Game Night — Matchmaker Chronicle Volume 1C — C

By KenJ <ken.janney@kjanney.com>

Rated: G

Submitted: April, 2013

Summary: After their Halloween adventure Jon Kent invites his best friend Hattie Kaplin over for a game night. Hattie doesn’t know it, but she comes close to figuring out the family secret after watching a movie with Jon and Lara.

Story Size: 2,677 words (15Kb as text)

Disclaimers: The Lois and Clark characters in this story are property of DC, December 3rd productions and Warner Bros. No Copyright infringement is intended. I have just borrowed the characters for a short time.

The rest are mine.

Author’s note: This takes place in my Matchmaker universe and follows on the heels of Halloween in Smallville.

***

Monday, November 4, 2013

Jon Kent walked into homeroom. As soon as he crossed the threshold he spotted Hattie and started to smile. Her desk was right next to his and when she looked up from her book she spotted him and smiled too.

Sitting down he said, “Hi Hattie, how was your weekend?”

“Booooorrrrriiiiiinnnnggggg! There was only one thing that kept me from dying of boredom.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a brand new pad computer. “Ta da! At least I had this to play with. My folks bought it for me as a reward for my good grades. They think it will help in my studies. I still wish your family hadn’t gone away for the weekend. I missed hanging out with you guys. You were in Smallville. Anything interesting happen?”

Thinking about all that had happened he had a broad smile as he replied, “It’s a small town. What could happen?”

Hattie was looking at him while he was speaking and the expression on his face didn’t match up with what he was saying. There was a look of excitement and pleasure on his face even when he was asking that question, so she challenged him, “Yeah, just what could happen in a small town like Smallville, huh? Alright, I can tell, you’re holding out on me. Come on, give! What happened?”

Jon was silent for a few seconds while he thought about just what he could tell Hattie. He was just about to speak when the teacher started taking roll, so Jon, thankful for the reprieve, said, “I’ll tell you later.”

***

Jon was distracted during Physics class because he was deciding just what to tell Hattie.

Could he tell her that Grandma Kent had made him his new uniform? Well, no.

Could he tell her about what they wore to the Halloween party? Definite yes.

Could he tell her what they had to eat? Probably.

Could he tell her what had happened to Miss Maisie? That would be a maybe.

Could he tell her about the thrill he had experienced the first time he did a spin change into his new Suit? No way!

Could he tell her about stopping the robbery and saving Miss Maisie? Nope

Could he tell her about turning the crook over to the sheriff? Not in a month of Sundays. That was far too embarrassing. He hadn’t given any thought to a super name. Obviously Lara had because she popped right out with Ultra Woman 2. He really didn’t want to ride Dad’s coat tails so Superman 2, Son of Superman and Superman Junior were out of the question. When he had been put on the spot, all he could think of was his Kryptonian name, Kam-El and that’s what popped out of his mouth. What made it even worse was when the Sheriff mispronounced it as camel. How mortifying that was.

Okay, what did that leave? The costumes and the results of the costume judging.

He was shocked out of his reverie by the teacher calling on him to answer a question. Embarrassed, he had to ask for the question to be repeated. Fortunately he knew the correct answer. The teacher still admonished him to pay better attention in class.

***

Right after lunch, in study hall, Hattie cornered Jon and said, “Okay, it’s later, what happened?”

Jon decided that he needed to be careful to follow his plan, so he said, “Well, it was a Halloween party and everybody was dressed up in costume. Lara and I were dressed as Maid Marian and Will Scarlet. My friend Mike Lee was dressed as Robin Hood. We won second place in the judging. Get this, Sean and Celeste were dressed as a samurai and his geisha and they won first prize!”

Laughing, Hattie clapped her hands and asked, “That’s great! Did you take any pictures? I can’t wait to see you as Maid Marian.”

“Very funny. Ha ha ha. Mom took a bunch of pictures. Say, we aren’t going anywhere this weekend. Why don’t we plan a game night for Friday?”

“Sounds good to me, it’ll be a lot better than last Friday. I missed my best friend.”

With a lopsided grin that he had inherited from his father, he asked, “You missed me huh?”

“Not you! Lara!” Of course she was smiling as she said it so he knew that she was teasing. He still put on a hurt expression. She finally relented and said, “Oh, all right, best friends, you and Lara. There, feel better?”

“Lots. At least you put me first.”

