Skyler wasn't a happy person right now. His mom was furiously running the brush through his thick, light-brown hair. It was knotted and she was trying to get the knots out. It didn't hurt for her to do it, but it was annoying and taking a long time. The brush snapped in half. His mom didn't even blink but picked up another brush in a row of brushes. Skyler's brushes snapped quite often even thought they used metal brushes.

He folded his arms as he took a good look at himself in the mirror. He was in a solid white suit and a blue bowtie, in other words, he looked ridiculous. He and Noel were going to be in a beauty contest, a competition where scouts looked for child models. If this ever got around the first grade, he would be called a sissy and the other boys would probably try and beat him up.

"There," his mom said at last, smoothing down his hair, "you look perfect. Now it's time to wrestle with your sister's hair."

Skyler got out of the chair. His mom looked exhausted as she eyed Noel's curly blonde hair. "I have the kids with the most unmanageable hair in history," she sighed, taking up her brush.

His dad, who was holding Noel in her lap, said. "You brought all this extra primping on yourself." He put his hands around Noel's to keep her from pulling off the fake rosebuds on her dress. "I don't think Noel is going to make it there with her rosebuds intact. Even superglue isn't going to stop this super child," he said, grinning at his pun.

"Put on her mittens," she said, grabbing them and giving them to his dad. She was in no mood for jokes. He put them on her, which Noel didn't like, but she became focused on the mittens rather than the dress.

"You know it seems to me a woman I know said that beauty contests were like animal shows for humans," Clark said. "It's a terrible display of physical qualities and the participants parade around in circles to show how well-trained they are."

"That is paraphrasing what I said."

"I know, the rest I can't repeat in front of the children."

She smacked his shoulder. "That is normally my opinion, but I can't help it. That Dawes woman made me so mad."

Skyler knew all about the Dawes woman. His mom had ranted about it for at least a couple of hours that day. She said Ellen Dawes, who worked at the Planet, thought her kids were the best looking kids in the world. When she asked his mom if she was putting her kids in the contest and his mom had said no, Ellen Dawes had then said that it was probably for the best, that her kids wouldn't stand a chance against her little Davy and Marsha. That of course had ticked her off and been a call to arms for his mom. Skyler didn't know that Dawes woman, as his mom called her, but he knew he didn't like her very much right now because she was the reason he had to be in this beauty contest.

The beauty contest was being held in the Metropolis High gym. His mom had to fill out paperwork and pay for the privilege of her children being judged. Then Skyler had to go stand with his age group. Noel's age group obviously required a parent being there all the time to hold onto them. His dad took a seat in the bleachers to watch.

Skyler watched the mothers fuss over their children. It was kind of funny and sad for the children. Some of the mothers were spitting on tissues and using that to wipe their children's faces. At least his mom hadn't done that to him. One kid was picking his nose. His mom slapped his hand, "You are too old to be doing that." Then she looked around embarrassed, hoping no one had noticed, so Skyler looked away to keep from being seen.

They each got a number and then one at a time they had to walk in front of a judge. It made Skyler nervous. He hated when the attention was focused on him in front of strangers, especially in these kinds of circumstances.

He spotted his mom across the room and she motioned for him to smile, so he did, but he didn't see what he had to smile about.

After they got done with that, there was a spot to take pictures in the corner. It had been fun to take pictures at school because they got to pick an object to take a picture with, but this photographer wasn't fun and he was picky. He kept saying, "Sit up straight, a little to the left, a little to the right, and smile." At last he took the picture and Skyler let out a sigh of relief.

He went straight to the refreshments table, where the cookies and kool-aid were. He accidentally ate his cookies first and then his kool-aid tasted like water. He wondered why that always happened. An unsupervised kid came running by and knocked the kool-aid out of his hand and onto his suit. He looked down and cringed. There was a big, red splotch all over his suit. His mom was going to kill him. His dad came over and used heat vision to help dry it up but the only thing that did was to turn it into a pink splotch.

His dad smiled at him. "You better not let your mom see that." The reason being that his mom was competitive, as evidenced by their being here and a stained suit wasn't good. Another reason was the tux was rented. "Don't worry, I'm your witness and I can protect you, but I would still put off her seeing it for as long as possible," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Skyler followed him up to the bleachers. His mom joined them with Noel a little later and luckily, she didn't notice the stain.

It was boring, waiting on results. It took at least a couple hours. Skyler was amused for a little while by watching Noel pluck off every carefully sewn rosebud. Their parents had given up trying to stop her after she got her picture taken.

After what seemed like an eternity, they finally announced the results. He and Noel had both won first place in their division. They went to get their trophies, stained and debudded. Some of the people noticed and chuckled. His mom raised her eyebrows at his stained clothes but didn't say anything.

Their mom took them over to the famous Ellen Dawes afterwards and said, "Better luck next time, Ellen."

A man approached them while they were over there, "I'm one of the model scouts. Would you be interested in a modeling career for your children?"

Skyler was worried. He didn't want to work, posing for pictures and wearing stupid clothes all day, for the rest of his life.

"No, thank you," his dad said.

"They could make a lot of money. They could--"

"My children do not need to make money yet; they're children," his mom said, her eyes flashing, daring him to challenge her.

The man backed down and moved to someone else. Ellen Dawes looked green with envy, a fact not lost on his pleased mom. Skyler was glad the danger was past.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed that because we are never doing it again," his mom said, once they left the building.

"Really?" Skyler asked hopefully.

"Really, I think it's a disgusting practice, judging a child based on looks. If they had a talent portion to accompany it, maybe. I wanted to prove a point to that Dawes woman, but if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't. These things are clearly more for the parents than the contestants."

"I'm not against all pageants," his dad, "Take the festival in Smallville for example--" he began.

"I'm familiar with that pageant. I maintain that they are for vanity's sake and the men watching the young women compete, and if you know what's good for you, you'll let it drop," she said teasingly.

His dad smiled. "You know what's amazing about this dog and pony show? They won first place and they're not even pure breeds."

His mom looked around the parking lot and then hit him. "Shut up."

"What's a pure breed?" Skyler asked, as he got in the car.

"Nothing," his mom said. "It was just your dad trying to be funny."

Skyler shook his head as he buckled up. It must have been a bad joke. There was so much he wanted to know and so much adults wouldn't tell him.

TBC