Нил Шустерман - The Eyes Of Kid Midas

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, hiding alone 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. "I deserved that."

"Damn right," said Josh. "You deserve a lot worse . . . but I don't know what."

The glasses were now in Kevin's shirt pocket, and he touched them with his right hand, as if pledging allegiance. He longed to put them on and feel their weight on the bridge of his nose. The glasses would take away the shame and the fear. They would make him feel strong and untouchable. Now all he felt was weak and empty. Every time he took those glasses off, they seemed to take a chunk of his soul with them.

At about five o'clock, Nicole woke up.

Kevin and Josh, instantly chickens, dove to the ground and hid, without making as much as a single cluck.

"What the . . . ?" Nicole looked around. "All right, very funny. Now let me out."

Kevin peeked to see Nicole standing on the red running wheel that was normally reserved for small rodents.

"Kevin Midas!" said Nicole. "I should have known it was you. There better not be any hamsters in here!"

"No," said Kevin, "just you."

She yawned. "What time is it?" She looked down at the microscopic Mickey Mouse on her wrist. "Oh no! I missed gymnastics. I'd better get home, or my parents will kill me!"

"But, Nicole . . . said Josh, climbing out from underneath the desk, "... you can't go home in your . . . um, condition."

"What condition?" asked Nicole.

Kevin grimaced. Was she so bewildered that she didn't know what was wrong?

"Nicole," said Kevin, "you may not have noticed this . . . but you're very, very small."

"I'm not small, I'm petite," she said. "There's a big difference. And besides, there are no small people, only small minds."

Nicole hopped off the running wheel and came right up to the plastic wall of the cage. She looked straight into Kevin's right eye, which, to her, must have seemed the size of a classroom globe.

"Joke's over," she said. "I have to get home."

Something's wrong with this, thought Kevin. She's acting . . . well, she's acting like Nicole, not like the victim of a freak miniaturization.

Kevin looked at Josh, who just shrugged, and so Kevin did as he was asked. He let Nicole out.

"Where's your phone?"

Both Kevin and Josh pointed dumbly to the phone sitting across the desk, and watched as Nicole climbed over a book, nearly losing a shoe in a sticky old soda stain, then climbed the face of the phone and heaved the receiver out of its cradle.

"I don't get it," said Josh. "Is she in shock or something? Doesn't she care that she's been Barbie-fied?"

Nicole went about her business, jumping on the phone buttons to dial them as if she did this every day.

"I don't get it, either," said Kevin.

Nicole knelt by the receiver as her mother answered on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mom, it's me," said Nicole in that squeaky, mousey voice.

"Nicole?" said her mother, confused and startled by the strange sound of Nicole's voice. There was silence for a moment, but then Mrs. Patterson's confusion quickly passed away. Too quickly, Kevin thought.

"Thank God you're all right! You had us all worried, little lady—we had no idea where you were."

"I'm at a friend's house," explained Nicole. "I forgot to call."

"We'll talk about it when you get home," said her mother sternly.

Nicole sighed. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Good," said her mother. "And watch out for cats on the way home."

Kevin hung up the phone for her. Cats? he thought. Did she say watch out for cats?

"You see the trouble you got me in? Wasn't your salami kiss bad enough? Now you have to kidnap me, too?"

Josh perked up. "You kissed her?"

There was no time for Kevin to answer, for just then his door sprang open with a bang, and Teri stormed in, unannounced, as she often did.

"Moron police," she said. "All morons present I.D."

Then she stopped dead, coming face-to-face with the Barbie-fied Nicole. Teri's jaw dropped dumbly, making her look like the only actual moron in the room.

Silence hung in the air like the Hindenburg.

Kevin braced for the explosion.

But it didn't happen.

Yes, for a moment terror and confusion filled Teri's eyes, but then Teri blinked, and the terror vanished. It was as though her whole brain had adjusted to accept what she was seeing . . . just as Nicole's mom had adjusted to the voice she was hearing over the phone.

"Hi, Nicole," said Teri as if everything in the world was perfectly fine.

Nicole waved. "Hi, Teri. Tell your brother that he's a waste of valuable protoplasm."

"I would, but I think he already knows." Teri sauntered out of the room as quickly as she had entered. "Better hope I don't tell Mom you're hiding a girl in your room." And then Teri disappeared into her own room.

"What is this?" cried Josh. "Has the whole world gone schizo?"

And then the truth swung itself at Kevin with such fury that his brain was launched into deep, deep left field.