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In Smallville Elementary, Mrs. Johnson’s fifth-grade class was a bustle of activity. Today was the US states and capitals test. The big one. The one with all fifty and Washington, DC. The one with a blank map and no word bank and where points got taken off if you spelled Phoenix wrong.
Yeah, it was a big deal.
Kids clumped willy-nilly as they quizzed each other and sang mnemonics, counting down the minutes until they’d have to take out their number-two pencils. After that, there’d be the blissful freedom of recess to forget about it all.
Two weeks earlier, eleven-year-old Clark Kent’s nerves would have been singing with nervous excitement. But now, ever since his extraordinary car-crash rescue, everything was starting to look different. Not just because he was quitting baseball (him playing didn’t seem fair to the other kids) or spending less time with the neighborhood kids (they were nice, but blabbermouths). No, things were literally looking different – colors went deeper, shapes blurred inside one another, things flickered as if there were little particles in them that were alive.
“Yo, Clark. I said, New York.”
Clark winced, adjusted his glasses, and forced himself to focus. Slowly, oh-so slowly, the world became real again. Lana, his best friend, was looking at him expectantly over the cover of her open textbook. “Earth to Kent! New York!”
“Oh! Uh, Albany?” Clark said.
“Nice.”
“Not Metropolis.”
“Nope.”
“Even though it’s the biggest, most obvious city out there.”
Lana nodded. “Because that would make too much sense.”
Clark stroked his chin as if he were an old man with a long white beard. “But of course,” he said. “We can’t have sense now, can we? Where’s the fun in that? Great Scott, just think of the children!”
Lana snorted like a pig, which was her way of laughing. It made Clark smile, too.
Just then, the lights flickered: once, twice, three-four-five times.
“Kingsley!” Mrs. Johnson said. The lights went back on. Kingsley, one of the rowdier boys, had a finger on the switch and was looking both amused and sheepish.
“I said hit the lights one time, please. You may have a seat.”
As Kingsley made his way back to his desk, the classroom organized itself with quiet anticipation. Mrs. Johnson stood in front of the whiteboard, a stack of papers in her arms. The time had come.
Everyone was looking at her, backs straight, eyes wide, pencils in hand. Everyone, that is, except Owen O’Donnell.
Out of the corner of his eye, Clark saw Owen bent over his desk. He didn’t know Owen too well. The kid was quiet and kept mostly to himself, especially during recess. Clark did know, though, that everything Owen owned was outer-space or rocket-related, from his backpack to his books. Once, Owen had explained to him how a rotating spacecraft could simulate gravity for the astronauts inside it, which was cool.
Now though – now, Owen had his hands over his ears and his eyes clamped tight. Clark felt his attention drift to the boy’s tense form. He could hear Owen quietly groaning, teeth grinding tight into each other.
A hushed, breathy, “No, no, no, no, stop, stop, stop, STOP .”
The words barely left Owen’s lips, barely even made it into the air, yet they were enough to make Clark’s heart wince like it’d been hit.
Clark hesitated, then stuck his hand all the way in the air. “Excuse me, Mrs. Johnson?”
“Yes?”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
A couple kids giggled at that one, and Mrs. Johnson frowned in mild frustration. “Right now, Clark?”
“Yes ma’am. May I go, please?”
“You’ll miss time to take the test.”
“Yes ma’am, I know. I’ll be fast.”
Mrs. Johnson shrugged. “Alright,” she said. “Do we have a volunteer for bathroom buddy?”
Ever since the seventh bathroom pass mysteriously went missing, the new classroom rule required pairs in order to leave the classroom. Nobody said anything, which was just what Clark was hoping for.
“Come on, guys, don’t make me pick you,” Mrs. Johnson said.
“That’s okay,” said Clark. He moved to Owen’s desk and gently touched him on the shoulder. Owen opened his eyes and breathed in deep as if he had just burst from under the surface of a raging river. His eyes were wet.
“I think Owen can come with me,” Clark said.
There were a couple disbelieving laughs from the back of the class. Clark knit his eyebrows and ignored them.
“Sure, boys, just get moving,” said. Mrs. Johnson. “I’ve got a test to pass out.”
Owen protested weakly, but something in Clark was moving too fast. It was like a wind turbine’s blades catching the breeze and whirling, whirling, flying. He grabbed Owen’s hand and marched out of the classroom.
The world was going weird again. The walls were shimmery and see-through, with blooms of deep purples and sparking fiery reds. Clark could hear the sound of fingers touching pencils and the clack of laptop keys down the hall. The particles, the vibrations – everything danced.
Clark walked past the fifth-grade bathroom, the art room, and the teacher’s lounge. He didn’t stop until he made it to the library bathroom, the empty one where the lights were off.
He let go of Owen’s hand with a “here we are” sort of gesture and a smile. Owen didn’t return it.
“You missed a bathroom,” he said.
Clark’s momentum died. “Yeah. Well, uh, this one’s quieter. And darker. So…”
Owen drew a hand across his nose and blinked hard. “Are you gonna pee or what?”
Clark’s body felt a lot heavier, like his insides had turned to lead. Why on earth did he think this was a good idea? Grabbing a kid he barely knew and whizzing through the halls sounded like something out of the brain of a kindergartener. Now Owen probably felt scared and confused. Now they were going to both miss the test. Now Owen was probably worse off than before.
Maybe sometimes when people are whispering, it’s not for you to hear, genius.
“Right,” Clark said. “Yeah. I’ll just – I’ll go.” He ducked inside the men’s room. Owen leaned on the outside wall with a sigh.
