I do not own Smallville or it's residents: the Kents, Lana, or Pete.

This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.

"Pa, do you think Mrs. Wingate will be okay?"

"I don't know boy. Hips are nothing to take lightly, especially for those of us getting on in years."

"No, I mean, with her garden."

His ma turned around to look at him from her place in the passenger seat. Her eyes were wide and corners of her mouth turned down, which made Clark sit up straighter. His ma' voice sounded loud and strained. "Clark, don't tell me her garden means more to you than the woman herself!"

Clark's eyes went wide. "No! I just mean it'd be better if it looked nice for her, when she got back. You know, instead of it looking bad or even ordinary. She isn't used to it looking ordinary. It's be nice for her if it looked the way it usually looked. Wouldn't it?"

His ma smiled at him and turned back around in her seat. His pa grinned at him in the rear view mirror. "You know Clark, I think you're right. But if you want that, I dare say maybe you and the other kids ought to do something about it."

He heard the frown return in his mother's voice as she added. "Yes, see if you can get other folks to help you."

Clark frowned now. He lifted things with labeled weights or that he weighed himself on the big scale in the barn. So, he knew he could not lift over 450 lbs, even though he only weighed 140. By running up and down the nearby highway a few hours before the sun came up, he also knew he could reach around 200 miles per hour by the calculations of an old stopwatch. He only did so barefoot now after he'd melted the rubber soles of his pair of tennis shoes. Neither of his parents had been happy about that. In fact, they weren't happy with his experiments altogether.

He used a, after some tinkering by him, remote-controlled radio to test his hearing. He used a piece of cardboard with numbers and letters written on sticky notes he placed at random while his eyes were shut to test his sight once he got far away. He'd been kinda nervous about telling his folks he was starting to see "through" things too. While in a hurry, he'd written a letter on the wrong side of a sticky note, and had grabbed and stuck it on along with a lot of others before running hundreds of feet away. After looking back, he'd rolled his eyes at himself. Then he'd concentrated on it in hopes he would the dark ink through the light colored paper a little. The results had been better than expected. Then he tried replicating them while writing lighter and lighter and then with a pencil. He could definitely see "through" sticky note paper.

His speed, strength, and fast thinking now made his chores and studies go by fast. So, he helped his ma and pa who were both now suffering from stiff joints more and still had time to read books both from the Smallville library and shipped to it from still further away libraries. Most of them were on biology and physics as he tried to figure his new abilities out and avoid further damaging his clothing or other things living or non.

Both his ma and pa feared the FBI folks coming back for him rather than Moe. So, they insisted he be careful. Even before Pa clarified he get other kids to help, Clark frowned. His pa looked at him in the rear-view mirror again this time not smiling. "Keeping up a big garden miles away from home all by yourself would be mighty suspicious Clark."

"I know."

His ma cut in. "Besides, I think a lot of folk, like Lana and your friend Pete would like to help."

Clark gave a weak smile. He didn't really even mind getting help to care for Mrs. Wingate's garden especially not if it from his two best friends. Mrs. Wingate might even like knowing a lot of people helped out. He just didn't like the lie of "pretending" he needed more help than he did.

. . .

Lana and Pete stared at him wide-eyed. Clark grimaced. Lana, ever curious, had become a reporter for the school newspaper, so as to have an excuse to and get academic credit for "getting all the news" and then telling everyone all about it. Though, she still preferred to do it in person, which led Pete to asking her to at least wait till the articles were printed and papers she could fill in more details to all who read and asked.

Lana's hardest struggle, though, had been actually waiting for others to answer questions. In fact, chief editor Pete, always looking for more titles to put on college applications, had told her to go ahead and send folks her questions to them on paper and let him do the actually interviewing. Lana had been so peeved, she'd tried to quit. Then, after a talk with her mother she told Clark all about, she went back, apologized to Pete, and told him she'd try harder to listen.

Pete had gone with her to interviews and put a hand on her shoulder when she went too far talking while listening as they agreed ahead of time. Clark became scared Lana might actually get in the habit of waiting for answers making his secret harder to keep. He felt sorry for her later, when she interviewed him after he got the highest grade point average besides Pete again. His own eyes had widened as he'd watched her eyes bug out, her teeth dig into her bottom lip and listened to her foot tap even faster than her heart was beating while he tried to answer fast enough. Then he'd had to repeat himself when, while trying to repeat back to him what she wrote down, he realized she'd gotten a few things wrong. Finally, she figured out how to occupy herself "while" the person answered by mastering "short-hand" and writing while she listened.

Before, it had seemed pretty convenient to him his best friends ran the best possible way, besides Lana herself maybe, to ask the student body for help with his plan. Now he kinda wish it had been two other students. Maybe they wouldn't be looking at him like this. Then Lana grinned and he felt kinda bad for his last thought.

"That's great Clark! Really great! I bet Susan and Beth, oh and Michael likes to garden, and Joe, he needs money. Do you think your parents will pay?"

Pete cut in. "Probably not, but maybe we can raise donations from those who'd like to help, but have more money than time. We can use it to buy seeds and things and, if there's any money left over, pay those who won't do the actually gardening otherwise."

