The Chewbacca Factor: Part 2
by Nan Smith
December 28th dawned clear and cold with a good six inches of snow coating the ground, Lois saw when she looked out the sliding glass doors of the living room. The aluminum picnic table under the Red Maple tree that graced the small back yard of the townhouse, now completely bare of leaves, was also coated with several inches of white.
It was a good thing that the team of Lane and Kent had no set hours anymore, as long as they continued to bring in the headlines, she reflected idly as she set bowls, silverware and mugs on the kitchen table. Today, in honor of the approaching New Years Day, the Jason C. Hunter Middle School football team, the Cheetahs, was scheduled to play the Jasper A. Groverton Grizzlies. The Cheetahs and the Grizzlies were the two top teams this year among the five middle schools in the Metropolis area and this was the first of the final trio of games that would determine this year’s champions. She, Clark and the kids were dutifully set to attend to support CJ’s and Marta’s school.
Absently, Lois switched on the radio, listening to the morning news with half her attention, but her mind continued to focus on the upcoming game between the two middle schools.
Groverton Middle School was an establishment situated in one of the toughest areas in Metropolis. It bordered Suicide Slum and Lois had heard a number of stories about it a few times before, and not in a particularly complimentary way. She hoped the coaches would exercise firm control over their players when they played the Cheetahs. She didn’t want to pre-judge any of the kids, but there had been a few incidents at one time or another, that made her a little uneasy. Last year in early November they had played one of the other middle schools in the city. Groverton had won, and her husband had been involved in breaking up a riot afterwards that had left several blocks across town somewhat the worse for wear. The worst part of it had been the fact that the riot had involved many of the players’ attending parents. She hoped sincerely that they didn’t have a repeat this year.
Clark walked into the kitchen, and reached for the big chef’s apron to protect his regular clothing from spattering grease. A few moments later, CJ and Wyatt entered. Clark glanced over his shoulder at the pair. “Breakfast will be ready in a few,” he said. “How about scrambled eggs and bacon for starters, and pancakes?”
“I’d better get Jonny and Jimmy, and the Terrible Trio ready,” Lois said. “And wake up Marta and Linda. We need to leave at eleven-thirty.” She departed, tightening the belt of her bathrobe.
Life in the Kent household had evolved into a routine that was absolutely necessary if they were to have any semblance of organization, now that the triplets were thoroughly mobile. Fortunately, Lois thought, as she climbed the stairs, she and Clark had gone through training with the older kids and had a much better idea of what to expect this time around. To her surprise, at least so far, the trio had somehow proven to be the easiest to manage of their offspring. Clark pointed out that they tended to entertain each other, even to the point of speaking their own private language which Lois had only partially managed to figure out.
She reached the top of the stairs and opened the door to the triplets’ nursery. “Okay, guys, rise and shine!”
**********
“Be careful,” Sally told Eddie as he started out the front door. “And as soon as the bus drops you off after the game, you come right home. I’ve got the afternoon shift at the diner today, so you’ll need your key.”
“It’s in my pocket,” Eddie said. “Be careful, Mom.”
“I will,” she said. “Rory’s probably sleeping off a hangover, so he likely won’t show up ‘til this evening sometime.”
“I’m coming over to the diner after the game,” Eddie said. “I’m going to walk home with you when you get off.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’ll be all right,” his mother assured him.
Eddie wasn’t so sure. His mom didn’t get off work until after dark, and this area wasn’t even safe during the day. He’d had a bad feeling when he’d gotten out of bed this morning, knowing he was expected to attend the game at Jason C. Hunter Middle School at noon today. He hadn’t explained to Sally his reluctance to go; she had enough to worry her without him piling his problems on her, too, but he was thinking about Harlowe Nelson again. Of course, he didn’t go by that name. Everybody just called him Hutch, though Eddie couldn’t figure why. But Harlowe had been on his case for weeks and it would be just his luck if the guy wound up on the same bus as Eddie, going over to the game. And while he was gone, Sally would be alone, and if Rory showed up, she wouldn’t have anybody there to help her. Eddie didn’t know why but he felt as if some kind of disaster was just waiting for him to let down his guard. He’d even dreamed about it last night. It had probably just been because of the things that had happened the evening before, but he still intended to show up at the diner, just in case.
Sure enough, as soon as he boarded the bus he heard Hutch’s loud, brash voice. “Well, well! Look who’s here! If it isn’t the water boy!”
