Chapter 1-10 Summarie
Holes
Chapter 1
It all starts with Part 1 (naturally), which is called "You Are Entering Camp Green Lake." So we guess we're entering Camp Green Lake.
First, we get a description of said camp: it's a "dry, flat wasteland" in Texas. Sounds… not awesome.
We don't yet know what kind of camp Green Lake is, but there is a Warden, who "owns the shade." The campers are forbidden to lie in the Warden's hammock. Boo!
We get a little more 4-1-1 on the camp: it's horribly dry and hot, and has a variety of dangerous animals: rattlesnakes, scorpions, and something called a "yellow-spotted lizard." A bite from this crazy-sounding lizard is a guarantee of "a slow and painful death." This place sounds like a great vacation spot, eh?
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 1 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 2
Now we get the real story: turns out Camp Green Lake is "a camp for bad boys."
In fact, the boys at the camp have to dig a hole every day, in the hopes that it will make them good boys. Hmm.
Stanley Yelnats, for one, chose to go to Camp Green Lake. After all, the alternative was going to jail; plus, he's poor and has never been to camp before. Sounds like a good choice, then.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 2 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 3
Stanley is on a bus to Camp Green Lake. He is the only passenger, and he is handcuffed to his seat. There's also an armed guard on the bus. So far, so yikes.
The bus ride is hot and unpleasant. All Stanley has with him are a few possessions, including some stationery he brought so he can write to his mom. This is one sweet guy.
When Stanley was younger, he used to play a game with stuffed animals, a marble, and some broken rubber bands, pretending that his stuffed animals were going to camp and having lots of fun. Talk about making something from nothing.
Two more facts about Stanley: he's overweight and has no friends. Oh, and he's on the bus because he was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. So that's not awesome.
There is a joke in Stanley's family that when things go wrong, it's because of Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" (3.10). According to family legend, Stanley's great-great-grandfather was cursed by a one-legged gypsy for stealing her pig, and the curse is still in place. Best family story ever.
Stanley remembers a lullaby his father used to sing to him. His father is an inventor who works hard but has never had a successful invention.
Stanley's dad's name is also Stanley: for generations, the Yelnats sons (who have all been only children) have been named Stanley. They seem to like the fact that the name Stanley Yelnats is spelled the same forward and backward. (The fancy term for a word or name like this is a "palindrome." There are tons of pretty fun examplesLinks to an external site..)
All of these Stanley Yelnatses (kind of a mouthful, we know) have been unlucky, poor and –amazingly – hopeful.
The first Stanley Yelnats (our Stanley's great-grandfather) was rich, but he lost all his money when his stagecoach was robbed by a famous outlaw called Kissin' Kate Barlow.
Kissin' Kate Barlow didn't actually kiss Stanley's great-grandfather.
The apartment in which Stanley's family lives smells super nasty – like feet! – because Stanley's father is trying to invent a way to recycle old sneakers. It turns out it was this project that somehow led to Stanley's being arrested. This should be good.
Finally, the bus arrives at Camp Green Lake.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 3 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 4
Stanley gets off the bus at Camp Green Lake. He's thirsty and hot, and the camp is a barren wasteland, with only some old buildings, tents, and a couple of trees. Ick.
The guard takes Stanley into an air-conditioned building, where there is a man with his feet up on a desk drinking soda and eating sunflower seeds out of a burlap sack. Now that's an image. The man, who wears a cowboy hat and has a rattlesnake tattoo, says his name is Mr. Sir. He also says he's been eating sunflower seeds since he quit smoking.
"You're not in the Girl Scouts anymore," Mr. Sir tells Stanley (4.19).
Stanley is given two (identical) sets of clothes, one for work and one for rest. Each set of clothes consists of a bright orange jumpsuit, a shirt, and a cap. He's also given white sneakers and an empty plastic canteen. This sure doesn't sound like the camp Shmoop went to as a kid.
Laundry, Mr. Sir tells him, will be done every three days, at which point Stanley will get a new set of rest clothes, and his old rest clothes will become his work clothes.
Um, ew.
Mr. Sir also tells him that he will be expected to dig a five-foot deep, five-foot wide hole every day, and that breakfast is at 4:30 in the morning: they start early so they can be finished digging before the sun gets too high.
Next, Mr. Sir takes Stanley back outside and tells him to look around. He points out that there is no fence, no guard tower – nothing to keep Stanley from running away. Oh, but there's also no water for a hundred miles.
