Нил Шустерман: The Eyes Of Kid Midas

Kevin kicked and struggled against Hal, and the sport turned from a ball game to a rodeo.

"Jest looga that dowgie go!" said Hal, putting on a fake Texas accent. "How fast you think we can rope this dowgie, Bertram?"

Kevin had a fleeting image of himself with his arms and legs looped together like a calf in a rodeo, and being left there for the rest of the day.

Hal took the edge off the nelson just enough for Kevin to see Bertram, standing ten feet away. A steady beat pounded from Bertram's tape player, which now rested on the ground, as Bertram dangled Kevin's glasses from his fingers. The game was no longer a rodeo, but a bullfight.

"C'mon, Midas. Come an' get your glasses!" said Bertram. "Toro, toro!"

Hal cackled with laughter. Kevin, barely able to breathe, could only grunt and snort like a bull.

Josh lurched into the clearing and, as was often the case, immediately took up Kevin's cause. His parents were lawyers, and so Josh had a way of talking sense and logic into onions and potatoes.

"You realize, Bertram," said Josh, "that you're already in enough trouble for the gum in Kirkpatrick's hair. If I were you, I'd lay low for a while."

Kevin could almost hear the advice go in one ear, echo a bit, then come out of the other.

"Hal threw it," said Bertram.

"It was your gum," said Josh.

Bertram shrugged it off and returned his attention to the bullfight. Then Bertram's music, which had been blaring all the years Kevin knew him, suddenly stopped dead.

Kevin could hear the rush of a distant waterfall and birds singing high up in the pine trees—sounds of nature that must have infuriated Bertram.

"Huh?" said Bertram, turning around. Josh ejected the tape and backed away with it. Kevin's eyes went wide. No one who valued his life turned off Bertram's music. Bertram gritted his thoroughbred teeth, and growled like a hungry pit bull.

"You had best give me back that tape!"

Josh continued to back away with the hostage cassette, heading toward the outhouse.

The small green outhouse was the size of a phone booth, and it had one of those odors you remember for the rest of your life. Josh swung open the door and an unholy strangling stench flowed out like invisible fingers of death.

Bertram started toward him, but Josh held the tape out over the open hole of the grungy toilet.

"Take one more step, and down it goes."

Kevin, still in the crushing grip of the Extremely Full Nelson, watched as Josh Wilson rendered Bertram Tarson speechless. It was a moment for the record books.

"C'mon, Josh, a joke's a joke," pleaded Bertram. "You wouldn't do that . . . would you?"

Josh smiled. "Make you a deal. I'll give you back your music if you let Kevin go and give him back his glasses."

Bertram didn't answer right away.

"The offer is good for five seconds," said Josh.

Bertram turned to Hal and nodded. Hal threw Kevin to the ground, and Kevin gasped a deep breath.

"Good," said Josh. "Now the glasses."

"The tape first."

"You have three seconds," said Josh.

Powerless to bargain, Bertram tossed the glasses to Kevin. Josh then tossed Bertram his tape, keeping his part of the deal—which, under the circumstances, was not the safest thing to do.

"Josh, look out!" yelled Kevin, but it was too late. Bertram grabbed Josh by the neck and smashed his back against the wall of the outhouse with a thud, pinning him there.

"You touched my tunes," screamed Bertram, his face turning red. "Nobody touches my tunes!" Hal held open the outhouse door, and in one instant the plan became painfully clear. Bertram and Hal began to pull Josh headfirst toward the outhouse.

"Listen," reasoned Josh, "you really don't want to do this.... Think of your conscience!"

"I ain't got one," said Bertram.

That's when Kevin threw the pinecone. It whizzed through the air and bounced off the back of Bertram's head.

Bertram slowly turned to Kevin, who stood across the clearing with the determination of a gunslinger. Kevin had taken enough. He could sense something igniting inside himself—something that was about to explode.

"Oh my God!" said Josh—realizing that Kevin meant business.

Bertram offered up a sinister smile at Kevin's foolhardy attempt at bravery. " You threw a pinecone at me, Midas?"

Kevin, unflinching, pushed the glasses farther up on his face, and two words growled themselves out from the back of his throat.

"Your mother."

Bertram's smile faded. The only thing more sacred than Bertram's music was his mother. He dropped Josh, forgetting him completely, and stared at Kevin, fists clenched. His face was popping blood vessels, and his whole body quivered in fury.

"My mother what?"

Kevin clenched his own fists and readied himself for the fight. He stared straight at Bertram from across the clearing and shot his words from the hip.

"Your mother's a pinecone."

A hundred yards away, at the campsight, Miss Argus, the math teacher, was lovingly snipping gum out of Mr. Kirkpatrick's hair. So involved were they in their minor surgical procedure that neither they nor the other teachers observing the operation noticed when Ian Axelrod, finally turning up, came bounding from the woods and announced, "Hey, everyone, Bertram's fighting Kevin Midas!"

In a matter of seconds all twenty kids had vanished from the campsight, racing through the woods to see the fight of the century.

Kevin and Bertram rolled in the dirt, both delivering punch after punch. In seconds they were surrounded by a cheering mass of kids who were thrilled that somebody—anybody—was going to get beaten up. Josh tried to break it up, but Hal put him in an Extremely Full Nelson.

Kevin had exploded, all right—he was a fireball of fury, finding more strength in himself than he'd ever known he had. At last he had discovered the courage to stand up to Bertram! At last, after all these years, Bertram would get what he deserved: humiliation at the hands of Kevin Midas.

But as it sometimes goes, Kevin's fury just wasn't enough. Bertram was simply bigger and stronger—and all the righteous rage in the world wasn't going to change that.

In the end, Bertram pinned Kevin down by the neck with one hand and brandished the pinecone in the other, holding it above Kevin's mouth.

"Open wide, Mid ass ," said Bertram.

"Go to hell, Bertram!" yelled Kevin defiantly, and with that, Bertram rammed the entire pinecone into Kevin's mouth, until Kevin's cheeks bulged like a chipmunk's.

Bertram got off Kevin, and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

Then everyone but Josh began to laugh at Kevin—even Nicole Patterson, the girl whom Kevin had a not-so-secret crush on. The humiliation hurt worse than his black eye and swelling mouth.

"Hey," said some clown, "Kevin's eating a high-fiber diet!" More laughter.

Kevin reached into his mouth and carefully dislodged the pinecone.

The crowd started to thin, but Bertram still stood there like a proud hunter over his kill. Just beside Bertram were Kevin's glasses, which had fallen during the fight. Without taking his eyes off Kevin, Bertram lifted his foot and very slowly brought his dirty Reebok down on the glasses, grinding them into the dusty ground with all of his weight until the glasses snapped.

"Oops," said Bertram. He lifted his foot from the broken glasses, grabbed his tape player, and left the clearing, his victory now complete.

Three weeks into the new school year, and his glasses were already destroyed.

"He's gonna pay for this," mumbled Kevin, fighting back tears. "He's gonna pay."

Josh just shook his head as he helped Kevin up. "Somebody's got to do something about him," said Josh. "The psycho's totally out of control."