Holes (7 page)

“Then fill it,” she said. “And the next time I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it without questioning my authority.
If it’s too much trouble for you to fill a canteen, I’ll give you a shovel. You can dig the hole, and the Caveman can fill your canteen.” She turned back to Stanley. “I don’t think that would be too much trouble for you, would it?”

“No,” said Stanley.

“So what will it be?” she asked Mr. Pendanski. “Do you want to fill the canteens or do you want to dig?”

“I’ll fill the canteens,” said Mr. Pendanski.

“Thank you.”

Mr. Pendanski filled the canteens.

The Warden got a pitchfork out of the back of the pickup. She poked it through X-Ray’s dirt pile, to see if anything else might have been buried in there as well.

“After you drop off X-Ray, I want you to bring back three wheelbarrows,” she said.

X-Ray got in the pickup. As the truck pulled away, he leaned out the wide window and waved.

“Zero,” said the Warden. “I want you to take over X-Ray’s hole.” She seemed to know that Zero was the fastest digger.

“Armpit and Squid, you will keep digging where you have been,” she said. “But you’re each going to have a helper. Zigzag, you help Armpit. Magnet will help Squid. And Caveman, you’ll work with Zero. We’re going to dig the dirt twice. Zero will dig it out of the hole, and Caveman will carefully shovel it into a wheelbarrow. Zigzag will do the same for
Armpit, and the same with Magnet and Squid. We don’t want to miss anything. If either of you find something, you’ll both get the rest of the day off, and a double shower.

“When the wheelbarrows are full, you are to dump them away from this area. We don’t want any dirt piles to get in the way.”

The Warden remained at the site for the remainder of the day, along with Mr. Pendanski and Mr. Sir, who showed up after a while. Occasionally Mr. Sir would leave to take water to the other groups of campers, but otherwise he and the water truck stayed parked there. The Warden saw to it that nobody in Group D was ever thirsty.

Stanley did as he was told. He carefully looked through all the dirt dug up by Zero, as he shoveled it into a wheelbarrow, though he knew he wouldn’t find anything.

It was easier than digging his own hole. When the wheelbarrow was full, he took it a good distance away before dumping it.

The Warden couldn’t keep still. She kept walking around, looking over the boys’ shoulders, and sticking her pitchfork through the dirt piles. “You’re doing fine, just fine,” she told Stanley.

After a while, she told the boys to switch places, so that Stanley, Zigzag, and Magnet dug in the holes, and Zero, Armpit, and Squid shoveled the excavated dirt into the wheelbarrows.

After lunch, Zero took over the digging again, and Stanley returned to the wheelbarrow. “There’s no hurry,” the Warden said several times. “The main thing is not to miss anything.”

The boys dug until each hole was well over six feet deep and wide. Still, it was easier for two boys to dig a six-foot hole than it was for one boy to dig a five-foot hole.

“All right, that’s enough for today,” the Warden said. “I’ve waited this long, I can wait another day.”

Mr. Sir drove her back to her cabin.

“I wonder how she knew all our names,” Stanley said as he walked back to the compound.

“She watches us all the time,” said Zigzag. “She’s got hidden microphones and cameras all over the place. In the tents, the Wreck Room, the shower.”

“The shower?” asked Stanley. He wondered if Zigzag was just being paranoid.

“The cameras are tiny,” said Armpit. “No bigger than the toenail on your little toe.”

Stanley had his doubts about that. He didn’t think they could make cameras that small. Microphones, maybe.

He realized that was why X-Ray didn’t want to talk to him about the gold tube at breakfast. X-Ray was afraid the Warden might have been listening.

One thing was certain: They weren’t just digging to “build character.” They were definitely looking for something.

And whatever they were looking for, they were looking in the wrong place.

Stanley gazed out across the lake, toward the spot where he had been digging yesterday when he found the gold tube. He dug the hole into his memory.

