Chapter IX

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

By the time the boys got back to the Kent farmhouse and got to sleep, it was very late. Lex had been right about their stalker; he remained mulishly silent in the Smallville Sheriff's Office, and the deputies couldn't make him say anything, not even that he wanted a lawyer.

Lex was pretty unhappy about being awakened at five a.m.

"Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day! I've got a beautiful feeling! Everything's going my...."

"Clark!"

"What? Oh, I'm sorry Lex." It was absolutely ludicrous how Clark tried to keep his voice down after that unremittingly bovine attempt at song had already blasted Lex awake.

Lex rolled over in Clark's bed and looked at his young friend with bleary eyes. He checked the alarm clock on the bedside table. "Clark. It's five o'clock. We only went to bed two or three hours ago. What are you doing?"

"It's a farm, Lex. We have to get the morning chores done before we can go to the airport and find out stuff about your missing parts."

"Do you have to make all that noise about it?"

Clark ducked his head and looked embarrassed. "No, Lex. I'm sorry. I'll try to be quieter. And you should sleep in some. You look pretty tired."

Lex closed his eyes and listened to Clark thunder out of the room and down the stairs.

There were three or four minutes of blessed silence. Lex was almost back to sleep when he heard the gallumphing of another set of boots out in the hallway, slightly lighter, probably Clark's dad. Then Jonathan Kent started singing, "Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day! I've got a beautiful feeling! Everything's going my way!"

At least he had a better singing voice than his son did.

Lex buried his head under Clark's pillow.