Dig It Up *A 'Holes' Fanfiction*

Charlie or Smarts?

Chapter 18

"So, what's there for fun around here?" Charlie asked me as she bounced out of the tent. It was really scary how she was so happy this early in the morning. I trudged out with the boys behind me.

"Fun isn't exactly a very common word. But, we have the Wreck Room. It has lots of erm…entertaining stuff. We basically go there after digging. Here have a shovel.” I tossed a long dirty shovel at her, which she dropped then scrambled on the ground to pick up again. She then followed me to the hole site where Mr. Sir did the whole ‘come dig where I spit’ speech. After he left, the sun began to rise and we all began to dig. Charlie was having trouble, she might be tall but even I was stronger. She stumbled a bit but then found her footing and pushed the shovel deep into the dirt. She swept her blonde hair away from her face as she poured the dirt behind her and pushed the shovel down again. I tied my own back into a high ponytail even though many strands hung down. My brown waves had now turned into curly and annoying knots. Since Charlie told the guys her story, X-Ray started thinking of a nickname for her. He pouted, looked to the sky, looked at Charlie, took a scoop of dirt, and then repeated the process of deep thinking. When the blue truck appeared in the distance, he was still thinking. Damn this guy takes forever! But, when I sat down for lunch next to Charlie’s hole, his face lit up and he had her name. Charlie was examining the graham cracker and apple she had received for her ‘lunch’.

"Hey, Smarts, do you like your lunch?" X-Ray asked, looking at Charlie.

"Yeah, Smarts, do you?" Squid asked, looking at her too.

"Who's Smarts? Me?" she asked, looking up from her apple confused. "Oh, cool, but I’m not smart-” I coughed and raised an eyebrow at her. “Um, yeah, Smarts is a good name for me." I sunk my teeth deep into my apple satisfied.

"Hey, Charlie, how are you doing with your hole?" I peered into my best friend’s hole. I had known Charlie most of my life, I wasn’t gonna call her something that was just made up now! She was around, oh, I don't know, two feet down at three o’clock! My hands were sore, and I swear, the second hole’s the hardest. It just opens up your Goddamn blisters and makes them bleed. I looked at my hands; they hardly looked like girl’s hands! The surface was hard and rough; the popped painful blisters had disappeared leaving faint white circles. I flexed my fingers then picked up my shovel.

"Terrible." She responded, taking a swig of her canteen and digging the shovel into the rock-like dirt.

"How're your hands?" X-Ray called to Charlie as he stepped out of his hole, finished. He spat and walked over to Smarts, his shovel draped over his shoulders.

"Bloody and very, very painful. Yeah, it's just another one of those bucket full of sunshine days, you know?" She responded glaring at the desert, X-Ray, the sand, and me.

"No need to get touchy." X-Ray began his walk back to camp. There were 4 people left, Caveman, Zigzag, Charlie, and the wonderful I. I was almost done, as was Zigzag, but Caveman and Smarts still pretty much had the rest of a long hour, at the least, ahead of them. I noticed Zigzag-studying Charles, her long pale arms, blonde hair and matching blue eyes alike. They'd make a cute couple. They're both a bit opposite, but they're both a bit… eccentric in their own special way. Charlie had some problems of her own. I knew the true reason why she became a rebellious Brit. She was raised a very proper posh child. You know, pronouncing T’s correctly and sitting up real straight. Well her parents were very uptight, I would know, they didn’t like me that much! One day Mr. and Mrs. Akerman decided that it would be for the best that she would have an arranged marriage to some Danish army dude. After a long heated argument Charlie ran away, came to my house angry and crying on my doorstep and asked if I needed someone to accompany me when I ‘shopped’ as I liked to call it. So she was my helper to get in and out of things until the day I got caught.

"Well, friends, and asshole, I'm done." I leapt out of my hole, not as easy as it sounds, spat in it, and began my wonderfully hot walk to Camp-Boring-as-Hell. I was thinking about Squid on my way there. I knew I was having feelings for the very attractive… I mean, yeah, attractive brunette. But when I walked into the tent I was greeted with the strangest sight in my time at Camp Green Lake. Well…it’s not the strangest sight but to me it kinda startled me. Zero was on his bed leaning over a piece of paper on a book, scribbling something. “Hey, Zero what’yah doing?” Zero slammed the book behind him and threw the pencil under his cot.

“Nothing…” He looked up nervously. I walked over and pulled the book and paper out from behind him. Huge letters were scribbled down the side. ‘Zero, Mom, King, Time, Holes…’

“Zero, do you know how to write?” He smiled sheepishly and took the paper from my hands.

“Well, I can write a bit now…and read, Caveman’s been teaching me. Please don’t tell anyone!”

“Don’t worry, your secrets safe with me.” I winked. “But why Stanley? You could’ve asked me?”

“I have to repay him some way…” Zero then explained the whole story of Clyde Livingston’s shoes, how he took them from the shelter he went to and how Stanley ended up with them. Now he made it up to Stanley by helping him dig his hole, which would start tomorrow, so that Stanley could be able to teach him. I knew that that boy was too good to be here.