"Well, what's happening up there, Midas?" yelled Bertram. "We ain't got all day!"
Kevin squinted his eyes and pulled himself up another inch, until his head eclipsed the sun, and the object was trapped in his shadow. The object, which seemed so formless before, now had a definite shape that Kevin recognized immediately.
"It's . . . it's a pair of glasses!" said Kevin.
"Aw, you've got to be kidding!" cried Hal.
"No, really!" It was a pair of sunglasses, dark, sleek, and smooth. Its lenses were a single visorlike blade suspended from a black-and-gold half frame. The dark, silvery lenses seemed to shimmer with colors, like the northern lights.
Someone must have been here before, thought Kevin. Instead of carving their initials, they must have left the glasses to stake their claim.
As Kevin stretched out his arm across the Divine Watch, toward the glasses, the wind screamed in his ears, and the reality he'd been fighting back all night suddenly took hold.
What was he doing here? He could fall! He could die! What was he thinking? Panic screamed at him, like a thousand voices in the wind, demanding he leave this dangerous place now and get back to the campsite this very instant.
Still, he wanted those glasses. They would be his prize for reaching the top first. He fought against the panicking voices and hooked the glasses with his index finger, pulling them toward him.
"Let us get up there, Midas. Get out of the way!" demanded Bertram.
"Just a second." Kevin looked at the glasses closely. They were the height of style, and must have been very, very expensive. He put them on, hooking the smooth gold-and-black half frame around his ears.
Blackness . . .
. . . then a speck of light as his eyes began to adjust to the dark lenses. But it was more than just his eyes adjusting. It was as if the lenses were lightening up for his eyes, bringing everything into focus. These weren't mere sunglasses—they seemed to fit Kevin's prescription as well. They were perfect. All right— they were a bit too big for his head, but otherwise they couldn't be beat.
Now the view before him stretched out in perfect focus. He could see lines of roads, little insect dots that must have been cars. The blur beyond the desert was very definitely a mountain range on the horizon. The solitary shadow of the Divine Watch painted a gray triangle across the sands, and the shadow's tip rested on a tiny sliver of rock that stood up like a hairline spike in the distant mountain range.
"I can see it!" screamed Kevin, only half believing.
"What?" asked Josh.
"The Devil's Chair! Just like Kirkpatrick said! Just like he said!"
"How can you see anything?" asked Hal. "You're as blind as a bat!"
Josh's eyes cleared the top and he scanned the horizon.
"I don't see a thing!" said Josh. "It's too hazy!"
Kevin tried to climb higher, daring to actually stand atop the Divine Watch, but it was not meant to be. He was in too much of a hurry; he moved too quickly and lost his balance.
Kevin fell onto Josh, who toppled onto Hal, who crashed into Bertram, and the foursome plunged clown the rocky cliff, rolling over sharp rocks and over each other until they smashed against a hard plateau fifty feet below.
At ten A.M., Bertram came into camp with a long scrape on his arm and skinned knees. He was followed by Hal, who was limping, and Josh, who had a cut on his face and scratched-up hands, and Kevin, who, having landed on Bertram, was completely unharmed.
For the entire trip back, Kevin had been all smiles. He had seen the top of the Watch, survived the climb, and acquired a souvenir to boot—and Bertram, who was too tired to beat him up at this point, would not get his hands on these glasses.
There was an uncanny, unpleasant sense that their experience on the mountain had somehow linked the four of them together like prisoners in a chain gang, but no one talked about it. No one talked much at all on the way back.
The boys marched into camp, looking like the sole survivors of a major plane crash, and they made their way to their tents. No one had noticed their disappearance, and no one noticed their return—what with so many kids running this way and that, throwing up Kirkpatrick's Chili-Eggs Scrambled with Garlic Over an Open Fire.
They wearily went to their tents to get a few minutes of sleep before they were dragged out for the day's festivities.
CHAPTER 4
Kevin Finds Rocks in His Head
Rumors spread, as rumors do, at the speed of light squared, and the buzz around the campsite focused on a single question:
Could it possibly be true?
