Chapter 11-20 Summarie
Holes
Chapter 11-20 Summaries
Chapter 11
Back to the digging.
X-Ray approaches Stanley and suggests that if he finds anything else while he's digging, he should give it to X-Ray to turn in. Since he's been at the camp a lot longer than Stanley, X-Ray thinks he deserves a day off more.
Questionable logic, but Stanley more or less agrees to the plan.
After he goes back to digging, Stanley starts to think about the hierarchy at Camp Green Lake. X-Ray is obviously the leader of D Tent, even though he's one of the smallest boys. Not a bad set-up.
Then the fantasizing begins: he imagines all these boys coming with him to his school and beating up the bully Derrick Dunne when he tries to pick on Stanley. Ah, comeuppance.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 11 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 12
When Stanley finishes digging his hole – once again, he's the last one to finish – he finds Mr. Pendanski and the other boys sitting in a circle back at the tent.
Mr. Pendanski says they are discussing their future plans: he asks the boys what they like to do, trying to get them to come up with ideas for future careers.
Then he launches into a lecture about how Stanley is the one responsible for where he is right now: he alone can set his life straight. This is some pretty serious stuff.
Mr. P says that each of the boys is special in his own way. "Even you, Zero," he says. "You're not completely worthless" (12.41). Well, then.
He asks Zero what he likes to do. The boy's response?: "I like to dig holes" (12.46).
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 12 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 13
Days pass and Stanley digs more holes. After a while, he loses track of how long he's been at the camp. All he knows is that he's lost weight, and digging has become a little bit easier. Well, at least that's one positive.
One day, the first cloud he's even seen at Camp Green Lake floats across the sky.
Stanley finds an object in the hole he's digging. Drumroll please… it's a gold tube, about the size of a finger. There is a design engraved on the bottom of the tube: the outline of a heart with the letters KB inside it.
A second chance for a day off? Well, not so much. He doesn't want to have to give it to X-Ray, but he realizes that it's inevitable – he'll have to in the end.
The boys don't know what the tube is, but he says he'll show it to Mr. Pendanski anyway, and maybe he'll get the day off. But Stanley points out that X-Ray's hole is almost finished, and suggests he save the object for the next day, when getting the day off will matter more. Smart thinkin', Stan.
When the water truck comes and the boys line up, X-Ray tells Stanley to take the place in front of Zero. Stanley's moving up in the world!
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 13 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 14
The next morning, Stanley asks X-Ray if he has the gold tube, but X-Ray just gets angry. Huh?
Then, when Mr. Pendanski comes with the water truck, X-Ray doesn't say anything about the tube. But wait! As Mr. Pendanski is about to drive away, X-Ray calls him over and tells him that he's found something.
Mr. P looks it over and tells the boys that he thinks the Warden will like it. Fingers crossed. He drives off, returning a few minutes later with the Warden.
The Warden is a woman: she's tall with red hair and freckles, a black cowboy hat, and black cowboy boots. Just picture it. Seriously, picture it.
She asks X-Ray where he found the tube, and then – you guessed it – grants him the day off. She tells Mr. Pendanski to drive X-Ray back to camp, let him take a double shower, and give him some clean clothes.
But first, she tells him to fill all the boys' canteens. When Mr. P protests that he just filled them, the Warden gives him a verbal slapdown. If he doesn't learn to follow her orders without question, she'll have him start digging holes and let Stanley fill the canteens.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 14 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 15
The Warden directs the boys to keep digging, but there's a slight change. Instead of digging their own holes, they're all digging in or near the hole where X-Ray said he found the gold tube. This sure smells like a treasure hunt to us.
The Warden stays at the site all day, anxiously directing the boys and making sure they have enough water. We wonder what she's hoping to find…
Finally, at the end of the day she says that they can stop. "I've waited this long," she says, "I can wait another day" (15.15). Cliffhanger!
