Again Kevin threw up his hands and pulled down the lightning, much more violently than before. Now it was time for the grand finale. He pointed his finger at a tree directly in front of him. 'There!' he said, and as he did, a fat, sizzling bolt shot down from the sky, hit the tree dead center, and split it in two with a deafening roar.
The colors swirling before his eyes settled down as the glasses awaited their next command—but Kevin had had enough for now. He let the colors fade and the glasses wash clear once more. He took off the glasses and admired his masterpiece raging in the clouds all around them. 'So, how did you like that?' Kevin asked. He turned to see Josh crumpled in a ball, shaking, with his hands over his head as if it were the end of the world.
'Make it go away!' he wailed as the storm continued to build.
'Ah, don't be so gutless.' Kevin pushed the glasses farther up on his nose and reached up his hands 'No more lightning,' he said.
A moment later, lightning struck again.
'I said make it stop!' yelled Josh.
'I'm trying!' Kevin threw up his hands and called out in his most powerful voice, 'No more storm!'
But neither the glasses nor the sky seemed to listen. The wind blew, the lightning crashed, and the clouds kept bubbling slowly outward.
'What's wrong?'
'I don't know! I don't know, it's not working anymore!' Small drops of rain began to fall on them, and then the clouds ruptured like a water balloon, letting loose a downpour the likes of which the mountain had never seen.
'Let's get out of here!' Josh yelled over the roar of thunder. They ran from the clearing just a moment before it was blasted by lightning.
The camping trip was ruined. When the lightning started, everyone raced for the vans. Kevin and Josh were the last to arrive. For a half hour, everyone huddled in the vans, filled with a weird sort of excitement, as they wondered whether or not they were all going to die in a flash flood. The kids who had done the rain dance earlier that day proudly claimed responsibility.
After an hour, it became clear that waiting out the storm was more dangerous than driving through it, and so the teachers ventured out to collect what was left of the tents. The rain was still coming down in sheets when the vans crawled out of the campsite.
Kevin leaned his head against the cold window and wiped the fog off the glass. As they put more distance between them and the Divine Watch, the thunder began to chase the lightning, falling farther and farther behind with each flash. Kevin had to smile. To think that this was all his doing!
'There's nothing funny about it,' said Josh. And that's all he had to say. On Josh's video game, fighter jets bombed Godzilla. By his score, Kevin could tell Josh really wasn't concentrating.
Only fifteen minutes after the bus had left the Divine Watch, they finally passed out of the storm, and the normal, comfortable chaos filled the van. Kevin was not a part of it. He felt far away. As numb as the chilling rain. As smooth as the surface of his glasses.
'I know why I couldn't stop the storm,' Kevin told Josh, when they were well away from the Divine Watch.
'Why?'
'I don't think the glasses can reverse what I've asked them to do; they can't
'So is it going to rain there forever?'
Kevin shrugged. 'I guess.'
'You guess?' said Josh. 'You turn a mountain into a rain forest, and all you can say is I guess'?'
Kevin didn't know what else to say to Josh, so instead he pushed the glasses up snugly on his face and reached out his hand. 'Hey, Josh?'
Josh turned to Kevin, and Kevin touched the piece of gauze on Josh's cheek that covered the cut he got when they fell from the mountain.
'Heal,' whispered Kevin. He imagined the cut on Josh's face gone and then slowly peeled off the bandage. There was no sign Josh had ever been cut at all.
'See, Josh? The glasses can do good things, too. It just depends on how you want to use them.' Josh still didn't say anything. 'So, are we still friends?' asked Kevin.
Josh looked at Kevin and thought for a moment. He reached out, took the glasses off Kevin's face, and put them in Kevin's jacket pocket, zipping the pocket completely closed.
'Of course we're still friends,' he said.
Kevin felt the glasses bulging in his jacket, and for a moment he wanted to feel their weight on the bridge of his nose again—but his head was beginning to ache just a bit, and he figured they should stay in his pocket for a while.
Behind them the storm faded on the horizon until it was out of sight and out of mind. Two girls in the front were glancing at Kevin and laughing about the way his face had gotten sunburned everywhere except around his eyes—but it was all right. It didn't matter what anyone said or did to him now. Because now, Kevin was finally in control.
6
BETTER HOMES AND HEADACHES
It was the usual Monday morning madhouse.
Downstairs the TV blared, and the dog was barking nonstop. In the master bedroom, the electric razor buzzed as Patrick Midas, Kevin's father, made his magical transition from stubble-bearded bum into clean-shaven businessman. In the hall bathroom, Teri Midas, Kevin's fourteen-year-old sister, blasted a radio while blasting her wet head with hot air. And, as if all this noise wasn't enough, Monday was trash day.
Kevin cringed in bed as a metal garbage can rang out like a broken bell. No doubt trash collectors' pay was based on how much noise they could make.
'Avalanches!' said Donna Midas, Kevin's mom. 'Avalanches and rainstorms!' She violently shook a thermometer and crammed it into Kevin's mouth. 'Avalanches, rainstorms, and camping trips! You're going to kill me one of these days, Kevin, you know that?'
Kevin knew he didn't have a fever, but he did have a splitting headache and no intention of going to school today.
'I warned you not to overexert yourself,' she said. 'But does Kevin Brian Midas listen to anyone but himself? No!—and don't you dare talk! The last thing I need is for you to bite that thermometer and die of mercury poisoning.'
She glanced at her watch. 'Late again,' she muttered as she hurried out of the room.
The second she was gone, Kevin ran over to his desk, grabbed his glasses out of the top drawer, and put them on.
'Great shades,' said Teri as she passed by with a toothbrush in her mouth. 'Where'd you steal 'em?'
'I didn't steal them, I found them,' said Kevin, around his thermometer.
Teri frothed at the mouth. 'I'll tell you what. If you let me borrow them for a couple of days, I'll convince Mom that you're sick enough to stay home.'
'No deal.'
Teri shrugged and sauntered off. 'Suit yourself.'
Kevin heard her spit in the bathroom sink. Teri, by being the smallest yet toughest field-hockey goalie Ridgeline Middle School had ever seen, had developed a callous self-confidence, and she often used it to make Kevin feel uncomfortable. She would glance at him with a smirk, and the mere glance would make Kevin wonder if he had two different socks on or if his fly were open. She would say things like 'Suit yourself' and saunter off as if she
