The Eyes Of Kid Midas

'Oh, for God's sake, it's three in the morning!'

She peered at him in the darkness. Maybe there was enough light for her to see the trouble painted on his face. He had taken the glasses off, leaving them on his desk again, away from the outlet. He wondered if he looked as weak as he felt. It's all wrong, he thought. I shouldn't have to wear those stupid glasses just to feel good. I used to be able to feel good without them. But he couldn't even remember what that had been like.

'Is this about Nicole?' asked Teri. 'You know she likes you.'

Kevin nodded. He knew that now. He had figured out that the glasses didn't control Nicole's mind because they didn't have to—she had already liked him. Of course that didn't mean she had to admit it—not even to herself. But that was screwed up now, too.

'It's about a whole lot of things,' said Kevin. 'I'm . . . I'm in trouble, Teri.'

Teri stared at him, studying him for the longest time.

'Something's really wrong, isn't it?' she whispered.

Kevin nodded.

'Climb aboard.' Teri tossed him her favorite pillow, and Kevin hopped onto the end of her bed, sitting with his knees tucked into his chest. True, much of the time Teri was a general nuisance to Kevin, but that was only part of her job as his big sister. This was the other part.

'Tell me,' said Teri. 'Tell me everything.'

'You won't believe me.'

But the look on her face said that she would. No matter how crazy or awful his secret was.

'If it's the truth, then I'll know,' she said. Then she added, 'But if you woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me a lie, I'll beat the crap out of you.'

She took his foot in her hands and began rubbing it, to get it warm.

Kevin told her everything, from the beginning, and even though it was the word of her crazy brother against the rest of the sane, rational world, Teri did the most wonderful thing a sister could ever do. She chose to believe her brother.

It was nearly dawn when Kevin was done. Teri didn't say anything. She just sat there, staring at him. Then she finally said, 'We have to do some serious thinking.'

'Can I stay with you tonight?'

Kevin hadn't asked that since he was six, yet somehow he didn't feel ashamed to ask her now. He didn't think Teri would let him leave, anyway. He doubted she wanted to be alone, either.

'As long as you don't snore,' she said, then changed her mind. 'Naah. You can snore as much as you want.'

They lay on the bed, stretched out in opposite directions, but neither one of them slept. Soon early dawn washed the room gray, and Kevin could hear his father getting ready for his morning run.

On his way downstairs Patrick Midas passed by Teri's open door, and stopped when he caught sight of Kevin there. Teri pretended to be asleep, but Kevin didn't. He stared right at his father.

Mr. Midas stood on the threshold for a moment, as if he were about to speak. Kevin wanted him to speak—to say anything. If I told Teri, thought Kevin, I could tell him, too. Whether he believed me or not, at least he'd have to do something. Anything.

Mr. Midas lingered by the door for a moment, then turned away. Kevin could hear him bounding down the stairs and out the door.

'He didn't even ask what I'm doing in here,' whispered Kevin. 'He knows something's wrong, but he didn't even ask.' Kevin couldn't remember the last time either of his parents wanted to know anything. They didn't ask about his recent mood swings, or what he spent his time thinking about. They didn't ask about the bursts of energy and hours of weariness that had filled his life since he found the glasses. They rarely seemed to notice when Kevin was out of whack, and when they did notice, they would write it off as if it were nothing.

'If I were strangling to death, Mom would shove spoons of Robitussin down my throat to make it all better,' Kevin told Teri. 'If I were drowning, Dad would say, 'No pain, no gain.' They never ask what's really going on. Don't they even care?'

'They care,' whispered Teri. 'But they won't ask because they're afraid of the answer.'

11 LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

Kirkpatrick was back in school on Monday, as Josh Wilson had hoped.

Josh had avoided Kevin like the plague all weekend, and on that Monday morning he didn't wait for Kevin to show up at his door. He left early because he needed time to think things through without Kevin.... Kevin was getting creepy, and there were things going through Josh's mind that he wouldn't dare share with Kevin, even if he were his best friend.

The fact was, things weren't 'right' anymore. Not just the things Kevin had been wishing for, but things in general—things all around. Ever since Kevin had found those glasses, the days had begun to feel strange, but Josh couldn't put that feeling into words—or maybe he was just afraid to.

So Josh went to talk to Kirkpatrick. If he could talk to anyone at school about such things, it was Kirkpatrick. He was the only real philosopher among the Ridgeline Middle School teachers—he always seemed to have a keen interest in and an open mind to even the weirdest of notions. Besides, Kirkpatrick had started the whole thing. He was the one who planted the idea of climbing the mountain in Kevin's head, about as powerfully as Bertram had planted the pinecone in Kevin's mouth.

The first bell was still twenty minutes away when Josh arrived in Mr. Kirkpatrick's classroom. Kirkpatrick sat at his desk, with a red, sniffy nose, correcting papers and taking care of all the problems left behind by Ms. Q. He didn't notice Josh until Josh was halfway to the front of the room.

'You're early today, Josh.'

'Yeah. Can I talk to you, Mr. Kirkpatrick?'

The teacher put down his pen and papers and looked up as Josh sat down in the closest chair. 'Something wrong? Was it Ms. Quaackenbusch? Are other kids giving you a hard time?'

'No, nothing like that,' said Josh. He was beginning to understand just what it was he wanted to ask, but how could he come right out and say it?

'Mr. K.,' asked Josh, 'how do you think the world is going to end?'

Kirkpatrick looked at him for a moment, and laughed. 'I was expecting maybe girl trouble,' he said. 'I mean, don't seventh graders have enough to deal with without thinking about the end of life as we know it?'

He studied Josh and finally realized that Josh was dead serious. Kirkpatrick leaned back and ran his fingers through his uneven hair.

'I don't think the world will end, Josh. I don't think it can.' He glanced up at the humming fluorescent lights and rocked a bit in his chair. 'But when I was younger, I used to think about it a lot.'

'What did you think about?'

Kirkpatrick shrugged. 'A bunch of things. You know, nuclear war—someone turns a key, and poof, everything's gone. Sometimes I would wonder if there was really a great flood thousands of years ago, and if there might be another one. I would think about the dinosaurs and how they might have been wiped out by a meteor striking the earth—and wonder if it could happen again.'

Josh felt the tips of his ears begin to tingle as if they were getting cold. There were times when he had thought about these things, too.

'But I don't worry anymore,' said Kirkpatrick. 'Now I just trust that those things won't happen.'

Josh shook his head. 'I don't think that's how the world's going to end.' He leaned in closer as he spoke. 'I think it's going to be a quieter thing. It's going to happen in a way that no one even notices anything is wrong. I think things are going to sort of . . . stop making sense . . . bit by bit. Things won't work right, people won't think