Hi Val-El!
This wonderful little ficlet was written by my daughter, who is ten!
Awww…a ficlet from Bek’s FoLClet! Welcome to the fun, Val-El
She started writing this after she finished watching the final episode of the show, and she just HAD to write SOMETHING to show what happened to the baby Lois and Clark found.
And so the legacy of distraught FoLC continues into the next generation.
Summary: Eight years after Lois and Clark find a baby in a bassinet, they raise a growing child who is—unsurprisingly—a lot like her mom.
They do say ‘write what you know’
What will happen when she discovers something “super” about her dad?
Sarah’s Discovery
By Val-El
He knows how to cook!
He can set the time on the VCR!
“Isn’t he so cool?” 8-year-old Sarah Kent said, shoving a Superman comic into her father’s face.
Truly her mother’s daughter.
“Yes! If you stopped playing around and did your math,” Lois said, pulling out a chair near the math book, “you haven’t written even a dot in it. It looks brand new!”
I imagine another life experience talking. Bek, you know that you only need math when you need to calculate the word total or the number of Kerth awards you get.
“you haven’t written even a dot in it. It looks brand new!”
“No! If one of us had powers like Superman!” Sarah said, causing her parents awkward expressions.
Parental unit, go straight to ‘ignore’, don’t pass ‘go’, don’t take 200.
“You guys are busy doing work all the time. And Daddy, you’re always running off unexpectedly. There’s no way you’d have time to be Superman!”
Sounds reasonable.
Clark pretend-flew her over to the chair, and sat her in it.
“Now do your math, sweetie.”
Another super power manifests itself.
She sighed and started writing out equations for basic adding. Each page only had a few questions, though she only had time for one page before she had to go to school.
No super speed yet.
The only reason she liked going to school is because the classroom was warm, though her luck ran out when they decided to take class outside.
/Waits for her invulnerability to set in/
“Moo-om! I’m not cold!
While everyone else was paying attention closely, Sarah was reading a Superman comic as usual
Oh boy. I wonder if she got that from her mother and what kind of student Lois would have been if not for her father’s constant criticism.
Though she got interested when the teacher mentioned newspapers.
The she learned they would be reading the Met Star and she went back to her own quality paper.
“The school will be making a newspaper this week. To help us with this, the school has brought in two well known reporters. Lois Lane and Clark Kent!”
And there goes the street cred!
Suddenly, Clark’s face became filled with a distant expression. Lois whispered something to him.
“I-I-um, I have to go. I’m sorry.” He told the class. He raced off to the side, pulling down his shirt.
That should go over well. Teenage Sarah’s gonna be a handful.
Sarah, you will be our journalist.”
“What?!”
Sarah didn’t talk much on the drive home.
Favoritism!
“Don’t you like that we signed you up for journalism? It’s fun, that is, if you’re not brushing death constantly,” Lois said, realizing she just made it worse.
Yeah, not really a subject matter for eight-year-olds.
“It’ll be fun. I promise. We’ll be partners!”
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Clark walked into the house, tightening his bowtie.
“What’d I miss?” he said, straightening his glasses.
Great work on those action tags!
“Sweetie, journalism is fun. As long as you’re not close to dying, you’ll never want to stop. And, me and your mom don’t want to stop, though we almost die every day!” Clark exclaimed.
Clark! You really want to give Sarah nightmares?
“I guess I’m tired, too,” Lois stated.
“How about we call it a day?” Clark asked. Lois yawned again.
“Sounds good to me.”
Reading this after a long day at work so all that yawning isn’t really helpful!
Suddenly, she tripped on a carpet and fell onto the wall. She heard a click, and the large living-room-bookcase twisted into the wall.
Oops?
“Sarah? What are you doing down here?”
“snoothing?”
“How could I be so easily fooled by glasses?” Sarah huffed.
Parental influence.
This will make a good front page.”
They did raise her a journalist. One who works at the Dirt Digger, perhaps, but a journalist.
LOIS: Those…persons are not journalists.
Sarah, who for some reason thought she could out-race him.
“Sarah, don’t do this,” Superman told her.
“Too late!” Sarah tried dodging to the side of Superman,
Just like Lois when she’s trying to escape in her Jeep!
he knew he couldn’t stop her from telling everyone.
Well, they could go to the farm for a month or so.
Then, find her teacher. Finally, tell her Superman’s secrets!
That will be a surprise when her teacher won’t believe her.
The great Superman forgets to pick up the dry cleaning!” It was true. He had done that more than once.
Usually when there’ll be a Superman rescue on the news the next day. It’s well executed how you show us that Sarah doesn’t see the big picture but ‘knows’ the truth just the same.
She stopped abruptly, her words caught in her throat. She finally realized WHY her father kept the secret.
/cocks eyebrow/
Sarah realized that the reason he kept the secret—to protect her and her mother. Super villains could hold me hostage to persuade Daddy to do something bad! Sarah thought.
Yes. That.
“Um—Superman is—cool! Superman is awesome, and he helps save the city!” Sarah said as a cover.
“Oh. I was expecting something much more…exciting,” Mrs. McCillbery said. “Well then, if that’s your story, get writing.”
Hey, they’re still just eight year olds.
SARAH: Eight and a half!
“Oh, and one more thing. Sarah Kent, I know you’ve been reading comics in class. I’ll have to inform your parents about your dawdling.” Mrs. McCillbery said.
“Aw, man!”
Great closing tag!
That was great work Val-El! The other FoLCs already spelled it out so I’ll be brief now: you really have a talent for this and a knack to get things just right. We no longer do a dedicated Best New Author category because there’s not enough new authors around each year but yeah, it’s amazing work and thank you for giving me another character to go onto the nomination list for Best Original Character
And Bek, It’s been a long time since the last mother-daughter writing team. This is gonna be very interesting in a couple of years
Michael