As Stanley entered the Wreck Room, he could hear X-Ray’s voice from all the way across the room.

“See what I’m saying,” X-Ray said. “Am I right, or am I right?”

The other bodies in the room were little more than bags of flesh and bones, dumped across broken chairs and couches. X-Ray was full of life, laughing and waving his arms around as he talked. “Yo, Caveman, my man!” he called out.

Stanley made his way across the room.

“Hey, slide on over, Squid,” said X-Ray. “Make room for the Caveman.”

Stanley crashed on the couch.

He had looked for a hidden camera in the shower. He hadn’t seen anything, and he hoped the Warden hadn’t either.

“What’s the matter?” asked X-Ray. “You guys tired or something?” He laughed.

“Hey, keep it down, will you,” groaned Zigzag. “I’m trying to watch TV.”

Stanley glanced uncertainly at Zigzag, who was staring very intently at the busted television screen.

The Warden greeted the boys at breakfast the next morning and went with them to the holes. Four dug in the holes, and three tended to the wheelbarrows. “Glad you’re here, X-Ray,” she said to him. “We need your sharp eyes.”

Stanley spent more time pushing the wheelbarrow than digging, because he was such a slow digger. He carted away the excess dirt and dumped it into previously dug holes. He was careful not to dump any of it in the hole where the gold tube was actually found.

He could still see the tube in his mind. It seemed so familiar, but he just couldn’t place it. He thought that it might have been the lid to a fancy gold pen.
K B
could have been the initials of a famous author. The only famous authors he could think of were Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Mark Twain. Besides, it didn’t really look like the top of a pen.

By lunchtime the Warden was beginning to lose her patience. She made them eat quickly, so they could get back to work. “If you can’t get them to work any faster,” she told Mr. Sir, “then you’re going to have to climb down there and dig with them.”

After that, everyone worked faster, especially when Mr. Sir was watching them. Stanley practically ran when he pushed his wheelbarrow. Mr. Sir reminded them that they weren’t Girl Scouts.

They didn’t quit digging until after every other group had finished.

Later, as Stanley sat sprawled across an understuffed chair, he tried to think of a way to tell the Warden where the tube was really found, without getting himself or X-Ray into trouble. It didn’t seem possible. He even thought about sneaking out at night and digging in that hole by himself. But the last thing he wanted to do after digging all day was to dig at night, too. Besides, the shovels were locked up at night, presumably so they couldn’t be used as weapons.

Mr. Pendanski entered the Wreck Room. “Stanley,” he called as he made his way to him.

“His name’s Caveman,” said X-Ray.

“Stanley,” said Mr. Pendanski.

“My name’s Caveman,” said Stanley.

“Well, I have a letter here for someone named Stanley Yelnats,” said Mr. Pendanski. He turned over an envelope in his hands. “It doesn’t say Caveman anywhere.”

“Uh, thanks,” Stanley said, taking it.

It was from his mother.

“Who’s it from?” Squid asked. “Your
mother
?”

Stanley put it in the big pocket of his pants.

“Aren’t you going to read it to us?” asked Armpit.

“Give him some space,” said X-Ray. “If Caveman doesn’t want to read it to us, he doesn’t have to. It’s probably from his girlfriend.”

Stanley smiled.

•    •    •

He read it later, after the other boys had gone to dinner.

“What’s so funny?” Zero asked.

It startled him. He thought Zero had gone to dinner with the others.

“Nothing. Just something my mom wrote.”

“What’d she say?” Zero asked. “Nothing.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Zero.

“Well, see my dad is trying to invent a way to recycle old sneakers. So the apartment kind of smells bad, because he’s always cooking these old sneakers. So anyway, in the letter my mom said she felt sorry for that little old lady who lived in a shoe, you know, because it must have smelled bad in there.”

Zero stared blankly at him.

“You know, the nursery rhyme?”

Zero said nothing.

“You’ve heard the nursery rhyme about the little old lady who lived in a shoe?”

