Holes
Rewritten by Holly Lifka
It was the day. Shannon was packing her bags; she was going to a camp. You see though, this isn't your all fun camp; you know the one with canoeing and all games and fun. This was Camp Greenlake, for teenagers who get into trouble. There was recently an opening for her. Shannon would have had to go to rehab or something like that, but she had the choice and decided to go to the camp instead. You are probably wondering what in the world would have gotten Shannon into this Camp Green lake. She stole a whole bunch of chocolate from Fannie May. Maybe some of you people have never heard of Fannie May, but it's a place where you can buy this really good kind of expansive chocolate. Shannon loved the chocolate, and couldn't get enough of it. So you may wonder well why didn't she just buy the chocolate, well Shannon was broke, didn't have one dime left in her wallet. So now Shannon had to go to this camp for teenagers for stealing $50.00 worth of chocolate. The worst part was, her parents, even though they paid the place back, they still wanted to send her there to teach her lesson. She already tried asking politely, she moved to begging nothing worked. So now here she was packing her bags, when her phone rang. "Hey Alex! Oh, I know I cannot believe they are sending me there either! I am never going to get used to living in those tents we have to live in." "How do you know that you'll have to sleep in tents? I thought they didn't tell you really anything about the camp." "Oh, I know, but I went onto the internet and read some stuff up about it. I haven't actually found out what we have to do, but whatever it is supposed to build character or something weird like that. It also said that we have to sleep on these one cots inside a tent that you share with some other people.
Shannon was in this bus with the driver and this police guy. She was the only teenager in there. With the big bus you would have thought that it would have been full with juvenile delinquents, but it wasn't. Shannon was thinking about how hot it was outside, and wondered where the lake was. As far as she could see there wasn't a drop of water in sight. All she saw was a whole bunch of dirt, and a couple of holes. Shannon started to get really hot, because there wasn't any air conditioning in the bus, and realized that she was so thirsty! When finally what seemed like hours, they arrived. Shannon still didn't see a lake.
When Shannon got out of the bus, the police officer guy told her to follow him. 'Man this really sucks! If I want to go swimming in the lake I will probably have to walk at least a mile because I don't see any lake!' "Shannon come one we don't have all day."
They got inside and a guy named Kevin told them to come in. "Hey Bill, how's it going?" Kevin asked the officer. "Great Kevin, I'm getting used to taking all these rides here, by now, but man I need to remember to bring myself something to drink. "Oh yea, do want a soda?" Shannon wanted one badly, but she knew the guy wasn't referring to her. "Shannon here is your clothes for the time you're here." Kevin said handing her two pairs of hideous orange jumpsuits with an orange hat. 'I am supposed to wear this? What are they thinking? Not only am I going to be sweating to death, orange just is so not my color.' "You will need to hand over all of your belongings besides any paper or pens or whatever you may be using to write letters home. But you need to hand over any food, water, or extra clothes you may have brought with you. If you brought a had or hats, you can keep those. Shannon thought it was good that she brought both a blue, white, and pink hat. At least she wouldn't have to wear the same hat everyday. "You will also get a 5 minute shower every day. Oh, by the way are you thirsty?" 'Oh good, maybe he is going to offer me something to drink, like a soda!' "Yes sir." "Good, because you better get used to it. You will fill your water in the morning, have filled up when you get lunch, and after dinner."
"Excuse me sir, but what exactly am I supposed to do here? Like am I supposed to activities like canoe and stuff?" Chuckling "Honey, you must have really gotten the wrong idea of this camp. You see this isn't your normal everyday camp.
Everyday you wake up at 4:00 am and go to a certain area and dig a hole. You have to complete one hole everyday. Your hole must be 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Your tape measure will be your shovel. After you are done you can go into the rec room and do whatever you like. You will dig a hole everyday, except on Sunday when you get the day off because some people read the bible and stuff." "Ok." "Oh, also, if you find anything interesting, tell us when you see us, because you may just get the day off." "Ok sir." Now go change and I will get your consoler to take you to meet the people in your tent." Shannon went to go get changed. 'Oh great, just the kind of camp I want. I have to stay here for 6 months to 1 year too. How could my parents do this to me?' Shannon was finished changing and went back out.