Could they have climbed the Divine Watch, and could Kevin Midas actually have gotten there first?
Bertram denied that it ever happened. He would rather lie than allow Kevin the smallest glimpse of glory.
"But what about Josh's cut and Hal's bruises? What about my glasses?" Kevin tried to reason with the doubters.
"I can explain all that," said Nicole Patterson, who could always be counted on to explain all things. "Hal's a clumsy ox," she said. "If he wasn't bruised all the time I'd be surprised. Josh has a cut because Bertram must have slammed his face into a tree or something—and you must have found those glasses under a bush."
Kevin knew he'd never change her mind, so instead he just pushed his glasses farther up on his nose and asked proudly, "Do you like them?"
Nicole pondered them and shrugged. "They'd look a lot better on a larger head," she said.
And so until about three o'clock that afternoon, Kevin's life was pretty much unchanged.
At three, Bertram did some diving.
The assignment that afternoon was to do something that Native Americans might have done a thousand years ago. Most kids were spread out around a large, ice-cold pond near the campsite. Some hunted fish unsuccessfully with sharp sticks. Some ground berries into war paint, others were doing a sad-looking rain dance, and the rest watched with deep dread as Kirkpatrick cooked a snack of stir-fried forest-findings.
Kevin and Josh were lying on a boulder overlooking the pond.
"We're studying the clouds for a message from the sun-god," they told Kirkpatrick, "like Native Americans might have done." Kirkpatrick bought it and let them spend the afternoon basking in the sun, resting their aching feet.
Kevin basked with his glasses on. Through the dark lenses, he could see Josh staring at him. Josh was examining the glasses the way he would stare at a brand-new sports car, letting his eyes move across the perfect surface.
"You know," said Josh, "they could have been mine if I got there first."
Kevin shrugged. "That's the breaks."
"Your parents'll probably hate them," said Josh.
Kevin wondered if they'd even notice them. His mother rarely seemed to notice anything Kevin did, and his father was still trying to figure Kevin out.
"They won't care," said Kevin.
"You think Nicole likes your glasses?" he asked with a grin.
Kevin frowned. "She thinks I have a pinhead."
"You do," said Josh. "But that's okay, because you've also got a pin body."
Kevin was searching for a comeback line when Bertram called to them from across the pond.
"Hey," bellowed Bertram. "Hey, Midas, I hope you know I'm not talking to you because of what you did!"
Kevin, with the safety of a small lake between them, bellowed back, "Are you saying that you admit we climbed the mountain, and I got there first?"
"We admit nothing!" bellowed Hal, who stood firmly and strongly in Bertram's shadow.
"All's we admit," said Bertram, "is that you and Wilson are gonna have a short life expectancy unless you stay out of my way."
"Ah, go jump in a lake," said Kevin.
And sure enough, Bertram flung out his armsand did a commanding belly flop into the frigid water.
When he surfaced and scrambled for shore, both Kevin and Josh broke out in raucous laughter. It was echoed by everyone else in attendance.
Bertram climbed out of the wate
r and onto the boulder he had been standing on, trying to figure out what had happened.
"Hey, Bertram," yelled Kevin, pushing the glasses farther up on his face, "that was pretty good—but can you do it again?"
Bertram slipped, spun his arms a few times, and flew into the lake once more. Splash! Everyone watching collapsed into convulsions.
Bertram blubbered his way to shore, only to find Hal laughing, too.
"Hey, Bertram," said Hal, "don't look now, but I think there's a fish in your pants."
Bertram then screamed his guts out, because, as everyone knew, Bertram was deathly afraid of live fish, due to some early-childhood trauma. He leapt around like a madman, until finally a small bullhead trout came flopping out the leg of his jeans.
Kevin and Josh were in stitches, but when they finally recovered enough to look at Bertram's face, they realized he had quickly overcome his terror. His fists were clenched, his jaw was clenched, and there was an evil look in his eyes—"the chain-saw look," as people called it. Bertram left his rock and began to run around the lake toward them, picking up speed like a locomotive. Hal ran around the lake the other way.
