I do not own Clark/Superman, the Kents, or Clark's friends Lana and Pete. I also don't own the setting of Smallville. This story is for entertainment purposes only.
Lana seemed a little colder on the bus Monday when they finished the interview on how he'd started the community project of working on Mrs. Wingate's garden for her while she was in the hospital and how it was going. After they officially finished the interview on that, though, she got hotter under the collar. "Clark, aren't you going to stand up for yourself about anything?"
"Sure, I will, just not on this. Melissa and others are doing most of the work and I think Melissa and Mrs. Wingate care the most. I started it and do my share, but that's all."
"When you interview for a job are you going to tell them about everyone else who will do a better one than you? Or do about the same when your boss tries to give you a raise?"
"Probably not. It depends, I guess."
Lana rolled her eyes at the school bus ceiling, shook her head, and fell uncharacteristically silent. Clark shrugged and let her. He took out a textbook and read ahead in it the rest of the way to their school.
. . .
Months passed. Early spring became early summer. Working in Mrs. Wingate's garden became not just an afternoon extra-curricular activity for a few in the oldest classes, but a field trip for some of the younger ones too. Weekly articles ran in the weekly printed paper of the Smallville school, the Sentinel, on the progress and problems. The lilies had sprouted. The roses had aphids.
Copies of the color photographs to be featured in the Sentinel and the copies of the paper itself were sent to Mrs. Wingate's sister, who took them to the hospital. She wrote thanks and replies back to the students, school, and small town in general for all their hard work and consideration. Mowing Mrs. Wingate's lawn became a point of pride for men and boys in the area with the Pastor's wife making out the schedule for it.
Folks seemed to hold their breaths for Mrs. Wingate's scheduled return in mid-august. The doctors changed their prognosis, though and said she could be released in late September. This was dutifully reported in the school paper too. Lana wrote the original article, Clark proofread it, and Pete greenlight it for publication, which meant sending it to the printer in the school library/slash newsroom. Children were quoted on their disappointment. More attention was given to the mums, sunflowers, and chrysanthemums, so they'd bloom impressively when their owner arrived home.
Worse news came in September. Mrs. Wingate had caught pneumonia. Her release was set back to October. Many began to mutter working the garden so long and faithfully had been a waste. Even Clark head laid down in the crock of his arm set on the table said so to his ma and pa. His ma took a sheet of snickerdoodle cookies from the oven while saying how it had brought the community together and pa reminded him of how Mrs. Wingate and her sister had mentioned her appreciation and how much the news, calls, and photographs had cheered her days. Clark took this different perspective to school and shared it with Pete and Lana, both of whom encouraged him to write up his very own article on that. It was the first time he wrote such a thing entirely on his own that was then printed and read by dozens. He finished it with a call to pray for their neighbor still so far away from her plants, bushes, and lines of lilies they'd worked on this year in a city many miles away missing them like they did her in discomfort and pain, but still grateful to all of them. But the worst was yet to come.
It was a dark say, literally and figuratively, with autumn cloud cover and rains in mid-October, when Mrs. Johnson called the Smallville Church's pastor. She asked him to pass her news to the schoolchildren who'd worked so hard getting their fingers and knees dirty on her sister's property, because she couldn't bare to just then. So, he ended up telling Clark Mrs. Wingate had died. She'd had a stroke due to a blood clot, which sometimes form in the sad circumstances she'd been in of late. She'd never see even the late autumn remainder of all her neighbors work in her garden or lawn with her own eyes.
It hit Clark harder than anything yet had …
What do you think?
God bless
ScribeofHeroes
