Pretty Girls Make Graves
Author's Note: This is my first Holes fan fic. It's not going to be perfect, but I hope ya'll like it. 'Cause I have a feeling I'm going to have fun making it. And it's not your typical bad-girl-goes-to-camp-Green-Lake-fic either. Yeah, a girl is going to go to the damn camp… but… well, you'll see. But anyways… reviews would be nice and constructive criticism is always welcome. But flames will be used to roast marshmallows… yum! But I'm sure I won't get flames… I tend to be a nice person and I'm a fairly good writer so… yeah! Okay, this author's note is getting kind of long so I'm gonna cut it right about… now!
Disclaimer: I don't own Holes. I don't own any of the characters. Please, don't sue me… not that you'd get any cash out of me. I have no money… I'm broke… as a joke… yeah.
Pretty Girls Make Graves
A Holes Fan Fic
A Zero/OFC Production
By: Addicted2UrAllure
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"Yo, man! Look, it's another bus!" a chubby black boy in an orange jump suit yelled out and pointed towards a yellow bus. Six other boys stopped digging in the monumental holes they were located in, and one continued digging. The six that did happen to look up either scrunched up their faces in confusion or just shrugged to one another.
"I didn't know there was another opening… I thought all the spots were filled." A short black boy with thick, dirt covered glasses said, watching the bus drive up to where all the tents and such were located.
"Maybe it was that one guy from C-Tent. I heard he was supposed to get out sometime this week…" this time it was a Hispanic boy that spoke up. He looked at his friends to see if they were satisfied with his answer and they all shrugged. They watched the bus until it stopped and then they got back to digging their holes.
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"Now, we don't normally do this here at Camp Green Lake… but under the circumstances… well I think it would be better if the Warden explained all this to you," Grunted out a man with long side burns and a mouth full of sun flower seeds. He chewed for a moment and then spit all the seed shells into a near by trash bin.
"But there is one thing that I have to say, and I say it to every camper that has walked into this office… This is not a Girl Scout camp. We do not sell cookies or have bake sales. You just remember that now, ya hear?" he leered across his desk at a small girl, about five foot nothing. She sat there, her back straight, head held high, and her hands folded neatly into her lap.
She had a beautiful topaz complexion that went well with her unusual amber colored eyes, which were framed by long dark eye lashes. Her black hair was braided in cornrows in the front and then it sort of frizzed out in the back. Her full lips, which were now set in a straight line, were an even lighter color than her skin… but not much lighter.
She nodded her head and said in a stern but light voice, "Yes, Sir." "That's Mr. Sir to you, little lady," Mr. Sir corrected her. Most people would have laughed, but the girl merely quirked a dark eyebrow and said, "Yes, Mr. Sir."
Mr. Sir pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and talked into it, "Lou, she's here." A few moments later a skinny red haired woman walked into Mr. Sir's office. She was very tall and a bit gangly and despite the look on her face, she was sort of pretty. If only she wouldn't scrunch up her face like that; it looked like something foul smelling was held under her nose.
But the God awful sneer was wiped right off her face when she spotted the small girl. She smiled kindly and motioned for her to stand up, which she did. And then they began to walk.
"So, you're Carla McMillion... I heard a lot about you," she said shaking her head as if she wasn't in the least surprised at her. And it was strange because almost everyone that had met Carla was surprised at the way she acted. She looked so small and meek… but she really lived up to her name. Carla: One who is strong. And that she was. She may have been small and looked innocent enough, but Carla wasn't a perfect little angel. She wasn't exactly a bad kid, though.
She made sure she never got less than honor roll at school; she respected her teachers most of the time; she was in after school programs; and she had a passion for the arts. She did anything that had anything to do with art. Whether it was acting, observing, singing, dancing, writing, painting, and etcetera. And she would read almost anything she could get her hands on.
"And where, exactly, are you from?" the Warden asked her as they walked past tents and other rooms. Carla looked around and acted as if she didn't hear the Warden's question. "Excuse me," came the Warden's stern voice. Carla's head snapped up in her direction, but she still said nothing. This woman was nosey… Carla didn't need some snotty warden snooping about in her personal life.