The sight of the rapidly approaching chain saw quickly sobered Kevin and Josh. They turned and raced barefoot into the woods.
"Nice going, Kevin," Josh hissed.
Kevin made it to safety, but Josh, whose feet were more swollen than Kevin's, was snatched by Hal and put into an Extremely Full Nelson.
Kevin hid behind an outcropping of boulders, waiting for an opportunity to spring Josh, and watched as a soaking-wet Bertram came into the clearing.
"You laughed at me?" Bertram screeched into Josh's face like a psychotic drill sergeant.
"No," said Josh, "we were laughing with you."
"You thought that was funny? The thing with the f-f-fish?"
Try as he might, Josh couldn't hold back his smile.
Bertram took Josh's arm and tugged it hard enough to send him sprawling in the dust.
"But what about Midas?" asked Hal.
"One at a time," said Bertram, flashing his teeth in a wide, crooked smile. "And I don't care what the teachers do to me, I don't care what my father does to me, and I don't even care if Midas calls out his big sister on me." Bertram pulled Josh to his feet and began to swing a heavy fist at Josh's nose.
Kevin had to think fast. There had to be a way to get out of this mess. Josh ducked, missing the first punch, but Bertram swung again.
Kevin didn't have time for a brainstorm, so a moderate brain drizzle would have to do. With all of his might he leaned against one of the boulders in front of him, until it crashed to the ground with a thud.
"Avalanche!" said Kevin.
"Huh?"
Bertram and Hal were distracted for only an instant, but that's all it took for Josh to slip away.
Kevin and Josh ran off together, thinking they had made an easy escape.
Then they saw a storm of boulders smashing down the slope toward them.
Suddenly Bertram didn't care about who had been laughing at him. He and Hal took off as the rumble around them grew louder and the boulders pounded closer.
Josh turned to run as fast as his legs could carry him, but Kevin just stood there, like a rabbit frozen on the highway, watching doom approach at sixty miles per hour.
Kevin's particular doom was a boulder twice his size, pounding down the mountain. He watched as it bounced toward him. It flattened a tree stump, then hit a sharp rock and split in two. The boulder parted around Kevin, brushing both his shoulders at the same time.
When Kevin turned, he saw Josh, who looked like a bowling pin with legs as he danced to avoid the stones rolling toward him. When the last of the boulders had passed, Josh breathed a sigh of relief and began screaming at Kevin.
"What the hell's your problem?" yelled Josh. "Why did you just stand there?"
Kevin felt nothing—not fear, not anger. He felt numb—one hundred percent numb.
He spoke very slowly. "There was no avalanche, Josh."
Josh caught his breath and tried to stop shaking. "What do you call this? A hailstorm?"
"Well, yeah, there was an avalanche," said Kevin, "but I mean there wasn't an avalanche when I said there was."
"Yeah?" said Josh. "Well, maybe the rocks just fell out of your pinhead!"
The glasses had fallen during the avalanche, and when Kevin picked them up they were hot, as if they had been in the sun too long.
"It's lucky they weren't smashed," said Kevin.
"It's lucky we weren't smashed," said Josh, looking around him. "Let's get out of here. This spot must get avalanches all the time."
But Kevin knew that wasn't the case.
CHAPTER 5
Unmerciful Chocolate Destruction
The moment the avalanche ended, a storm began brewing in Kevin's mind.
While everyone jabbered on about the avalanche, and while the teachers thanked their Maker that no one was hurt by it, Kevin sat alone on one of the fallen boulders and stared with steely concentration at the mountain. It seemed robbed of its color today, remaining chalky white at sunset. The glasses, however, burned a silvery orange.
The thoughts swimming in Kevin's mind could have been products of his overactive imagination or the result of a lack of sleep and digestible food, but Kevin had a growing sense that something more was at work here. After the events of this afternoon, he was finding it harder and harder to believe that his glasses had been left behind on the mountain by some ultracool hiker who wanted to stake a claim.
"What would you say, Josh, if I told you thatthese glasses were magic?" Kevin whispered as he and Josh waited in the long dinner line.
