Superman

by Matt De La Peña

  Every other time he’d tried to do this on command, he had failed, but to his great relief, this time it actually worked. He was now looking through the thin wall, into the small office on the other side, where a man he recognized immediately was sitting at a tiny wooden desk, working on a laptop.

  Dr. Wesley.

  So he was the “friend” who was “particular” about his things.

  Clark stared at the back of the scientist’s head, recalling the way Bryan had cringed when describing the man. He’d said Wesley was creepy and connected to bad people. Clark looked around the small office: the ugly brown rug, the motionless ceiling fan, the hodgepodge of coffee mugs lined up along the bookshelf to the right of the desk. The wall on the opposite side of the office was covered with large photographs that had been tacked up. The photos were mostly of farm fields. And farmhouses. A few barns and grain elevators. Clark recognized Smallville landmarks in a few of the photographs. These were local farms. The angle of the shots suggested that the photos had been taken from a helicopter.

  One of the photos that had been circled with a marker showed a deep crater on Tommy Jones’s family farm—the farm they’d just sold. Which struck Clark as odd. Some of the other photos were taken with a strange filter, too, with the objects in the photos a variety of bright colors, almost like infrared.

  Clark blinked, momentarily losing his view. He stared at the wall again, concentrating even harder this time, and eventually his vision penetrated the wall. This time he found himself staring at a particular cluster of photos that made his skin crawl.

  It was his farm.

  There was a photo of their farmhouse. And one of the pond. And several of the crater near the old barn. He flashed back to last night, recalling the trespasser with the metal detector. But the photo that triggered a sick feeling in Clark was the picture of the old barn itself. The photo was blown up and had been taken with the strange filter. The barn was lit up in different shades of green and yellow. And there was a handwritten black arrow pointing from the crater to the barn.

  Dr. Wesley got up from his desk, walked over to the wall, and stared at the photo of the crater at the Joneses’ farm. He pulled out the tack and took it down and examined it closely before putting it back up. When Dr. Wesley turned toward the door, Clark spun around and started for the lobby, only to have someone grab his arm.

  It was Lana. “Clark, you okay?”

  “Can we leave? Like, now?”

  Lana turned to Corey just as the door in the hall opened. “My friend’s sick,” she said. “Gotta go. Sorry!” She pulled Clark toward the front door and opened it just as Dr. Wesley emerged from his office.

  “Wait!” Corey shouted. “I didn’t get your number!”

  “See you Friday night!” Lana called to him through the closing door.

  The two of them walked casually past the window of the building, then took off in a brisk jog. They didn’t stop until they had made it all the way back up the library steps. The pair ducked inside the front doors, and Lana leaned over, out of breath, saying, “What was that all about?”

  Clark pretended to breathe hard, too.

  He wanted to tell her exactly what he’d seen in Dr. Wesley’s office, but he wasn’t sure how to go about it. He couldn’t tell the truth, that he’d seen some suspicious-looking photos through the wall using his X-ray vision. He’d have to tell it slant. “When that guy opened the door of his office, I saw pictures of farms hanging on the wall. Smallville farms, Lana.”

  “Really? Why?”

  He shook his head. “No clue.”

  She stood up straighter and patted him on the shoulder. “Clark, you seem seriously spooked.”

  Clark was spooked. Because now he believed the burglary wasn’t random at all. They’d targeted his house. And he no longer believed they were there to steal farm equipment. They’d come for something else. But what did they want with the crater and the old barn? He couldn’t answer these questions yet, but seeing photos of his property tacked up to Wesley’s wall like that…he couldn’t help feeling that his family was in legitimate danger.

  “One of the photos,” he told Lana, “I think it was of our farm. Why would our property be on the wall of some run-down scientific research office?”

  “I have no idea, Clark. But we’re going to find out. I promise.”

  Clark nodded.

  There were pictures of a lot of farms, he kept telling himself. But he came back again and again to that blown-up photo of the old barn, taken with some kind of infrared camera. And he kept replaying the man in the cowboy shirt hacking at the lock on the door with an ax.

  It was time to look inside the old barn.

  That night, well after his mom and dad had gone to sleep, Clark snuck down the stairs and out of the house. The moon hung so low in the sky that it muted the stars. For the first time since fall, the night air was warm and slightly damp, and the bugs whined around his ears as he cut across the farm. Clark followed the faint tire tracks from the old pickup, feeling a profound sense of violation.

  He walked down the long, subtle decline toward the pond, wondering why anyone would be interested in the seemingly ordinary farm. Eventually he found himself staring down into the crater. It looked as if the very center had been dug up. What could those men possibly have been looking for?

  As a kid he used to come here all the time. He’d take summer naps under the large maple tree near the old barn. Or he’d rest his head against the lip of the crater when he needed to think about something. But now he tried to see it from Dr. Wesley’s point of view. It was fifteen yards across and maybe twenty feet deep. But other than the fact that it was so close to the old barn, Clark didn’t see what was so special about it.

