I'm so happy right now; someone reviewed my story! :D Thank you so much, OMGWTFMAN, I appreciate it greatly, and I'm glad you like my story. :D
However, I have a dilemma; I was reluctant to put this story in the crossover section in the first place, because it seems like hardly anyone goes there. Yet when I browse the ordinary Holes section, there are crossovers there where the author simply wrote in the summary that it was a crossover.
Do you think I should move The Zigzag Kid into the ordinary Holes section? I'm not demanding a response or anything, but it would be nice to get one. :)
A crackly, annoying sound reverberated around the Camp. I jumped into a crouch on my cot and then did a forwards flip off the cot and onto the floor. Or, y'know, a somersault if you want to use correct terminology.
Wow. Sleeping on a proper bed for the first time in must have dredged up memories I didn't even know I had. It made quite an interesting dream, though.
I watched in amusement as the rest of D-Tent stumbled around in varying states of consciousness. Magnet, in particular, seemed to be sleep-walking.
Zero, however, looked wide awake, so I followed him out of the tent. Outside, a few boys were emerging from their tents, too. Mr. Sir and Dr. Pendanski were striding and bouncing around, cradling steaming mugs of something. I mean Dr. Pendanski was bouncing, not the other way around. That would've been funny.
"Smiling faces, smiling faces! The early mole digs the deepest hole! Shovels on the left, tortillas on the right, let's go!" Dr. Pendanski twittered, occasionally stopping to take a sip of whatever was in his mug.
Mr. Sir unlocked a wooden shack with 'library' written above the doors. The shack was filled with spades. Ha ha. By now, everyone had made it outside to receive their spade.
"Okay, come and get it. Let's go! Come on Magnet, open them peepers. Let's go, let's go! Head's still on the pillow, this ain't no dreamland, Diddles. This is reality."
Rubbing his eyes, Magnet grabbed a spade and staggered over to me.
"Don't take the shovel with the red tape." He yawned. I frowned.
"Why not?"
"It's X-Ray's shovel. It's shorter than the rest of theee…" his last word was cut off by a yawn before he stumbled and fell over. Squid helpfully finished.
"Smaller shovel, smaller hole." He waved his tortilla in my face in a comradely fashion.
"Let's go!" 'Mum' chided again. I spotted a flaw in his order.
"Dr. Pendanski?" I called. He turned to face me, smiling away.
"Yes, Voodoo?"
"In standard English, 'let's go' is the shortened form of 'let us go', is it not?"
"Yes, I believe so." He looked confused.
"Well, are you going to be digging with us today?" He shook his head. "SHUT UP THEN!"
I hoisted my spade over my shoulders and walked over to where Zigzag was standing before the good doctor had time to react. Mr. Sir jumped into his truck, drove off into the desert, and a whole flock of orange-suited boys followed him.
Hence the need to stand near Zigzag. His crazy mop of hair was impossible to miss, even in a dusty stampede of boys. I didn't want to embarrass myself by getting lost. Suddenly, Magnet appeared next to me, having fought through the crowd.
"Hey, that thing with Mo-Pendanski was awesome, chica!" Yay, he remembered rule number 3!
"Thank you Magnet, but you didn't have to wake yourself up just to tell me that." He pushed a sticky tortilla into my hand.
"You forgot your breakfast. Didn't want you to get hungry and eat all of us." Aww. I'd have ruffled his hair, but he didn't have any. Too bad. From the corner of my eye, I saw Zigzag's shoulders stiffen.
"Don't worry Zigzag, I've never eaten a person." Although I have drunk more than my fair share of human blood.
"Yeah, she's never eaten a person, but any tarantulas beware, right?" Magnet punched my arm, then laughed. He had such an odd laugh; like a cross between a giggle, a snigger and a stalling car engine. It sounded so funny, a huge smile shot across my face before I could stop it.
"Eh-hey! You smiled at someone who wasn't Zigzag!" Rolling my eyes, I punched his arm. I decided I liked Magnet.
Then I noticed that D-tent had stopped walking. Mr. Sir shouted for me to 'git over here!'
"This isn't a girl scout camp. Nobody's gonna baby-sit you." He drew a cross in the dust with his boot heel. "Dig here. Now, If you find anything interesting, you are to report it; to me or Pendanski." I noticed that Mr. Sir was very fond of his little hand gestures. "If the Warden likes what you find, you'll get the rest of the day off."
"Does the Warden like dirt and rocks?" Mr. Sir didn't honour me with a reply. And then left. That man just doesn't seem to like me.
"Yo, Voodoo?" X-Ray shouted over. I looked up. "Want some help getting started?" He smirked at me.
I stared at him a few seconds longer. Then I stabbed my spade straight into the ground, not even stepping on it. I stared at him again as I ripped a huge dirt clod out of the ground. After that, I just focused on my digging.
"Guess not…" I heard him mumble. I was irritated. There's a very fine line between being chivalrous and irritating the hell out of me by assuming I'm weak and stupid and can't do anything for myself. What's the word? Might be sexist, but I can't remember.
It was a good thing Mr. Sir told me to dig on the outskirts of the group, because my hands kept shining a yellowy-gold. The flash of yellowy-gold is the result of cell regeneration.
I guessed that most first-time diggers would come away with horribly blistered hands. Bless that little sea slug. That's practically my motto; Bless that sea slug.