So yeah, if Stanley tries to run away, he'll be "buzzard food in three days" (4.43). Our not-so-lovable Sir tells Stanley to get used to being thirsty: he's going to feel that way for the next eighteen months.
Yikes.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 4 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 5
There are six tents at Camp Green Lake (yep, that's right, tents): the campers sleep in tents A through E, and the counselors sleep in tent F. Our buddy Stanley is assigned to tent D, and his counselor is Mr. Pendanski.
Mr. Pendanski tells Stanley that Mr. Sir isn't as scary as he seems. The one he needs to worry about is the Warden.
Mr. P seems pretty supportive: he knows that Stanley has made mistakes, but he's going to help him turn his life around.
Then two more boys arrive. Mr. Pendanski introduces them to Stanley as Alan and Rex, but they say they are actually called Squid and X-Ray. Right.
Inside D Tent, there are seven cots. Stanley will be sleeping on the cot formerly used by Lewis (known as Barf Bag – naturally).
Four more boys arrive. And guess what? More name games. Mr. Pendanski introduces the first three as Jose, Theodore, and Ricky, but they call themselves Magnet, Armpit, and Zigzag.
The last boy is called Zero by both Mr. Pendanski and by the other boys. Mr. P teases the boy, saying his name is Zero because "there's nothing inside his head" (5.33). No response. Hmmm, maybe that's a sore spot?
One of the boys jokes that Mr. Pendanski's nickname is "Mom." Fine by Mr. P, who then leaves, telling the boys to make Stanley feel welcome.
They all get ready to go take their showers, but Stanley, who is still really thirsty, asks Theodore where he can go to fill his canteen. Oops. Theodore throws Stanley to the ground and tells him not to call him Theodore: his name is Armpit. Duh.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 5 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 6
The rest of the night isn't super for Stanley: he takes a cold shower (and each boy is only allowed to use the water for four minutes anyway), and he eats a tasteless and unidentifiable dinner.
One of the other campers asks Stanley what brought him to Camp Green Lake. He says he stole a pair of sneakers that belonged to Clyde Livingston. Yeah, right: nobody believes him.
Later, as he lies on his cot in D Tent, Stanley thinks about his path to Camp Green Lake.
It turns out Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston is a famous baseball player. Stanley even had a poster of Livingston hanging in his room at home, although the poster was taken by the police as evidence when Stanley was arrested.
Clyde Livingston himself came to Stanley's trial, and Stanley was super excited that he was going to get to meet his hero. But… Livingston was not so excited to meet Stanley.
The ball player testified that he had donated his sneakers to raise money for a homeless shelter, and "he couldn't imagine what kind of horrible person would steal from homeless children" (6.18).
Still lying in his cot, Stanley also thinks about Derrick Dunne, a bully who used to pick on him in school. Derrick was much smaller than Stanley, so his teachers found it funny that a little kid could pick on a bigger kid, and no one did anything to help Stanley. Not cool.
The day Stanley was arrested was actually a Derrick-filled day: the bully had taken Stanley's notebook and dropped it in a toilet, and Stanley had to fish it out. Gross. And what's worse, it made him miss the bus, which meant he had to walk home.
While he was walking home, the sneakers fell from the sky (well, from a freeway overpass) and hit him on the head. Seriously.
Stanley didn't know the shoes belonged to Clyde Livingston, but he could tell there was something special about them. It was as if they were a sign from God, and they would be the key to his father's recycling project. (They smelled pretty nasty, after all.)
So Stanley was running home when a police car pulled up beside him. Turns out the shoes had been stolen from a homeless shelter nearby, where they were going to be auctioned off at an expensive charity dinner that night. Clyde Livingston – who had once lived at the shelter – was going to be at the dinner signing autographs, and his donated shoes were expected to raise a lot of money for the homeless.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Stanley's parents couldn't afford a lawyer, but his mother told him to just tell the truth. So he did. But no one believed him.
And so the judge gave Stanley the choice of going to jail or going to Camp Green Lake. And here we are.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 6 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 7
Stanley is digging a hole the next morning while it's still dark.
After breakfast that morning, the boys had each filled their canteens and fetched a shovel from a shed near the showers. Then each group of boys was sent to dig in a different area.
The camp is full of holes that have been dug in the past: just picture it! Kind of creepy, right?