Eddie ignored Hutch and picked a seat several rows away from him, looking straight ahead. The larger boy made a crude low-voiced comment to one of his cronies, but Eddie heard it and steadfastly refused to show any reaction. The bus started up with a groan and a belch of exhaust as it continued on to the next stop.
When, at long last, the bus arrived at Jason C Hunter Middle School, he made a point to get off the bus ahead of Hutch and started off at a trot for the locker rooms. He wasn’t actually one of the players, but, as Hutch had accurately pointed out, he was the water boy and was expected to be there before the game started. And that was when he felt it.
It was an oddly familiar sensation. Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck was prickling, as if something in him was warning him that he was under observation – no, not exactly that, but maybe that someone was aware of him.
This had happened to him twice, a couple of years ago, right around the time he’d overheard that strange mental conversation, once at Metro Elementary, when he had attended a baseball exhibition game there. He had been uneasy the whole time, wanting to constantly look over his shoulder. It had made him feel strange, and he’d been glad to leave. The second time it had been at a Little League game a few weeks later. That was why he’d stayed away from Little League games ever since. The whole thing had been a bit creepy, he acknowledged, and now it was back.
But he needed to be with his team. The game would be starting, and nobody had time for him to get weirded out over what was probably nothing. After all, nothing had happened to him either time, really. But he’d never forgotten it.
He trotted on toward the locker room, accompanied by several of the players who had also come on the bus. It was time to play football and though he wasn’t one of the players, his role was important, too.
But the feeling persisted, and after a little while he became aware that there were others – not others that knew he was there, like that one – or was it two? – but that there were several others around that were … somehow different than most of the people in the big crowd of families here to see the game. It was a small bunch – out toward the bleachers, he thought, a little surprised that he could feel them so clearly. Like a family group or something.
As if they had come to see the game. The realization slowly dawned on him. They might be a family that had come here to watch the football game, whoever or whatever they were. Just like at that baseball game at Metropolis Elementary when he had first felt that someone knew he was there.
Well, he couldn’t leave now, and no one seemed to be coming any closer. He’d just have to be alert, he thought.
He continued on toward the locker rooms, his neck prickling.
**********
The bleachers were slowly filling up. Marta Kent squirmed a little in her seat, watching people filter in. She was seated in front of her dad and mom and her younger siblings, and next to her older brother, CJ and Linda Lennox. They were holding seats for their friends, and Marta hoped they would hurry. After what seemed like ages, Maria Hernandez and Valerie Henderson hurried up, accompanied by Ben Myers, Ally’s brother. Ally, as well as Wyatt, played trumpets in the school band, and would be getting into their blue and gold uniforms about now, Marta knew.
The buses carrying students from Groverton Middle School were still unloading, and parents and students were filing in, except for the players and the support staff who were headed for the locker rooms. The voices of the spectators filled the air, growing slowly louder as the crowd gradually increased. Marta covered her ears. Her super hearing made the gabble of the crowd loud enough to be uncomfortable, even though her dad had been working with her to teach her to filter out unwanted sounds. She concentrated, slowly blocking out the voices until they became only a murmur of background sound.
The loudspeaker was blaring periodically as well, making announcements that Marta mostly couldn’t understand because of the echo effects around the field.
And very quietly, in the bare thread of a whisper, Linda Lennox’s mental spoke very softly in her mind. ‘There’s one of the special kids here, somewhere.’
Equally softly, Marta heard her father reply. ‘Can you pinpoint him?’
‘Not yet. It’s a guy, but I don’t think he’s in the seats or on the field,’ Linda replied. ‘I think he might be in the locker room.’
‘Keep listening,’ her father said. ‘Let me know if you hear anything else.’
Linda didn’t answer. Marta saw her turning her head right and left, apparently trying to locate the mystery child.
The seats were almost full, now. Marta hoped the game would be starting soon. Football wasn’t her favorite thing to watch, but she was here because the school had been pushing it before Christmas vacation. She glanced again at Linda, but she was still looking around the field, still searching.
The bands were assembling at each end of the field – Jason C. Hunter’s band was brilliant in blue and gold, their instruments glittering in the sunshine. With her telescopic vision, Marta easily located Wyatt and Ally in the trumpet section. Groverton’s band wore red and black, and were lined up on the opposite side of the field. As if on cue the bands burst into some kind of musical selection that sounded very stirring to Marta, and began to march toward each other across the field. Marta put her hands over her ears.