"Hello Shannon, I am Mike, your camp consoler. I am going to take you to meet some of the girls, and you can meet the guys yourself at dinner." "Ok." They walked for about a few minutes until they came across a tent. "Shannon just put your stuff in here. Then we will drive over to where everyone is. Normally, Kevin would want me to have you walk, but I don't feel like walking." "Ok." Said Shannon grateful that she wasn't going to have to walk. About 5 minutes or so later they stopped, and she got out. "Girls, listen up we have a new girl. Everyone meet Shannon Housmeyer." A whole bunch of girls said hi. None of them sounded to cheerful to see her, but one or two of them seemed nice enough, and probably would talk to her later.
"Ok Shannon, I am going to take you to the rec room and lucky you, you don't need to do any work today. You can just hang out and write letters and stuff." "Ok." Shannon decided she wanted to write a letter to Alex.
Dear Alex,
Oh my god! This place is horrible! You can't even begin to imagine what it is like here. But just so you get the idea I will tell you. First, I got here, and you would think, oh it would be a nice place with green grass, and cabins, and a nice beautiful blue lake right? WRONG! First off, the grass is not green, because there is no grass! All there is, is dirt. Second, you may think, oh well at least there is a beautiful refreshing lake to freshen up in right? WRONG! There is no lake! You may wonder why in the world they call this place Camp Green Lake. Hey don't ask me because even I don't know. My best guess is there used to be green grass and maybe there used to be a lake. I will try and find out from the other girls here. I haven't really met them yet, but I am sure I will after they are done digging their holes. Yeah that reminds me! Guess what I have to do starting tomorrow? I have to dig holes. Yeah, that's what supposedly is supposed to build character. You have to dig a hole 5 feet deep and 5 feet wide, while the burning hot sun is beaming down on you. Just so you get the idea, it is probably around 90 degrees here, but isn't a cloud, or breeze in sight so it feels like 100 degrees! I'm sure you can imagine what this is going to do to my hair! It's going to totally make me have so many split ends, make my hair poof out from the heat, and possibly fry my hair! THIS IS HORRIBLE! Also, guess what we have to wear? Orange jumpsuits! Yes, ORANGE! You know orange is so not my color! Then we can wear a hat. We only get 2 orange jumpsuits, one for working in, for two days, and one for lying around in after. After two days, you have your work suit washed, and your lying around suit gets demoted to your work suit, and your clean work suit gets promoted to lying around suit. That sounds confusing. If you don't get it read it a gain. If you still don't understand it read It again, I can you can be a little slow sometimes. If you still don't understand it, forget about it and I will explain it in person when I get back, which is hopefully soon! I hope the girls are at least nice here. If not then this is just one big hell hole. Sorry for the bad language! Write me back a.s.a.p.! I suspect this will be taken to you tomorrow, Tuesday, and you should probably get it on Thursday, so I will suspect an answer by Saturday! I need someone I know here and badly! So I need to be social, and the only person I can talk to is you, and I'm not really talking to you, which is why you need to write back a.s.a.p.
Love you LOTS,
Shannon (your bff!) P.S. I will write to you tomorrow about how the girls are and if they are nice or mean. So, you can suspect another letter being delivered to you tomorrow.
By the time Shannon was done with her letter she put in the little box where the mail man guy picks up the mail and saw that some people were coming back. There were two girls, and three guys. One guy in particular caught Shannon's eye, and really wished she wasn't wearing orange, she always thought orange made her look washed out. 'Great, there he is a hottie, and here I am probably looking like a dork. A washed out dork! I hate orange, I totally hate it, and wouldn't you know it this place would make the jumpsuits orange?' The teens made there way towards Shannon and started introducing themselves to the her.
The hot one is the one that introduced everyone. "Hey! I'm Muse, who had brown hair, brown eyes, and was a little bit taller than Shannon, and this is Mask, a guy that was kind of ugly, and who Shannon thought, actually really needed a mask, Twix a cute guy who had blonde hair and green eyes. Oh, and this is Rain and Ducks. Rain and Ducks are cousins, and also their girlfriends he pointed towards Twix and Mask. 'Great then maybe I'll get the hottie. Oh, yea I forgot, probably not because I'm wearing orange. FABULOUS!' "Oh, don't worry we will eventually make up a nickname for you." Trying to break the ice since she really hadn't talked she decided to ask Muse a question. "Hey Muse, what are you in here for?" "Oh, I stole some clothes from Hot Topic. What are you in here for?" "Oh, well I stole some candy." "Are you serious? What kind of candy?" "The chocolate kind." "No! I mean what type? Godiva, Fannie May.?" "Oh, Fannie May." "What possessed you to do that?" "Well what possessed you to steal stuff from Hot Topic?" "Well I like the stuff there and I was broke." "Same here." "Oh ok. So you guys try to start thinking of names for the new girl. Oh, yea, well what's your real name?" "Shannon."
"Ok, I can remember that I think. Mark will call you by your first name but everyone else will call you by your nickname. Mark always calls us by our first names, even though we tell him to stop. Come on guys lets go play some pool. Do you want to play Shannon?" "Ummm.sure but I'm not that good, even though I have a pool table at home, I've only played pool a few times." "It's ok you will learn while you're here and become good." "Ok." So Shannon, Muse, Rain, Mask, Ducks, and Twix all played pool. They had a grand ole time! (I JUST HAD TO PUT THAT!) "Shannon your lucky you came here now and not a year ago." "Why? I think I am unlucky to even have come here." "Well, you see, a year ago we didn't get Sundays off. We only got after we dug our holes off. So really we dug holes every day of the week." "It's going to take me forever to dig my hole." "The first one is the hardest, but the second one is even harder." "Well if the second is harder than the first, wouldn't the second be the hardest, not the first?" "Well you see the first hole is always going to be the hardest because you're not used to it, but the second day is even harder because you have blisters." "But then would the..oh never mind!"
"I don't know about you guys but its 9:00 pm and I am going to go to sleep. You might want to too Shannon, you have to get up at 4 am." "Ok." So she walked back with Rain and Ducks. "So Rain, which one is your boyfriend?" "Oh, Mask is." "Why is his name Mask anyway?" "Because, he stole some stuff from the store, and wore a mask, and didn't get caught. Then he stole something again, and then wore a mask too, but got caught the second time. So, the guys decided to call him Mask. Hey Twix, help me think of a name for Shannon." "Ummm. we could have something to do with chocolate." "So like Cocoa, Mocha, or Truffle. Which do you like best Shannon?" "Ummm. either Cocoa or Mocha, you guys choose." "Let's see I think Mocha fits you best. So Mocha it is." "Ok, I will need to get used to it, but don't worry I will eventually. So who else sleeps in our tent?" "Well there is going to be a new girl pretty soon, most likely because two girls just left. So, there is Polar, Eskimo, and Pop. There are all nice. For the guys tent, there is Rocky, Twix, Mask, Muse, Snap and Crackle (Pop's triplet brothers), and Jaguar."
Then they arrived at the front of the tent, and Shannon took a deep breath and stepped inside. "Hey Shannon, I'm Eskimo, said an Alaskan looking person, with long black hair, and a sunburn." "And I'm Polar, said a girl with tan skin, and almost white blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail." "And I'm Pop, said a girl with brown hair, blue eyes, and tan skin." "Hi everyone, I'm Shannon." "She means Mocha." Rain informed everyone. "It will take her a while to get used to her name, but her name is Mocha." "Why did you guys choose Mocha?" "She stole a whole bunch of expansive chocolate from Fannie May." "Ohhhhh.." Everyone replied. "Shannon you may want to try to go to sleep because we have to be awake in 7 hours, and it will feel like even less by the time it is morning." "Good-night everyone." "Good- night" Everyone replied.
'Why is it me? How could my parents do this to me? What are they trying to do ruin my life? This is going to be one wasted year. How do they expect me to start up school? Do they expect me to go into 8th grade again next year? They better not, because there is no way I am going to have classes with a whole bunch of 7th graders. I would rather be home-schooled. At least the girls here seem nice. The nicest ones seem to be Rain, Pop, and Twix. I don't really know Pop but she seems that she is nice. I wonder what her real name is. I wonder what everyone's real name is. Especially Muse. Oh, what a hottie! I cannot believe he isn't dating anyone. Maybe he will end up liking me! Oh that will be the day! Then maybe I will like this place a little more than I do, which isn't much! Then maybe I won't want to go home! Oh I hope he likes me, if he does he can help me get through this.
Rewritten by Holly Lifka
It was the day. Shannon was packing her bags; she was going to a camp. You see though, this isn't your all fun camp; you know the one with canoeing and all games and fun. This was Camp Greenlake, for teenagers who get into trouble. There was recently an opening for her. Shannon would have had to go to rehab or something like that, but she had the choice and decided to go to the camp instead. You are probably wondering what in the world would have gotten Shannon into this Camp Green lake. She stole a whole bunch of chocolate from Fannie May. Maybe some of you people have never heard of Fannie May, but it's a place where you can buy this really good kind of expansive chocolate. Shannon loved the chocolate, and couldn't get enough of it. So you may wonder well why didn't she just buy the chocolate, well Shannon was broke, didn't have one dime left in her wallet. So now Shannon had to go to this camp for teenagers for stealing $50.00 worth of chocolate. The worst part was, her parents, even though they paid the place back, they still wanted to send her there to teach her lesson. She already tried asking politely, she moved to begging nothing worked. So now here she was packing her bags, when her phone rang. "Hey Alex! Oh, I know I cannot believe they are sending me there either! I am never going to get used to living in those tents we have to live in." "How do you know that you'll have to sleep in tents? I thought they didn't tell you really anything about the camp." "Oh, I know, but I went onto the internet and read some stuff up about it. I haven't actually found out what we have to do, but whatever it is supposed to build character or something weird like that. It also said that we have to sleep on these one cots inside a tent that you share with some other people.
Shannon was in this bus with the driver and this police guy. She was the only teenager in there. With the big bus you would have thought that it would have been full with juvenile delinquents, but it wasn't. Shannon was thinking about how hot it was outside, and wondered where the lake was. As far as she could see there wasn't a drop of water in sight. All she saw was a whole bunch of dirt, and a couple of holes. Shannon started to get really hot, because there wasn't any air conditioning in the bus, and realized that she was so thirsty! When finally what seemed like hours, they arrived. Shannon still didn't see a lake.
When Shannon got out of the bus, the police officer guy told her to follow him. 'Man this really sucks! If I want to go swimming in the lake I will probably have to walk at least a mile because I don't see any lake!' "Shannon come one we don't have all day."
They got inside and a guy named Kevin told them to come in. "Hey Bill, how's it going?" Kevin asked the officer. "Great Kevin, I'm getting used to taking all these rides here, by now, but man I need to remember to bring myself something to drink. "Oh yea, do want a soda?" Shannon wanted one badly, but she knew the guy wasn't referring to her. "Shannon here is your clothes for the time you're here." Kevin said handing her two pairs of hideous orange jumpsuits with an orange hat. 'I am supposed to wear this? What are they thinking? Not only am I going to be sweating to death, orange just is so not my color.' "You will need to hand over all of your belongings besides any paper or pens or whatever you may be using to write letters home. But you need to hand over any food, water, or extra clothes you may have brought with you. If you brought a had or hats, you can keep those. Shannon thought it was good that she brought both a blue, white, and pink hat. At least she wouldn't have to wear the same hat everyday. "You will also get a 5 minute shower every day. Oh, by the way are you thirsty?" 'Oh good, maybe he is going to offer me something to drink, like a soda!' "Yes sir." "Good, because you better get used to it. You will fill your water in the morning, have filled up when you get lunch, and after dinner."
"Excuse me sir, but what exactly am I supposed to do here? Like am I supposed to activities like canoe and stuff?" Chuckling "Honey, you must have really gotten the wrong idea of this camp. You see this isn't your normal everyday camp.
Everyday you wake up at 4:00 am and go to a certain area and dig a hole. You have to complete one hole everyday. Your hole must be 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Your tape measure will be your shovel. After you are done you can go into the rec room and do whatever you like. You will dig a hole everyday, except on Sunday when you get the day off because some people read the bible and stuff." "Ok." "Oh, also, if you find anything interesting, tell us when you see us, because you may just get the day off." "Ok sir." Now go change and I will get your consoler to take you to meet the people in your tent." Shannon went to go get changed. 'Oh great, just the kind of camp I want. I have to stay here for 6 months to 1 year too. How could my parents do this to me?' Shannon was finished changing and went back out.
