Before, when she'd been at Metropolis High—and before that, at Hammond High in Coast City—she lived with the knowledge that she was, for all intents and purposes, a superior being. She was an Amazon princess, there only to learn of humanity—not to be a human herself. Now Diana looked at the people walking in and out of the school and realized that she was just as human as anyone else here. She wasn't the heir to a legendary destiny; she wasn't royalty. She was a normal girl, no better or more special than anyone else.
A group of girls walked up the steps to the school's front door. One of them tripped and skinned her knee. Diana saw a drop of blood on the girl's leg and paused for a moment. Inwardly, she sighed with relief. There was still one way in which she was better than the average teenager: she still had her powers.
Diana held her head up a little higher with mock-superiority and followed Clark toward the school.
Clark barely managed to get within a hundred feet of the building before a little blonde shape started running and yelling at him.
"Clark! Clark!"
Chloe came to an abrupt halt two feet in front of Clark, beaming.
Clark began to smile back, but nearly stopped when he saw her face. Something around her eyes; her mouth... it reminded him of Lois. Sometimes he forgot they were cousins. Clark forced a smile and hugged her. He was genuinely happy to see her, after all.
Chloe peered around Clark's side and saw Diana.
Clark noted the surprised frown on Chloe's face.
"Diana transferred to Smallville High this semester," he explained. "She's living with us at the farm for a while."
Diana gave a friendly wave from a distance.
Chloe shifted to the right, where Clark was blocking the view.
"She's staying with you guys?"
"Um... yeah. She didn't really have a place to go. She and her mom kind of had a falling out."
"Okay... um... cool then. We can always use more..."—Chloe glanced over at Diana again—"...really tall supermodels at this school."
Clark hastily tried to change the subject.
"Is Pete around?"
Chloe frowned again. "Um, no. He moved away to live with his mom in Wichita."
"What?! Why?"
"Who's Pete?" Diana asked as she walked up to meet them.
"Clark's only other friend in Smallville," Chloe said with a teasing look.
"Chloe! That's not true!" Clark said, slightly embarrassed. "I have other friends."
"Name one."
"...Well, there's Greg Arkin—"
"Who you and Pete stopped talking to back in 6th grade? Uh-huh. Keep going."
"Lana Lang."
"The head cheerleader you stared at from a mile away all of Freshman year? You wish."
"...Um... Sean Kelvin?"
"He's a complete douchebag and you've always hated him."
Clark rolled his eyes with exasperation. "Okay, so I really only hung out with you and Pete. Why'd he leave, anyway?"
Chloe scrunched up her face and looked away awkwardly. "He professed his love for me and I told him I just wanted to be friends."
"...Oh. And I guess since he didn't have any other friends around here either, there wasn't much reason for him to stay."
"Yeah."
"So... what've you been doing since he's been gone? I don't remember you having too many other friends either."
"Funny you should ask," she said with a grin. "I've made a ton of new additions to the Wall of Weird."
"The what?" Diana asked.
"You'll see," Clark said.
Chloe led them into the school and down the hall towards the office of the Smallville Torch—Smallville High's school paper.
"Wait a second," Diana said, staring at the name on the office's main desk. "You're the EIC of your school's paper too? Just like your cousin?"
"Are you kidding me?" Chloe said flippantly. "I'm the one who gave her the idea. She was all 'I'm gonna be an Army girl!' before I told her I wanted to work for the Daily Planet, and then she was all 'I'm gonna be a reporter!'" Chloe's face saddened a little. "...but I guess she made a better reporter than... than I..."
Clark interrupted. "So! You were talking about the Wall?"
"Right!" Chloe said, snapping out of her thoughts. She led them to the office's darkroom—which went completely unused, this being the digital age after all—and flipped on the light. An entire wall of the tiny space was covered in taped-up newspaper clipping and photos. Diana glanced over some of the headlines:
"MAN LOSES FINGER ON LEFT HAND; GAINS ONE ON RIGHT."
"BLIND BOY GAINS EYESIGHT; LOSES HEARING."
"TEENAGER DISAPPEARS DURING METEOR SHOWER; REAPPEARS TWELVE YEARS LATER WITHOUT AGING."
"FLYING GOATS?"
"So, basically," Chloe explained, "there was a meteor shower here twelve years ago. After that, things in Smallville got... weird. Freaky mutations, mysterious disappearances, everything you can think of."
"Have you ever actually seen any of these... 'weird' things?"
"Well it's not like they just parade around," Chloe said indignantly, "but you can see all the evidence here. It's just too big to ignore."
The bell rang.
"We'd better go," Clark said to Diana. "Meet you for lunch?" he asked Chloe.
"Sure!" Chloe replied, her face beaming again.
Diana whispered to Clark once they got into the hall. "So, is she just crazy, or are there really mutant people running around Smallville?"
"Well, I'm an alien and you're an Amazon, so I figure we should give her the benefit of the doubt."
"A C?!? HOW IS THIS A C, MISS DESMOND?!"
The other students in classroom looked at each other with bewilderment. Their in-class writing assignment had been tough, and Miss Desmond was known for her harsh (and quick) grading, but Gina's response seemed a little disproportionate.
"A C is what that paragraph deserved, Miss Halley," Ms. Desmond replied.
"You spent literally ten seconds reading it!"
"I read fast, and it wasn't hard to grade. It's mid-level work at best. Now take your seat."
The bell rang. Gina stormed back to pick up her bag and left.
Clark and Diana left the classroom and met Chloe outside.
"Something wrong with Gina?" Chloe asked, watching as Gina practically stomped her feet down the hallway.
"She completely blew up in there," Clark said. "Miss Desmond gave her a C on an in-class writing assignment."
"Eeeesh. No wonder she's mad."
"Is she known for doing that?" Diana asked.
"Gina's one of the top students at the school," Chloe explained. "Perfect 4.0 GPA. Also a type-A bitch queen, but she's never blown up before."
"I hope she's okay," Clark said concernedly.
Diana smiled at his empathy. Chloe interpreted Diana's smile as "oh, it's funny how you actually care about the little peasant-people."
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