Clark grinned back at his friends. "That sounds like an idea."

Lana began vibrating rocking back and forth from heels to toes and shaking her arms out. "Oooooooh, I'll bet we can get a lot of articles out of this! We'll get Michael to bring the camera and take lots of pictures and ..."

"Are you going to head the project Clark?"

Lana didn't even blink as Pete cut her off. She just pressed her lips together and stared at Clark. Doing so, her eyes got much wider and were far more intent than Pete's, but his gaze also remained focused on him. Clark shrugged. "I guess I should since it's my idea."

Pete's smile widened, but Lana laughed. "Wow Clark, not only did you have an idea you're telling others about, but you're taking charge? Has "Little Clark" finally grown up?"

Clark frowned while raising an eyebrow at her. Having measured his own height himself multiple times, Clark knew he was consistently the tallest among his "age-mates" in the school. However, having skipped ahead two grades into Pete's class he always walked the halls as the shortest one in line. His "new" classmates, minus Pete, had originally given him his nickname, but it had spread even to Lana! And this from someone who told him to stand up for himself! He almost wondered at times if she did know his secret. If he wasn't an alien with superhuman capabilities, but only normal human capabilities, he didn't know how she expected him to survive standing up to kids who made up a good percentage of the school football team.

He sighed and let his annoyance go this time. His moving forward a few grades had also kept him from staying close friends with any of his classmates besides Lana. She still sat beside him on the bus, came to him for homework help, and shared news with him, sometimes all at the same time. He'd overheard the joke probably a million times (though he didn't keep track, so he didn't really know) that Lana stayed friends with him, because he let her talk on and on more than anyway. This speculation was usually paired with "That's 'Little Clark' he's just too nice!"

Thankfully, Pete stood up for him in their shared class against others who tried to push him around. So if he stayed close enough to him he didn't have to stand up for himself too often. Pete was also president of the school science club they were both members of with two other people. One was boy a year younger than him, very smart in chemistry and math, but struggling in English and history. (He gave him tutoring in both of those subjects.) There was also a girl a year older than him, who he didn't give homework help to. Most of the older kids didn't come to him for that unless they were "really" desperate. Together, the club members had made science fair projects that had won awards in interschool competitions. (Those were other events Lana had interviewed him about and Pete had then printed up complete with pictures by Michael Jameson.) Clark tried to let the older girl or younger boy in the club decide what they would make or experiment on letting Pete shoot down too expensive, dangerous, or time-consuming ideas. His membership in the club and grade point average had cemented his reputation for brains, his readiness to let others do what they wanted and help furthered his reputation for being nice. He didn't mind either reputation.

He took a breath and said, "It's just a 'neighbors helping neighbors' project."

Lana giggled. "Of course, but if you're going to take lead on it you'll have to actually 'lead.'" Now she was twisted on her toes and smirking at him.

Clark sighed in return. "I imagine anyone who wants to help will have good ideas too."

Lana pressed her lips together. "Melissa probably will. She likes flowers about as well as Mrs. Wingate herself."

Mellissa did want to help and was his most constant companion in Mrs. Wingate's garden and always brought the seeds or seedlings after buying them with the donation money. Mrs. Wingate herself gave them permission despite Clark wanting it to be a surprise originally, because Lana told her mother, who told Mrs. Wingate's sister-in-law who called her actual sister in Topeka to tell her, who then let Mrs. Wingate know while visiting her in the hospital. So she knew even before Clark's call for help in the project appeared in the school paper. In fact, Melissa, who Lana also talked to, talked to him before it came out in the paper too. Actually, about half the school and a third of the county had known by then.

Clark's house started out as the one Mrs. Wingate's sister Heather called to begin with on what she wanted done, but soon Melissa became the one she talked to after Clark made the mistake of saying, "That's what her sister said she wanted, you'll have to tell her if you think it won't work." Secretly, he thought the weather was too wet himself to begin planting when she's wanted, but couldn't break the habit of doing as he was told and being quiet especially over the phone to a grown up lady he'd never met. Melissa and Mrs. Wingate's sister ended up talking a lot in the following months.

First they had to plan out if any changes to the usual layout of the garden would be made, they weren't, Mrs. Wingate wanted it the same. Then the money had to be raised for the annuals. Heather and Melissa both made up the majority of donations, but about everyone in Smallville school gave a dime or more and a special collection was taken at church in which kids also gave up between a nickel or quarter and some adults gave even more. Between Mrs. Wingate's own garden shed supplies and folks bringing their own supplies between seeds, seedlings, and potting and garden soil/plant food weren't really a problem.

He knew there was a problem when, while interviewing him on Mrs. Wingate's porch after he and Mellissa had dug the soil up for the annuals, Lana glared at him while asking "Is it true this was all your idea?"

"Yes."

"Would you say those who say 'Miss Mellissa Dean is now running things' are correct?"

"I'd say Mrs. Wingate is running things through her sister who contacts Miss Mellissa."

"But it was your idea!"

Clark shrugged.

Lana rolled her eyes at him, got off the porch step, and strode away. "We'll finish this interview on the bus Monday."

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes