A/N: Sorry about the crappy summary! DX I did this for an English project (which is probably the only reason I got it done) and decided, "what the hell? Let's post it!" So, yeah, this is my first (and probably last) story on here, and I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes! I highly doubt I'll get a very good mark for this... Oh, well. Constructive criticism is very much appreciated - emphasis on the word 'constructive'. Thanks! :D
AND LET'S JUST FORGET ABOUT ADDING THE DISCLAIMER, WHY DON'T WE?! *facepalm* I do not own Holes - just my OCs
Chapter 32.5
"We had to lift the truck clear out of the hole," Zigzag told him. "It took everybody in C, D, and E. We just picked it right up." (Chapter 48)
Steam rose steadily from the battered hood of the water truck. The engine hissed like an angry rattlesnake.
Tent D whooped and yelled, cheering Caveman on. "Keep running!" shouted X-Ray. "Don't stop now!"
Soon, the runaway camper was just a speck on the horizon, a splash of colour against the blank, pallid background of the dried-up lake.
Mr. Sir was silent for a moment, staring out at Stanley's retreating figure. "Hey!" he bellowed. "Get your tails over here and pull my truck out of this hole!"
The boys' excited laughter quickly quieted at Mr. Sir's holler. Groaning, they each grabbed their shovels and meandered grudgingly towards the trapped water truck.
Zigzag grunted, bracing himself against the side of the hole. Squid, X-Ray and he were down in the pit, trying to push the old pickup back onto solid ground. Magnet, Armpit and Twitch were above them, tugging furiously on the bumper. Mr. Sir hovered over them, screaming at them to work harder. Zigzag hardly heard him. After all the time he'd spent here, he had learned to tune the counselor out.
"I'd rather dig that do this," X-Ray huffed. "At least the shovels don't burn." The bug-splattered grill was searing - the entire truck was, in fact - and Zigzag thought that his hands were so singed that that they were liable to shrivel up and fall off at any given moment.
"This kind of reminds me of what happened to Barf Bag," said Armpit, "with Caveman running away and all."
Twitch grunted, leaning his weight into his heels. "Barf Bag?"
"Yeah," said X-Ray. "He was the guy that Caveman replaced. Ziggy's old pal, right?"
Zigzag sighed, squaring his shoulders. He and Louis had been best friends since grade two. It was mostly just the two of them for nearly six years. When grade nine eventually rolled around, though, Louis had started making more and more friends. Of course, he'd dragged Ricky along with him. The first few had been fine. Jacob and Jonathan, if he could remember correctly. They were brothers; Jacob was scarcely a year older than Jonathan. Ricky and Louis were even in some of the same classes as Jonathan. Ricky had no problem with him. It was Jacob that he couldn't stand.
Pretty soon, Jacob started introducing Louis to his friends.
That was when the trouble started.
Jacob's friends, Jesse, Connor, and Henry, were absolutely unbearable. They all smoked, and every second word out of Jesse's mouth was a swear.
Ricky had tried on many occasions to convince Louis to stop hanging out with them. He never listened.
Eventually, Louis started smoking, too.
Jesse seemed to notice Ricky's discomfort. He approached him one day, saying that if both he and Louis could pass a test of Jesse's choosing, he'd leave them alone.
Thinking of how distanced he now felt from Louis and how badly he wanted to repair their broken relationship, Ricky agreed.
The very next day, Jesse and Connor led Louis and Ricky to a convenience store. "Go get us a pack of cigarettes."
Ricky protested, "But… We don't have any money."
Connor gave a wicked grin. "Exactly."
For the next moment, Ricky couldn't breathe. Louis threw up, blaming it on bad cafeteria food and not his nerves.
"Nice, Barf Bag," Jesse laughed.
Connor ushered the younger boys into the store, then told them that they had ten minutes to complete their task and that Henry was waiting for them across the street. When they'd 'snagged their loot', they were to turn it in to him.
For first five minutes, Louis and Ricky wandered aimlessly around the store. Louis's wide, worried eyes were watching the clock on the wall above the door the entire time.
With three minutes remaining, the boys realized in a panic that they needed to ask the clerk at the front desk for the cigarettes. Deciding that they couldn't steal the cigarettes, and they couldn't leave without anything, Louis grabbed a can of soda and bolted out the front door.
Ricky stood still, staring silently at the door and waiting, terrified, for the alarm to go off, but it never did. As he began to notice other people were looking at the door as well, he offered up an explanation for Louis's exit. "He probably saw a spider."
Then he walked right out that door, trying to keep his composure as the stares of the people behind him burned into his back.
He found Henry and Louis in an alleyway just across the street from the convenience store. Louis had thrown up again, and this time he didn't deny that it was nervousness.
Louis passed the can of pop to Henry, who gave him a questioning look. "You know," said Henry, "you guys didn't have to do that."
Puzzled, the younger boys glanced up at him. "What do you mean?" Ricky asked. Henry shrugged. "I could've just stolen them and said that you guys did. I'll have to lie to the guys anyway, now. Who wants to be the one who accidentally dropped the cigarettes down the drain?" He smiled broadly.
The next day, Ricky overheard Henry telling Jesse and Connor that Louis, in his excitement, had dropped the package of stolen cigarettes into the gutter. Jesse demanded why Henry hadn't made them go back to get more, and Henry muttered something that Ricky couldn't quite hear.
"Just make sure that they don't do that next time."
It was then that Ricky decided that maybe Henry wasn't all that bad.
Afterward, when Ricky demanded why Jesse was still hanging around, the older boy had smiled condescendingly. "You haven't passed the test yet, Ricky."
Over the two weeks following that, Jesse had Ricky and Louis steal more things. Bigger things.
