A Bad Day For Superman

• Camerron Dodds, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2012

Clark Smith had known all along that he was different, found in a ruined, burning house, inside a luminescent glass ball. He was then adopted by the rescue worker who found him, Bruce Smith. Bruce had named Clark after Superman’s alter-ego Clark Kent, and, all along had raised him to be like superman. Clark even had superpowers, not like superman, he certainly was as strong as superman, but was not nearly as muscular, he was fast, but only because he teleported, he could fly, but only because he launched himself off a catapult, and who needs to leap tall buildings in a single bound anyway. He was incredibly tough, in fact dynamite in his mouth would only have dislocated his jaw, broke a couple of teeth, given him a blood nose, and severely bruised the rest of his mouth and face.
Like superman, he was unpopular in school, but he wasn’t nerdy or overly intelligent in class, in truth he more often than not accidentally broke things, lost things or hurt people. He was the dread of all teachers. High school was even worse, he made explosions in chemistry; damaged things and other people in manual arts, cooking, most of the other sciences and PE; and lost things in every other class. The only advantage to his life was his teleportation, he could teleport anywhere that he could picture in his mind, even if he could only picture one thing he would teleport on top of it, although sometimes he teleported in it, usually breaking it. His adoptive father had always told him not to show other people his powers, and so no-one but Clark and Bruce knew. However after one particularly bad day at school, everything changed.
Clark had had another terrible day at school, the school bullies had been giving it their all, and everyone else had avoided him so as not to attract attention. However for Clark the bullying was even worse than for others, because he, as well as having to cope with it, also had to refrain from hitting the bullies, because he would probably get a criminal sentence, being so strong. At lunch that day in particular the bullying was bad. One of the bullies knocked him over “Get up Clark, fight like the half a man you are,” Clark was almost shaking with his suppressed fury as the taunts grew worse. Finally his control snapped, the largest of the bullies had just said, “heard you were found in a ruined house, why was that? Did your parents suicide and fail to take you with them?” at this taunt Clark turned around, all his fury released. “You want to know why I don’t fight! Well here’s one reason!” and on the last syllable he punched, the particular bully he hit flew through most of the school buildings, crashing through the administration block, the boys and girls toilets, the sports block and 3 of the classroom blocks. Clark turned to the other bullies “do any of you want any other reasons?” he asked pleasantly. Suddenly everyone seemed to disappear as they rushed into the classrooms and library, out of the open. Clark regarded it all calmly “good” was his only response. Suddenly he heard the sounds of sirens, and although they couldn’t hurt him, he didn’t want Bruce to find out about it, so he decided to teleport home. However when he arrived the house was already surrounded by cars, all journalists and emergency services people, the house had caught fire. Panicking Clark rememberedg that today had been Bruce’s day off and not seeing him in the crowd Clark teleported inside. Just as he got there the house collapsed, Bruce was nowhere to be seen. After a quick decision Clark teleported, his aim was to teleport right next to Bruce, but his concentration was bad after his terrible day. When he arrived at his destination a spray of gore filled the air, Clark had teleported to where Bruce was, exactly where he was, and bits of Bruce had filled the room, flinging out from Clark’s gore covered body.
Clark Dissapeared.