The first week of school passed without any incidents. Clark let Martha take him too and from school with no complaints, and he came home excitedly talking about the things he did with Pete. He usually didn't talk much about what happened in class, though Martha talked to Nell and said that was normal. Apparently, Lana never reported much about what actually happened in school, either.

On the first day of the second week, though, Jonathan was coming into the house for lunch and saw Martha speaking on the phone, her eyebrows knitted.

"But did he do it on purpose? . . . Well, was there any sort of fight? . . . Of course, I understand . . . we'll be right there."

She hung up, and Jonathan raised his eyebrows. "What's going on?"

"Clark pushed another boy on the playground. The other boy fell—"

"Is he alright?"

"He's fine. Just scraped up his elbow a little. The yard duty didn't see them arguing or fighting, but she said Clark pushed him too hard for it to have been an accident."

Jonathan let out his breath and hung his head. "Little guy got competitive."

"That's what it sounds like to me. I think you need to have a talk with him."

Jonathan would have been naive to think his days of having to reprimand his son were over, even if it had been awhile, but he still hated doing it. "I was just about to get started on afternoon chores. Think you can pick up the slack for me if I go pick him up?"

"Even if I couldn't—" Martha kissed him on the cheek— "our baby comes first."

Jonathan nodded and picked up his jacket. He paced his breathing and drove to the school, thinking about what he was going to say the whole way over.

He walked to the principal's office and found Clark sitting on a chair beside the secretary's desk. The secretary was tapping away at her keyboard and only glanced up briefly when Jonathan came in. Clark's head was lowered, and big tears streamed down both cheeks.

Jonathan cleared his throat, and the secretary looked up at him.

"Am I okay to take him home?" he asked.

"The principal already spoke with Mrs. Kent on the phone, so yes. You can take him."

Jonathan nodded and turned to Clark, kneeling down in front of his chair.

Clark cringed. "I'm sorry, Daddy! I'm sorry!"

Jonathan hoped to God whatever Clark had done had truly been an accident. Scolding was going to be impossible enough; he couldn't imagine having to actually punish his child like this. "Let's talk about this when we get to the truck."

"Noooo! I'm sorry!"

"Obey me, please." Jonathan kept his voice both gentle and firm, and he held out his hand, wondering if Martha should have been the one to come for their son.

Clark sniffled and placed his hand in his father's, and they walked out to the truck. Clark let out a few soft sobs on the way.

As soon as they were in the car, Clark curled up in the passenger seat, burying his face in his knees.

"Look at me, son."

"I'm sorry!" Clark peeked one eye out to look at Jonathan.

"I'm not angry with you. I just want to know what happened."

"I was—" Clark pushed himself up to sit up straighter— "I was playing with Pete and Greg, and they wanted to race up the jungle gym, only I know I'm not s'posed to race, but I though I could let Pete win and just beat Greg, 'cause you said if I had to race to just let them win most of the time, but I thought I pushed him lightly, but then he fell and got hurt and I'm so so sorry Daddy, please don't—please—" Clark burst into tears again.

Jonathan frowned. Clark loved to please and didn't like to be in trouble, but he'd never seen Clark quite this afraid of him. He wasn't sure what Clark thought he was going to do. "Take a deep breath, little guy."

Clark took a couple of shallow breaths, but went back to sobbing within a few seconds.

Jonathan sighed. "You didn't do it on purpose."

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"But I was racing. You said not to race."

"I know, I did." He realized that that was probably an unreasonable request to make of a five-year-old. Little boys raced. They wrestled, and they roughhoused. It was just what they did.

Clark couldn't avoid it forever, and Jonathan didn't want him to have to. He was a kid. Maybe Jonathan could practice with him, teach him the right amount of strength to use.

Right now, though, he was more concerned about why Clark was so afraid. "Son, what's got you so upset?"

"I—I wanna g-go to P-pete's birthday partyyy-yy," he sobbed.

"What party?"

Clark reached down into his backpack and pulled out a wrinkled envelope that had been ripped open. Jonathan took the card out of the envelope—it was an invitation to a party the following Sunday.

"You think I'm not gonna let you go?"

"P-pete said if I got in troub-ble y-you might not let me," Clark whimpered.

"Oh, come here, little guy." Jonathan pushed the driver's seat back and opened his arms.

Clark crawled into them. His hands clung to the front of Jonathan's shirt just like they did when he was upset as a toddler.

Jonathan gently rubbed his back and kissed the top of his head. "Son," he said softly, "if you'd pushed Greg on purpose, I probably would have kept you home from the party. But you didn't mean to hurt anyone. You tried to do what I asked. You just made a mistake."

"A-are the bad scientiss gonna find out?"