So far, they'd heisted the can of pop from the convenience store, a bag of chips from the local Wal-Mart, twenty dollars from some old lady's purse, and a guinea pig for Connor's little sister.
They hadn't gotten caught.
Yet.
Neither Ricky nor Louis had told anyone about the robberies. It scared Ricky, how stressed out and paranoid he was becoming; he felt like he couldn't do anything without someone - something - seeing him. It seemed like there were cameras everywhere, cameras and microphones and eyes, eyes watching everything he did. Eyes on the television, eyes in magazines, eyes in the water. Eyes in the night sky, hidden against the diamond-studded velvet. (Repetition for effect and metaphor)
Jesse came up to him one day, his green eyes glinting gladly. (Alliteration) "This will be the last part of your test," he said. "This time, you're going solo."
Louis was to accompany Jesse and Henry that night. Jesse didn't say what they would be doing, but Ricky had a bad feeling about it. Apparently, all Ricky had to do was take a piece of Styrofoam and set it on fire. Connor would watch him. It seemed easy enough; sure, it wouldn't exactly help the environment, but what danger could there be in setting a little fire in a cleared area?
As it turned out, the fire they were setting wasn't going to be in a cleared area. Connor had grabbed Ricky by the arm right before he headed into history class and dragged him outside. The Styrofoam was already there, right in between two of the portables. There was grass and weeds peppering the dry ground, especially along the edges of the buildings.
"We shouldn't do it here," said Ricky, eager to burn the stupid Styrofoam and be done with Jesse and Connor.
"You don't get to decide what happens," Connor snapped, pulling out a lighter. He lit it, watching the flame for a moment, then handed it to Ricky. "Go ahead; light it up."
Frankly, Ricky didn't want to 'light it up'. However, he'd had enough of Jesse and Connor and, to some extent, Henry. So, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Connor, he crouched by the Styrofoam and stared as fire from the lighter jumped enthusiastically onto the packaging. Flames licked and danced across the Styrofoam, a delicate ballet of colour.
Ricky had seen fire before; in the fireplace, on the barbecue, on T.V. (Magic three) He didn't know what was so different about this one. It seemed like all the others - same colours, same sound, same smell. Maybe it was just because he had never taken the time to notice the fire before. Now, though, he could see the colours, really see them, and he could hear the sounds, and he could smell the scents. Now, he could feel the fire.
He'd become so entranced by the twisting flames that he almost forgot to step away before his clothes caught fire. When he managed to tear his eyes away, he saw Connor staring, too, gazing almost hungrily into the inferno.
Soon, the fire spread to the grass, consuming the dry vegetation quickly as it moved to the portables. Neither boy seemed to notice.
It was only after the fire bell began ringing that Connor snapped out of his trance. He cursed, spinning on his heel and running towards the main building.
Ricky, however, was still lost in the blaze. As he watched the flames, he felt safe, like nothing in the world could touch him. The fire seemed to draw the eyes and the cameras and the microphones away from him and towards it, captivating their gazes and their speakers, ceasing the constant staring and listening. It made him feel free; floating so high that nothing could bring him down.
He was still staring into the fire when the police arrived.
As it turned out, Louis had gotten caught that night, too. Henry had never even showed up, and Jesse had split as soon as he heard the sirens, he recalled. Louis had been left there, right beside the shattered window of the electronics department.
Although the two boys were loaded onto the same bus, they sat at opposite ends.
"Yo, Zig!" shouted X-Ray, and Zigzag shuddered as he came back into reality. "You okay, man? You zoned out for a second."
"Yeah, I'm fine," he mumbled.
"You never answered my question," X-Ray stated. "You were Barf Bag's old friend, right?"
Zigzag hesitated for a moment, then replied, "Yeah. Right."
That was all he said.
Thinking again of what Armpit had said, he realized that, in a way, Caveman running off was just like the incident with Barf Bag; either way, Tent D was losing one of its members.
Zigzag knew that everyone was thinking the same thing as him; Caveman was out there, alone, on the blistering, barren lake. Caveman was out there, alone, where the rattlesnakes, scorpions, and yellow-spotted lizards could get him. Caveman was out there, alone, with no food or water.
Caveman- Stanley - was out there, alone, and there was nothing any of them could do for him.
"Oh, great," Magnet groaned, dragging Zigzag from his thoughts. "Here comes trouble."
Zigzag, being just tall enough to see over the edge of the hole, peered around the water truck's tire to find Mr. Pendanski approaching with the Warden.
Mr. Pendanski's lips moved, then the Warden stopped in her tracks and stared at the counselor.
The Warden opened her mouth, and Zigzag could almost hear her saying, "Excuse me?"
They both stood for a moment, Mr. Pendanski no doubt trying to spew out an explanation, then the Warden abruptly shoved him into a hole.
Armpit laughed, losing his footing, and fell backwards onto the hard earth. Twitch followed with a thud.
The water truck jolted forward, and the front slammed into Zigzag's stomach. X-Ray leapt back with a cry, and Squid's head bounced off the hood. He leaned back, groaning, and Zigzag inspected his torn up palms. The grill had cut into the heels of his hands, and blood was smeared onto his wrists.
Mr. Sir had stopped shouting when he saw the Warden nearing, and now the two were speaking to each other in hushed voices. Mr. Pendanski managed to haul himself out of the hole and came up to join them just as Mr. Sir yelled at him to gather the boys from tent E and C.
"Looks like you boys need some help," the Warden said, walking over. "Luckily, we've got a couple of boys who are going to offer their assistance."
Huffing, Zigzag turned around so that his back was pressed against the water truck's grill. He raised a leg, wedging his boot against the side of the hole and pushing backwards. 'Assistance would be great.'