Summary: Eight-year-old Jon Kent’s life has been pretty normal, really—growing up on his grandparents’ farm in Smallville, Kansas, his mom raising him while his dad, whom he’s never even met, is off on some long undercover assignment overseas. But things change pretty quickly one afternoon when he discovers a unique and disconcerting new ability. As he adjusts to being able to “hear” the thoughts of those around him, another voice reaches out to him from somewhere far away…a voice he’s been waiting his whole life to hear.
Author’s note: This WIP had been sitting for a while with just the first two chapters written. A sudden burst of inspiration helped me finish it all in just the last couple days. Thank you so much to KSaraSara (and my wonderful daughter!) for a quick BR and readthrough. Hope y’all enjoy!
The story is fifteen (
very nice, short, ficlet-length!) chapters, and I’m planning to post one per day!
Rating: G
Save A Slice of Pie For Me
By Bek 1
The early summer Sun felt warm on the boy’s back as he shuffled down the long dirt road toward home. His mom had always told him not to kick up the dust with his shoes. She said to pick up his feet when he walked. She said not to make a mess. And he usually listened to her. He usually followed the rules and did as he was told and didn’t make a fuss.
However, today, the boy didn’t feel like picking up his feet. Even if his mother had been right there with him, scolding him for dragging along, he still might not listen. He might even have been more defiant and told her exactly what he was thinking. He might have said, “You’ve been lying to me since I was born, so why should I listen to you?” And then, he imagined, he might have taken off sprinting toward the house, leaving her behind.
Because today, he’d made a startling discovery. More than one, actually. And he wasn’t sure which one he was more scared of—the fact that he could apparently read people’s minds, or the fact that, according to the private thoughts of his second-grade teacher, Mrs. Jameson, his dad wasn’t just away overseas on a very, very long undercover assignment. No, according to Mrs. Jameson, Jon’s dad had left Earth with Superman nearly nine years ago. According to Mrs. Jameson, it was a darn shame Jon had to grow up with no father, and it was a darn shame the poor boy didn’t even know that his father, who had traveled light-years away to be witness to a civil war on an alien planet, was probably never coming home.
Jon kicked the dirt hard, his shoe digging a rut into the ground, and he then stopped and stared down the road toward the farmhouse that had been his home for as long as he could remember.
He didn’t understand why his mother would lie to him. Not only his mother, actually. His grandparents too. They’d lied to him. The whole world had lied, it seemed. He was the only one being kept in the dark. He’d found that out at lunch time, as he’d sat alone in the corner of the cafeteria, trying to block out the thoughts swarming around him, attacking him from all directions. Classmates complaining inwardly about how they didn’t like the lunches their parents had packed them or how it wasn’t fair that Marnie Allen always got one of her mom’s chocolate chip cookies as dessert in her lunch or how they wouldn’t get enough time at recess. Cafeteria staff silently wondering whether they’d remembered to check the expiration dates on the milk cartons that morning. And the principal Mr. Evans actually counting down the minutes in his head until the bell rang so he could leave to go on his own lunch break and sneak that one cigarette he allowed himself every day that no one knew about.
Jon had covered his ears, as though that would somehow help silence the sounds and pictures inserting themselves directly into his head, and then one voice had come through louder than all the others—the thoughts of a new female teacher whom he didn’t know, but whom he somehow immediately identified as Ms. Jeanette Severs, who’d moved to Smallville from Maybury, Indiana. Her words hung with him, even now.
<<That poor child. He doesn’t even know.>> Those words had come through perfectly clearly, as though she’d been speaking directly to him. The next thoughts had been just as clear but came to him as a series of phrases and images rather than well-formed, complete sentences. Clark Kent—a tall, handsome man with dark hair and glasses, standing next to Superman, whose face appeared just a little fuzzy and out of focus.
<<So far away.>> A spaceship, and the two men inside the ship. And the ship leaving Earth, flying through space.
<<New Krypton.>> A sense of curiosity and wonder at what might have happened. And then, a decisive conclusion, once again formed in complete sentences.
<<That poor child. He’ll probably never meet his father. And he doesn’t even know.>> “Well, I know now, Ms. Severs!” Jon cried as he stubbed his foot into the ground again.
His shoes were now covered in dust. His mother was going to be so mad at him. He could almost hear her, sighing as she’d say, “Jon, how many times do I have to tell you to pick up your feet when you walk?!”
<<Where is he? He should be home by now. He’s never this late.>>Jon raised his eyes sharply as he heard his mother’s voice clear as day in his head. No, he realized, not her voice.
Her inner voice. Her thoughts. Then, he saw her car turn out of the driveway down the road, the tires of the small dark blue sedan kicking up dust as she accelerated toward him. And again, her voice popped into his head.
<<Oh thank God. There he is.>>Her thoughts then did that thing that Ms. Severs’s thoughts had done, switching from clear sentences to images, feelings, and fragments. And he stumbled and fell to the ground as he felt the weight of his mother’s love hit him all at once. Love and relief. His hands and knees hit the hard packed dirt of the road, and he winced in pain. Tears welled up in his eyes, and although he tried to hold them back, the burden he’d carried with him all day suddenly became too much. He pushed himself over and up into a sitting position, buried his face in his hands, and cried.