As they approached each other, the bands shifted into complicated maneuvers with robot-like precision, marching around each other. They looked good, Marta had to admit. A whistle blew as they ended the selection, the majorettes spun their batons, flipped them into the air and caught them as they came down. The bands broke into another tune. Marta watch with mild envy, and for a moment she wished she could do that. She’d have to ask her mother later if she could try out for the squad. At the opposite ends of the playing field, she now saw the players emerging onto the field and lining up.
‘Anything?’ Marta’s father’s mental voice whispered suddenly.
Linda shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ Her reply was as soft. Then she suddenly stiffened. ‘There he is! The kid carrying those towels over on the left side of the field. That’s him!’
*****
Naturally, Eddie thought as he was getting on the bus for the ride home, the game had run into overtime, even though Groverton had finally won with a field goal. They still had two more games to go in the series, and the next time the team from Jason C Hunter would have to come to their school. He made a point to take a seat several rows away from Hutch and his buddies and studiously ignored them during the 49-minute ride back to his own part of town. At least that ghostly awareness of him had vanished after the bus had pulled away from the school.
In spite of the weird feeling of almost-observation, nothing had happened.
Eddie had slowly come to the conclusion that what he was “feeling” was something he probably shared with the other “superkids” like himself. Maybe a mutant power or something. Like the two people in that strange conversation three years ago. He’d never told Sally about that. He’d figured that she would have either been scared of it, or maybe simply attributed it to his imagination.
In any case, as the bus drove away from the school, the feeling had faded slowly away, and he had been aware of a feeling of mild disappointment, mixed with one of relief.
It was already getting toward sunset, which came early at this time of year, and the sun had almost vanished behind the taller buildings as he exited the bus and began the walk home. Dusk was falling, and the street lights were starting to come on. He glanced at his watch, noting that it was a little after five-thirty. Sally would be at work, of course and she would be getting off at nine, well after dark. Eddie had every intention of being there when she got off. The sense of impending disaster had abated somewhat since this morning, but it hadn’t gone away. In his experience a few times in the past paying attention to a bad feeling like this one had turned out to be a good idea. Maybe it was just his imagination, he thought, but he was going to walk his mom home and that was the end of it. He’d already settled that in his mind.
The walk took nearly fifteen minutes before the apartment came into sight. As was his habit, he turned down the alley that ran behind the building and pulled the key out of his pocket. The sun had disappeared and the shadows were long on the streets. The alley was dim, or would have been if Eddie’s eyesight had been the same as it had been three years ago but to him the light was perfectly adequate as he fitted his key into the lock of the apartment’s kitchen door.
He entered the cramped little kitchen, shut the door behind him, and turned to lock it. That was always a good idea in this section of town. He and Sally didn’t really have anything worth stealing, but the thugs who roamed the area didn’t know that. They’d had a break-in two months ago and whoever it had been had come in, pawed through Sally’s stuff and his and then left, leaving dirty footprints on the rug and a mess in the kitchen. The only thing that they had done there was to drink two of Rory’s beers that had been in the fridge. They’d left the cans in the middle of the kitchen floor.
As his fingers touched the dead bolt, the door burst inward and Eddie staggered backwards, nearly losing his balance. Rory Edwards stepped through, slamming it behind him. “All right, shrimp. Where is she?”
“Huh? Who?”
“Sally! Where is she?”
”I don’t know! I haven’t been here all day!” Eddie took an involuntary step backwards. He could smell the alcohol on Rory’s breath, and hear his accelerated heartbeat. The guy was high on something besides booze, Eddie thought. Again. And at least a little drunk.
Rory pushed him aside and started rifling through the kitchen drawers and cabinets, opening lids and peering into canisters, obviously looking for Sally’s spare change, Eddie thought disgustedly. He started to back toward the door. Getting away from this guy seemed like a good idea while he was this unpredictable. He turned the knob and began to ease the door open.
A bellow from Rory made him yank it wide and dart quickly through it as the man made a lunge for him, grabbing him by the wrist. Eddie jerked away, employing a bare fraction of his enhanced strength to break free. Rory stumbled forward and went to one knee on the cracked sidewalk. Eddie ran.