  Clark stood in front of the old barn next. The large wooden doors loomed over him. The padlock was badly scuffed and hanging wide open, and in his head he could still see the man hacking at it with the ax.

  Clark remembered how strange his dad had always been about this place. For the first time in Clark’s life, he wondered if Jonathan was hiding something from him.

  Clark tossed aside the busted padlock. The doors creaked as he slowly pulled them open, prompting him to glance up the hill at the dark farmhouse, where his parents slept. How disappointed would they be if they knew what he was up to right now? Behind their backs.

  The air inside the barn was musty and stale, and the dust he kicked up swirled all around. He picked his way past heaps of old junk, moving blocks of rotting wood, old tractor parts, scrap metal, toys from his childhood. Rusty toolboxes sat on the workbench along the wall, likely filled with random screws and nuts and bolts. On a small family farm like theirs, if something broke, buying a new one wasn’t an option. Clark had become quite adept at doing makeshift repairs on pretty much anything.

  He worked his way to the back, toward the corner that had shown the most color on Dr. Wesley’s photo. Could it have been highlighting all this random stuff? he wondered. It was piled nearly to the ceiling. He climbed up the heap, grabbing a few broken two-by-fours and tossing them aside. He chucked away an old oilcan, a rusted motorcycle muffler. As he continued to make his way through all the junk and garbage, an uneasy feeling came over him. Like he knew there was something important beneath all this clutter, but did he really want to find out what it was?

  He pressed on until he had removed enough of the old junk to see that there was a large object under an old tarp. It was roughly the size of a small car. He froze. What if this was something Jonathan and Martha had hidden for a reason? What if it was something personal?

  Did he really have a right to be snooping around like this?

  While his parents slept?

  A wave of guilt overtook him, and he ended up leaving the barn without digging any further. Instead, he would try a more forthright approach.

  * * *

 
—

  It was nearly three in the morning when Clark reached a hand through the dark to shake Jonathan awake. His dad slowly stirred, then opened his eyes. When he saw Clark standing over him, he bolted upright and swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Clark? What’s wrong, son?”

  Martha didn’t stir.

  Clark motioned with his head for his dad to follow.

  They went down the stairs quietly and cut through the living room. Clark grabbed a flashlight out of a drawer on the other side of the living room. Jonathan pulled his tattered robe on over his pajamas as they walked out the front door. “What’s this about, son?” he asked Clark nervously. “Is everything okay?”

  “I want to show you something.” Clark led him up to the edge of the crater and shined the flashlight on the part that had been dug up. “After you left last night, I found some men on our property. One was messing around inside here with some kind of metal detector. Another was trying to break into the old barn.”

  “Oh, God, Clark,” Jonathan said, visibly upset. “Why didn’t you tell me right away? Did you call the police?”

  “I wanted to talk to you first.”

  His dad whirled around, looking all over the farm. “I noticed something odd about the hay rolls this morning. And the hogs seemed on edge. But I never suspected—” He grabbed Clark by the elbows. “Are you all right? Did they try and harm you?”

  Clark shrugged. “I managed to scare them off.”

  Jonathan let go of Clark and turned toward the barn. “They broke the padlock. Were they able to get inside?”

  “They never made it inside,” Clark said. He knew his dad would react this way to the intrusion. But he hadn’t dragged Jonathan out here in the middle of the night just to tell him about the trespassing. Clark wanted to get answers about the barn. And what was hidden in there. But now that he was standing here with his dad, he wasn’t sure he was ready for the truth. Not if it was something major that he’d be forced to deal with. He had so many other things on his plate right now. Like all his finals at school. And the new powers he seemed to have very little control over.

  “How’d you get them to leave?” his dad asked.

  “I came at them with the front-end loader.” Clark paused, staring at his dad through the darkness. “Is there anything I should know about the barn?” he asked vaguely.

  Jonathan stared at Clark for a long, awkward stretch. At one point he nodded to himself. But seconds later he sighed and began shaking his head in an exaggerated manner. “Son, your mom and I…,” he began. “All we’ve ever wanted is what’s best for you.”

  Clark turned away, filled with trepidation. “I know that.”

  Jonathan got quiet again. He glanced over at the barn, then turned to Clark and opened his mouth, like he was going to say something.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Clark said, beating him to the punch. This whole conversation was a mistake, he now realized. “It’s the middle of the night. I shouldn’t have pulled you all the way out here to tell you what happened.”

  “You wanted to show me how they were digging inside the crater,” his dad said, seemingly happy to back out of some deeper conversation they’d been skirting around.

  Clark nodded. “Yeah, I just…I never imagined seeing thieves on our property like that.”

  Jonathan nodded and patted Clark on the shoulder. “Let’s go on back to the house. Get some sleep. I’ll call the police first thing in the morning. Once we get to the bottom of that part, we can talk about anything else on your mind. That sound okay?”

  Clark nodded. “You go ahead. I’m gonna stay out here a little longer.”

  “You sure?” His dad looked at him like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. He just stood there awkwardly, a pained expression on his face. “Okay,” he said. Then he turned and started back to the farmhouse, leaving Clark alone in the dark.