"Fine, don't answer me then," she snapped at Carla. They continued to walk until they got to a screen door. She opened the door and walked in, and Carla followed. The Warden smirked a bit and said, "Like all those boys out there, you're going to have to dig one hole a day." Inside the room were a bunch of work boots, orange jump suits, and shovels.
"Everyday, you will go out with the boys and you will dig a hole five feet deep, and five feet wide around. Digging holes helps build your character," the Warden smiled a toothy grin that Carla didn't like one bit. "And if you should find something, tell Mr. Sir or Mr. Pendanski, who you will meet later, immediately. If I happen to like what you find, then you can have the day off. Do you understand me?"
Carla simply nodded like before and looked around the room. "Here," the Warden threw her an orange jump suit and looked through the boots. "That should be about your size… shoes may be a problem though…"
After a while of trying on different pairs of boots, they had found the right size. Carla's feet were like the rest of her; small. And after they had found her a pair of boots, the Warden explained how the wash was done… and Carla found that very unsanitary. But this was a correctional facility, not some summer camp.
"Now, all we have to do is assign you a tent…" the Warden said mainly to herself. Carla guessed that after a while of un-answered questions, she got the message. "Hmm," the Warden continued. "Can't put you in A-Tent… maybe B-Tent… No, no, no, no, no." Carla mentally rolled her eyes as the Warden looked at papers on a clip board. She guessed that those papers told who was in what tent.
"Well, damn," she sighed after a few moments of looking through her papers. "I didn't wanna do this, but it looks like you're gonna have to be set up in D-Tent." Carla thought she heard her mumble something along the lines of 'sneaky bastards', but she wasn't sure. Either way it didn't matter. Any boy tried some funny business, and they'd get the living shit beat out of them. Ok… so maybe I'm being a bit smug, Carla thought. She really didn't know a thing about these boys. For all she knew they could be pretty tough and cruel… and then on the other hand they could be mindless dolts that couldn't tell a fight from a toilet paper roll.
Just then, a short man with plenty of sun block on his big nose walked in. He smiled a big cheesy grin and said in a cheerful voice, "You must be Carla! I'm Mr. Pendanski your counselor…" Carla seemed to drift away a bit after he introduced himself. She didn't really care for all the 'I respect you' bull he was saying.
Carla only started to focus on what he was saying when he motioned for her to follow him. "You know that Mr. Sir's office is over there… and that's the Warden's cabin…" he continued showing her things that she should remember but at the moment she didn't care about anything but sleep. She hadn't had any sleep for about a week or so and right now she just wanted somewhere to lie down and relax. "And here, is where you will be staying."
They walked into a huge tent with a big capital D on the side. There were eight cots inside and Carla guessed that the one without blankets was hers. She mentally sighed and hoped that this guy was almost done yapping. She walked over to her cot and threw her backpack onto it. Shortly after, Mr. Pendanski left her so she could get settled in.
She pulled random things out of the knapsack along with three pillows and a few blankets. She set her bag down on the floor, made up her sleeping area, and then sat on her cot and continued to empty out her things.
She had some little personal things; pictures, a few of her favorite books, an original snuggle bear, etc. And then she had some old clothes; a few over sized t-shirts, ripped cargo pants, cut off sweat pants and shirts, an NY baseball cap, and a Rhine stone tiara. She also had a few hair things; combs, brushes, clips, rubber bands, and bandanas.
She neatly put her clothes and accessories back into her backpack, and then placed her backpack under her cot. She piled the few books she'd brought up against the wall next to her backpack. Carla then stretched and flopped down on her cot, reaching back and grabbing a random book in the process.
The book she had grabbed was a paper back version of Dave Pelzer's "A Child Called 'It'." You could tell from the worn cover that it was read over and over. Carla smiled and opened to the first chapter and began to read:
March 5, 1973, Daly City, California-
I'm late. I've got to finish the dishes on time, otherwise no breakfast; and since I didn't have dinner last night, I have to make sure I get something to eat. Mother's running around yelling at my brothers. I can hear her stomping down the hallway towards the kitchen. I dip my hands back into the scalding rinse water. It's too late. She catches me with my hands out of the water.