As the boys walk back to their tent, Stanley wonders aloud how the Warden knew all of their names since he'd never even seen her before. Zigzag and Armpit (we still can't get over these nicknames) tell him that she has hidden cameras and microphones all through the camp.
Um…
Stanley isn't sure whether he believes this or not.
He looks back toward the hole he was digging the day before when he found the tube. He realizes that whatever the Warden is looking for, it might be there, and he memorizes the location of the hole.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 15 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 16
After they've arrived back at camp and taken their showers, the boys sit around in the wreck room, as they do. X-Ray is animated and energetic, but the rest of the boys are exhausted.
The next day, the so-far-so-scary Warden joins them at the dig site again. She seems even more anxious than the day before, quickly becoming impatient that nothing else has been found.
Stanley, ever the detective, tries to figure out what that gold tube was: it looked familiar to him, but he can't quite pinpoint what it reminds him of.
That day, the Warden makes the boys dig long after they would usually be finished. Ugh.
Later, back at camp, Mr. Pendanski brings Stanley a letter. Squid and Armpit tease Stanley, asking if the letter is from his mom but X-Ray tells the boys to leave Stanley alone. Looks like someone's got a bodyguard.
After the other boys go to dinner, Stanley reads the letter: it is from his mother, as upbeat and encouraging as ever. She even makes a joke about the odor from Stanley's father's experiments making their apartment smell like the house of the little old lady who lived in a shoeLinks to an external site..
Yum. In any case, it makes Stanley chuckle, and we're happy to see this.
Stanley realizes Zero hasn't gone to dinner with the other boys only when Zero asks him why he is laughing. When Stanley tells him about his mom's joke, Zero doesn't seem to understand: turns out he's never heard the nursery rhyme. Travesty, we do declare!.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 16 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 17
Nothing doing for the next week and a half. The Warden keeps coming to the dig site, and she gets more and more impatient and unhappy every day that they don't find something.
All the boys are digging in the area where X-Ray supposedly found the gold tube: by now, the area has just become one huge hole. (Sounds like fun for a day at the beach, but not at Camp Green Lake.)
One day, when Armpit returns from a bathroom break, the Warden jabs at him with a pitchfork, knocking him backward into the hole and leaving three tiny holes in his shirt.
Wow. This just got way scary.
To top it off, she tells Mr. Pendanski that he's giving the boys too much water.
Later that same day, Stanley and the other boys are all digging when Zigzag accidentally knocks Stanley out with his shovel. And get this: he doesn't apologize.
Stanley has a big gash on the side of his head, but Mr. Sir just bandages it with a piece of his sunflower seed sack and tells Stanley to keep digging.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 17 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 18
The next day, the boys are back to digging their own holes in a whole new part of the dried-out lake. The Warden is no longer coming to supervise the digging, which is a good thing, we guess.
Stanley's head is still hurting from when he got whacked with a shovel (duh). His body, though, has grown strong from all the weeks of digging: he's gotten better at digging holes, too, and finishes much more quickly than he used to. Practice makes perfect, right?
When he gets back to camp, Stanley starts writing a letter to his mother. Just as in his last letter, he makes up fun, camp-like activities to tell her about. He doesn't want to worry Mom.
Zero comes into the tent, but Stanley keeps writing his letter: he "didn't care what Zero thought. Zero was nobody" (18.7). (Sounds like Stanley's being a bit of a bully himself, don't you think?)
Then little Zero tells Stanley that he doesn't know how to read and write, and asks Stanley to teach him. Our guy is surprised, but answers with a big, fat, whopping no.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 18 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 19
Stanley wakes up one night to hear Squid crying in the cot next to his. When he oh-so-kindly asks him if he's all right, Squid says he's fine. But in the morning, when Stanley asks if he's feeling better, Squid freaks out on him and tells him to keep quiet. Well, then. He never learned that sharing is caring, apparently.
Later, Stanley and the gang are out on the lake digging their holes when Mr. Sir comes by with the water truck. After he's gone, Magnet offers the other boys some sunflower seeds – turns out he stole Mr. Sir's burlap sack when he wasn't looking.
Stanley knows this is bad news and doesn't want anything to do with the bag. But when Zigzag tosses it to Stanley, the bag spills all over Stanley's hole. Uh oh.
Sure enough, Mr. Sir comes back and looks into all the half-dug holes to find the culprit. When he finds the bag in Stanley's hole, Stanley takes the blame. The other boys play along, acting as though they knew nothing about it.
This is what we call taking one for the team.
Mr. Sir is skeptical (he doesn't buy it), but he tells Stanley to get into the water truck so they can go tell the Warden about the incident.
Although he's dreading his confrontation with the Warden, Stanley still notices – and appreciates – the brief break from digging that he gets to enjoy.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 19 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 20
Outside the Warden's cabin there are more holes. Can you imagine what this camp looks like?
Inside the air-conditioned cabin, the Warden is watching television: she doesn't seem too happy to have visitors.
Stanley fake-confesses that he stole the sunflower seeds, but Mr. Sir says he thinks that Stanley is covering up for one of the other boys. (Smart man.)
The Warden tells Stanley to go into the other room and bring her a small flowered case that he'll find there. He's confused, but he does what she asks. Obvi.
The Warden opens the case to reveal several bottles of nail polish, lipstick tubes, and powders: it's a makeup case. She shows Stanley a bottle of bright red nail polish, telling him that it's "special" (20.23).
As she paints her nails (um, is now really the time, lady?), the Warden tells Stanley why it's so special: it's made from rattlesnake venom, and it's toxic while wet. Oh, and then she runs her wet nails down Stanley's cheek.
Next, she turns to Mr. Sir and slaps him across the face, scratching his skin with her now-venomous nails. The guy falls to the floor, clutching his face and writhing in pain.
But Mr. Sir isn't going to die: "Unfortunately for you," the Warden tells Stanley (20.46).
Chapter 11
Back to the digging.
X-Ray approaches Stanley and suggests that if he finds anything else while he's digging, he should give it to X-Ray to turn in. Since he's been at the camp a lot longer than Stanley, X-Ray thinks he deserves a day off more.
Questionable logic, but Stanley more or less agrees to the plan.
After he goes back to digging, Stanley starts to think about the hierarchy at Camp Green Lake. X-Ray is obviously the leader of D Tent, even though he's one of the smallest boys. Not a bad set-up.
Then the fantasizing begins: he imagines all these boys coming with him to his school and beating up the bully Derrick Dunne when he tries to pick on Stanley. Ah, comeuppance.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 11 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 12
When Stanley finishes digging his hole – once again, he's the last one to finish – he finds Mr. Pendanski and the other boys sitting in a circle back at the tent.
Mr. Pendanski says they are discussing their future plans: he asks the boys what they like to do, trying to get them to come up with ideas for future careers.
Then he launches into a lecture about how Stanley is the one responsible for where he is right now: he alone can set his life straight. This is some pretty serious stuff.
Mr. P says that each of the boys is special in his own way. "Even you, Zero," he says. "You're not completely worthless" (12.41). Well, then.
He asks Zero what he likes to do. The boy's response?: "I like to dig holes" (12.46).
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 12 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 13
Days pass and Stanley digs more holes. After a while, he loses track of how long he's been at the camp. All he knows is that he's lost weight, and digging has become a little bit easier. Well, at least that's one positive.
One day, the first cloud he's even seen at Camp Green Lake floats across the sky.
Stanley finds an object in the hole he's digging. Drumroll please… it's a gold tube, about the size of a finger. There is a design engraved on the bottom of the tube: the outline of a heart with the letters KB inside it.
A second chance for a day off? Well, not so much. He doesn't want to have to give it to X-Ray, but he realizes that it's inevitable – he'll have to in the end.
The boys don't know what the tube is, but he says he'll show it to Mr. Pendanski anyway, and maybe he'll get the day off. But Stanley points out that X-Ray's hole is almost finished, and suggests he save the object for the next day, when getting the day off will matter more. Smart thinkin', Stan.
When the water truck comes and the boys line up, X-Ray tells Stanley to take the place in front of Zero. Stanley's moving up in the world!
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 13 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 14
The next morning, Stanley asks X-Ray if he has the gold tube, but X-Ray just gets angry. Huh?
Then, when Mr. Pendanski comes with the water truck, X-Ray doesn't say anything about the tube. But wait! As Mr. Pendanski is about to drive away, X-Ray calls him over and tells him that he's found something.
Mr. P looks it over and tells the boys that he thinks the Warden will like it. Fingers crossed. He drives off, returning a few minutes later with the Warden.
The Warden is a woman: she's tall with red hair and freckles, a black cowboy hat, and black cowboy boots. Just picture it. Seriously, picture it.
She asks X-Ray where he found the tube, and then – you guessed it – grants him the day off. She tells Mr. Pendanski to drive X-Ray back to camp, let him take a double shower, and give him some clean clothes.
But first, she tells him to fill all the boys' canteens. When Mr. P protests that he just filled them, the Warden gives him a verbal slapdown. If he doesn't learn to follow her orders without question, she'll have him start digging holes and let Stanley fill the canteens.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 14 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 15
The Warden directs the boys to keep digging, but there's a slight change. Instead of digging their own holes, they're all digging in or near the hole where X-Ray said he found the gold tube. This sure smells like a treasure hunt to us.
The Warden stays at the site all day, anxiously directing the boys and making sure they have enough water. We wonder what she's hoping to find…
Finally, at the end of the day she says that they can stop. "I've waited this long," she says, "I can wait another day" (15.15). Cliffhanger!
As the boys walk back to their tent, Stanley wonders aloud how the Warden knew all of their names since he'd never even seen her before. Zigzag and Armpit (we still can't get over these nicknames) tell him that she has hidden cameras and microphones all through the camp.
Um…
Stanley isn't sure whether he believes this or not.
He looks back toward the hole he was digging the day before when he found the tube. He realizes that whatever the Warden is looking for, it might be there, and he memorizes the location of the hole.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 15 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 16
After they've arrived back at camp and taken their showers, the boys sit around in the wreck room, as they do. X-Ray is animated and energetic, but the rest of the boys are exhausted.
The next day, the so-far-so-scary Warden joins them at the dig site again. She seems even more anxious than the day before, quickly becoming impatient that nothing else has been found.
Stanley, ever the detective, tries to figure out what that gold tube was: it looked familiar to him, but he can't quite pinpoint what it reminds him of.
That day, the Warden makes the boys dig long after they would usually be finished. Ugh.
Later, back at camp, Mr. Pendanski brings Stanley a letter. Squid and Armpit tease Stanley, asking if the letter is from his mom but X-Ray tells the boys to leave Stanley alone. Looks like someone's got a bodyguard.
After the other boys go to dinner, Stanley reads the letter: it is from his mother, as upbeat and encouraging as ever. She even makes a joke about the odor from Stanley's father's experiments making their apartment smell like the house of the little old lady who lived in a shoeLinks to an external site..
Yum. In any case, it makes Stanley chuckle, and we're happy to see this.
Stanley realizes Zero hasn't gone to dinner with the other boys only when Zero asks him why he is laughing. When Stanley tells him about his mom's joke, Zero doesn't seem to understand: turns out he's never heard the nursery rhyme. Travesty, we do declare!.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 16 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 17
Nothing doing for the next week and a half. The Warden keeps coming to the dig site, and she gets more and more impatient and unhappy every day that they don't find something.
All the boys are digging in the area where X-Ray supposedly found the gold tube: by now, the area has just become one huge hole. (Sounds like fun for a day at the beach, but not at Camp Green Lake.)
