Chapter Nine
"Okay, cherubs," said Karen, "we need to figure out a way to make a signal, so Superman knows we're down here. Emma, how about if you look through the back seat, and tell me everything that you see there. Maybe there's something in our camping stuff that we can use..."
"What's cherubs?" Gracie wanted to know.
"One...two..." said Emma.
"No," Karen interjected. "That was fun once; but Gracie's a part of the team now. Right, Gracie?" At Gracie's determined affirmation, she continued. "We all need to contribute if we're going to figure this out. So, to answer your question..." What was it Gracie had asked? Oh, yeah... "A cherub is like a young angel, I guess. At least that's the way people think of them these days." Then she recalled her recent research into the subject, and smiled to herself. Maybe they could have a little fun with this conversation. "Only when people used to talk about cherubs, they didn't call them 'cherubs.' They called them 'cherubims.'"
"Why?" Gracie immediately wanted to know.
"Well, I think 'cherub' is a word from the Hebrew language. In our language -- English -- when you want to say that there's more than one of a thing, you just stick the letter 's' on the end of the name. Like if you have more than one dog, you say 'dogs.' But in the Hebrew language, you put the 'im' sound on the end, instead of the 's'..."
"But that would make it 'cherubim!'" Said Emma. "You said 'cherubims.'"
"So I did. I think that when people translated the stories about cherubs into English, they must have put the 's' on, but forgot to take the 'im' off. So the result is 'cherubims.'"
Emma grinned, getting in to the mood of the conversation. "So how come you know so much about cherubs?"
"That's Walter's fault. He likes to refer to you as his guardian angel or, sometimes, as his personal cherub. I didn't know what a cherub was, so one day I did a web search on them, and found that they're mentioned a lot in the Old Testament."
"What's that?" Gracie asked.
"It's the story of the Hebrew people, and it has a lot of littler books in it. The Book of Genesis, for example, is the first place where cherubs are mentioned." Her expression took on a sly edge. "But from what it says, cherubs -- or cherubims -- are not the nice little angels we think about today. They were actually a pretty tough lot."
"Why? What does it say?" Emma appeared to be intensely interested; and Gracie's silence seemed to indicate the same.
"Well, for example, in the story of the Garden of Eden, when God became angry with Adam and Eve after they broke one of his commandments, he kicked them out of the garden. It says that he put 'cherubims and a flaming sword' at the east end of the garden, so that they couldn't sneak back in."
"What's a 'flam'..."
"It means a long sword that's on fire," she said to Gracie. "It's a..." Karen stopped abruptly; and she slowly opened her mouth in wonder.
"What's the matter?" asked Emma after a while.
"I think...I think that a 'flaming sword' might just be our way out of here!" She was thinking furiously. "Emma, tell me what superpowers you already have."
"Why?" Emma asked a little suspiciously.
"Because this will only work if you happen to have the right one."
"Well, I can fly -- but *everybody* knows that now!" She glanced grudgingly in Gracie's direction. "I'm super-fast, when I wanna be; and I can see a real long ways, and I can see through most anything..."
"Right; x-ray vision. What else?" asked Karen, trying mightily to suppress her excitement.
"That's all."
Karen felt as though she had been punched in the stomach. "That's *all*? What about heat vision?"
"Nope; Daddy tried to teach it to me; but he says I must just not be ready yet. Why?" she asked again.
Karen took a couple of deep breaths while she struggled to get her emotions under control. "See that tree out there?" She pointed at the rubble covering the windscreen, which she knew Emma could see through. "That tree would make a heck of a signal for Superman -- if we could figure out how to set it on fire!"
"Oh." Emma now looked thoroughly miserable -- as miserable as Karen felt.
After a moment, Karen said, "Listen, couldn't you at least *try* to do it? Maybe..."
"Karen, I practice *every day*! With Daddy helping! If I could do it, I'd know! I just can't, *okay*?"
The silence in the Jeep dragged on. Tears were leaking out of Emma's eyes. Karen was beginning to get her emotions under control, and was regretting pushing the child so hard. But they had been so *close*...
"I can."
Karen sat very still. Then, not daring to hope, she said, "What did you say, Gracie?"
"I can do it. Make fire with my eyes."
Karen looked sideways at Emma, who was staring open-mouthed at Gracie. "No way... Why didn't you *tell* anybody? Why didn't you tell *me*?!"
"'Cause Elwood saw me do it once, and he said I was a freak. I didn't wanna be a freak, so I didn't tell."
"You did it in front of *Elwood*? From preschool?"
"Yeah. It was just a ball of paper. After I lit it on fire, I dropped it in a glass of water."
"But what if your teacher saw you?"
"But she didn't. See me. The water was all brown, from our watercolors, so she couldn't tell."
Karen could contain herself no longer. "Let me get this straight. You can light a piece of paper on fire, just by staring at it?"
"Uh-huh."
"From how far away?" She quickly tore off one side of the bag of treats, and crumpled it into a ball. "If I put this here on the dash like this, could you set it on fire from back there?"
She stared intently at Gracie's image in the mirror -- and then jumped, startled, as Gracie's eyes abruptly glowed red. She looked down at the dash. The smoldering paper was bursting into flame even as she watched. She gasped -- and then quickly swiped the burning paper off the dashboard onto the rubble near her feet. She hurriedly grabbed the water bottle from the torn bag and, removing the cap, carefully poured a portion of the water over the ball, extinguishing the flames. She sat there, staring blankly through the wispy veil of smoke at the dark windscreen.
"Guess what else I can do?"