It was already a lot darker, he saw as he raced down the street. Dark enough that people he passed almost certainly saw no more than a vague figure in the dimness. The street lights in this section of town were more or less hit or miss, and made him pretty much anonymous as he passed them at considerably faster than human speed. Three blocks down, a much darker alley opened up and he dodged into it, ducking into the deepest shadow available. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard, not from the exercise but from the adrenaline that was pumping through his system. Blood still pounded in his ears and his heart beat hard. What had just happened? He had been running faster than even he should have been able to. Much faster. He must have been gradually getting faster over the last few months and hadn’t realized it, because he had been trying so hard to act like everyone else. He didn’t think anyone could have recognized him in the dark, but he hadn’t had any idea he could do that. He was kind of like the Flash, or Quicksilver, in the comics.
But the Flash couldn’t jump over banisters from the second floor or off roofs three stories from the ground, like he had last night. At least, not without breaking a leg or something. The Flash couldn’t hear whispers from the other end of the school campus or see things on the other sides of walls.
He held his breath, listening. He could hear the voices of people here and there, but no one was talking about what had just happened. Apparently no one had really seen him. It had been almost like the things Superman was supposed to be able to do ….
Slowly, the realization crept over him. It had only been about three months since the news of the sudden and unexpected appearance of Superboy broke. There had been no sign of Superboy since, but naturally he’d heard those same stories Sally had, that there were “superkids” around, supposedly children left behind by the invading New Kryptonians, some fourteen years ago.
He hadn’t really believed that explanation. Superman, and the New Kryptonians, were aliens, for Pete’s sake! They weren’t even from Earth, and were less related to human beings than a catfish or a potato or a mosquito, no matter how human they looked. How could they possibly have kids together? He’d believed the “superkids” were some kind of mutant like in the X-men or something. But now he was staring into the face of his new realization. He’d read about Superman’s powers on the internet at the library and he had them all, except the ability to fly. Maybe not as much as Superman, but they were all pretty much there. Super hearing. Super speed. X-ray and telescopic vision. Near-invulnerability. And maybe someday he might even be able to fly.
He was a superkid, a part-Kryptonian, just like Sally had said. No matter how unlikely it seemed.
And Sally had also said the “superkids” were worth money.
He stood still for a long time in the shadow of the crumbling brick wall of the alley, letting his breathing become quiet, and thinking.
He didn’t want any gang members getting hold of him. He was going to have to be even more careful than he had before. But Rory was after Sally for her income. Rory was going to be a problem. What was he going to do about him?
He’d left the door to the apartment open, too. He had to go back, making sure Rory didn’t see him, and lock it. If these powers he had really were the same ones as Superman’s, he should be able to use them to outmaneuver Rory. He’d just have to be very, very careful, that was all.
And then, he’d better get over to the diner. It must be almost six-thirty by now, and he still didn’t want his mom to walk home alone in the dark. And he needed to ask her a few questions, anyhow.
*****
“The boy is Eduardo Montez,” Clark said. He swiveled the computer screen toward Lois, showing her the school photograph of a slender boy with light brown skin of about CJ’s age, with black hair and brown eyes. “He’s the water boy for the Grizzlies.” He leaned forward, studying the picture thus displayed. “From his school records, he’s apparently a pretty bright kid. Good grades, keeps to himself a lot – that’s from a note written by his school counselor – and scored high on the school’s IQ tests last year. Apparently he keeps out of trouble, generally, which is a good sign, especially in that environment.”
“So, what do we do?” Lois asked. “Does Superman just fly in and invite him to dinner?”
Clark shook his head. “Not yet. I’m going to have to observe him and get a little better idea of what we’re dealing with, first. He’s from a pretty rough part of town. No siblings, according to the records. He’s going to need training to be sure he doesn’t accidentally hurt someone – that’s not an option, of course, but he must have noticed the things happening to him by now. Apparently he’s keeping it to himself. That’s a good sign, too. I’m just going to have to feel my way for the present. Right now, I’m going to fly over and check out his home environment, just to begin with.”
Lois nodded agreement. “That’s a good idea.”
Clark got to his feet and pecked her on the cheek. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I’ll try to be back in time to fix dinner.”
“If you’re delayed, I can always heat up one of your casseroles.”
There was a light knock on the door of the den, and then Marta stepped through, followed by Linda Lennox. “Dad?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Could we go with you? Just to see how you do this kind of thing?”
Clark hesitated, but surprisingly Lois spoke. “That might not be a bad idea, if your father doesn’t mind – but all you do is watch. Is that clear?”
