Superman: Dawnbreaker (DC Icons #4)(13)

But today was no ordinary Saturday. Clark had been involved in the biggest news story of the day, and Lana hated being out of the loop.

“I take it you heard about the helicopter crash,” he said.

“Of course I heard about the helicopter crash,” she told him. “I hear about everything that happens in this town. You know that.”

Clark did. If some freshman kid cheated on his girlfriend at a party, Lana knew. If a herd of hogs got loose on a local farm, Lana knew. Once she even found out that Clark’s dad had been invited to be a panelist at an agriculture and livestock conference at Kansas State before he did.

“Okay, but first,” he told her, “you won’t believe how I got here today.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You didn’t walk?”

He shook his head. “This guy named Lex drove me here in a fancy red sports car. Bryan Mankins was with him.”

“Bryan Mankins?” Lana shouted. “The kid who’s barely said two words to anyone since he showed up last month?”

Clark nodded, putting a finger to his lips. Two older ladies were frowning at them from the stacks just outside their quiet room. But his gesture didn’t do much to stifle Lana’s enthusiasm.

“You know he got kicked out of his boarding school, right?” she went on at the same volume.

“Really? What’d he do?”

“Nobody knows.” Lana shook her head. “And it’s not like he’s a willing source.”

Clark wondered what Bryan could have done. Maybe it was something really serious. “Bryan was the one piloting the helicopter that crashed on our farm,” Clark said in a softer voice, hoping Lana would take the hint. “I think the storm caused him to lose control or something. Luckily, they landed in the mud and nobody was hurt.”

“The article I read didn’t give any names.” Lana had lowered her voice. “I bet his dad made some calls to keep his son’s name out of the paper. Anyone with him?”

“Bryan’s older brother, Corey. And some scientist named Dr. Wesley.”

“Dr. Wesley,” Lana muttered to herself. “Dr. Wesley. Why does that name sound so familiar?” She leaned toward Clark. “And why were they flying over your property in the first place?”

Clark shrugged. “They claimed to be taking atmospheric measurements.”

Lana laughed out loud. “Likely story.”

“You don’t buy it.” Clark knew it was a little odd. But the Mankins Corporation had made a fortune by being on the cutting edge of modern-day farming. The company had recently developed a top-secret “miracle” mineral that radically affected crop growth. And all the family-owned farms that were using Mankins’s genetically engineered seeds were reporting record harvests. So it didn’t seem implausible that Mankins might be taking atmospheric measurements of some kind.

Lana sat back. “Look, I get it. Mankins has done a lot of good in this community.”

“But…”

Lana stared at the table for a few seconds before looking up at Clark. “Do you ever wonder if the company is, like, a little too good to be true? I mean, Mankins is buying up a shit ton of family farms. Shouldn’t we be asking why?”

Clark leaned back in his chair. “You sound like my dad. He wonders what kind of chemicals Mankins might be dumping into our water.”

“A good reporter doesn’t take anything for granted.” Lana began pulling textbooks out of her bag, but Clark knew this conversation was far from over. “Now, let’s hear about this crash,” she said.

Clark gave Lana a play-by-play of the entire incident, leaving out, of course, the part where he’d caught the chopper with his bare hands and wrestled it to the ground. When he’d finished talking, she asked, “So, you basically rescued these guys from a burning helicopter?”

“I helped Bryan out of the cockpit, but that’s about it. Nothing was burning. Just a little smoke.”

“Work with me, Clark. This would make such a great lead story for the last paper of the school year: ‘Local Heartthrob Saves Three from Exploding Chopper.’?”

Clark laughed to mask his embarrassment. Lana had a knack for coming up with silly headlines like that. But did she really think of him as a “heartthrob”?

“You’re getting dangerously close to fake news,” he told her. “Honestly, I was just in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place. However you wanna see it. The point is, me and my dad were able to call in the crash, and they sent out Deputy Rogers and an ambulance and this special tow truck. Luckily, everyone was okay.”

Lana was shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you saved Bryan Mankins. You probably have a job waiting for you when you graduate.”

Clark laughed. “My dad said that, too.” Clark shook his head as he pulled his psychology book out of his bag and set it in front of him. He didn’t open it. “Anyway, me and Bryan are hanging out tomorrow.”

“Wait, what?”

His eyes met Lana’s. “Yeah. We’re going to All-American. The two of us and that guy Lex, who drove me here.”

“You’re going to dinner with Bryan? Clark, you buried the lede. We have so many questions for him.”

“?‘We’?” Clark couldn’t help smiling.