The walk back to his hole was long. Stanley gazed through the shimmering heat and dust at the other boys, their shovels rhythmically rising and falling. Group D was the farthest away.
Once again, he realized he would be digging long after everyone else had stopped. He hoped to finish before Mr. Sir recovered, as he didn’t want to be alone with him.
“He won’t die,” the Warden had said. “Unfortunately for you.”
As Stanley trudged across the barren wasteland, he thought about his great-grandfather—not the pig thief, but the thief’s son, who had been robbed by Kissin’ Kate Barlow.
He tried to imagine how his great-grandfather must have felt after being left stranded in the desert by Kissin’ Kate. It likely wasn’t much different from how Stanley felt now. Kate Barlow had left his great-grandfather to endure the scorching, empty desert. The Warden had left Stanley to face Mr. Sir.
Somehow, his great-grandfather had survived for seventeen days before being rescued by a pair of rattlesnake hunters. He was delirious when they found him.
When he was asked how he had lived so long, he said he “found refuge on God’s thumb.”
He spent nearly a month in a hospital. He ended up marrying one of the nurses. Nobody ever knew what he meant by God’s thumb, including himself.
Stanley heard a twitching sound. He stopped in mid-step, with one foot still in the air.
A rattlesnake lay coiled beneath his foot. Its tail was pointed upward, rattling.
Stanley backed his leg away, then turned and ran.
The rattlesnake didn’t chase after him. It had rattled its tail to warn him to stay away.
“Thanks for the warning,” Stanley whispered as his heart pounded.
The rattlesnake would be a lot more dangerous if it didn’t have a rattle.
“Hey, Caveman!” called Armpit. “You’re still alive.”
“What’d the Warden say?” asked X-Ray. “What’d you tell her?” asked Magnet. “I told her I stole the seeds,” said Stanley. “Good going,” said Magnet. “What’d she do?” asked Zigzag.
Stanley shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing. She got mad at Mr. Sir for bothering her.”
He didn’t feel like going into details. If he didn’t talk about it, then maybe it didn’t happen.
He went over to his hole, and to his surprise it was nearly finished. He stared at it, amazed. It didn’t make sense.
Or perhaps it did. He smiled. Since he had taken the blame for the sunflower seeds, he realized, the other boys had dug his hole for him.
“Hey, thanks,” he said.
“Don’t look at me,” said X-Ray.
Confused, Stanley looked around—from Magnet, to Armpit, to Zigzag, to Squid. None of them took credit for it.
Then he turned to Zero, who had been quietly digging in his hole since Stanley’s return. Zero’s hole was smaller than all the others.
