Kal-El's eyes were bugged out, his knuckles were white from gripping his hands to the dashboard, and he was breathing heavily.

"We're here. You didn't talk any," Lois said.

"Has anyone ever told you that you drive like a maniac?" he managed to get out.

"My dad told me that when he was teaching me to drive but no one else has ever ridden with me driving before."

"There's a darn good reason for that. If we'd been on the ground, you would've hit something."

"I've never hit anything. The air path to the jungle was completely clear, so what was the point of poking along? It's not like there's such a thing as a speed limit."

"There should be for people like you. And what did you mean I'm on my way to becoming a criminal?"

Lois released her belt, "relax, Kal-El! I was only playing with you. If you get caught, they'll only give you a warning. Now get out."

"You mean we're getting out of the Jor-El?"

"I didn't fly all the way here and then not get out and experience it."

"That's what they make the nature channel for. You put on the sensors and you can see it, hear it, feel it, smell it and taste it if you want but the best part is you can't die from it."

"All the sensors in the world can't make up for the real thing," Lois said getting out.

Kal-El did the only thing he could. He followed.

"It's actually kind of pretty, isn't it?" Lois asked, "it's like somebody sat down and planned a jungle filled with nothing but red and purple plants."

"Yeah, it's great. Can we go now?"

"You really are scared. I would just like to remind you that I didn't want you along in the first place."

"Is this the first time you've done something like this?"

"Heck, no! I've been breaking the rules and going off by myself for years. Sometimes they've had to use telepathic hounds to track me down. It's kind of weird. You can feel the dog reading and prying into your mind to find you."

"I'm glad Krypto isn't a telepathic hound. He's my dog."

"I figured. This is the first time I've been here. I wanted to do something really exciting on my day of birth."

"It's your day of birth? Congratulations. Most people just have a party, eat fish, and share a piece of wisdom they learned over the year."

"I did all that with my parents over the weekend."

"What was your wisdom?"

"Life stinks," she said with a smile.

"Are you serious?"

"Serious as the day of my death. I wonder where all the animals are?"

"Don't know. Don't care. Can you believe school is almost out? 4 weeks and we're done. Have you figured out what you're going to do yet?"

"I'm not fit to do anything. I'll have to continue to sponge off my parents."

"What about when you get married?"

"Be real, Kal-El. What parents would want their son married to an alien. I may not even be able to have kids and let's not forget that I would probably crush my husband in my sleep."

Kal-El didn't respond. He took a good look around him.

"Uh…Lois, I don't want to upset you but there's a couple of metal-eating moles dining on our Jor-El back there and you see all those red trees around us? They're moving toward us and they're going to flatten us.

TBC