She slapped at his arm as she said, “Don’t let it go to your head, Kent. Let’s go over these French declensions.”

He nodded and cracked open his book. They spent the rest of the study hall working.

***

Over the course of the week, Friday’s events in Smallville, initially reported in the Smallville Press, a weekly paper published on Wednesdays, had made the wire services. It didn’t appear in the Metropolis papers until two days later. Since there were only two witnesses to the appearance of the two pint sized superheroes it wasn’t given much credence.

***

Friday, November 8, 2013

They had been planning this weekend and Hattie had brought a small bag with her to school in the morning. She was spending the weekend with the Kents.

Since Hattie wouldn’t be taking her regular bus home Lois picked her and Jon up after school and dropped them off at the house.

They both started doing their homework and when Lara, Sean and Celeste arrived Hattie restrained herself. She wanted so much to spend time with Lara in girl talk, but they all had homework to do and her determination to excel in school took precedence and she kept her nose to the grindstone until she had it all finished. The only interruption had been snack time when Jon had prepared the snacks for everyone.

When she finally closed her last book she let out a loud sigh. She asked a rhetorical question; “Why do they really pile on the homework on Fridays? Don’t the teachers realize that we have lives outside of school?”

Jon laughed and said, “They probably just don’t remember what it was like when they were kids.”

Lara had finished her homework a little earlier and said, “Hey, while we wait for the rest of the family, let’s watch a movie!”

Hattie said, “Let me guess, ‘The Incredibles’, right?”

“Well, we could or we could watch ‘Kung Fu Panda’. I was actually thinking of an older movie, ‘Galaxy Quest’. It’s so cool! These actors from a TV show are recruited by aliens that look just like humans, to take charge of a ship they created to duplicate what they had in the show. They get into a battle and have to fight another bunch of aliens on the ship and keep it from blowing up and they had to get help from kids like us to figure out how to save the day.”

Hattie replied, “Sounds like fun. We all know that there are aliens and they can look just like us. After all, Superman and Ultra Woman are aliens, aren’t they? You can’t tell them apart from Earth people. Your mom and dad could be aliens and we’d never know it.”

Jon was getting a little uncomfortable with how close this was coming to the family secret so he changed the topic. “After Mom and Dad get home we can look at the pictures from Halloween. Lara, why don’t you put in the DVD?”

Having the same concern as Jon, Lara moved to comply and within just a couple of minutes the opening credits were running. A flaming comet crossed the screen. In the tail of the comet the name appeared and then a ship appeared out of a warp field.

Hattie was hooked. She forgot about the conversation they had been having and sat on the sofa between Lara and Jon and watched the movie.

When the actors were transported to the ship and the Thermians appeared in their natural form she was shocked and was ready to scream just as that extra guy did. Since he did, she didn’t feel the need, in fact she giggled at his reaction. Then the Thermians apologized for not having their appearance generators turned on.

Hattie grabbed the remote, paused the DVD and in an excited tone asked, “Do you think that’s how they do it?”

Jon asked, “Who, that’s how who do what?”

“Superman and Ultra Woman! Do you think that’s how they look so human? Do they have appearance generators to make them look human? They could really look like those Thermians and use some kind of device to look human! Wow, just think of it. There’s no way to know what they really look like. They could be walking down the street … looking just like a normal human. They could look like you or me or your mom or dad and underneath they could look like,” she flung her hand toward the screen, “that! That just blows my mind! You know, when I become an investigative journalist, I’m going to investigate that. I’ll find out for sure.”

Jon asked, “What would you do with that information, once you have it?”

“I’d keep it a secret! That’s not something that should get around.”

Jon breathed a silent sigh of relief. Hattie would keep the secret if she found out.

About the time the movie finished, Lois and Clark with the rest of the clan arrived. Lucy shouted “Hattie!” and ran over to climbed into Hattie’s lap.

Hattie gave Lucy a hug and said, “Hi Squirt! How are you?”

“Me’s fine. How’s Hattie? Is Hattie staying wis us?”

“Yeah Squirt, I’m staying the weekend.”

“Goody, goody! Me’s like Hattie.” Lucy gave Hattie a hug and then jumped down off her lap and ran to the play room.

As Lois took Sam out of his car seat and handed him to Lara, she asked, “Can you watch Sam for a little while, Sweetie? I need to get his dinner ready.”

“Sure Mom, no problem.”