"I would say you've been reading too many comic books."
The line crept slowly toward Mr. Kirkpatrick, who was dishing up some slop everyone was calling Hamburger Helpless.
"What if I told you I could prove it?" asked Kevin.
"Then I would say the avalanche knocked some of your screws loose."
Kevin knew that Josh was the kind of kid who wouldn't believe anything until he saw it. So Kevin grabbed his arm and pulled him out of line.
"Hey, what's the idea?" yelled Josh. "I haven't eaten all day. I'm starved!"
"Follow me. It'll only take a second." Kevin led Josh off into the woods until the sounds from the campsite were far away, and he was sure no one could hear them.
"Okay," said Kevin. "Here's the proof: One, I told Bertram to jump in the lake, and he did."
"Big deal."
"Two, I told him to do it again, and he did it again!"
"Big deal."
"Three, the avalanche. I said there was an avalanche, and then, pow, there was one."
Josh leaned against a tree, and a look of worry began to creep onto his face. "What you're saying is looney-toons, you know that?"
Kevin took off the glasses and looked at them. Now they had faded to the rich purple of the western sky.
"They tingle, Josh."
"What?"
"The glasses. They tingle. First, when I told Bertram to jump, and then when I said, 'Avalanche.' They tingled . . . and it sort of felt .. . good."
Josh reached out his hand. "Let me see."
"No!" Kevin pushed Josh's hand away. Josh frowned but didn't reach for them again.
"What do you want me to do, then?" asked Josh.
Kevin's voice was a whisper. "Ask me to wish for something."
"You're nuts."
"Ask me."
"You're certifiable!"
"What are you afraid of?"
It was a good question, and rather than admit he was afraid, Josh gave Kevin a wish.
"An ice-cream cone," said Josh.
"What flavor?"
"Unmerciful Chocolate Destruction. A double scoop."
"Cake cone or sugar cone?"
"Just get it over with!"
Kevin planted his feet firmly on the ground andstuck out his hand, concentrating with the full force of his mind.
/> "Okay," said Kevin, "give me one double dip of Unmerciful Chocolate Destruction on a sugar cone to go!"
The glasses went dark, and at first Kevin could see nothing. Then a spot of light appeared before him, which exploded in waves of brilliant color. He could feel the warmth and tingle of the frames as they ever so slightly surged with energy, as if they were pulling it right out of Kevin's head.
"Kevin," said Josh, his voice trembling, "your eyes . . . I think they're glowing!"
In his mind, Kevin imagined the cone dripping with ice cream, and then, when the colors faded from before his eyes, he realized that the picture he had in his mind, had entered the real world.
Unmerciful Chocolate Destruction dripped down his fingers, cold and sticky.
Josh was the first to scream, and Kevin joined him. He dropped the cone and they both ran from it, screaming at the top of their lungs, until they got to a clearing far away from the horrific cone. There they stopped to catch their breath.
"This is weird, Kevin!"
"I know!"
"No, I mean this is really weird. Remember when Ralphy Sherman said his father was a werewolf, and then they found him one morning sleeping in a neighbor's doghouse? Well, this is weirder."
Kevin looked at his hand, which still had some melted chocolate ice cream on it. He licked it. It was unmercifully real.
"What are we gonna do?" asked Josh. "What are we gonna do?" And then something struck him. "Hey," asked Josh, "where's my ice-cream cone?"
With Hamburger Helpless on the menu, it quickly became obvious what they were going to do. If reality was flexible enough to allow an ice cream cone to be born out of thin air, then it was flexible enough for quite a variety of things.
Within ten minutes the little clearing was filled with food. Burgers from every imaginable fast- food chain lay all over the ground, one bite taken from each. The birds were feasting on french fries, and a bivouac of army ants was all but carrying away the discarded burgers.
And, of course, the feast was topped off by a whole gallon barrel of U.C.D. ice cream. They kept shoveling in the ice cream until it could no longer go down and just sort of squirted out of the sides of their mouths when they tried to swallow. Then they rested; two beached whales barely able to move.