felt panic take hold.
It was like this when I got here. Did he really think they would buy that, knowing full well that he stayed home from school today?
We won it on a game show. What game show? How? Where? What a lame story.
Remember when the sweepstakes letter said "You May Already Be a Winner"? No, no, no! What was he going to do? Practically paralyzed by panic, Kevin sat at the foot of the stairs and watched as Josh paced a short path in the overstuffed room.
"We can't let them know! You've got to make it go away!" said Josh. "Wish it all back!"
"I can't," croaked Kevin. "You know the glasses can't undo what they've done." Kevin heard the troubled engine of his mother's Volvo backfire clown the street. It was the only warning they got—and Kevin figured they had ten seconds, tops.
"Quick," said Josh, "do something! Your parents will just have heart attacks when they see this stuff, but mine will have heart attacks and give me a double-lifetime grounding without possibility of parole, no matter what the explanation is! DO SOMETHING."
"What?"
"If you can't just lose the stuff, then send it somewhere else!"
"Where?"
"ANYWHERE!"
The electric garage door opener cranked into action. Kevin could hear the car pulling up the driveway.
Kevin stood up, and without a second to lose, held his head together to keep it from splitting and made a desperate wish.
"Uhh. . . . Uh . . ."
"Hurry!"
"Uh . . . everything that I made today, go . . . Go next door!"
First came the blackness, then the colors, then the fingers reaching into his brain, and a flash of light. Kevin screamed, threw the glasses from his face, and they fell down upon . . .
. . . an empty floor.
The house was exactly the way it was before they had begun their shopping spree. The same old TV. The same old furniture. Everything else was gone.
Mrs. Midas's car backfired once as it pulled into the empty garage.
There was a rumble then—a shaking of the ground and a creaking of wood, like an earthquake. Kevin and Josh raced out the front door in time to see it happen.
The house next door was a small home owned by the Kimballs, a pleasant elderly couple who never bothered anyone. The Kimball place was half the size of the Midas home and would not have the space for all the things Kevin had so hurriedly wished upon it.
Mrs. Kimball, sitting quietly on the front porch, could only watch as the walls began to buckle outward. Upstairs a frozen-yogurt machine expanded through a window and crashed to the ground with the shattering of glass.
A grand piano bounced through the side of the house, landing in a flower bed, and the front door regurgitated stereo equipment, with a rasping of metal and plastic.
The front lawn began to ripple like an ocean as video games sprouted up from the earth, and from the garage came an awful crunching sound that could only be the two Lamborghinis flattening the old couple's Buick against the wall.
It ended with a blast of the chimney as hundreds of rare coins shot into the air, showering the neighborhood in shimmering gold and silver.
People came racing from their homes—but because it all happened so quickly, they could only see the results, not the cause.
"Cool!" said Teri, who had come out of the garage in time to witness the end of the spectacle. Kevin's mom could only stand and stare like the rest of the neighbors, who scratched their heads and looked to the skies as if some cargo jet had unexpectedly dumped its load.
Mrs. Kimball gazed around her with her hands on her hips, then slowly made her way down from the porch and calmly climbed around the various artifacts that littered her lawn.
She smiled at Kevin's mom and politely asked, "Excuse me, may I use your phone?"
Kevin's mom nodded, and the old woman quietly disappeared into their house.
Kevin watched from his bedroom window that night as lookey-loos from all over town gathered to watch a troop of movers organize everything on the Kimball's front lawn.
An
It was like this when I got here. Did he really think they would buy that, knowing full well that he stayed home from school today?
We won it on a game show. What game show? How? Where? What a lame story.
Remember when the sweepstakes letter said "You May Already Be a Winner"? No, no, no! What was he going to do? Practically paralyzed by panic, Kevin sat at the foot of the stairs and watched as Josh paced a short path in the overstuffed room.
"We can't let them know! You've got to make it go away!" said Josh. "Wish it all back!"
"I can't," croaked Kevin. "You know the glasses can't undo what they've done." Kevin heard the troubled engine of his mother's Volvo backfire clown the street. It was the only warning they got—and Kevin figured they had ten seconds, tops.
"Quick," said Josh, "do something! Your parents will just have heart attacks when they see this stuff, but mine will have heart attacks and give me a double-lifetime grounding without possibility of parole, no matter what the explanation is! DO SOMETHING."
"What?"
"If you can't just lose the stuff, then send it somewhere else!"
"Where?"
"ANYWHERE!"
The electric garage door opener cranked into action. Kevin could hear the car pulling up the driveway.
Kevin stood up, and without a second to lose, held his head together to keep it from splitting and made a desperate wish.
"Uhh. . . . Uh . . ."
"Hurry!"
"Uh . . . everything that I made today, go . . . Go next door!"
First came the blackness, then the colors, then the fingers reaching into his brain, and a flash of light. Kevin screamed, threw the glasses from his face, and they fell down upon . . .
. . . an empty floor.
The house was exactly the way it was before they had begun their shopping spree. The same old TV. The same old furniture. Everything else was gone.
Mrs. Midas's car backfired once as it pulled into the empty garage.
There was a rumble then—a shaking of the ground and a creaking of wood, like an earthquake. Kevin and Josh raced out the front door in time to see it happen.
The house next door was a small home owned by the Kimballs, a pleasant elderly couple who never bothered anyone. The Kimball place was half the size of the Midas home and would not have the space for all the things Kevin had so hurriedly wished upon it.
Mrs. Kimball, sitting quietly on the front porch, could only watch as the walls began to buckle outward. Upstairs a frozen-yogurt machine expanded through a window and crashed to the ground with the shattering of glass.
A grand piano bounced through the side of the house, landing in a flower bed, and the front door regurgitated stereo equipment, with a rasping of metal and plastic.
The front lawn began to ripple like an ocean as video games sprouted up from the earth, and from the garage came an awful crunching sound that could only be the two Lamborghinis flattening the old couple's Buick against the wall.
It ended with a blast of the chimney as hundreds of rare coins shot into the air, showering the neighborhood in shimmering gold and silver.
People came racing from their homes—but because it all happened so quickly, they could only see the results, not the cause.
"Cool!" said Teri, who had come out of the garage in time to witness the end of the spectacle. Kevin's mom could only stand and stare like the rest of the neighbors, who scratched their heads and looked to the skies as if some cargo jet had unexpectedly dumped its load.
Mrs. Kimball gazed around her with her hands on her hips, then slowly made her way down from the porch and calmly climbed around the various artifacts that littered her lawn.
She smiled at Kevin's mom and politely asked, "Excuse me, may I use your phone?"
Kevin's mom nodded, and the old woman quietly disappeared into their house.
Kevin watched from his bedroom window that night as lookey-loos from all over town gathered to watch a troop of movers organize everything on the Kimball's front lawn.
An
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