Neal Shusterman by The Eyes of Kid Midas

Author:The Eyes of Kid Midas [Midas, The Eyes of Kid]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Social Issues, Juvenile Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Fantasy & Magic, Magic, General, Eyeglasses, Body; Mind & Spirit, Bullying, Magick Studies
ISBN: 9781416997504
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1992-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Out of Mind

The rest of the afternoon seemed to unfold around Kevin and Josh like one of their school plays— they were part of the production but hid so far upstage that no one noticed them.

They kept their mouths tightly shut and watched.

At first there was some confusion about Bertram's disappearance in Ms. Q.'s unruly classroom, until someone claimed to have seen Bertram run down the hall.

"Yeah, that's what happened," said someone else, and before long, everyone just figured Bertram had cut class (a common enough occurrence) and he'd turn up eventually. Only Hal protested, but no one ever listened to Hal, and they weren't about to start listening now.

Kevin suffered through the rest of the day with ice-cold, shaking hands and spoke to no one.

"I wish . . . I wish the glasses would stop working," he desperately whispered to himself, hidingalone in a bathroom stall between classes—but the glasses just vibrated and buzzed like feedback through the auditorium microphone, growing hotter and hotter, until Kevin had to fling them from his face. The sleek visor blade had power over everything except itself. Wishing them to stop was about as useless as wishing it had never happened.

Kevin shuffled around for the rest of the day with a pale green face that grew greener every time he thought of Bertram or Nicole—-but for the rest of the school, it was business as usual. The bells rang, kids were shuffled around the school like a deck of cards, and eventually both Bertram and Nicole were lost in the shuffle. Forgotten.

Out of sight, out of mind, thought Kevin. It was much truer than he could know.

After school, Josh spent a good angry hour blasting Kevin for being such an idiot.

"Bertram deserved to have his head flushed in a toilet, or to be strung up the flagpole by his underwear, but he didn't deserve what you did!" said Josh. "And you should never have tried to control Nicole's mind! I'll bet there's not enough energy in the whole universe to control a mind that stubborn!"

But it was done—and no amount of raving by Josh could undo anything.

A Habitrail rested on Kevin's bedroom desk. He had gotten it for Christmas the year before, but ever since Teri's snake found its way into their mother's jewelry box, animals that could fit in drawers were not allowed in the Midas home, so the Habitrail had never been used.

Kevin supposed his mother wouldn't approve of this, either.

Resting on a pile of cedar chips in the Habitrail was Nicole Patterson, somewhere in the neighborhood of six inches tall.

She was sound asleep—Kevin had put her into a deep sleep the moment he had wished her small, but she was bound to wake up sooner or later.

"Well," said Kevin, "it could be worse; I could have turned her into a shrimp."

"Yeah," said Josh. "I'm sure she'll thank you when she wakes up.".

Kevin looked down in shame.

"You oughta use those glasses to wish your lips into a zipper," said Josh, "so you can shut your fool mouth!"

Kevin nodded.

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