  Clark managed to avoid any heavy conversations with his dad over the next few days. There were so many other things to focus on. He spent his free time studying for his finals and racking his brain about Dr. Wesley and his wall of photos. And how those photos might relate to the men he’d caught trespassing on his farm. And the interview he and Lana had had with Montgomery Mankins.

  He considered going back into the barn on his own. But every time the thought crossed his mind, he found a reason to put it off. He didn’t even understand why.

  On Friday night, Lana picked Clark up at the end of his long driveway just after dark and drove them across town. After taking several narrow roads, they pulled down the uneven dirt path that led to the Joneses’ farm, one of the oldest farms in Smallville. They parked among a sea of other cars.

  Clark stepped out of Lana’s car wearing his only black button-down shirt and a freshly washed pair of jeans. Lana wore a black sundress with a pair of faded skinny jeans underneath. Throughout the week, the party had been the focus of every school conversation Clark had been part of. The Jones Farm Funeral, everyone was calling it. Half the junior and senior classes were expected to be there, and everyone was supposed to wear black, as if they were attending an actual funeral.

  Clark was hit with a sudden bout of nerves as he spied the bonfire blazing high above the heads of his classmates, partying near the cornfields. Music spilled from the nearby farmhouse, and he could see several silhouettes through the thin white curtains. It had been a while since Clark had gone to a party like this. Way back during freshman year, when his teammates would drag him out. He hoped he’d remember how to act.

  “Clark!” someone shouted from behind them.

  He turned and found Bryan and Lex closing the doors of Lex’s red sports car, parked a few rows back in the field. They jogged over to catch up to Lana and Clark.

  “Nice look,” Bryan said, motioning toward Clark’s black button-down.

  “This is all the black I own,” Clark said.

  “I figured.” Bryan wasn’t very dressed up himself. He had on a faded black sweatshirt and black jeans. Lex, on the other hand, was dressed to impress. He was wearing a pair of black designer jeans and a dark gray button-down tucked in under a black blazer. Black aviator sunglasses—even though it was night.

  “This is my best friend, Lana,” Clark said. “Lana, meet Bryan and Lex.”

  They all shook hands, and Lex said to Lana, “Bryan tells me you write for the school paper.”

  “Are you kidding?” Bryan said. “She is the school paper.”

  “It’s true,” Clark said.

  Lana beamed. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

  Lex took off his sunglasses. He pulled a business card from his jacket pocket and handed it to Lana. “When you graduate, look me up. My company in Metropolis is always looking to bring on talented writers.”

  “Thanks,” Lana said, taking the card. She was clearly flattered, but Clark still didn’t know how he felt about Lex. The guy was just so slick. Like a smarter and more sophisticated version of Corey. And it struck Clark as odd that Lex wanted to be at a high school party.

  Clark squashed these thoughts as the four of them started toward the farmhouse. He was flooded with a sudden sense of nostalgia. How many times had he been here during his freshman year? Ten? Fifteen? The place was almost exactly as he remembered it. A long dirt path led up to a faded white two-story house. There was a large, grassy side yard, where they used to have barbecues. And a large backyard that sloped down toward a vast stretch of farmland.

  The Joneses’ property was unique in that it was extremely long and had several rows of tall trees breaking up the vast acreage. Tommy’s grandfather had planted them with the intention of creating several different plots with family houses for each of his children. But he’d never had enough money to build anything, and Tommy’s father was the only one still living in Smallville.

  Inside the house, country music blared as dozens of pe
ople dressed in black milled about, laughing. Dancing. Shouting to one another over the music and drinking from red cups. Two large speakers were perched on a folding table, next to a spread of chips and pretzels and half-empty pizza boxes. Three big coolers on the ground were filled with melting ice and floating cans.

  Aside from all the partyers, the house was virtually empty. There was no furniture besides a few folding tables and cheap plastic chairs.

  When Lana spotted several friends from the school paper huddled together in the living room, she walked over to talk to them.

  Lex scooped up three cold cans of beer and went to hand them out. Bryan took one, but Clark shook Lex off, saying, “I don’t really drink.” Lex shrugged and tossed the extra can back into the cooler. Then the three of them strolled out to the backyard, where another large crowd of people dressed mostly in black stood around a massive, crackling bonfire, talking and laughing.

  Clark assumed he’d know everyone at this end-of-the-school-year party, but he didn’t. A few wore letterman jackets from a neighboring county high school. Others seemed slightly older, like Lex. College kids, maybe, back for summer break.

  Clark stood a little straighter when he spotted Gloria standing in a small group of Mexican kids he recognized from school. She was wearing black overalls and a light blue T-shirt, and her long, thick hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked at him over her shoulder and gave a slight wave, then took a sip from the red cup she was holding.

  He waved back, the butterflies hitting him hard as she started walking over. “I was hoping I’d see you here,” she said.

  “Same with me.”

  They were both quiet for a few seconds, and then she said, “No drink?”