If the boys find anything interesting or unusual while digging, they're supposed to tell Mr. P or Mr. Sir. And if the Warden likes what they find, they'll get the rest of the day off with no more digging. Weird system, but hey, no one's complaining about a day off.
Stanley continues to dig, struggling in the heat.
Get ready to shift gears. Suddenly we're in the past, hanging out with Stanley's great-great-grandfather. His name is Elya Yelnats, and when we meet him he is fifteen years old and living in LatviaLinks to an external site. (a small country in northeastern Europe).
Bonus, this is a love story! Stanley's great-great-grandpa is in love with the local beauty, Myra Menke. He wants to marry her, but she's also being courted by Igor Barkov, a fifty-seven-year-old pig farmer.
Turns out this is some tough competition: the pig farmer offers Myra's father his fattest pig in exchange for Myra. Top that, Elya.
Elya goes to see his friend Madame Zeroni – an old woman with only one foot – to ask her for advice. She tells Elya that he shouldn't marry Myra anyway: she's got nothing going for her other than her beauty.
But Elya doesn't get it. As the narrator tells us, "[h]e was fifteen, and all he could see was Myra's shallow beauty" (7.40).
So Madame Zeroni agrees to help mini-great-great-grandpa. She gives him a little baby pig, the runt of the litter, and tells him that if he carries the pig up a nearby mountain every day and lets it drink from the stream at the top, by Myra's birthday – the big decision day – the pig will be big and strong. Oh, and one more thing: Elya has to sing a special song to the pig while he's carrying it. Weird, we know, but she's a wise old lady, so just go with it.
Speaking of going with it, there's more: on the last day, after he gives the pig to Myra's father, he has to carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain and sing the song to her, too. If he doesn't do it, she tells him, things will be bad. Very bad. In fact, "he and his descendants would be doomed for all of eternity" (7.59).
Whoa.
Now we're back in the present with Stanley, who is still digging his hole. His progress is super slow, he's finished the last of his water, and he has blisters on his hands. Not great.
Mr. Sir drives up in the water truck, refills the boys' canteens, and tells Stanley he'd better learn to dig faster. The guy is still eating sunflower seeds, and he spits some shells into Stanley's half-dug hole. Not the best motivator, it seems.
Get ready: through the magic of narrative, we jump back again to the story of Elya in Latvia.
Elya has been carrying the pig up the mountain every day, singing to it, doing exactly as he was told. In the meantime, he's been growing bigger and stronger from all that hog-hauling.
On Myra's birthday, Elya gets a little over-eager: he skips the climb up the mountain and just takes the pig straight to Myra's father. When Myra's father weighs the pig, he finds that it weighs exactly the same as Igor Barkov's pig. What are the chances?
(Back in the present, Stanley is still digging. He is thoroughly miserable, and even his blisters have blisters. Ouch.)
Since both pigs weigh the same, Elya suggests that Myra decide which suitor to marry. Seems fair enough.
Just one problem: Myra doesn't even remember who Elya is (talk about heartbreak!), can't decide which one to marry, and doesn't even seem to care. So Elya walks away in disgust – he doesn't want to marry a girl like that anyway.
(Back at Camp Green Lake, Mr. Pendanski has brought the boys lunches and fresh water. Stanley is still way behind the other boys in his digging. It is his first day, after all.)
Now back in Latvia (anyone getting dizzy?), Elya wanders around in despair, finally seeing the truth of what Madame Zeroni had told him about Myra at the very start of this whole ordeal.
He decides right then and there to go to America as a deckhand on a ship. And of course, he gets hired right away because of his new buff, post-pig-carting body. Only after the ship sails does he remember that he had promised to carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain so she could drink from the stream at the top. Uh oh. This can't end well.
(Back at Camp Green Lake, Stanley is – you guessed it – still digging. Although he's the smallest kid in the group, Zero finishes his hole first. One by one, each of the other boys finishes and goes back to the tent to shower and rest, leaving only Stanley still out digging in the hot sun.)
Great-great-grandpa Elya, having moved to America, falls in love with a woman very different from Myra. His new wife can "push a plow, milk a goat, and, most important, think for herself" (7.131).
There is one hitch: Elya always seems to have really bad luck. He starts to think that maybe Madame Zeroni's curse is real.
Meanwhile, Elya teaches the pig lullaby to his wife, who sings it to their child when he is born a year later. The child's name is Stanley (that's our Stanley's great-grandfather), and the song is the same one our Stanley's father sang to him when he was little.
Tradition!Links to an external site.