SMACK!
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About an hour or so later, Carla was almost finished reading her book. She only had one more chapter to go, and that was the Epilogue.
As my brothers wolfed down their hamburgers, without them knowing I clasped my hands together, bent my head down, closed my eyes and prayed with all my heart. When the station wagon turned onto the driveway, I felt that my time had come. Before I opened the car door, I bowed my head and with peace in my heart, I whispered, ". . . and deliver me from evil."
"Amen."
Carla was about to turn to the next page when she heard someone come into the tent. She sat up a bit and pulled her book down away from her face. A few cots away sat a black boy about her height. He had slightly frizzy hair, much like Carla's, and his aureate brown eyes were looking confusedly at her. Carla stared back at him and then turned away from him and went back to her book.
About twenty-five minutes later, Carla was finished with her book. She closed it, stretched, and sat up. The boy from earlier was just laying there on his cot, looking towards to ceiling of the tent. He hadn't said a word to her… and she thought he would at least want to know why she was there. It was a correctional facility for boys, after all.
Carla continued to look at him and then he turned to look at her. Her stare wavered slightly but she still continued to look at him for a moment more. And then she turned away and grabbed another book. The book she had grabbed this time was "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." The book had always confused her… she guessed that was why she enjoyed reading it; because she could never understand the logic of it. If there was any to it at all…
After a minute of consideration, Carla decided not to read her book. She'd already read one today, she could save this one for another day. Just as she was putting her book away, she heard lots more people outside. She figured that they were probably all getting done their holes about now.
Just then, six boys, all in orange jump suits, walked into the tent. Carla just sat on her cot playing with her hair as they all gaped at her. One with wild looking blonde hair and blue eyes finally spoke up, "That's a girl… right?" Then, another boy with brunette hair and a tooth pick sticking out of the corner of his mouth, laughed. "Oh, so I'm not seeing things!"
Carla rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. Why did guys have to be such dorks, she cogitated to herself.
"Hey, girl, what are you doing here?" A boy with thick specs sat on the cot across from her. Carla simply shrugged her shoulders. Isn't it obvious, she thought, I'm here because I was bad… Carla diverted her gaze from the boy in front of her, to the floor. All of a sudden, she felt like crying… Carla never cried. Especially not in front of people. So, she fought back her tears and then looked back at them all.
"Man, can you at least tell us your name?" Carla wasn't sure who said it exactly, but she knew the voice had come from a cot on her left. So she looked to her left slightly and said faintly, "Carla…"
"Okay," said a Hispanic boy across from her, "At least we're gettin' somewhere." Carla leered at the boy and mentally rolled her eyes. She bet she had a bigger vocabulary than all of them put together. She wasn't stupid; she just didn't feel like answering their stupid questions.
The boy with the glasses across from her introduced himself, "I'm X-Ray." A chubby boy on her left said, "Yo, I'm Armpit." And this continued until all of them had introduced themselves. They had some… colorful names, Carla thought. X-Ray, Armpit, Zigzag, Squid, Magnet, and Caveman. The only person who had yet to introduce them self was the boy that got there earlier than the rest.
Speaking of which, Carla thought as she turned to look at the boy. He was still laying there and staring. Her brow furrowed for a moment and then X-Ray's voice cut through her train of thought. "That's Zero… the boy never talks. Mr. Pendanski says it's because he's stupid," he paused and laughed a bit. "I wouldn't be surprised if it was true."
Carla sent a glare in his direction, letting him know that she didn't really appreciate his opinion on Zero. Just because he didn't talk to them didn't mean he was stupid. Hell, if he hadn't talked to them then they didn't know anything about him. They had no right to judge him like that. And what the hell is up with that counselor, Carla's mind yelled. If he was a counselor than wasn't he supposed to be helping them and not discouraging them?
