring. And his folks didn’t have money for that kind of extra expense. But it seriously depressed him to think that anyone in Smallville could vote for a law that allowed police to make traffic stops based solely on the color of someone’s skin.

  And what happened if the people in the car didn’t have documentation? Could the police just throw them into the back of a squad car and whisk them away?

  “That storm’s closer than it looks,” Jonathan said, peering into the sky again. “This really isn’t a great time to be flying.”

  “What do you think they’re looking for?”

  Jonathan repositioned a loose fence post in one of the holes Clark had dug. “Whatever it is, they should think about heading in soon. Especially after what happened with that plane today.”

  Clark froze. “Plane?”

  Jonathan paused, too. “A small plane crash-landed out by Noonan this afternoon. The pilot stalled it somehow and couldn’t regain control.”

  Clark stared at his dad in shock. The plane he’d heard in class…it was real. His mind hadn’t been playing tricks on him after all.

  A drizzle began falling, and the sky swiftly grew more sinister.

  “What about the pilot?” Clark asked. “Everyone okay?”

  His dad nodded, glancing up at the helicopter again. “She broke several bones. But from what I hear, she should eventually recover.”

  “Dad, I…” Clark paused to think about what he wanted to say.

  “Yes, son?”

  Clark shook his head, imagining how absurd it would sound.

  “You can tell me anything,” his dad said. “You know that.”

  “It’s just…I heard that plane today.” Clark had to speak up, to make sure his dad could hear him over the sound of the helicopter as it passed overhead again. “How’s that even possible?”

  Jonathan stared at Clark. “All the way in Noonan? From school?”

  Clark nodded. He’d never tried to hide his powers from his parents—not that he could have if he’d tried. He’d been showing signs since he was a toddler. One summer, when Clark was eight, their closest neighbor, Mr. Peterman, had rolled his four-wheeler on their property. Clark had been playing in a nearby field when he heard the screams for
help. He raced over to the scene and, without even considering the impossibility of the task, began hoisting the thousand-pound vehicle, an inch at a time, every muscle in his body straining, until the trapped man could scurry out from beneath it, where he promptly passed out. It was easy to convince the man later that he’d crawled out himself and Clark had merely found him there.

  Another time he’d accidentally touched an electrified wire on the Kents’ steer pen. Sparks flew. The air crackled. His skin trembled and buzzed, and his palm grew warm, but he didn’t feel pain. He wasn’t even sure what pain was exactly. He understood it conceptually. He’d seen his dad wince and shake his hand out after slamming his thumb with a hammer. And he’d never forget watching Miles Loften writhe in pain at the twenty-yard line after Clark had accidentally busted his ribs. But pain for Clark was different. It was more of a minor irritant than anything else. Which he knew wasn’t normal.

  The point was, Clark’s parents already knew he was special. They’d seen him go around the farm as a kid, trying to lift everything that wasn’t nailed down. They’d seen him running at the speed of light. But these new powers were different. They seemed almost…otherworldly.

  His dad kept a poker face as he studied Clark.

  The helicopter overhead looped away from a dark cloud, then came back around for yet another pass as the rain picked up. Clark kept expecting his dad to hurry them toward shelter. But Jonathan didn’t. Maybe he considered the conversation too important to interrupt.

  “Well,” Jonathan finally began, “I don’t know how it’s possible, but…”

  The whir of the helicopter blades was drowned out by a loud clap of thunder. The sudden silence that followed made them both look up. Helicopters weren’t supposed to just stop making noise. Clark thought of the plane in Noonan.

  They spotted the helicopter at the same time.

  It was plunging toward the ground near the old barn.

  Swirling unnaturally in some kind of death spiral.

  Clark resisted the urge to intervene. After the incident with Paul and the SUV, he’d vowed to keep his nose out of places it didn’t belong. He’d only make things worse. He cringed as an instinctive energy surged through his body with such ferocity that he accidentally snapped the shovel in two.