By Shayne Terry <byron212@yahoo.com>
Rated: G
Submitted: November 2003
Summary: Small towns are infamous for their gossip. Is Clark's "secret" really as secret as he thinks it is?
***
The sonic boom overhead was hardly unexpected, despite Smallville's being hundreds of miles from the nearest airport or military base.
Bob Jenkins glanced up at the sky, then said, "It looks like Clark is visiting the Kents again."
"Do they really think they're fooling anyone?" Bob's best friend, Joe Peterson, set his post hole digger into the ground and leaned against it. "What with government men looking for spaceships the year that Clark was born, that nutcase Trask kidnapping the Kents for Kryptonite, and that whole Nor thing?"
"Half the town knew the minute that the first pictures came out. A change in a haircut might be enough to fool a city slicker, but we've been around him for our whole lives."
Joe snickered. "Well, there's the glasses. I guess in the big city, that's like having a ski mask."
"Well, city folks rush around so much, I guess they don't have time to see much of anything. You have to admit that we didn't really catch on to the whole thing when he was growing up." Bob grabbed a beer from the ice chest in the rear of the pickup truck.
"Well, what did we have? A few fires, a kid who was adopted and never sick…one who seemed to know a little too much? Most people just thought he was a juvenile delinquent and a peeping tom."
"Makes you wonder just how much peeping he did when he first got those x-ray eyes of his." Bob popped the top and took a long pull. "Just imagine being fifteen and being able to see into the girls locker room. I seem to remember him being a lot happier that year."
"The girls say he was always a boy scout…you know how word gets around. He probably didn't look any more than he had to."
"With puberty, he might not have had a choice."
Joe pulled a beer from the truck and began to drink it in silence.
"You think the Kents know that we all know?" Joe finally asked.
"I don't see how they can't. Clark gets into a big fight in the middle of town dressed as himself, and we aren't supposed to know who he is? That Nor thing was the last straw!"
"So why doesn't anyone talk to them about it?"
"Well, it seems to be important to Clark. I think he wants to feel normal or something, so most of us pretend just to humor him." Bob shook his head. "It's not like it costs us anything to be nice."
The next sonic boom appeared overhead.
"He didn't stay long. He's probably just dropping his stuff off. They say he's going to ask that girl of his to marry him. Wanda May overheard the Kents talking about the ring he'd bought."
"Speaking of marriage…did you hear what Kim Browning was doing while her husband was out of town last week?"
The sounds of Clark's flight faded into the distance.
THE END