(Back at Camp Green Lake, Stanley finally finishes digging his hole. Whew! He is beyond exhausted, but very proud.)
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 7 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 8
Now it's just us and the narrator. He tells us that a lot of people don't believe in curses. But actually, a lot of people don't believe in yellow-spotted lizards either: and it definitely won't matter if you believe in them when one bites you. (Get it?)
Some details about the yellow-spotted lizard: they are extremely deadly, with red-rimmed eyes and black teeth. Also, they like to live in holes (uh oh) and they can leap out of holes to attack prey (double uh oh). One last thing: they like to eat the shells of sunflower seeds. Yeah, this isn't good news.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 8 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 9
Stanley heads straight for the shower after digging his hole. He goes to the rec room, where the other boys are already gathered, exhausted from their day. Everything in the rec room (or "Wreck Room," as it says on the door) is broken.
Stanley trips over a large boy's foot, and the boy, offended, challenges him. But X-Ray and Armpit come to Stanley's defense: they give him the nickname "Caveman" and tease him about how tough it was to dig the hole. (If that's defending him, we wonder what bullying looks like.)
The boys notice the stationery that Stanley has brought with him to the wreck room, and they laugh when he tells them he's going to write to his mother. (We, on the other hand, think it's sweet.)
Stanley starts writing to his mother, making it sound as if the camp is a fun place to be.
He suddenly realizes that Zero is reading over his shoulder. Zero looks "serious, almost angry" (9.47) and asks if Clyde Livingston's shoes had red X's on them.
Huh? They did. Stanley is puzzled (so are we): how does Zero know that?
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 9 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 10
The next day, Stanley is digging another hole. He is hot, blistered, and even more miserable than he was the day before. (We're on day two here: eighteen months of this sure won't be easy.)
As he's digging, he finds a rock with the outline of a fossilized fish in it. This could be his ticket to a day of rest!
When Mr. Pendanski comes by with the water truck, the boys line up to have their canteens filled. They always line up in a specific order: X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet, Zero, and, finally, Stanley. (How about those names?)
When it's his turn to get water, Stanley presents the fossil to Mr. Pendanski, expecting to get the rest of the day off. But no such luck: Mr. P tells him that the Warden isn't interested in fossils.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 10 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
It all starts with Part 1 (naturally), which is called "You Are Entering Camp Green Lake." So we guess we're entering Camp Green Lake.
First, we get a description of said camp: it's a "dry, flat wasteland" in Texas. Sounds… not awesome.
We don't yet know what kind of camp Green Lake is, but there is a Warden, who "owns the shade." The campers are forbidden to lie in the Warden's hammock. Boo!
We get a little more 4-1-1 on the camp: it's horribly dry and hot, and has a variety of dangerous animals: rattlesnakes, scorpions, and something called a "yellow-spotted lizard." A bite from this crazy-sounding lizard is a guarantee of "a slow and painful death." This place sounds like a great vacation spot, eh?
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 1 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 2
Now we get the real story: turns out Camp Green Lake is "a camp for bad boys."
In fact, the boys at the camp have to dig a hole every day, in the hopes that it will make them good boys. Hmm.
Stanley Yelnats, for one, chose to go to Camp Green Lake. After all, the alternative was going to jail; plus, he's poor and has never been to camp before. Sounds like a good choice, then.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 2 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 3
Stanley is on a bus to Camp Green Lake. He is the only passenger, and he is handcuffed to his seat. There's also an armed guard on the bus. So far, so yikes.
The bus ride is hot and unpleasant. All Stanley has with him are a few possessions, including some stationery he brought so he can write to his mom. This is one sweet guy.
When Stanley was younger, he used to play a game with stuffed animals, a marble, and some broken rubber bands, pretending that his stuffed animals were going to camp and having lots of fun. Talk about making something from nothing.
Two more facts about Stanley: he's overweight and has no friends. Oh, and he's on the bus because he was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. So that's not awesome.
There is a joke in Stanley's family that when things go wrong, it's because of Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" (3.10). According to family legend, Stanley's great-great-grandfather was cursed by a one-legged gypsy for stealing her pig, and the curse is still in place. Best family story ever.
Stanley remembers a lullaby his father used to sing to him. His father is an inventor who works hard but has never had a successful invention.
Stanley's dad's name is also Stanley: for generations, the Yelnats sons (who have all been only children) have been named Stanley. They seem to like the fact that the name Stanley Yelnats is spelled the same forward and backward. (The fancy term for a word or name like this is a "palindrome." There are tons of pretty fun examplesLinks to an external site..)
