Chapter 1

My younger sister and I were raised on a farm in Smallville, Kansas, doing all the farm stuff you’d expect. Feed the animals, then clean up after the animals.

Her name is Kara, my name is Kal. We are the Kents ... this is our story:

The Kent farm used to be a section and a half, a full 960 acres, but over the years, Grandpa Sam and Grandma Molly sold some of it off to make it easier for the hands they had to cover it all. They had four boys, Jacob Israel, Michael Alexander, Jonathon Hudson, and Samuel Steven.

As they all grew up, Jacob and Michael left for war, and Steven left, to find himself.

That left behind Jonathan and a few hired hands, to replace his brothers to handle the now 640-acre farm that was left. From what my father Jonathan told me, Grandpa Sam was tough on him growing up, while treating the others better than his own son.

He met Martha Clark McKallister, and after Sam and Molly had passed, they got married and she moved in and the hired hands stayed on.

The morning I woke up on my 12^th birthday, something was different! Suddenly, I could work all day long without getting tired or even breaking a sweat.

Everything I picked up, felt like it was a feather instead of its normal weight. A bale of hay that got me out of breath just trying to pick up, now was as easy as grabbing a stick off the ground.

Chasing the chickens to put them in their coops became the easiest thing in the world. It was like they were in slow motion compared to me.

The strangest thing of all was that anything I touched, I practically destroyed by simply putting my hands around it. I almost killed one of my Mom’s prize chickens. Thankfully, I realized that I needed to use a gentler touch.

Something was different!

My younger sister Kara didn’t seem to have any of these ‘things’ happening to her. I found her working in the barn straining to do most of the things, which suddenly were ‘easy’ for me.

I showed her some of my new ‘abilities.’ She seemed impressed. I even picked her up and put her on my shoulder like she was nothing! I even had her walk out on my hand.

“Kal,” she asked, “What’s happened to you?”

“I don’t know Kara ... yesterday was the same-old thing. Today, I can do all this stuff. I don’t get it?”

“Have you talked to Mom and Dad about it?” she asked. “You can put me down, please?”

I did, catching her and we hugged tightly.

“I don’t really know if I should talk to them, yet. I’m not going to say anything until a few days pass by, in case this isn’t permanent. On Friday, at dinner, I’ll talk to them both,” I said, “Can you keep the secret until then?”

“Sure, no big deal,” my blonde eleven-year-old sister said, breaking into the smile that she always does ... Something about her seemed different to me—she doesn’t look like anything has changed.

With all our chores done, I asked if she would help me find out more about my new abilities.

She gave me a kiss, making me blush and ask, “What was that for?”

“My big strong brother, I thought you deserved a reward. I’m sorry ... if I embarrassed you,” she said.

“No, it was just strange ... you’d never done that before,” I explained.

“Let’s first find out how fast you are now?” she said.

“You mean running?” I questioned. “How do we do that?”

We both thought about that for a while and then apparently—she had an idea!

“Run around the whole barn one complete time. I did it once in 41 seconds,” she said stopping to look at her watch, “Go!”

I completed my circuit and she looked first at her watch hitting it for some reason.

“What’s wrong, how fast was I?”

“I think my watch must be broken ... you did it in only 10 seconds,” she said.

“Really! I wasn’t even trying very hard. I don’t feel out of breath. Let’s do it again—Tell me when?”

“Go!”

I was back at her side.

“Well, why didn’t you run that time?” she said.

“I did, but I tried to run all out as fast as I could possibly go.”

“Really, well, do it again. Touch me on the shoulder just before you start. Touch me again when finished ... and GO!”

I did as she asked.

She said that only two seconds had passed. Something is very wrong – with either her watch ... or me.

We went over to Dad’s tractor. She said to try to raise the front end of it off the ground. I told her that was crazy, but she insisted. Just under the front axle I gripped and carefully tried to do as she asked. It was completely coming off the ground ... holy ... moly ... I’m fast, and strong.

But, how can that be? Yesterday, I was plain old Kal Kent, older brother to Kara, son of John and Martha Kent—today, to use my sister’s words ... I’m Super-Kal!

Over the next few days, after finishing all our chores, we would find a place to test what else I could do. On Friday, Mom and Dad took the truck, and headed into town for their weekly grocery shopping. The hired hands were told to go home for the weekend, which left us alone. They would be gone for at least two hours.

I got bored running around the barn. It didn’t seem far enough, in distance, to test me. We had a mile marker right near the entrance to our property, so I suggested I go down and back on Business 56 for one mile and she agreed.