The Eyes Of Kid Midas

'What are you gonna do if she says no?'

Kevin grinned a grin as big as all outdoors. 'How could she resist a man in shades?' He put his glasses back on. They hugged his ears and nose, no longer slipping off, as if his head had swelled to fit them . . . or as if they had sized themselves down to make a perfect match with Kevin's face.

With the glasses firmly stuck on Kevin's face, Josh was quick to catch on.

'Hold it!' said Josh. 'Hold it a second. You're not planning to . . . you know . . . use the glasses on Nicole, are you, Kevin?'

Kevin's all-outdoor smile seemed to wrap itself halfway around his head. 'Do you dare me to?'

'No!' said Josh. 'I definitely do not dare you to!'

Kevin shrugged. 'Okay, then, I dare myself.'

Josh shook his head. 'I liked you better when you were a gutless wonder who got beaten up all the time.'

'Aw, c'mon, Josh, if you were me you'd be doing the same thing!'

'No. If I were you,' said Josh as he got up to leave, 'I'd be scared. Real scared.'

 ***

Nicole Patterson was part of an eternal trio that also included Iris Beecham and Alexa Macolini. They might as well have been born attached at the hip.

The three of them, like all the other girls in school, were in love with Dash Kaminsky. Kevin imagined that he was all they talked about when they sat down at lunchtime.

Kevin approached and cleared his throat. 'Hey, ya wanna see a magic trick?' The three girls turned to him as he approached.

'Not really,' said Iris.

'It's a good one ...'

'Does it involve pulling your finger?' asked Alexa.

'No, nothing like that,' said Kevin. 'I hold in my hand an ordinary...' He looked down, then bent to pull up some sod. 'An ordinary lump of dirt—but watch closely.'

Kevin closed his fist on the dirt. The girls watched, but only because there was nothing better to do.

'I say the magic words,' said Kevin. 'Abracadabra—'

'Is this lame, or what?' Iris sneered.

'Shut up. This trick needs total concentration.'

'Kevin,' said Nicole, 'I don't know if anyone has told you this, but you are truly weird.'

'Abracadabra, hocus pocus, alakazam,' said Kevin. 'And presto, this clump of dirt is now a diamond.'

Kevin opened his palm to reveal a small blue diamond that sparkled coolly in the sun.

The girls stared. 'How'd you do that?' asked Alexa.

'I know how he did it,' said Nicole. 'He tricked us by making us look somewhere else while he switched the dirt for the diamond. It's called misdirection.'

'Yeah,' said Kevin, closing his fist. 'But now the diamond is at the bottom of Iris's Coke. How did it get there?'

Kevin opened his palm and the diamond was gone. Iris shook her Coke and something was, indeed, down there. She guzzled it all the way down until she came up with a diamond between her front teeth. She spit it into her palm and studied it. It was the same diamond.

'Yeah, Nicole, how did it get there?' asked Alexa.

And then, Nicole Patterson uttered a phrase Kevin never believed he'd ever hear her say:

'I don't know.'

Kevin smiled and reached behind her ear.

'Another diamond,' he said, pulling it out from the strands of her auburn hair. 'For you.'

He held it out to Nicole with such unashamed sincerity that Iris and Alexa had to break out in wicked laughter. Nicole, now poised on the jagged edge of sheer embarrassment, pushed Kevin's hand away.

'I don't want your dumb diamond,' said Nicole. 'I just want to know how the other one got into Iris's Coke.' 'Yeah,' said Alexa, 'how did it get there?'

'A magician never tells,' said Kevin smugly.

'Hey,' said Iris, 'he's a magic midget!' The others giggled.

Kevin stiffened and bit his lip, but he refused to be humiliated. Not when he had come this far.

The school bell rang, echoing off the handball court across the field. Kevin was running out of time. If he was going to do something, he'd have to do it soon.

Iris pocketed her diamond. 'It's probably plastic, anyhow.' And the matter was closed. The girls shoved their sandwich wrappers into their lunch bags and prepared to go inside.

'Wait,' said Kevin. 'I need to talk to you, Nicole.'

'About what?' asked Iris.

'Uh . . . It's private.'

Iris and Alexa looked at each other and began to snicker.

'Oh!' said Iris. 'That kind of talk.'

'Will you two shut up?' said Nicole.

'No,' said Iris. 'That's okay, we'll leave you two alone!'

'No, wait!' Nicole said desperately, but it was too late. Iris ran off with Alexa, both of them finding this unbearably funny. Nicole turned to Kevin. 'Great. You've just ruined my life. Now the whole school is going to think I actually like you.'

'Well, don't you like me?' Kevin dared to ask. 'I mean . . . just a little bit?'

No answer. Kevin tried again.

'Well . . . you don't hate me, do you?'

'No,' Nicole had to admit, 'I don't hate you.'

Kevin smiled. It was a start. Most of the kids had filtered back into the school. In a few moments they would be completely alone.

'Kevin, this is too weird,' said Nicole. 'I gotta go.' As she turned to leave, Kevin tried to stop her by grabbing her shoulder. Instead, he got his hand tangled in her long hair.

'Ow! Stop it! That hurts!'

'Sorry.' This wasn't going as smoothly as Kevin had planned. The second bell rang, and the school's steel doors closed with a heavy echoing thud.

'Listen,' said Nicole, 'why don't we both just go to class and pretend this never happened, okay?'

'First,' said Kevin, 'I want you to look me straight in the eye and tell me you don't like me.'

Nicole stared straight into Kevin's glasses and said, 'Kevin, I...'

But Kevin didn't let her finish.

'You like me!' said Kevin, and the glasses began to hum. The lenses went dark, and Kevin saw colors swimming in Nicole's eyes. She was frozen, hypnotized; trapped in the invisible web Kevin had spun with his glasses.

'You like me better than any other boy in school...' Kevin swore he could see right through her eyes. He could feel his mind spilling through into hers.

'You want to go out with me more than anything else in the world....'

Nicole just stood there, unable to speak or move. Kevin could feel the glasses begin to strain. It seemed for an instant that the sun itself dimmed as the glasses pulled in all the energy they could, to move Nicole's mind. A circle of fine frost appeared on the grass around them, and they were surrounded by a pocket of frigid air.

Then it was over. The glasses rested, the cold air blew away, and Kevin, standing alone in the field with a dazed Nicole Patterson, dared to do the unimaginable. He pushed himself up on his tiptoes, leaned forward, and planted on Nicole Patterson's lips the most remarkable kiss on school record.

In spite of the devious, underhanded way Kevin had brought this moment about, his kiss was from the heart. It was the kiss he had always wished he could give Nicole.

When Kevin pulled away, Nicole just stared at him, lost in whatever place it is people get lost in when they've just received such an intensely sincere kiss. But then her lips began to curl, and her eyebrows furrowed. She shivered and blinked; shaking off the spell, snapping out of the trance.