All of these Stanley Yelnatses (kind of a mouthful, we know) have been unlucky, poor and –amazingly – hopeful.
The first Stanley Yelnats (our Stanley's great-grandfather) was rich, but he lost all his money when his stagecoach was robbed by a famous outlaw called Kissin' Kate Barlow.
Kissin' Kate Barlow didn't actually kiss Stanley's great-grandfather.
The apartment in which Stanley's family lives smells super nasty – like feet! – because Stanley's father is trying to invent a way to recycle old sneakers. It turns out it was this project that somehow led to Stanley's being arrested. This should be good.
Finally, the bus arrives at Camp Green Lake.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 3 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 4
Stanley gets off the bus at Camp Green Lake. He's thirsty and hot, and the camp is a barren wasteland, with only some old buildings, tents, and a couple of trees. Ick.
The guard takes Stanley into an air-conditioned building, where there is a man with his feet up on a desk drinking soda and eating sunflower seeds out of a burlap sack. Now that's an image. The man, who wears a cowboy hat and has a rattlesnake tattoo, says his name is Mr. Sir. He also says he's been eating sunflower seeds since he quit smoking.
"You're not in the Girl Scouts anymore," Mr. Sir tells Stanley (4.19).
Stanley is given two (identical) sets of clothes, one for work and one for rest. Each set of clothes consists of a bright orange jumpsuit, a shirt, and a cap. He's also given white sneakers and an empty plastic canteen. This sure doesn't sound like the camp Shmoop went to as a kid.
Laundry, Mr. Sir tells him, will be done every three days, at which point Stanley will get a new set of rest clothes, and his old rest clothes will become his work clothes.
Um, ew.
Mr. Sir also tells him that he will be expected to dig a five-foot deep, five-foot wide hole every day, and that breakfast is at 4:30 in the morning: they start early so they can be finished digging before the sun gets too high.
Next, Mr. Sir takes Stanley back outside and tells him to look around. He points out that there is no fence, no guard tower – nothing to keep Stanley from running away. Oh, but there's also no water for a hundred miles.
So yeah, if Stanley tries to run away, he'll be "buzzard food in three days" (4.43). Our not-so-lovable Sir tells Stanley to get used to being thirsty: he's going to feel that way for the next eighteen months.
Yikes.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 4 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 5
There are six tents at Camp Green Lake (yep, that's right, tents): the campers sleep in tents A through E, and the counselors sleep in tent F. Our buddy Stanley is assigned to tent D, and his counselor is Mr. Pendanski.
Mr. Pendanski tells Stanley that Mr. Sir isn't as scary as he seems. The one he needs to worry about is the Warden.
Mr. P seems pretty supportive: he knows that Stanley has made mistakes, but he's going to help him turn his life around.
Then two more boys arrive. Mr. Pendanski introduces them to Stanley as Alan and Rex, but they say they are actually called Squid and X-Ray. Right.
Inside D Tent, there are seven cots. Stanley will be sleeping on the cot formerly used by Lewis (known as Barf Bag – naturally).
Four more boys arrive. And guess what? More name games. Mr. Pendanski introduces the first three as Jose, Theodore, and Ricky, but they call themselves Magnet, Armpit, and Zigzag.
The last boy is called Zero by both Mr. Pendanski and by the other boys. Mr. P teases the boy, saying his name is Zero because "there's nothing inside his head" (5.33). No response. Hmmm, maybe that's a sore spot?
One of the boys jokes that Mr. Pendanski's nickname is "Mom." Fine by Mr. P, who then leaves, telling the boys to make Stanley feel welcome.
They all get ready to go take their showers, but Stanley, who is still really thirsty, asks Theodore where he can go to fill his canteen. Oops. Theodore throws Stanley to the ground and tells him not to call him Theodore: his name is Armpit. Duh.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 5 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 6
The rest of the night isn't super for Stanley: he takes a cold shower (and each boy is only allowed to use the water for four minutes anyway), and he eats a tasteless and unidentifiable dinner.
One of the other campers asks Stanley what brought him to Camp Green Lake. He says he stole a pair of sneakers that belonged to Clyde Livingston. Yeah, right: nobody believes him.
Later, as he lies on his cot in D Tent, Stanley thinks about his path to Camp Green Lake.