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A little while later, Carla and the rest of D-Tent were in the Mess Hall eating their 'dinner.' Though Carla swore it was pig slop and not food. Cheap bastards, Carla thought as she looked at the muck on her plate. She shook herself out of her reverie and decided to just eat her bread.
She grabbed her glass of water and took a sip. And as she did, she heard X-Ray's voice, "You know, since you didn't dig today, I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving that bread up for someone who did…" He reached for her bread just as she was setting down her glass. But before he could grab it, Carla stuck her index finger in her mouth and poked it into her bread.
The other guys snickered and Carla could have sworn she saw Zero purse his lips like he was trying not to laugh. X-Ray just sat back in his chair and glared at her. Meow, Carla thought sarcastically, I seem to have pissed off the ring leader. She looked straight at X-Ray, picked up her bread, and took a bite.
"I'm gonna let that one slide," he said, "because you're new and because you're a girl. But next time, I might not be so nice."
Carla would have laughed and made some snide comment, only there were more of them than her. For all she knew, they'd jump on her as soon as she cocked her arm back. So she just sat there, finishing her bread. And when she did finish, she quietly got up from her place between Zigzag and Caveman, and left to go to bed.
Later that night, Carla lay in bed thinking about her first day at camp. Well, she thought, I guess it's not really considered my first day since I haven't dug my first hole yet. But besides that, she was thinking about earlier.
It must have been hard for Zero… She didn't know how long he'd been at this camp, but she knew it was hard. She knew what it was like to be ridiculed and made fun of. It wasn't exactly the best feeling in the world either…
She rolled over on her cot and looked at Zero's sleeping form. She quietly sighed and then whispered, "I don't think you're stupid…" and soon after, she fell asleep.
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Whoa, Carla thought as she sat bolt up right in bed. She had had the oddest of odd dreams. It was like something out of Alice In Wonderland… all colorful and disoriented. And then Carla was reminded of that one Winnie the Pooh movie… the one with all those strange creatures and all the swirling and changing colors.
She shook her head, wiped the sleep from her eyes, and looked around. Everyone else was still sleeping, so it must have been really earlier. Plus, it was still dark out. Carla guessed it was around three or three-thirty in the morning. She sighed, combed her fingers through her thick, frizzy hair, and then lay back down.
She didn't get back to sleep though. She just laid there until she heard the guys start to stir. She heard them all shuffling around, sleepily getting ready. Carla groaned inside her head. It wasn't that she was tired, because she wasn't. Her mind was fully awake, but her body ached for rest. She just didn't want to move. But she knew she would have to sooner or later, so she sat right up and opened her eyes.
Carla was already dressed, so all she had to do was grab her NY baseball cap. She lazily put in on backwards and followed the guys out of the tent. They were all lined up, retrieving shovels from a big shed. She too stood in line to get a shovel, right behind Zero. Like her, he seemed wide awake. While all of the others either looked like they were about to pass out, or blinked very slowly, showing how tired they were.
Once they all had their shovels, they all grouped off. A-Tent whet off to one place, B-Tent to another, and so on and so fourth. So Carla just followed the people in her tent. After they had reached a bit of desert where no holes were located, Carla noticed a truck pulling up. Once it got close enough, she noticed Mr. Sir was driving. She figured that he'd end up coming down to lecture her or some other dumb shit she didn't need to hear.
And she was right. She stood there for about seven minutes listening to him say, "This is not a Girl Scout camp" and "Dig here." Gees, Carla rolled her eyes, he could have told me all that in under a minute…
So, Carla had started her hole. She thought it would be hard, digging a hole this big. But for some reason it came easily to her. She'd push her shovel into the dry dirt as far as it would go, she'd pull it up, and she'd fling the dirt off into a pile.
After about two and a half hours of digging, Carla had gotten pretty far with her hole. She guessed it was about two feet deep and almost three around. But she had developed blisters on her hands. They weren't too bad, but the occasional throb of pain was annoying. She ignored them the best that she could and continued digging.