“No.”

Stanley was amazed.

“How does it go?” asked Zero.

“Didn’t you ever watch
Sesame Street?”
Stanley asked.

Zero stared blankly.

Stanley headed on to dinner. He would have felt pretty silly reciting nursery rhymes at Camp Green Lake.

For the next week and a half, the boys continued to dig in and around the area where X-Ray had supposedly found the gold tube. They widened X-Ray’s hole, as well as the holes Armpit and Squid had been digging, until the fourth day, when all three holes met and formed one big hole.

As the days wore on, the Warden became less and less patient. She arrived later in the morning and left earlier in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the boys continued to dig later and later.

“This is no bigger than it was when I left you yesterday,” she said after arriving late one morning, well after sunrise. “What have you been doing down there?”

“Nothing,” said Squid.

It was the wrong thing to say.

At just that moment, Armpit was returning from a bathroom break.

“How nice of you to join us,” she said. “And what have you been doing?”

“I had to … you know … go.”

The Warden jabbed at Armpit with her pitchfork, knocking him backward into the big hole. The pitchfork left three holes in the front of his shirt, and three tiny spots of blood.

“You’re giving these boys too much water,” the Warden told Mr. Pendanski.

They continued to dig until late afternoon, long after all the other groups had finished for the day. Stanley was down in the big hole, along with the other six boys. They had stopped using the wheelbarrows.

He dug his shovel into the side of the hole. He scooped up some dirt, and was raising it up to the surface when Zigzag’s shovel caught him in the side of the head.

He collapsed.

He wasn’t sure if he passed out or not. He looked up to see Zigzag’s wild head staring down at him. “I ain’t digging that dirt up,” Zigzag said. “That’s your dirt.”

“Hey, Mom!” Magnet called. “Caveman’s been hurt.”

Stanley brought his fingers up the side of his neck. He felt his wet blood and a pretty big gash just below his ear.

Magnet helped Stanley to his feet, then up and out of the hole. Mr. Sir made a bandage out of a piece of his sack of sunflower seeds and taped it over Stanley’s wound. Then he told him to get back to work. “It isn’t nap time.”

When Stanley returned to the hole, Zigzag was waiting for him.

“That’s your dirt,” Zigzag said. “You have to dig it up. It’s covering up my dirt.”

Stanley felt a little dizzy. He could see a small pile of dirt. It took him a moment to realize that it was the dirt which had been on his shovel when he was hit.

He scooped it up, then Zigzag dug his shovel into the ground underneath where “Stanley’s dirt” had been.

The next morning Mr. Sir marched the boys to another section of the lake, and each boy dug his own hole, five feet deep and five feet wide. Stanley was glad to be away from the big hole. At least now he knew just how much he had to dig for the day. And it was a relief not to have other shovels swinging past his face, or the Warden hanging around.

He dug his shovel into the dirt, then slowly turned to dump it into a pile. He had to make his turns smooth and slow. If he jerked too quickly, he felt a throbbing pain just above his neck where Zigzag’s shovel had hit him.

That part of his head, between his neck and ear, was considerably swollen. There were no mirrors in camp, but he imagined he looked like he had a hard-boiled egg sticking out of him.

The remainder of his body hardly hurt at all. His muscles had strengthened, and his hands were tough and callused.

He was still the slowest digger, but not all that much slower than Magnet. Less than thirty minutes after Magnet returned to camp, Stanley spat into his hole.

After his shower, he put his dirty clothes in his crate and got out his box of stationery. He stayed in the tent to write the letter so Squid and the other boys wouldn’t make fun of him for writing to his mother.

He stopped writing as Zero walked into the tent, then returned to his letter. He didn’t care what Zero thought. Zero was nobody.

Zero was standing beside him now, watching him write. Stanley turned, and felt his neck throb. “I don’t like it when you read over my shoulder, okay?” Zero said nothing.

“I don’t know how,” said Zero.