It turns out Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston is a famous baseball player. Stanley even had a poster of Livingston hanging in his room at home, although the poster was taken by the police as evidence when Stanley was arrested.
Clyde Livingston himself came to Stanley's trial, and Stanley was super excited that he was going to get to meet his hero. But… Livingston was not so excited to meet Stanley.
The ball player testified that he had donated his sneakers to raise money for a homeless shelter, and "he couldn't imagine what kind of horrible person would steal from homeless children" (6.18).
Still lying in his cot, Stanley also thinks about Derrick Dunne, a bully who used to pick on him in school. Derrick was much smaller than Stanley, so his teachers found it funny that a little kid could pick on a bigger kid, and no one did anything to help Stanley. Not cool.
The day Stanley was arrested was actually a Derrick-filled day: the bully had taken Stanley's notebook and dropped it in a toilet, and Stanley had to fish it out. Gross. And what's worse, it made him miss the bus, which meant he had to walk home.
While he was walking home, the sneakers fell from the sky (well, from a freeway overpass) and hit him on the head. Seriously.
Stanley didn't know the shoes belonged to Clyde Livingston, but he could tell there was something special about them. It was as if they were a sign from God, and they would be the key to his father's recycling project. (They smelled pretty nasty, after all.)
So Stanley was running home when a police car pulled up beside him. Turns out the shoes had been stolen from a homeless shelter nearby, where they were going to be auctioned off at an expensive charity dinner that night. Clyde Livingston – who had once lived at the shelter – was going to be at the dinner signing autographs, and his donated shoes were expected to raise a lot of money for the homeless.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Stanley's parents couldn't afford a lawyer, but his mother told him to just tell the truth. So he did. But no one believed him.
And so the judge gave Stanley the choice of going to jail or going to Camp Green Lake. And here we are.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 6 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 7
Stanley is digging a hole the next morning while it's still dark.
After breakfast that morning, the boys had each filled their canteens and fetched a shovel from a shed near the showers. Then each group of boys was sent to dig in a different area.
The camp is full of holes that have been dug in the past: just picture it! Kind of creepy, right?
If the boys find anything interesting or unusual while digging, they're supposed to tell Mr. P or Mr. Sir. And if the Warden likes what they find, they'll get the rest of the day off with no more digging. Weird system, but hey, no one's complaining about a day off.
Stanley continues to dig, struggling in the heat.
Get ready to shift gears. Suddenly we're in the past, hanging out with Stanley's great-great-grandfather. His name is Elya Yelnats, and when we meet him he is fifteen years old and living in LatviaLinks to an external site. (a small country in northeastern Europe).
Bonus, this is a love story! Stanley's great-great-grandpa is in love with the local beauty, Myra Menke. He wants to marry her, but she's also being courted by Igor Barkov, a fifty-seven-year-old pig farmer.
Turns out this is some tough competition: the pig farmer offers Myra's father his fattest pig in exchange for Myra. Top that, Elya.
Elya goes to see his friend Madame Zeroni – an old woman with only one foot – to ask her for advice. She tells Elya that he shouldn't marry Myra anyway: she's got nothing going for her other than her beauty.
But Elya doesn't get it. As the narrator tells us, "[h]e was fifteen, and all he could see was Myra's shallow beauty" (7.40).
So Madame Zeroni agrees to help mini-great-great-grandpa. She gives him a little baby pig, the runt of the litter, and tells him that if he carries the pig up a nearby mountain every day and lets it drink from the stream at the top, by Myra's birthday – the big decision day – the pig will be big and strong. Oh, and one more thing: Elya has to sing a special song to the pig while he's carrying it. Weird, we know, but she's a wise old lady, so just go with it.
Speaking of going with it, there's more: on the last day, after he gives the pig to Myra's father, he has to carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain and sing the song to her, too. If he doesn't do it, she tells him, things will be bad. Very bad. In fact, "he and his descendants would be doomed for all of eternity" (7.59).
Whoa.
Now we're back in the present with Stanley, who is still digging his hole. His progress is super slow, he's finished the last of his water, and he has blisters on his hands. Not great.
Mr. Sir drives up in the water truck, refills the boys' canteens, and tells Stanley he'd better learn to dig faster. The guy is still eating sunflower seeds, and he spits some shells into Stanley's half-dug hole. Not the best motivator, it seems.
Get ready: through the magic of narrative, we jump back again to the story of Elya in Latvia.