Marta nodded vigorously. So did Linda. Lois looked at Clark. “What do you think?”
He nodded slowly. “All right. Go put on your Suit, Marta, and we’ll go.” He looked at Linda. “Have you got some dark clothing you can wear?”
Linda nodded. “I have some Navy blue sweats. Is that okay?”
“That should do,” Clark said. “Go ahead and change. I’ll meet you in the upstairs hall.”
The two girls turned and hurried out of the room. Clark looked at his wife with one eyebrow raised. She laughed.
“You look just like Mr. Spock. Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”
“Actually, I do. It beats winging it like last time.”
“That’s what I thought. Don’t take too long, though. We need to eat sometime tonight.”
*****
When Marta and Linda stepped out of her room a few minutes later, Clark was waiting in the upstairs hallway. He gestured them toward the master bedroom.
“This way. We’re going to leave via the back bedroom window so no one sees us.”
They preceded him into the room. As he followed, he made the super speed change from Clark to Superman and stepped to the rear window without flipping on the light. “Can you see all right?”
Marta nodded. “Sure. I’ve been able to see in the dark for ages.” Linda simply nodded. Clark surveyed the pair. “I think Linda should wear some kind of mask, just in case,” he said abruptly. “Just a minute.” He opened Lois’s top dresser drawer and reached into it, fumbled for a few seconds and handed Linda a red ski mask. “Here.”
Linda took it and pulled it on. Clark looked critically at the result. “That should work,” he said. “Okay, let’s go.” He opened the window and examined the area carefully. “No one’s around. Follow me.”
A few seconds later, Superman, Supergirl and the yet to be named anonymous masked super heroine hovered in the dark sky over Metropolis and he spoke again. “The address is over by Suicide Slum. Do you know where that is?”
Marta nodded. “Sure. It’s over east of here. That way.” She pointed.
“All right. Lead the way.”
The three super-powered humans (or close enough, Clark reflected, half-humorously) soared over the city. Clark kept his speed down to match that of his companions until they reached the border of the slum district.
“Eduardo lives in an apartment on the eastern side of Sunflower Drive, right on the edge of Suicide Slum,” Clark told her. “On the 400 block. Can you find it?”
Marta nodded confidently. “That way.” She pointed.
“Right. Go ahead.”
Letting Marta lead, Superman and Linda followed her as they flew, silent as a trio of ghosts, through the chilly night air, staying well above the level of the street lights until they hovered above the 400 block. Below them, shabby, ancient buildings inhabited by the least well-to-do members of Metropolis’s population lined both sides of the street. Clark gave them the address and both girls scanned with their vision powers, pinpointing the building.
“There,” Linda said, pointing. “Apartment 4A.”
“Very good,” Clark told her. “Now see if anyone’s home.”
There was silence as both girls scanned the apartment house. “Eduardo isn’t there,” Linda said. “But he isn’t far away. I can feel him. He’s coming this way, but there’s a guy --”
Marta nodded. “There’s one guy,” she said. “Not Eduardo. He’s digging around in the dresser in the upstairs room, closest to the stairs.”
Clark had followed her gaze. “One of the bedrooms,” he said. “It looks like he’s ransacking the room.” He broke off. “He just yanked a drawer out and dumped it on the floor.”
Marta frowned. “I think he’s robbing the place,” she said soberly. “Shouldn’t we stop him?”
Clark nodded. “Stay here.” he said. “I’ll deal with this.”
Linda’s head swiveled suddenly. ‘Look!’ she said, suddenly switching to their mental channel, and pointing, and he could feel her making a determined effort to keep her thoughts focused tightly on her companions. ‘There’s Eduardo!’
The boy was approaching the apartment door that opened on the alley that ran behind the building, looking cautiously around. He saw the open door and stopped, staring at it, then hesitated and Clark, with his own super eyesight, could see a telltale shimmering in the air as Eduardo employed his X-ray vision, scanning the apartment before him.
‘He’s using X-ray vision!’ Marta’s voice said in his mind. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We wait to see what he does,’ Clark replied. ‘I’ll step in if it looks like somebody might get hurt. You two stay up here out of sight.’
*****
Eddie approached the apartment cautiously. His neck and scalp were prickling with unexplained nervousness. Like this afternoon at the football game, there was an awareness of him, vague, nothing he could identify. He shivered slightly at the crawling feeling between his shoulder blades. There was nothing he could see, nothing he could pin down, but it was just as certainly something there that hadn’t been there before.
