The Eyes Of Kid Midas

7 KEVIN BECOMING

While certain other parts of the world may have been engulfed in storm clouds, the suburban town of Ridgeline awoke to a bright, sunny day.

The sun rose behind the electrical tower on the hill in back of Kevin Midas's home, casting shadows of the girders on Kevin's white walls. The room had stayed cold all night, defying the thermostat's attempts to keep it the same temperature as the rest of the house. Only now, as the morning light began to shine through the eastern window, did warmth return to Kevin's life.

All night he had stayed bundled under the many blankets that his mother always insisted he keep folded up on the end of his bed. When he awoke at dawn, he couldn't move a muscle without feeling incredible pangs shoot through his head and then ricochet down through the rest of his body.

He had gone straight to bed the night before, without eating, so he felt weak, and he could do little more than lie there and watch the slow progress of the girder shadows as they moved across the wall.

There was a buzzing around him—a hum that could barely be heard. At first he took it for his father's electric razor, and then for the buzz of the high-tension wires outside—until he realized that the sound was coming from his desk.

The glasses were there, resting six inches from the wall—six inches from an electrical outlet. Kevin watched in amazement as a line of blue electricity arced across the air from the outlet to the glasses.

They're recharging, Kevin realized. They had taken the heat from his room, but it wasn't enough. Now they were sucking the very electricity from the walls! How much energy did they need? Kevin wondered. How much could they absorb? Kevin reached out and took a pencil from his desk. With it he gently moved the glasses away from the wall until the electrical arc was broken. The glasses just sat there now, glistening in the morning sun.

Kevin then crawled out from underneath his covers like a slug from underneath a rock. While everyone else in the house still slept, he suffered through a shower that didn't make him feel the least bit better.

When he returned to his room, the glasses were waiting.

He put them on even before he dressed and instantly felt the change. It began with his eyes—a soothing feeling that slowly spread down and out, reaching the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. He closed his eyes and let the feeling wash through him. He was better now, and he couldn't imagine why he had waited this long to put the glasses back on.

He dressed in plain old jeans and a shirt, then stared at himself in the tall mirror against his closet door. Plain, ordinary, boring—that's how he looked. That's how he always looked. There's no reason to dress like this, Kevin thought. No reason at all. He could look like . . . he could be whoever or whatever he wanted.

The secret, Kevin figured, was not to ask for everything you ever wanted all at once, but just to ask for the right things at the right times.

He imagined what he wanted himself to be wearing—he could almost see it in the mirror—and then he said the words that dressed him head to toe. Kevin stared at himself in the mirror from all angles, admiring his flashy designer outfit, complete with brand-new basketball shoes, until he caught sight of Teri standing in the doorway behind him.

"What's with you?" she asked, morning gravel still in her throat.

"Nothing," said Kevin, casually flipping up the collar on his new leather jacket. "I'm checking out some new clothes—is there anything wrong with that?"

"You're such a basket case," she replied, both of them knowing full well that the true basket case was Teri, as she shuffled off with drooping eyelids toward the bathroom.

That morning Kevin joined his father on his morning jog—something Kevin had tried only once before. On that one occasion, Patrick Midas had driven Kevin to absolute exhaustion and then acted surprised when Kevin couldn't keep up.

His father, who liked to speak in short, meaningless phrases, always told Kevin, "No pain, no gain," and used that motto as an excuse to turn any father-and-son physical activity into a trial by fire for Kevin. Kevin was amazed that after all that, he still enjoyed sports as much as he did—although his best sport was soccer, the only sport his father absolutely detested.

With the glasses firmly affixed to his face and a well-placed wish on his lips, Kevin joined his father on the morning run and left the poor man in his dust. When Patrick Midas finally made it back to the front door, dripping with sweat and barely able to breathe, Kevin, already there, jogged in place, barely winded at all, and said, "No pain, no gain," with a shrug.

Before going inside, Kevin sat on the porch and watched the Kimballs for a while. Their house would never be the same, but perhaps that didn't matter, because the old couple was excitedly preparing for what would be the mother of all garage sales.

Things were different for Kevin in school. It began that very day and gradually took hold throughout the week. Perhaps it was the way he was dressed—or perhaps it was the way no one could see his eyes behind those intensely cool glasses that seemed to change color at will. Or maybe it was just self-confidence; a presence about him that made kids get out of his way when he walked down the hall, even though he was a head shorter than most.

Or maybe it was the way that he always seemed to have just what people needed when they needed it.

Kevin had never before had the guts to join in a conversation with kids who weren't his best buddies—but now that had changed.

Justin Gere, an eighth grader, was complaining to a couple of his friends that he had every major-league baseball card issued that year except Carlysle Sparks, one of the Dodgers' rarely used relief pitchers. Rumor was the card had never been printed.

"Well, wouldn't you know it!" said Kevin Midas. "I've got an extra one." He presented Carlysle Sparks to Justin as if he had pulled it out of his sleeve, which he had.

Alyssa Peevar was in tears because she had lost her charm bracelet down a deep storm drain that appeared to go all the way to China. The bracelet was, of course, lost forever, but Kevin reached down into the drain and produced it—or at least a good replica.

When Dash Kaminsky, who the girls claimed was drop-dead gorgeous, got his million-dollar lips smashed by a hockey puck, who was there with a handful of ice and a kind word that seemed to make the swelling go away in seconds? Kevin, of course.

In just a few days Kevin's popularity had grown like a vine on the brickwork of Ridgeline Middle School—quickly and silently, so that very few people remembered it being any different. Kevin had made the transition to everybody's buddy, and although he wasn't the most popular kid in school, people who would never have given him the time of day before suddenly said hello and didn't mind having him around.

It was clear to Kevin that things were changing—he was changing. But changing wasn't the right word. He was becoming. Becoming what? he wondered. He decided it didn't really matter, because whatever it was, it was better than what he had been before.

A few other people noticed Kevin's frightening transformation.

Josh was one. When Josh saw Kevin waltz in that Tuesday morning after their ill-fated shopping spree, he knew right away that Kevin wasn't going to give the glasses a rest. Josh, who had admittedly been a little greed-meister the day before, had learned his lesson when it was crammed down his throat. The glasses were bad news. Period. But Kevin didn't get it.

"The storm's still growing," Josh would often remind Kevin.

"So, isn't there a drought?" Kevin would answer, letting the storm roll off the top of his head like water off Scotchguard. The truth was that the storm made the news every day. "An inland hurricane" was what they were now calling it. They named it Hurricane Gladys, but it should have been called Kevin.

Bertram also noticed Kevin's new station in life. Bertram would chew his pink cud and watch in disgust as Kevin actually chummed around with older, respectable kids.

In Bertram's book you were born into your place in life. Bertram's place was well guarded and well worn. He knew who he was and what was expected of him; he was and would always be the Mean Kid—and he liked that just fine.

But it seemed Kevin had forgotten who he was.

Kevin was the Victim. He had been the Victim since first grade, and someday in the far-off future, when Bertram was teaching his own kids all about being mean, Kevin Midas would be suffering some dumb life in some stupid boring town, the Victim of some big stupid company that would fire him for no good reason.

Thoughts like this kept Bertram going.

But seeing Kevin Midas succeeding—this didn't fit the Bertram World View. It made him chomping mad.

Kevin was wise to keep away from Bertram—and he did for three whole days. On Friday, however, the fine threads of Kevin's handmade universe began to unravel.