"Hello Shannon, I am Mike, your camp consoler. I am going to take you to meet some of the girls, and you can meet the guys yourself at dinner." "Ok." They walked for about a few minutes until they came across a tent. "Shannon just put your stuff in here. Then we will drive over to where everyone is. Normally, Kevin would want me to have you walk, but I don't feel like walking." "Ok." Said Shannon grateful that she wasn't going to have to walk. About 5 minutes or so later they stopped, and she got out. "Girls, listen up we have a new girl. Everyone meet Shannon Housmeyer." A whole bunch of girls said hi. None of them sounded to cheerful to see her, but one or two of them seemed nice enough, and probably would talk to her later.
"Ok Shannon, I am going to take you to the rec room and lucky you, you don't need to do any work today. You can just hang out and write letters and stuff." "Ok." Shannon decided she wanted to write a letter to Alex.
Dear Alex,
Oh my god! This place is horrible! You can't even begin to imagine what it is like here. But just so you get the idea I will tell you. First, I got here, and you would think, oh it would be a nice place with green grass, and cabins, and a nice beautiful blue lake right? WRONG! First off, the grass is not green, because there is no grass! All there is, is dirt. Second, you may think, oh well at least there is a beautiful refreshing lake to freshen up in right? WRONG! There is no lake! You may wonder why in the world they call this place Camp Green Lake. Hey don't ask me because even I don't know. My best guess is there used to be green grass and maybe there used to be a lake. I will try and find out from the other girls here. I haven't really met them yet, but I am sure I will after they are done digging their holes. Yeah that reminds me! Guess what I have to do starting tomorrow? I have to dig holes. Yeah, that's what supposedly is supposed to build character. You have to dig a hole 5 feet deep and 5 feet wide, while the burning hot sun is beaming down on you. Just so you get the idea, it is probably around 90 degrees here, but isn't a cloud, or breeze in sight so it feels like 100 degrees! I'm sure you can imagine what this is going to do to my hair! It's going to totally make me have so many split ends, make my hair poof out from the heat, and possibly fry my hair! THIS IS HORRIBLE! Also, guess what we have to wear? Orange jumpsuits! Yes, ORANGE! You know orange is so not my color! Then we can wear a hat. We only get 2 orange jumpsuits, one for working in, for two days, and one for lying around in after. After two days, you have your work suit washed, and your lying around suit gets demoted to your work suit, and your clean work suit gets promoted to lying around suit. That sounds confusing. If you don't get it read it a gain. If you still don't understand it read It again, I can you can be a little slow sometimes. If you still don't understand it, forget about it and I will explain it in person when I get back, which is hopefully soon! I hope the girls are at least nice here. If not then this is just one big hell hole. Sorry for the bad language! Write me back a.s.a.p.! I suspect this will be taken to you tomorrow, Tuesday, and you should probably get it on Thursday, so I will suspect an answer by Saturday! I need someone I know here and badly! So I need to be social, and the only person I can talk to is you, and I'm not really talking to you, which is why you need to write back a.s.a.p.
Love you LOTS,
Shannon (your bff!) P.S. I will write to you tomorrow about how the girls are and if they are nice or mean. So, you can suspect another letter being delivered to you tomorrow.
By the time Shannon was done with her letter she put in the little box where the mail man guy picks up the mail and saw that some people were coming back. There were two girls, and three guys. One guy in particular caught Shannon's eye, and really wished she wasn't wearing orange, she always thought orange made her look washed out. 'Great, there he is a hottie, and here I am probably looking like a dork. A washed out dork! I hate orange, I totally hate it, and wouldn't you know it this place would make the jumpsuits orange?' The teens made there way towards Shannon and started introducing themselves to the her.
The hot one is the one that introduced everyone. "Hey! I'm Muse, who had brown hair, brown eyes, and was a little bit taller than Shannon, and this is Mask, a guy that was kind of ugly, and who Shannon thought, actually really needed a mask, Twix a cute guy who had blonde hair and green eyes. Oh, and this is Rain and Ducks. Rain and Ducks are cousins, and also their girlfriends he pointed towards Twix and Mask. 'Great then maybe I'll get the hottie. Oh, yea I forgot, probably not because I'm wearing orange. FABULOUS!' "Oh, don't worry we will eventually make up a nickname for you." Trying to break the ice since she really hadn't talked she decided to ask Muse a question. "Hey Muse, what are you in here for?" "Oh, I stole some clothes from Hot Topic. What are you in here for?" "Oh, well I stole some candy." "Are you serious? What kind of candy?" "The chocolate kind." "No! I mean what type? Godiva, Fannie May.?" "Oh, Fannie May." "What possessed you to do that?" "Well what possessed you to steal stuff from Hot Topic?" "Well I like the stuff there and I was broke." "Same here." "Oh ok. So you guys try to start thinking of names for the new girl. Oh, yea, well what's your real name?" "Shannon."
