Disclaimer: I do not own Holes. If I did I would be someone else. Which I'm not. Um...yay?...

Roger reluctantly put on his new grimy orange uniform. Honestly, it was covered in patches of dirt, slightly ripped and looked as if it had never been washed at all. He wondered who had worn it before him, and if they had rabies. Wait...was it rabies that was transferrable by clothes? Or lice, or ringworm? Maybe all three. See, there he went confusing himself again. That's what it's like when you're me, he thought.

Mr. Sir looked up nonchalantly. "Hurry up, boy, dont got all--*burp* day." Roger quickly zippered the back of his suit and caught the identical outfit that Mr. Sir threw to him. "This one's for relaxation, boy. Or death. Whichever comes first," he laughed. Roger stared blankly. Was this a joke? Or did this guy really mean it? Too afraid to worry about it at the moment, Roger quickly took his supplies and new outfit and hurried out of the shack into the dust.

He looked around, confused. He knew he was supposed to dig a hole. But how deep? How large? How could he even get a shovel? He searched around for someone to ask. Leaning over near one kid, he whispered, "Psssst! Where do I get a shovel, and how big does my hole have to be?" The kid looked at Roger as if he were the dumbest guy alive, but was too tired to insult. "Over there," he pointed to an odd-shaped shack. "The hole's gotta be five feet deep, five feet wide. The shovel's gonna be your measuring stick." Roger nodded and hurried over to the shack. Opening the door, he found just a couple shovels that were all scarred and beat up. He sighed, grabbed a shovel, and began to work.

Now at this moment, the kid from before happened to peek out of his hole and see Roger attempting to dig right in front of the shovel shack. He yelled across the desert, "NO! NOT IN FRONT OF THE SHOVELS!!!"

Roger looked over. "OKAY." He was not one for arguing, especially for a place he was new to. He walked over about fifty feet from the shovels and began to dig.

Digging was fun. So far he found a few shiny rocks, some black sand, some underground weeds. It felt like digging for buried treaure or fossilized dinosaur bones. Yet soon he began to tire, and suddenly it hit him; this wasn't an archeaogical dig. This was a punishment, something he'd be stuck doing for the next fifteen months.

After what was just a few hours but seemed like years, Roger was done with his hole. He was the new guy, so of course everyone else had been done before him. Yet he had some sort of a knack for digging holes; it seemed to come naturally. He wasn't thinking of food, or water, or a warm shower while digging because he didn't like to think. All he concentrated on was digging that hole. Dig, dig, dig until it was five feet deep and high feet wide. Wasn't too hard if you weren't thinking of anything else. No pain, no hunger, no thirst, no filth...just digging.

Roger slipped into his assigned cabin number, dropped into an empty cot, and fell asleep instantly despite the horrid odor and hardness. He had an odd dream; in his dream he was a lizard. Eagles and hawks swooped down all around him, pecking the ground in a vain attempt to scare him off. Yet he felt some sort of lizard power; running. Running, like digging, could be easy if you just cleared your mind. Run from the eagles, run from the hawks, run. Lizard Roger was turning around, swirling around all the golden beaks of the eagles and hawks dive bombing around him on this desert scenery; run. And all of a sudden, he was hit with a golden whip and woken up.

He squinted. The kid from before, obviously his cabin mate, was pounding his cot. It hurt. Roger sat up immediately. "What are ya doin'?" he asked with a mix of sleep and fear.

The kid seemed to be sweating now; crying. "Dont move a muscle, ya hear me? There's a yellow-spotted lizard in this here cot, I'm trying to drive it away--"

He usually was very adapt at listening to instructions, but not this time. Roger looked between this kids hand pounding a rock on the cot, and saw a lizard. It had no yellow spots or whatnot however; even in the dark Roger could make out the electric blue spots that covered it's body. He looked up in confusion. "Yellow spots? This critter here, he's got blue spots. Take a look, friend."

The kid looked at Roger and screamed. "Are you downright CRAZY!? The thing's got yellow spots! Look at it! Look at it, are you COLORBLIND?"

"Look at the critter," Roger said simply. The kid took a good look at the skittering critter and found that Roger was right. In the dark, the light neon blue spots were very easily mistaken for yellow. Yet in truth, they were actually a completely different color.

The kid stared. "You're...right. Wow. All this fuss for nothing." He gazed. "That's downright amazing, didn't know that blue-spotted lizards even existed, confound it..."

Roger stared. "Guess they do, don't they?". And without thinking, the boy reached down and let the terrorized lizard crawl up his arm.

The kid gasped. "W-w-what did you do that for? It could be poisionous! It probably is poisonous!"

He shrugged. "Looks pretty friendly to me." The lizard crawled around him, sniffing his face like a dog or cat. Roger chuckled. "Looks like I've made a new friend, here."

The other boy watched in amazement as this wild, terrified creature seemed at total peace with this new guy. Probably have the same I.Q level, he thought. Nevertheless, this guy was brave.

"Welcome to Camp Greenlake, Lizard." said the boy. "I'm Techno."