Inside the bathroom, Clark stood in front of the mirror and sink. He let the water course over his hands as he stared at the boy in the glass. A short, messy-haired, glasses-glare boy stared back at him. The boy who stopped a car in motion or touched the tops of trees or cracked jokes with classmates seemed very far away.
Clark wiped his hands on his pants and went back outside. Owen was waiting for him. Maybe it was his imagination, but Clark thought his shoulders looked a little less tense.
“Hey, look,” he said. “I’m sorry I dragged you out here. That was silly of me. I just thought that with the lights – and the busy classroom – you just looked like you needed to be somewhere else.”
Owen blinked.
“We can go back now,” Clark offered.
“No, wait.” Owen played with his fingertips. “No. It’s quiet. It’s nice. Could we – could we stay?”
“Oh.” Clark sat down on the hard tile floor. “Sure.”
Owen sat down next to him. He breathed slow and deep, as if he was paying attention to the way the air was moving. Neither said anything for a while. Clark picked at the soles of his shoes, then realized he was ripping the rubber clean off in strips. He stopped.
“How did you know?” Owen said. His voice sounded calmer, less panicky.
“What?”
“How did you know it was the lights and the sounds?”
Clark shrugged. “You looked really upset, I guess.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. I guess? I dunno.”
Owen frowned. His frown was such a uniquely Owen frown. “Huh,” he said. “It’s just funny because you were really fast about it. The classroom was bad for a while but — but when it hurt — it was shorter this time. I dunno.”
“The, uh…?” Clark started, not quite knowing where he was going.
“The everything,” Owen finished. “It hurts sometimes. Y’know, when the world gets very very loud.”
Clark sat up a little straighter. “Like the lights and textures are too much?”
“Yeah.”
“And the sounds are way more than they need to be?”
“Yeah!”
Clark leaned in closer. “And it makes you feel exhausted? Like in a scaredish way?”
Owen was looking at him with sparkling eyes. “Yeah, exactly!”
Clark found he couldn’t sit still on the floor anymore. “Sometimes can you hear things that sound really loud but are actually quiet?”
“Like the sound the lights in the classroom make? The electric buzz?”
“Yes! Just like that!”
“Oh my gosh,” Owen said.
“Oh my gosh,” Clark echoed. “I thought nobody else —”
“Me too,” said Owen, smiling.
“Can you fly, too?”
“What?” Owen gasped. Utter shock crossed his face, and Clark immediately realized he’d made a mistake.
“Oh, nothing,” Clark said. “Nothing. Forget it. That was — that was just a joke.”
“Oh. A joke. Ha.” Owen said. He did his special frown again.
Clark looked down and started picking at his shoes again. Out of the edges of his glasses frames, he watched a confused Owen start fiddling with the buttons on his jacket. He wished he had a real joke to tell him, one that Owen would actually get to laugh at. Not just a rude attempt at covering his weirdness up.
That was rough, Clark thought. But maybe… someday.
Suddenly, they both started to say something at the same time.
“Ope, sorry – you first,” said Clark.
Owen looked surprised. “Oh. Huh. Well, I was just wondering if you wanted to learn a space fact.”
Clark smiled. “Sure!”
“Okay.” Owen looked a little surprised. “Um, so there’s this spacecraft, Voyager 1, and it’s the farthest-away thing people have made. It’s in interstellar space now.”
“Woah. Why’s it out there?”
Owen straightened up. “It swung by Jupiter and Saturn to take pictures a while ago, but now it’s just carrying a golden record through the galaxy until something finds it, I guess. But that’ll probably take a long, long, time.”
Clark squinted. “What’s so special about the golden record?”
“I dunno.” Owen shrugged. “It’s an old-timey disc with a lot of sounds from Earth on it. Some animal noises. Songs. Lots of languages. I think the English part says something like, ‘Hello from the children of planet Earth.’”
“Oh.” Clark’s eyes went really wide. “Owen. That’s a great fact.”
Owen looked at him. “Yeah?” he asked.
“I love it.”
Owen shivered, and Clark could tell from the crinkles around his eyes that they were happy shivers. Clark sat and smiled.
“What were you going to say?” Owen asked after a while.
“Oh, yeah,” said Clark. “I dunno how much longer you’d like to be away from the classroom, but I was thinking we might be able to talk to the librarian or something and find a nicer space with books and stuff.”
“Actually,” said Owen, standing up. “I think I’m ready to head back now.”
Clark hesitated. “Are you sure? I don’t mind –”
Owen nodded. “Yeah. I feel okay. I’m ready to try the test, even.”
And Clark could tell that he meant it. The ground was solid beneath his feet. He was ready. As if gravity didn’t exist, Clark bounced up to his feet. “That’s awesome,” he said. “Let’s go!”
Owen started leading the way back, and Clark followed. This time, when the walls went a-shimmer and the world seemed to warp and extend, Clark didn’t mind. He looked straight ahead and kept moving.
Soon they reached the classroom door. Through the wood, Clark could see the bent-over backs of their classmates, writing. Lana was flipping back and forth between the pages at lightning speed. The gears in the clock whirred and clicked away, but that didn’t matter. They still had plenty of time.
Owen put a hand on the doorknob. “Oh,” he said. “Thanks, Clark. I don’t think I’ve had someone listen to me like that before. It helped.”
A wave of warmth flooded Clark’s chest. He knew he wasn’t the only one helping. Suddenly, even after quitting the baseball team, even with losing friends and missing class, even when the world started feeling too big and too small at the same time, Clark felt stronger than before. Here, in the empty hallways of Smallville Elementary, things were starting to feel a little more right.
Clark gently bumped his shoulder. “Anytime.”