Elya has been carrying the pig up the mountain every day, singing to it, doing exactly as he was told. In the meantime, he's been growing bigger and stronger from all that hog-hauling.
On Myra's birthday, Elya gets a little over-eager: he skips the climb up the mountain and just takes the pig straight to Myra's father. When Myra's father weighs the pig, he finds that it weighs exactly the same as Igor Barkov's pig. What are the chances?
(Back in the present, Stanley is still digging. He is thoroughly miserable, and even his blisters have blisters. Ouch.)
Since both pigs weigh the same, Elya suggests that Myra decide which suitor to marry. Seems fair enough.
Just one problem: Myra doesn't even remember who Elya is (talk about heartbreak!), can't decide which one to marry, and doesn't even seem to care. So Elya walks away in disgust – he doesn't want to marry a girl like that anyway.
(Back at Camp Green Lake, Mr. Pendanski has brought the boys lunches and fresh water. Stanley is still way behind the other boys in his digging. It is his first day, after all.)
Now back in Latvia (anyone getting dizzy?), Elya wanders around in despair, finally seeing the truth of what Madame Zeroni had told him about Myra at the very start of this whole ordeal.
He decides right then and there to go to America as a deckhand on a ship. And of course, he gets hired right away because of his new buff, post-pig-carting body. Only after the ship sails does he remember that he had promised to carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain so she could drink from the stream at the top. Uh oh. This can't end well.
(Back at Camp Green Lake, Stanley is – you guessed it – still digging. Although he's the smallest kid in the group, Zero finishes his hole first. One by one, each of the other boys finishes and goes back to the tent to shower and rest, leaving only Stanley still out digging in the hot sun.)
Great-great-grandpa Elya, having moved to America, falls in love with a woman very different from Myra. His new wife can "push a plow, milk a goat, and, most important, think for herself" (7.131).
There is one hitch: Elya always seems to have really bad luck. He starts to think that maybe Madame Zeroni's curse is real.
Meanwhile, Elya teaches the pig lullaby to his wife, who sings it to their child when he is born a year later. The child's name is Stanley (that's our Stanley's great-grandfather), and the song is the same one our Stanley's father sang to him when he was little.
Tradition!Links to an external site.
(Back at Camp Green Lake, Stanley finally finishes digging his hole. Whew! He is beyond exhausted, but very proud.)
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 7 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 8
Now it's just us and the narrator. He tells us that a lot of people don't believe in curses. But actually, a lot of people don't believe in yellow-spotted lizards either: and it definitely won't matter if you believe in them when one bites you. (Get it?)
Some details about the yellow-spotted lizard: they are extremely deadly, with red-rimmed eyes and black teeth. Also, they like to live in holes (uh oh) and they can leap out of holes to attack prey (double uh oh). One last thing: they like to eat the shells of sunflower seeds. Yeah, this isn't good news.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 8 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 9
Stanley heads straight for the shower after digging his hole. He goes to the rec room, where the other boys are already gathered, exhausted from their day. Everything in the rec room (or "Wreck Room," as it says on the door) is broken.
Stanley trips over a large boy's foot, and the boy, offended, challenges him. But X-Ray and Armpit come to Stanley's defense: they give him the nickname "Caveman" and tease him about how tough it was to dig the hole. (If that's defending him, we wonder what bullying looks like.)
The boys notice the stationery that Stanley has brought with him to the wreck room, and they laugh when he tells them he's going to write to his mother. (We, on the other hand, think it's sweet.)
Stanley starts writing to his mother, making it sound as if the camp is a fun place to be.
He suddenly realizes that Zero is reading over his shoulder. Zero looks "serious, almost angry" (9.47) and asks if Clyde Livingston's shoes had red X's on them.
Huh? They did. Stanley is puzzled (so are we): how does Zero know that?
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 9 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 10
The next day, Stanley is digging another hole. He is hot, blistered, and even more miserable than he was the day before. (We're on day two here: eighteen months of this sure won't be easy.)
As he's digging, he finds a rock with the outline of a fossilized fish in it. This could be his ticket to a day of rest!
When Mr. Pendanski comes by with the water truck, the boys line up to have their canteens filled. They always line up in a specific order: X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet, Zero, and, finally, Stanley. (How about those names?)
When it's his turn to get water, Stanley presents the fossil to Mr. Pendanski, expecting to get the rest of the day off. But no such luck: Mr. P tells him that the Warden isn't interested in fossils.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 10 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.