I may not have been used to the technique, but I was injury-free and super strong, so I supposed I was digging pretty fast. When Mr. Sir arrived in the water truck, on what I was assuming was the first water round, my hole was five foot in diameter and about a foot deep.
Magnet slapped himself in the head the second he saw me step out of my hole, and ran over.
"I forgot to tell you to wear gloves! I'm sorry, here; you can have mine…" He began peeling off his gloves before I could stop him. "If you put a note in Pendanski's suggestion box, you can get your own pair…Is it bad?"
He grabbed my hands and held them palm up. He stared at them. Then he looked up at me. I just smiled and shrugged.
"I appreciate your concern." I walked over to where the boys were lining up, Magnet stumbling along behind me before standing behind Zigzag.
So the hierarchy went; X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet, Zero. Interesting. I stood behind Zero. Not worth my time to fight for the top spot.
While the line moved along, I sneakily peeked at everyone else's holes. Zero and I were the furthest along, having dug about the same amount, except he had dug straight down and I'd done the diameter first.
"How's the first hole coming along?" Dr. Pendanski called down to me. "Got any blisters?"
I stuck my arms forwards, either side of Zero's head, and wiggled my fingers.
"The chica's like, indestructible or somethin'!" Magnet joked. Well, he thought he was joking, anyway. I saw Zigzag looking at me suspiciously from the corner of my eye.
"No Zigzag, I'm not indestructible." Squid sniggered and punched his arm. Dr. Pendanski filled my canteen before driving away towards E-Tent.
I focused on my digging. The guys probably tried to talk to me, but I blocked them out. This day was like my sample; after this, I would know how much time, energy and effort needed to be put into a hole.
Digging through the sun-baked crust of earth hadn't been a problem for me, neither was getting the diameter done or digging down the first two feet. However, after about the first two or three feet, I had to start lifting the dirt out of my hole, which required a different motion and slowed me down.
By the time the water truck came again, I had about another foot and a half of depth to do.
This time, Dr. pendanski was delivering lunch. I got a sandwich, a cookie and some canned fruit. Oh my gosh, canned fruit. The amount of that stuff I've consumed in my lifetime is ridiculous. Especially peaches. And, just my luck, Dr. Pendanski gave me canned peaches.
The rest of D-Tent congregated around my hole, so I joined them.
"You dig pretty fast, dawg." Armpit commented. I nodded and sat down next to X-Ray, before proceeding to consume both my sandwich and cookie in about five bites.
Yum, bread. Bread goes off quite quickly, so as soon as the Farmer's Market ceased to function, no more bread for me. Same goes for cookies. I glared down at the can of peaches.
Across from me, Zigzag was slowly eating his peaches slice by slice, with a look of pure bliss on his face.
"Zigzag, I'll trade you my peaches for your sandwich." Zigzag's head snapped up to face me, eyes wide in disbelief. "The can is still sealed, don't worry." He nodded vigorously, his hair bouncing all over the place.
"Deal!" He all but hurled his sandwich at me and eagerly held out his hand for the can. I handed it over, glad to be rid of the damn thing. I cannot describe how absolutely sick of peaches I am. X-Ray elbowed me.
"Why does it matter that the can was sealed?" X-Ray asked loudly, treating me to a display of half-chewed food. I jumped down to a standing position in my hole, grabbing my spade.
"DON'T talk with your mouth full!" I stabbed angrily at the dirt inside my hole. I'll be the first to admit it; even I don't understand why manners are so important to me. I mean, I grew up seeing the most horrific things and monstrous deeds. I'm no angel myself. I suppose it might be that, since big things were beyond my control when growing up, I became obsessed with perfecting things within my control.
"A'ight, just chill out…" X-Ray held up his arms in the 'I surrender' position and headed back to his hole. By this point, everyone was done with their lunch anyway, so soon I was all alone. And fuming.
Obviously, the reason why it was important that the can was still sealed was that otherwise it could be poisoned. I would never eat from an opened can. The worst thing you can do to a paranoid person is give them something else to worry about, and judging from the guys' earlier remarks, Zigzag was going to be my pal in paranoia.
Zero was the first to be done with his hole, jumping out and spitting in it when I had about eight inches to go. I watched him head towards Camp, then carried on digging with a lighter heart.
I found it quite amusing that all these big 'tough' juvenile delinquent boys got completely thrashed by a kid who only came up to their shoulders.
The next to be done was X-Ray, although I only had a tiny way to go, and subsequently finished about five minutes after he had left.
I decided to spit in my hole before I left. It seemed to be a tradition around here. I then had to walk back to Camp. Which was really annoying, because I could have teleported if there had been any cover apart from holes. After all, I think the boys may have become a bit confused if they watched me jump into a hole, not come out and yet somehow not be there when they went to investigate.
I dumped my shovel next to X-Ray's, near the 'library'. I had the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted. But one port of call first; Dr. Pendanski's suggestion box.
It was outside the office (shack). I ripped the pathetic pencil off its piece of string and turned my attention to the pad of paper. Ignoring the sections for name and tent, I wrote just four words in the suggestion section before posting it into the box and skipping away, taking the pencil with me.
I hoped Dr. Pendanski would get the message when he found a piece of paper reading, in an untidy childish scrawl, 'Magnet is my favourite.'