A few hours later, maybe about eight and half hours, Mr. Pendanski pulled up in the same truck Mr. Sir had earlier. Carla glanced at her hole and cocked her head to the side. She was almost finished. The hole was about three and a half feet deep and it was already five feed wide around. She figured that she could finish it in, maybe, less than an hour.
Carla stretched and cracked her back and her knuckles. Then she wiped the sweat from her brow and lined up with the rest of the guys; she was, once again, behind Zero. They were all lined up to get their canteens re-filled and to get lunch. Carla wasn't very hungry… she thought that after being in the sun for almost seven hours and digging all of those hours, that she'd be hungry. But she wasn't. A little thirsty, but not hungry.
She silently shrugged to herself and grabbed two cookies. She then went back over to her hole and sat on the edge, her feet dangling inside it. She took a few bites of one of her cookies and felt bile vise in her throat. She tried to push the feeling to the back of her mind, forcing herself to ignore it. But she still felt that horribly ill, acidy feeling in the pit of her gut. And suddenly, the texture of the cookie she was chewing felt very thick.
She swallowed and took a swig of water from her canteen. She felt better, but the sick feeling stayed with her. She shook her head and turned to Squid, "Want my cookie?" Her voice was quiet and scratchy because she hadn't said anything in a while. And when she said this, everyone looked over at her, surprised that she was talking. She looked at them all and then turned back to Squid.
He quirked an eyebrow, "Did you do somethin' funny to it?" Carla actually smiled a genuine smile. "No, I didn't do anything to it… I just don't want it." He smiled a crooked smirk back to her and took the cookie from her small hands, "Thanks." Carla simply nodded and then jumped back down in her hole.
About fifteen minutes later Zero had finished his hole. Carla looked up at him just as he spit saliva in his hole. She cocked her head one way, cracking her neck, and then the other, cracking it again. Carla was surprised he had finished his hole so early. Sure, she was almost done her hole as well, but she still had a good twenty-five more minutes of digging before she finished.
Caveman must have noticed her looking at Zero, because he turned around to face her and said, "He's the fastest digger in the camp… he always gets done around this time." Carla looked over at Caveman and nodded, then went back to digging her hole.
About twenty-five to thirty minutes later, Carla had finished her hole. At the moment she was still standing in it, chewing the inside of her cheek. She wasn't exactly sure what she was supposed to do now… she guessed that she should head back to camp and get washed up. So, she silently climbed out of her hole, with minimal problems. She dusted herself off, took off her NY baseball cap, and shook the little bit of dirt out of her crisp hair. She began to walk away down the path to camp when a voice from behind stopped her.
"Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up!" she turned around and saw X-Ray standing by her hole. The rest of the guys were all standing around it. Armpit looked at her hole and then to her, "How in the hell did you get done so fast?" He sounded flabbergasted; the same way the rest of them looked. Caveman leaned down and stuck his shovel into her hole, showing everyone that it was five feet deep. And then he put it across on all sides, showing that it was five feet in diameter as well.
"Well, what are you waitin' for?" it was Squid who asked her this. She looked at him, cocked her head, and shrugged. He smiled that cute, crooked smirk and motioned with his hand for her to come over. She did so and he turned her to face her hole. She turned and looked curiously over her shoulder at him, waiting for her instructions. He took his toothpick out of the side of his mouth and said, "You gotta spit in it."
Carla smiled at him and arched an eyebrow. But she did what she was told; she hocked herself a nice ole loogie and spit it into her hole.
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Author's Note: I hope you like it so far… and just to let you know, this is not a Mary Sue! If it sounds like one right now, well I'm sorry. But it's not. The next chapter will be similar to this one, only it will be in Zero's third person point of view. I'm hoping for some good reviews for this chapter. 'Cause if I don't get at least five reviews then I'm not gonna post the next chapter. So please, review. And I'm sorry if this seems short… I normally make everyone of my chapters six pages long, but I've decided to only do five and ½ pages for this stories chapters. Again, I hope you like it, and I hope you review.