There was no sign of Rory, either, but the kitchen door hung open suspiciously. It could be just because of what had happened when he’d first arrived home, but Eddie had a strong hunch that it couldn’t be so easy. Rory was desperate for another fix and certainly wasn’t likely to have any qualms about taking their stuff. He stopped in his tracks and scanned the apartment with his special vision.
Sure enough, Rory was in Sally’s room, rifling through her belongings. Eddie knew that Sally didn’t have much but Rory wasn’t fussy. He was looking for anything to sell to pay for his next fix.
Eddie made a face, looking around nervously. Calling the cops in this area, he knew from sad experience, would be useless, and if he tried to stop Rory, himself, it would give him away, and Rory wouldn’t hesitate to tell people who were offering money for any information about any of the superkids. And besides, Sally would probably kill him if he did something stupid and let anyone know what he was. And in any case, when Rory was coming down from a high, he was completely unpredictable. He’d tried to grab Eddie earlier, and Eddie distrusted him just on general principles.
It was too bad that Superman wasn’t nearby tonight, he thought. Eddie had seen the Man of Steel, high in the sky often enough – he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time over Suicide Slum and the adjacent areas, which was probably because the crime rate was pretty high around this part of town …. His thoughts screeched to a halt. Call Superman? Well, why not? He could at least try.
He had even opened his mouth to yell when Rory burst from the kitchen door and collided with him, knocking him to the ground, and tumbled to the pavement on hands and knees, practically on top of him.
Eddie pushed Rory aside and staggered to his feet, backing away from the man.
Rory landed on his face with a strangled grunt and lay there for several seconds, making crowing noises, and trying to regain his footing and command of the situation. He lumbered to his feet, gulping air and his eyes met Eddie’s. All at once he seemed to come to the realization of who he was staring at.
Incredulous rage seemed to engulf him. “You!” he bellowed.
Eddie tried to backpedal. Rory lunged at him.
The thing he had been going to do was the first thing that came instinctively as Rory seized his wrist in a tight grip.
“Help, Superman!”
The shout seemed to ring loudly, echoing against the old brick walls of the crumbling buildings on both sides of the alley, but no one could have been more surprised than Eddie at the whoosh of air that responded immediately, announcing the arrival of the super hero.
Rory froze for an instant. Superman reached out and took a firm grip on his wrist. “Let the boy go.”
Rory did not let go of Eddie’s wrist. Eddie could see him recalculating almost as fast. He puffed out his chest.
“This is none of your business, Superman! This little punk was robbing my place! He –“
Eddie interrupted. “He’s lying! My mom and I live here! He was trying to rob us!”
Superman did not release Rory’s arm. “Where’s your mom?”
Eddie glared at Rory. “She’s at work. She’s on the evening shift tonight at Roscoe’s Diner over on North Heron.”
“The one about six blocks from here?” Superman asked.
Eddie nodded. “Rory took all of Mom’s tips last night. I guess he needed another fix, ‘cause he came back just when I got back from the football game over at Hunter Middle School.”
Superman’s expression went a little grimmer. He looked at Rory.
“Is that so? What do you think I should do with you, Rory?”
Rory glared at Superman. “You can’t prove nothing,” he said. “It’s my word against his.”
“Actually,” Superman said, “I saw you ripping apart that upstairs bedroom. I think a judge might listen to me, don’t you?”
Rory abruptly fell silent.
Eddie yanked his arm from Rory’s suddenly loosened grasp. “He broke in when I unlocked the kitchen door and went inside. I got away and ran, but I came back ‘cause I’d left the door unlocked. I thought he’d be gone, but he wasn’t.”
“Well, you can go in now,” Superman said. “There’s nobody else inside. I’m going to take Rory to the nearest police station. They should be willing to hold him for 24 hours at least.”
“I can’t,” Eddie said. “Mom’s got to walk home in the dark. I’m going to walk with her so she isn’t by herself.”
Superman’s eyebrows went up a fraction. He hesitated and then nodded. “All right. I guess you’d better lock up here first and then go. Be careful.”
“I will.” Eddie paused, belatedly remembering what Sally had always told him about manners. “Uh … thank you, Superman.”
Again that slight lift of Superman’s eyebrows, almost as if he were surprised. “You’re welcome, son.”
