Chapter 20

“See, what you do to me?” I said.

“I feel it too, Kal!”

“So you’ll be a hot brown-haired girl, called Linda Kent...”

“Kal, when we go off to college together, I want to have a different last name than you,” she said quietly, but breaking into that marvelous grin of hers.

“Sounds like a plan. Do you have a new last name in mind?”

“Danvers, I want to be Linda Lee Danvers—girlfriend of Clark Kent. I got it from reading Jekyll and Hyde, there was a Sir Danvers, and I liked the name.”

“Perfect! Now, do you have to think to keep your hair brown or will it stay that color until you ‘will it’ to change?”

“I think it’ll be just fine. If my roots start to show—tell me, all right?”

I was caught up in her beauty of being brown-haired now.

“Clark, will you?”

“What was that?”

“You’re so funny. I love you.”

“Not as much as I love you, Supergirl!”

There had been a report from Longyearbyen, Norway, about a couple that was saved from freezing to death by two persons who could fly.

The story was picked up by MSNBC who made it sound like the whole thing was some kind of prank. Whew!

I told Mom about this and she couldn’t stop laughing.

On the next Saturday morning, using the truck, the three of us went looking for a comfortable place to live. We found a place three blocks from our school. Mom and I made an offer and, just like that, we now owned a home at 2344 West 17^th Street, Smallville, Kansas!

With that done, Martha let me call and rent a U-Haul, one of those drive your own kind. I backed it up to the front of the house, and opened it up.

We got to our new home, opened the garage door, using the clicker, and backed it up, and in less than five minutes, Linda and I finished. I locked the back door and took the U-Haul back with Mom following us. We ended up with a four-bedroom home. There was a nice kitchen, breakfast nook, dining room and a sunken living room, plus a refrigerator and separate floor freezer in the garage. More about that in a bit.

I let my sister have the second biggest room. That got me a kiss. I had decided to dig up and box up the melted down vessel. I labeled the box UNDERWEAR hoping that might dissuade any lookie-loos.

We quickly moved in unpacking everything very rapidly. We had a nice all grass backyard. Since I’d never had reason to read anything about trees, I can only describe that the backyard was surrounded by tightly packed evergreens, some over 20 feet tall. I told Mom we had room for a spa. She’s thinking about it!

On Monday, we started back to school—me wearing my glasses and Linda now having brown hair. All the guys who liked me before still did. The fellows who didn’t know me had names to call me ‘Cluck Kent’ ‘Four-eyes Clark’ and my favorite ‘Window Face!’

Conversely, my sister got rave reviews for her choice of coloring. All the girls were asking her how she covered her hair so well. A pretty girl stays a pretty girl.

The same guys were constantly giving her grief hitting on her. She decided that klutzy worked a little on her and she would ‘inadvertently’ hit a guy with her backpack once or twice. The accidental step on the foot would have an unwelcome suitor limping away.

Per Mom’s request, I invited our closest friends over to see the place. Although she is Linda’s foe, we even asked Lana. It turned into an informal study hall since we all shared a class or two with one another. Everyone found out about the ‘story’ I’m working on which meant everyone had an opinion on everything.

Lana had suggested that my Superman character could make himself skinny when he was his secret identity. Chloe imagined that he had the power to light up a room with his eyes. Hmmmm, a human flashlight!

Lindsey thought that he could be a ‘Living Solar Battery’ under the premise that he could store power for a future date and time. Pete wondered if he could be immune to all the diseases of earth ... that was something I had wondered about myself.