Free Holes by Louis Sachar

turned to face Mr. Sir, who was sitting on the fireplace hearth.
    “So you think he stole your sunflower seeds?”
    “No, he says he stole them, but I think it was—”
    She stepped toward him and struck him across the face.
    Mr. Sir stared at her. He had three long red marks slanting across the left side of his face. Stanley didn’t know if the redness was caused by her nail polish or his blood.
    It took a moment for the venom to sink in. Suddenly, Mr. Sir screamed and clutched his face with both hands. He let himself fall over, rolling off the hearth and onto the rug.
    The Warden spoke softly. “I don’t especially care about your sunflower seeds.”
    Mr. Sir moaned.
    “If you must know,” said the Warden, “I liked it better when you smoked.”
    For a second, Mr. Sir’s pain seemed to recede. He took several long, deep breaths. Then his head jerked violently, and he let out a shrill scream, worse than the one before.
    The Warden turned to Stanley. “I suggest you go back to your hole now.”
    Stanley started to go, but Mr. Sir lay in the way. Stanley could see the muscles on his face jump and twitch. His body writhed in agony.
    Stanley stepped carefully over him. “Is he—?”
    “Excuse me?” said the Warden.
    Stanley was too frightened to speak.
    “He’s not going to die,” the Warden said. “Unfortunately for you.”

21
    It was a long walk back to his hole. Stanley looked out through the haze of heat and dirt at the other boys, lowering and raising their shovels. Group D was the farthest away.
    He realized that once again he would be digging long after everyone else had quit. He hoped he’d finish before Mr. Sir recovered. He didn’t want to be out there alone with Mr. Sir.
    He won’t die
, the Warden had said.
Unfortunately for you
.
    Walking across the desolate wasteland, Stanley thought about his great-grandfather—not the pig stealer but the pig stealer’s son, the one who was robbed by Kissin’ Kate Barlow.
    He tried to imagine how he must have felt after Kissin’ Kate had left him stranded in the desert. It probably wasn’t a whole lot different from the way he himself felt now. Kate Barlow had left his great-grandfather to face the hot barren desert. The Warden had left Stanley to face Mr. Sir.
    Somehow his great-grandfather had survived for seventeendays, before he was rescued by a couple of rattlesnake hunters. He was insane 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