Author: Nymph Du Pave
Title: 21 Things
Rating: PG-13 [I don't know what the hell PG-1 is ;)]
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Note: Help!! What is the most recent Dean's name?
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21 Things
by Nymph Du Pave

CHAPTER THREE

"Three more murders around the Lenshire Woods. Just outside of Smallville."

Clark looked up from his forced editorial on keeping the school campus clean. He was having a hard time writing something that any of the students would find interesting. "Wait, Lenshire Woods. That's just inside of Laurinburg, isn't it?"

Chloe nodded.

"Then you can't write about it, Chlo," Pete began, his tone cautious. He didn't want Chloe to get into another fight with the dean but at the same time didn't want to awaken the stir of a challenged Sullivan.

"Oh, yes I can."

Pete shook his head and went back to his article on last week's game. "Fine. I am not a part of this."

"They were teens, Pete. Teen girls. Every newspaper out there is screaming about it."

"And so the dean wants Smallville High to be a slight haven, a reprieve from the blood and guts you see on television and in all the other newspapers."

"Are you advocating this kind of blanket censorcism?"

"Of course not, I am just saying this is a place where teens should feel safe. Seeing this stuff splattered all over the front page at school as well as everywhere else we go... It's just not giving us a haven anywhere."

"You sound just like the dean."

Clark allowed himself a small smile behind his seventeen inch monitor. Ever since their last arguement she refused to call him anything but "the dean".

"It's a good point he's making, Chloe."

"No, it isn't. People need to be warned, teens need to be on the lookout."

"Chloe," Clark started, not sure why he was risking the intrusion knowing it could end in a possible beheading. "Have you seen the papers? Turned on a television? Listened to the radio? Those three girls are all that people are talking about anywhere."

"Teenagers often ignore current events, Clark."

"Not like these. Murders, teen girls, talk all over the town... Did you even hear half the conversations at lunch?"

"Who's side are you on, Kent?"

He sighed and covered his face with his hands. Chloe liked her job way too much.

Pete stood up. "It's up to you, Chloe, but don't turn this into another one of your Meteor Monsters, okay?"

Clark was surprised that Chloe's eyes could narrow any more than they were. "What are you trying to say, Pete?"

"Just that you always look for the worst possible reason for things."

"I happen to think that a person killing on nothing but his own instincts is a lot more disturbing than someone with a disease caused by meteorites. I think that that would be the 'worst possible reason for things.'

Pete looked to Clark, but he just shrugged. "She's got a point there."

"Fine, do whatever you want, Chloe. But I think that there should be one place where the kids in this school, myself included, can look to a newspaper and not find horror stories. At least not while that's all you see anywhere else."

Pete grabbed his bag and headed out.

Chloe turned to Clark. "What's wrong with him?"

Clark sighed. "His little sister is starting highschool next year. She's a teenager. 13."

Chloe nodded. "Yeah, okay. Why is it affecting him now?"

"Didn't you read all of the newest article?"

Chloe blushed but shook her head. "I hadn't gotten to it really. I was just tired of hearing it everywhere else but in my own rag."

Clark nodded. "Well, the last murder victim was 13. From Laurinburg Middle."

Chloe was quite for a moment. "Oh."

"And Pete has some information that was not released in the papers."

Chloe frowned. "How is that?"

Clark cleared his throat, unsure of whether or not to tell Chloe this. Would she feel obligated to put this information in the Torch? Pete had told him at lunch and there had been that kind of 'don't-tell-Chloe' look in his eye. But Chloe needed to know.

"What is it, Clark? How did he get info not in the papers?"

"Because there are so few of them, all of the black families in neighboring counties have been warned personally by the police departments."

"The last girl was black?"

"All three of them have been."

To be continued...