One day, when Armpit returns from a bathroom break, the Warden jabs at him with a pitchfork, knocking him backward into the hole and leaving three tiny holes in his shirt.
Wow. This just got way scary.
To top it off, she tells Mr. Pendanski that he's giving the boys too much water.
Later that same day, Stanley and the other boys are all digging when Zigzag accidentally knocks Stanley out with his shovel. And get this: he doesn't apologize.
Stanley has a big gash on the side of his head, but Mr. Sir just bandages it with a piece of his sunflower seed sack and tells Stanley to keep digging.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 17 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 18
The next day, the boys are back to digging their own holes in a whole new part of the dried-out lake. The Warden is no longer coming to supervise the digging, which is a good thing, we guess.
Stanley's head is still hurting from when he got whacked with a shovel (duh). His body, though, has grown strong from all the weeks of digging: he's gotten better at digging holes, too, and finishes much more quickly than he used to. Practice makes perfect, right?
When he gets back to camp, Stanley starts writing a letter to his mother. Just as in his last letter, he makes up fun, camp-like activities to tell her about. He doesn't want to worry Mom.
Zero comes into the tent, but Stanley keeps writing his letter: he "didn't care what Zero thought. Zero was nobody" (18.7). (Sounds like Stanley's being a bit of a bully himself, don't you think?)
Then little Zero tells Stanley that he doesn't know how to read and write, and asks Stanley to teach him. Our guy is surprised, but answers with a big, fat, whopping no.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 18 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 19
Stanley wakes up one night to hear Squid crying in the cot next to his. When he oh-so-kindly asks him if he's all right, Squid says he's fine. But in the morning, when Stanley asks if he's feeling better, Squid freaks out on him and tells him to keep quiet. Well, then. He never learned that sharing is caring, apparently.
Later, Stanley and the gang are out on the lake digging their holes when Mr. Sir comes by with the water truck. After he's gone, Magnet offers the other boys some sunflower seeds – turns out he stole Mr. Sir's burlap sack when he wasn't looking.
Stanley knows this is bad news and doesn't want anything to do with the bag. But when Zigzag tosses it to Stanley, the bag spills all over Stanley's hole. Uh oh.
Sure enough, Mr. Sir comes back and looks into all the half-dug holes to find the culprit. When he finds the bag in Stanley's hole, Stanley takes the blame. The other boys play along, acting as though they knew nothing about it.
This is what we call taking one for the team.
Mr. Sir is skeptical (he doesn't buy it), but he tells Stanley to get into the water truck so they can go tell the Warden about the incident.
Although he's dreading his confrontation with the Warden, Stanley still notices – and appreciates – the brief break from digging that he gets to enjoy.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Holes Chapter 19 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2020.
Chapter 20
Outside the Warden's cabin there are more holes. Can you imagine what this camp looks like?
Inside the air-conditioned cabin, the Warden is watching television: she doesn't seem too happy to have visitors.
Stanley fake-confesses that he stole the sunflower seeds, but Mr. Sir says he thinks that Stanley is covering up for one of the other boys. (Smart man.)
The Warden tells Stanley to go into the other room and bring her a small flowered case that he'll find there. He's confused, but he does what she asks. Obvi.
The Warden opens the case to reveal several bottles of nail polish, lipstick tubes, and powders: it's a makeup case. She shows Stanley a bottle of bright red nail polish, telling him that it's "special" (20.23).
As she paints her nails (um, is now really the time, lady?), the Warden tells Stanley why it's so special: it's made from rattlesnake venom, and it's toxic while wet. Oh, and then she runs her wet nails down Stanley's cheek.
Next, she turns to Mr. Sir and slaps him across the face, scratching his skin with her now-venomous nails. The guy falls to the floor, clutching his face and writhing in pain.
But Mr. Sir isn't going to die: "Unfortunately for you," the Warden tells Stanley (20.46).