Hattie asked, “Can I hold him for a while?”

Lara handed him over and Hattie fussed over Sam until Lois called for him.

***

The evening edition of the Planet carried the story from Smallville. It was on an inside page of the ‘A’ section. The family didn’t even know it was there.

Seeing the paper which Clark had carried in Hattie asked if she could read it and was given permission.

The headline story was of a Superman rescue written by Lane and Kent. The brakes on a semi had failed as it was on a down slope with a sweeping curve. It was reminiscent of a Harry Chapin song, ‘Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas” only with a better outcome. Superman had prevented the accident by slowing the trailer. Doing it that way prevented the truck from jack-knifing and continuing its path of destruction.

It was continued on page 2 so Hattie turned there to finish the story. When she finished she saw the story from Smallville. She said, “What’s this?” She started reading the article and was getting more and more excited as she did. She practically shouted at Jon, “You were holding out on me!!!! Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Not knowing what Hattie was talking about Jon asked, “Why didn’t I tell you about what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Jon Kent! You were in Smallville when they were there!”

“When who were there?”

“The new superheroes!”

With a mystified/concerned expression Jon cautiously asked, “What new superheroes?”

“The ones that rescued,” she referred back to the article, “Maisie of Maisie’s Diner and captured the thief that was holding her hostage and threatened to kill her.”

Jon blanched and said, “Let me see that.” Lara who was also an interested party looked over Jon’s shoulder as he read the article. She whispered something in Jon’s ear that Hattie couldn’t hear and then backed away.

Jon said, “Well, yeah, we heard something about it. The Sheriff said that something had happened and asked if anyone had seen a couple of kids in outlandish costumes, but, come on, everyone there was in costume. Who could tell? Besides, it could just have been a publicity stunt. There were only a couple of witnesses.”

“Yeah, but one of them was the Sheriff! I wonder. Could it have been Superman and Ultra Woman changing their appearance to make people think that there are more superheroes around? If they are using an appearance generator, they could, you know. There’s another thing, neither Superman nor Ultra Woman were seen anywhere else at that time, so it could have been them.”

Relieved that Hattie was going off on that track, Jon heaved another silent sigh of relief. He had almost started sweating; she had been getting too close for comfort.

***

After dinner Lois brought out the pictures from Halloween and Hattie was suitably impressed by the costumes. She complimented them, “Oooo Lara, you look so regal. You look like you just stepped out of a story book. Jon, you were absolutely handsome. Those red tights, wooo woo!”

Jon started to blush.

Lucy was sitting on Hattie’s lap and when she saw the picture of herself she said, “There’s me!”

Hattie said, “Yes, Little Bo Peep come to life with her little lamb.”

With the directness of a child, Lucy replied, “That no lamb, that Sam!”

Hattie was laughing, “I know Squirt. Sam looks cute in his costume. All fuzzy wuzzy.”

With a childish chiding tone, Lucy replied, “No Hattie! Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. That Sam.”

They all had a good laugh at that one.

After a bit they got out some board games. Clark disappeared to run some ‘errands’ and Lois took Sam upstairs to change him and spend some one-on-one time with her youngest.

The younger kids were playing games like ‘Chutes and Ladders’ while Lara, Hattie and Jon played a kids version of Scrabble.

When playing games, Hattie had the same attitude that she had in karate class, take no prisoners and go for the kill.

Toward the end of the game she had a difficult assortment of letters and only saw one possible move. She placed her tile.

Jon said, “Hey, that’s not a legitimate word. You can’t use that!”

Hattie said, “Let’s see.” She pulled out her pad computer and surfed to a dictionary site. She typed in her word and searched. She found an entry and showed it to Jon.

CHUMPY

Use 1 — Chumpy Adj , state of being

Use 2 — Chumpy vb,

Def.: being or acting like a chump

Ex. 1: He was a chumpy man.

Ex 2.: She was being chumpy.

Jon said, “Let me see that.”

Hattie handed over her pad computer and Jon looked at the entry. He said, “Hey, this isn’t Webster’s! This is more like Wiki! People can add anything they want. He scrolled to the bottom of the entry and let out a groan.

Lara asked, “Hey, Bro, what’s the problem?”

Jon handed the pad to her and pointed to the bottom.

Lara read, “Contributor — Lois Lane”

The end, for now

Table of Contents

Game Night — Matchmaker Chronicle Volume 1C — C