Unbelievable. A whole family of *super*kinder. "What?"
"I can see through stuff. Just like Emma." Karen looked again in the mirror; Gracie was grinning smugly at Emma, whose expression was totally shell-shocked.
"Why didn't you *tell* me?" Emma repeated.
"I didn't wanna be a freak. But I'm not a freak; I'm Superman's daughter!"
Karen took another deep breath. "Well, okay then! Let's get this show on the road! Ladies, what -- exactly -- does the tree look like?"
"It's real tall..." said Emma.
"...and straight, like a Christmas tree..."
"...only it's dead; it's just got the trunk..."
"...yeah, with just a few skinny branches..."
"...and some of them have dead pine needles on 'em..."
"...but mostly the branches are broke off."
Karen was giddy at this display of the girls completing each other's sentences. Truly, genetics was at work here. "How tall is it?"
"I dunno how..."
"...to tell you," Emma finished. Then she and Gracie exchanged looks...and started to giggle.
"Well, I think we've just found another superpower. We could call it the Lois-and-Clark *super*babble!" Once everyone had finished laughing, she continued. "How far away is this tree? Could you put a car as long as this one between us and it?"
After some translation, it was agreed that the tree was about fifteen feet from the front of the car. "Now, both of you point to the top of the tree, *through* the roof."
After a little exercise in mental trigonometry, Karen concluded that the tree was truly gigantic -- at least seventy, perhaps as much as one hundred feet high. The trunk, at the base, was at least two feet in diameter. And the top two-thirds of the tree was definitely visible through the hole in the roof. If they could set it ablaze, it would illuminate the whole hillside, and would burn for a long time. They had their signal.
But, Emma reported, the clouds were moving in, and it looked like rain. They needed to get started.
* * *
Chapter Ten
"We've been over the entire length of the road twice!" observed Walter. "Shouldn't we have seen them by now?"
"Yes, if they're on this road," Superman responded. "What worries me is that they may have either missed a turn some place, or have broken down somewhere in Metropolis." He glanced at Walter. "The moon's coming up. How would you like a spectacular view?" He began to rise.
"Shouldn't we concentrate on finding them first?"
"I am. But to do that, I need more altitude. While I look around, you can be enjoying the scenery." He suited his actions to his words, as they sped upwards.
Mile after mile slipped below them. "Clark, how come my ears aren't popping? And why isn't it getting a lot colder?"
"Lois has commented on the same thing; apparently there's an 'aura' which surrounds me and protects me. When someone flies with me, it seems to extend out to cover them, too. I know that anything within about a half-inch of my body is somehow shielded from air friction, or cold, or damage from fire, for example. I've found that when I rescue someone from a burning building, if I can keep in contact with that person, and wrap my cape around them, not only are they protected, but so is the cape. But if I don't keep the cape close, it get singed."
Their upward progress abated, and Walter looked around. "How high up are we?"
"At least fifty thousand feet; this is higher than the highest commercial jets fly. You can still breathe because of the 'aura.' No one on the ground could possibly see us, even in the daytime, unless they had telescopic vision and happened to be looking right at us.
"I'm going to need to concentrate pretty hard for the next few minutes; feel free to enjoy the scenery while I do," he added, and then was silent.
Walter looked out at the spectacular view. The full moon had recently risen, and bathed the scenes below in pale splendor. They must be able to see at least three counties, he thought. Near the horizon could be seen the myriad pinpoint lights and silhouetted towers of Metropolis, with tendrils radiating outward from it, where the interstates and major highways -- lighted by constant rows of car headlights and taillights -- snaked away into the distance.
He became aware that the scene was changing; Superman must be slowly rotating to cover all the points of the compass. He could make out a number of small towns as the urban areas of Metropolis gradually changed to countryside, and he could see the lights and buildings of these towns interspersed with fields and woods, with an occasional automobile heading down a lonely road.
As they slowly turned he saw that, far below them, a mass of clouds was slowly making its way toward this part of the state. It would likely mean bad weather; and if the girls were out in it, they could have a difficult time of it.
Finally Superman spoke. "I can't see them. They must still be in Metropolis somewhere."
"Is there any chance you could have missed them?"
"I don't see how. I used both telescopic and x-ray vision; I've looked through trees and buildings. Walter, I scanned every detail, from the ground up, over an area fifty miles across. They're just not there." He sighed. "I think we'd better try Metropolis."
They were soon hovering over the city; and Clark was beginning a sweep of the area below them. After a moment he stopped. "This isn't going to work. It'll literally take hours to complete a scan of the city."
"Why; what's different here? Your scan of the country only took about ten minutes."
"Yes, but here there are skyscrapers with dozens of stories, underground parking garages, lots of warehouses and other buildings painted with lead paint -- which I can't see through -- I can't believe we came off without the cell phone!" He headed down toward a particular suburb.
"Where are we going?"
"Where I should have gone at the beginning -- our townhouse. If Lois were trying to get in touch with me and she couldn't reach me by phone, and I was too far away for 'Help, Superman' to work, she would call home and leave a voicemail on our answering machine."
"How far can you hear, anyway?"
"Depends on what I'm listening for. If someone is in desperate need, or if they yell my name, I can hear them up to about twenty miles or so." He sighed. "But they could be beyond that, by quite a ways."
Shortly they were hovering over the townhouse. "Aren't you going to go in?"
"No need. I can see that she hasn't left any notes, and the answering machine light isn't blinking. Well, I can think of only one other place they could have gone; we'll go there, and try to phone them while we're at it."
* * *
