"Holes"
By Louis Sachar
Welcome to Camp Green Lake.
Are you ready to dig?
Being bitten by a scorpion or even a rattlesnake is not the worst thing that can happen to you.
You won't die... usually. Sometimes a camper will try to be bitten by a scorpion, or even a small rattlesnake. Then he will get to spend a day or two recovering in his tent, instead of having to
dig a hole out on the lake. But you don't want to get bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard. That's
the worst thing that can happen to you. You will die a slow and painful death. Always.
Besides the Juvenile Detention Center for Boys, one person and one person only is responsible for Stanley Yelnats going to Camp Green Lake...Stanley Yelnats. Or, at least, that's what the camp counselor tells him. But Stanley, accused of stealing the used sneakers of baseball great Clyde Livingston, is innocent. He knows that his being at the camp is just part of the curse that has plagued his family for generations. His bad luck is the fault of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. But that's another story.
And so Stanley begins his routine at the camp. Along with the other boys in the D tent, Stanley gets up every day before dawn to dig a hole in the desert that's five feet in every direction. The counselors let the boys know that the Warden wants to be alerted if anyone digs up anything "interesting." A gold-colored tube with the initials KB proves to be just this...interesting. With each hole he digs, Stanley comes closer to the truth that KB stands for Kissin' Kate Barlow, a schoolteacher whose forbidden love for an onion seller turned her into a notorious outlaw who roamed the area back when there was a lake in Green Lake.
And that story about Stanley's no-good no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather? It might not be a different story after all.
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