“Thank goodness I got there in time!”
Li put his hands over his face. His shoulders shook. Biff realized the boy was crying. He said nothing. Better to let Li get the shock out of his system. He continued to watch his friend carefully. Li had come close to death.
Li, after a few moments, removed his hands and grinned. “Sorry, Biff, I guess I’m acting like a baby.”
“Nonsense. After what you just went through, well—Say, I want you to see if you can see what I just saw—if you can follow all that ‘see’ and ‘saw.’” Biff wanted to change the subject, stop Li from thinking about his narrow escape. He also wanted to check the flash he had just seen.
“Look over there, Li. About two thousand feet up the slope of Mauna Loa.” He pointed with his arm. “I’d swear I’ve just been seeing light reflected. Seems like a mirror pointed into the sun—you know, the way kids sometimes signal to one another.”
Li raised his eyes. Both boys saw the reflection come at the same time.
“I see it, Biff. There it is. Now it’s gone.”
“What do you think it could be, Li?”
“Like you said, maybe a mirror or—or glasses.”
“That’s it! Glasses. Someone’s got binoculars trained on us. And we’re right in the path of the setting sun. Someone’s watching us through binoculars.”