Skyler was in his bed, when he heard Noel crying. He waited for his parents to wake up and get her, but they didn't. He decided to go into her room himself. He was frozen with fright when he saw why Noel was crying. Lex Luthor had escaped from prison. He was holding her under his arm like a football and getting ready to kidnap her.

"You can't take my sister!" Skyler found the strength to say. "Put her back in her crib!"

Mr. Luthor just laughed and pulled out some kryptonite. Skyler fell to the ground.

"Your parents will pay. I'm taking your sister and then I'm coming back for you."

Mr. Luthor gave Noel the kryptonite and she grasped it in her little fingers as he climbed out the window with her, chuckling the whole time. Skyler tried to scream for help, but he couldn't.

Suddenly he woke up in a cold sweat. He was still in his bed, but he went to check on Noel just to be safe. His mom was rocking her in the rocking chair.

"Did she wake you up, sweetie?" she asked.

Skyler shook his head. It was obvious he was still trying to separate his dream from reality.

"Did you have another nightmare?" she asked in a worried tone.

"I'm fine, Mommy. I know I'm safe."

She didn't look completely convinced that he was telling the truth, but he was having them less often, so she didn't say anything more about it. "Well, as long as you're up, you better start getting ready for school. Don't forget your dad's going with you today."

He hadn't forgotten. Today was career day, where some of the parents would be coming in to talk about their jobs. "I wish Daddy could talk about his Superman job. Everybody would think it was really cool."

"Yeah, but most of the kids can't grow up to be superheroes and it has to be a parent. They don't know that Superman is your daddy."

"I know, but it would still be cool. A reporter is okay though."

She smiled. "I'm glad to know I'm okay."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. I wish I could come, but Noel has a doctor's appointment and I would rather keep an eye on him myself."

"Why? Don't you like Dr. Kline?"

"I like Dr. Kline and he's the only doctor you, your sister, and your dad can have, but sometimes Dr. Kline can be—I just want to watch him."

"He's a good doctor. He has the best suckers."

"I can't argue with that. When your dad comes out tell him to fix you breakfast."

Skyler kissed his sister on the forehead before he left. She was still very little, but she was starting to grow little blonde curls. She wasn't a lot of fun to play with right now, but he still loved her except when she spit up or needed a diaper change.

An hour and a half later, he and his dad were on their way to school. They took the subway because his mom needed the car. They only had one.

Skyler laughed when he saw the parents sitting on the little chairs. They looked so funny, especially his dad, who was the biggest parent there.

The first one up was a dad, who was a zookeeper. He had to take care of the snakes and lizards. A lot of the girls and a couple of the boys made faces when they heard he had to feed them things like mice and bugs. Skyler thought that would be a fun job. He wouldn't have to worry about the animals biting him, but he felt kind of sorry for the mice and bugs. He supposed everyone had to eat though.

Next up was a mom who was an accountant. Skyler still wasn't sure what that was. He tried to pay attention to be polite, but she started talking about logarithms and cosines. Even Mrs. Ferguson looked bored.

Then his dad's turn came. He was more interesting than the accountant had been, but Skyler had heard it all before. Some of the other kids were interested though.

"Do you get to write about whatever you want?" one of the Jessicas asked.

"I don't. Our boss, who's called an editor, tells us what he wants us to write about. Some reporters decide to be something called freelancers and then they can. They have to find papers that will buy their stories."

Josh raised his hand, "How come the ink on a newspaper can come off and get all over your hands and face even though it should have dried?"

His dad laughed. "That's a mystery to me too."

There was time for one more question.

"Have you ever wrote about Superman?" Amy asked, "And is he nice?"

"Well, Skyler's mother writes about him more than I do, but he was my first story. And I may be bias, but I think he's very nice."

The morning went on and they heard from a fireman, a salesman, and a dance instructor. Skyler liked the dancer. She let them get out of their seats and taught them how to do a little clogging. You have to have a special kind of shoe and you get to stomp your feet.

At lunch he sat with his dad and Bobby.

"Why didn't Mr. or Mrs. Roberts come?" Skyler asked Bobby.

"They said they would, but I told them everybody already saw what they did at the Thanksgiving play," Bobby said, as he speared his peaches with his fork.

Skyler thought that he was probably thinking about his parents and how they couldn't be at career day. He often asked Bobby why he couldn't live with his parents, but Bobby never said why. He just said it was a family problem. Skyler understood that. All families had secrets and all people had secrets. It'd be nice if you could always be honest and tell everything, especially to your best friend, but life wasn't always that way.

Skyler was happy at the end of the day. It was a nice break from school and his dad was definitely one of the favorite speakers. Well, except for the mom and dad who owned a candy store. They'd given out free candy. Not even Superman could compete with that.

TBC