"Ok, I can remember that I think. Mark will call you by your first name but everyone else will call you by your nickname. Mark always calls us by our first names, even though we tell him to stop. Come on guys lets go play some pool. Do you want to play Shannon?" "Ummm.sure but I'm not that good, even though I have a pool table at home, I've only played pool a few times." "It's ok you will learn while you're here and become good." "Ok." So Shannon, Muse, Rain, Mask, Ducks, and Twix all played pool. They had a grand ole time! (I JUST HAD TO PUT THAT!) "Shannon your lucky you came here now and not a year ago." "Why? I think I am unlucky to even have come here." "Well, you see, a year ago we didn't get Sundays off. We only got after we dug our holes off. So really we dug holes every day of the week." "It's going to take me forever to dig my hole." "The first one is the hardest, but the second one is even harder." "Well if the second is harder than the first, wouldn't the second be the hardest, not the first?" "Well you see the first hole is always going to be the hardest because you're not used to it, but the second day is even harder because you have blisters." "But then would the..oh never mind!"
"I don't know about you guys but its 9:00 pm and I am going to go to sleep. You might want to too Shannon, you have to get up at 4 am." "Ok." So she walked back with Rain and Ducks. "So Rain, which one is your boyfriend?" "Oh, Mask is." "Why is his name Mask anyway?" "Because, he stole some stuff from the store, and wore a mask, and didn't get caught. Then he stole something again, and then wore a mask too, but got caught the second time. So, the guys decided to call him Mask. Hey Twix, help me think of a name for Shannon." "Ummm. we could have something to do with chocolate." "So like Cocoa, Mocha, or Truffle. Which do you like best Shannon?" "Ummm. either Cocoa or Mocha, you guys choose." "Let's see I think Mocha fits you best. So Mocha it is." "Ok, I will need to get used to it, but don't worry I will eventually. So who else sleeps in our tent?" "Well there is going to be a new girl pretty soon, most likely because two girls just left. So, there is Polar, Eskimo, and Pop. There are all nice. For the guys tent, there is Rocky, Twix, Mask, Muse, Snap and Crackle (Pop's triplet brothers), and Jaguar."
Then they arrived at the front of the tent, and Shannon took a deep breath and stepped inside. "Hey Shannon, I'm Eskimo, said an Alaskan looking person, with long black hair, and a sunburn." "And I'm Polar, said a girl with tan skin, and almost white blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail." "And I'm Pop, said a girl with brown hair, blue eyes, and tan skin." "Hi everyone, I'm Shannon." "She means Mocha." Rain informed everyone. "It will take her a while to get used to her name, but her name is Mocha." "Why did you guys choose Mocha?" "She stole a whole bunch of expansive chocolate from Fannie May." "Ohhhhh.." Everyone replied. "Shannon you may want to try to go to sleep because we have to be awake in 7 hours, and it will feel like even less by the time it is morning." "Good-night everyone." "Good- night" Everyone replied.
'Why is it me? How could my parents do this to me? What are they trying to do ruin my life? This is going to be one wasted year. How do they expect me to start up school? Do they expect me to go into 8th grade again next year? They better not, because there is no way I am going to have classes with a whole bunch of 7th graders. I would rather be home-schooled. At least the girls here seem nice. The nicest ones seem to be Rain, Pop, and Twix. I don't really know Pop but she seems that she is nice. I wonder what her real name is. I wonder what everyone's real name is. Especially Muse. Oh, what a hottie! I cannot believe he isn't dating anyone. Maybe he will end up liking me! Oh that will be the day! Then maybe I will like this place a little more than I do, which isn't much! Then maybe I won't want to go home! Oh I hope he likes me, if he does he can help me get through this.