The Death and Life of Superman Read Free Page B

come yet?”
    “I haven’t checked.”
    Jonathan opened the door to the back porch, and a brown-paper-wrapped package toppled in onto the floor. “Jehoshaphat! What’s this?”
    He turned the package over. There were no postal or delivery service markings, but a small envelope had been taped to one side. Jonathan fished out a note.
    “Martha, it’s from our boy! ‘Dear Ma and Pa, I saw this when I was in Tokyo and thought you might like it. Sorry I couldn’t stop in, but I had to get back to the city. All my love, Clark.’ ” Jonathan handed the package to his wife. “Here, you open it!”
    Martha carefully pried loose the package’s sealing tape with the corner of one fingernail and slowly unfolded the brown paper. “Oh, Jonathan, look! It’s a framed watercolor of . . . what’s that mountain?”
    “Mount Fuji, as I live and breathe! I visited it when I was in Japan on leave, back during the war. You remember, I brought back that postcard. Oh, but this is a real beauty!” He looked at his wife, watching her start to tear up. “Almost as beautiful as you.”
    “You’re full of malarkey, Jonny Kent.” But as she said it, she smiled, and in that smile he saw the girl he’d first fallen in love with, all those years ago.
    “And you’re lull of salt water.” He handed her his bandanna. “Here, take this before you rust up on me!” It hasn’t always been an easy life, but it’s been a happy one for the most part, thought Jonathan. I’m glad we’ve shared it. He looked again at the watercolor. And I couldn’t love that son of ours more if he was really our own.
    The memory of the night they’d found him remained one of the most vivid in his recollection.
    It was November, and a big storm was blowing in out of the west. Martha and he had just secured the last of the shutters when it happened. A brilliant, dazzling light had shot across the sky, passing so low over the house that Martha had cried out in alarm. The light disappeared behind the barn, and there followed a low, echoing thud that reminded Jonathan of nothing so much as the impact of an unexploded mortar round.
    “Jonathan, was that—?”
    “A meteor! By gum, it had to be! It must’ve hit somewhere in the back forty! C’mon, Martha, let’s go see!”
    “Now? But the storm—”
    “From the feel of the wind, that storm’s gonna drop snow. If there’s an honest-to-god meteorite on our land, I want to know where before it gets buried. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
    But she did, of course. Martha was every bit as curious as her husband, and the two of them jumped into their old pickup and set out across the fields.
    They soon found the source of the mysterious light. In a remote section of their property, in the midst of a surprisingly shallow crater, sat what appeared to be a huge, glistening egg mounted onto a set of smoking metal fins.
    “Jonathan, what in the world is it?”
    “I don’t know. Looks almost as if it’s some kind of little rocket or satellite or something! Better stay clear, Martha.”
    “But . . . look, Jonathan!” Dark as the egg was, it was still translucent, and Martha could see signs of movement. “There’s something inside! Something alive!”
    “You think so? It’s awfully small. Maybe this is some sorta test craft?” Jonathan gingerly reached out to touch the smooth surface of the egg. “That’s funny . . . it’s cool. I read these things were supposed to get hot on reentry an’ . . . what the hey?!”
    The outer surface of the egg seemed to melt away beneath Jonathan’s hand, revealing its precious cargo within.
    “Oh! Ohhh, Jonathan! It’s a baby!” Martha pushed past her amazed husband and gathered the squirming newborn infant into her arms. “And so small! Those . . . those monsters! They put a poor little baby into a rocket ship! And then they shot him off to the moon or somewheres! What kind of people are they?”
    “Now, you be careful, Martha! We don’t know