*****
Marta and Linda hovered, invisible, several hundred feet in the air, watching the scene below them in silence.
‘You know,’ Marta remarked on their telepathic channel to Linda, ‘I don’t like that Rory guy very much. He’s a real creep.’
‘Me, either,’ Linda agreed.
Beneath them, Superman lifted into the air, carrying Rory by the back of his battered jeans, and Marta heard his “voice” in her mind. ‘I’ve got to deliver this gentleman to the police, and I might be a while. I’d like you two to follow Eduardo to be sure he gets safely to his mother’s place of work. Call me if you need me.’
Marta and Linda looked at each other for an instant. ‘Sure,’ Marta said.
‘Thanks.’ Superman’s “voice” cut off and they heard the whoosh of his departure.
*****
Eddie watched as Superman rose into the air, his left hand grasping Rory by the back of his ill-fitting jeans. At least, he thought, he probably wouldn’t have to worry about Rory for a day or so.
He shook his shoulders, still trying to dispel the sense of someone, somewhere aware of him.
It had changed from the sensation he had felt at the game, he thought. Just a little. It was now more a feeling that someone was no longer just aware of him but instead was actively watching him. Still, there was no feeling of hostility – more of curiosity. The feeling wasn’t menacing, but it was definitely making the skin between his shoulder blades crawl a little. Still, he had felt it at the game, and nothing had happened. It had been gone for a while, but somewhere in the past few minutes it had come back.
When Superman had arrived he had felt that same sensation as he had at the game, when he’d thought there were people there who felt a little different than most of the attendees. Now it occurred to him for the first time that maybe he was actually detecting others like him who had just been there to watch the game. Maybe even Superman and his wife and kids.
Somehow he had never thought of Superman doing something like that, but why not? After all, he had a son – Superboy – who had said he was thirteen in that short interview, just like Eddie. Maybe Superboy was doing the same thing that he was – pretending he was a regular kid. Maybe his dad and mom had come to see him play football, and brought his brothers and sisters, too. He’d never felt anyone like them at Groverton, but there might be some who went to Jason C. Hunter.
The thought was kind of shocking, but it made sense in a way. Superboy and other superkids wouldn’t want people to know about them any more than Eddie did. He’d have to think about this for a while.
He looked around a little uneasily. Somebody was watching him, all right, but why was he so sure? He – no, he realized suddenly. Not he. She. It was a girl, he thought, and young, maybe about his own age. Could it be one of the superkids, someone like him? Why hadn’t he thought of that before? After all, if he could do this, he probably wasn’t the only one.
But he was wasting time. In the distance he heard the clock on City Hall chime quarter to seven. He needed to lock up and then walk over to Roscoe’s Diner. That would take a while, but he’d make it in plenty of time. Sally didn’t get off until nine. But what if he and Sally ran into trouble on the way home? He still didn’t want to get recognized.
He entered the apartment, shutting the door behind him and locked it so nobody could come in behind him and ran up the stairs. A glance into Sally’s room confirmed what he had seen through the walls a little while ago. Rory had torn Sally’s room to pieces, and dumped her clothes onto the floor, but it wasn’t going anywhere. It was a mess, but it didn’t seem like anything was missing – not that there was anything there likely to bring Rory the kind of money he probably needed. He went into his own room.
Rory hadn’t been here, he thought. His room wasn’t perfect, but his stuff was pretty much where he’d left it. He opened his bottom dresser drawer and dug around until he found what he was searching for.
Shoved into one corner was an old rubber Chewbacca the Wookie mask with frizzy artificial hair that came down to his shoulders that he had worn to the school Halloween party in fifth grade. If he was going to walk Sally home and somebody decided to make trouble for her, he didn’t want anybody to recognize him if he had to step in. In fact, he didn’t even want anybody to see him with her. That way nobody would be likely to connect him to her.
He shook the mask out and pulled it over his head, then surveyed himself in the cracked mirror of his dresser. Not bad. It fitted over his head and had been too big three years ago but now it fit pretty well. He peeled it off and stuffed it into a pocket and turned to descend the stairs. A moment later, he stepped out into the alley again, locked the kitchen door and turned in the direction of his mother’s place of work. In the distance the big clock chimed seven o’clock. He still had plenty of time until Sally got off work. Walking at a pace that blended with that of the other pedestrians, Eddie made his way along the sidewalk toward Roscoe’s Diner.