"No, they won't," Jonathan pulled in his son a little closer. Gentleness came naturally; he had to remind himself that he could embrace tightly without fear of harming his son, that a tighter embrace might be more comforting.

"G-greg was b-bleedi-ing," Clark sobbed.

"Oh, son." Jonathan adjusted him on his lap and wiped away his tears with his fingers, even though they were still coming. This had been a traumatic experience for Clark on so many levels. They needed to make sure this didn't happen again—not by making Clark scared of himself, but by giving him the confidence to know how to play with other kids at an appropriate level. "Greg is going to be okay. Kids trip and fall sometimes."

"Not me," he whispered.

"No, not you. But this weekend, I'm going to help you make sure this doesn't happen again, okay?"

Clark nodded and rubbed his eyes. "Okay."

Jonathan sat with Clark in his lap for a few more minutes before taking him back home. Clark was smiling shyly by the time he was home and his mother took him into her arms.

----------------------------------------

The next Saturday afternoon, Jonathan took Clark to the school playground. It was deserted, as he had hoped it would be.

He took Clark over to the jungle gym and told him to try climbing up as fast as he could, out of curiosity. It took Clark less than a second, and Jonathan frowned and came over to look at the bars—a couple were bent. Clark gasped and bent then back to the way they were before.

Jonathan suppressed a chuckle. "Okay, now try climbing as fast as you think your friends climb."

Clark did, and Jonathan was impressed. He looked just like an ordinary kid.

"Okay," he said. "Come on down."

Clark jumped to the tanbark.

"Oh! No, son, your friends would get hurt if they jumped from that height."

"I know. I just did it because it's just you here."

Jonathan nodded. "Good thinking."

They went through each of the other play areas: the swings, the monkey bars, the basketball hoops, the dodge balls. Jonathan was impressed—in just the first week of school, Clark had managed to learn how to imitate how everyone else played. He was capable of swinging high enough that he looped over; his super speed worked for monkey bars; he could make any basket; he could throw a ball at any speed, to any height. But he played on the swings like a normal kid, he told Jonathan that he didn't do the monkey bars because most of the other kindergarteners couldn't, he missed most baskets on purpose, and he could throw a dodge ball lightly toward Jonathan. His aim was too good, but it didn't feel suspicious to Jonathan.

After that, Jonathan suggested they try a game of tag. Jonathan knew he himself would be a lot faster than a typical five-year-old, but his speed was closer to a five-year-old's than to Clark's. He was impressed by how long Clark stayed behind him before calling "Tag!"

Then Clark reached up and smacked him on the forearm. Hard enough that Jonathan had to clench his teeth to keep from shouting.

Jonathan didn't want to let on that he was hurt—Clark felt guilty enough about Greg. Instead, Jonathan slowed to a stop and knelt down in front of Clark. He held up a hand. "Try again. Tag me, a little gentler."

Clark gave him a high five. This time, it was light enough that it only stung mildly, but it would have hurt a five-year-old.

"Gentler."

Clark gave him a light tap.

"There you go. You never touch anyone any harder than that."

"Oh! Okay."

Jonathan tousled his hair. "Now, let's say one of your friends wants to wrestle."

"I'm not supposed to wrestle, right?"

"Okay, but if they do try to tackle you, you need to know how hard you can push back." Jonathan was probably never going to let him play sports competitively, but he couldn't keep him out of P.E., and playing in general was a part of being a kid. Not to mention if anyone ever tried to bully Clark, he needed to know how much was appropriate to defend himself. "I want you to try to tackle me to the ground without hurting me."

Clark very, very gently started pushing on Jonathan's shoulders.

Jonathan pushed him back, and Clark didn't put up any resistance. "Hey, you can be a little stronger than that."

This time, Clark wiggled and squirmed a bit. He laughed as he did—he'd probably never played like this before.

Jonathan tried to mimic how strong he thought a five-year-old might be; it would have taken effort to push Clark down, but it wasn't impossible. Finally, he gave out and let Clark push him to the concrete. The motion was a little smoother than it should have been, but the amount of strength felt about right, and nothing seemed wildly out of the ordinary.

Jonathan jumped up and swept Clark into his arms, tickling him. Clark shrieked with laughter.

"Great job, little guy. How does ice cream sound?"

"Really?"

"Really."

"Yay!" Clark wrapped his arms around his father and squeezed hard.

Jonathan gasped. "It's a little tight, buddy."

Clark loosened his grip. "Sorry."

Jonathan frowned—it had actually been comforting to feel his child's strength. "Um, you know what? It's a little tight for your other friends your age, but it's okay for me."

"Oh! Okay." Clark tightened his hold again, and Jonathan smiled.