...I don't own holes or any of the characters...blah blah...I only own Avita, who I invented. Holes belongs to Louis Sachar, and there is a little section in this chapter that was inspired by Vega-chan1, so that credit goes to her, not me...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter one: The New Arrival
Six boys, shovels in hand and sweat pouring down their faces, stood amongst piles of sandy dirt, digging. They all wore orange jumpsuits, though a few had removed their shirts to try to relieve some of the intense heat of the sun beating down upon their backs. Each boy's hole was several feet deep by now, and about five feet wide. The smallest of the six boys, a skinny African American kid with thick, fluffy curls that were sticking out from under his floppy sun hat, climbed out of his hole, now five feet deep, and surveyed his handiwork. Apparently satisfied, the boy spat into his hole, dusted off his hands, and began walking back along the dirt road towards the camp in the distance, his shovel lying across his shoulders, held in place by his arms that hung limply over the handle.
The other five boys paused in their work to watch the small boy walking away. Each was thinking the same thing, though none of them said a word. They couldn't wait to be done with their holes, so they, too, could head back to camp to relax for a while in the refreshing shade of their tent, or even better, take a nice, cold shower.
About twenty minutes later, all five boys looked up again from their holes - they could hear the distant rumble of an engine growing louder and louder. Though none of the guys could see the source of the noise, they knew what it must be - the Bus.
"Hey, that must be the new guy", said one of the boys. He had a buzz cut, a dark tan, and spoke with a strong Mexican accent. He wore a faded black bandanna tied around his head, to keep the sweat out of his dark brown eyes.
"Wonder who he is- I hope he's better at digging holes than Dizzy was. That's why he left, ya know, 'cause he kept passin' out from the heat. They thought he was gonna die from heat stroke or somethin', so they sent him home," said another of the boys. He was tall and his skin was tanned from having removed his shirt so often while he worked. He spoke with a slight Southern drawl, had honey-brown eyes, and dark brown hair, but at the moment it was so dusty you'd have thought it was grey at first glance. He was wearing a faded yellow baseball cap over a white bandanna to keep the sun off his head and the back of his neck.
"Dude, how do you know that?" asked an overweight African American boy, whose jumpsuit looked grubbier than all the rest put together.
"I overheard Mom and Mr. Sir talkin' about it a couple of days ago," said the boy.
"Will you two SHUT UP already!" shouted a tough-looking black boy. He too had a bandanna, and he was wearing a thick pair of glasses that were so filthy, it was surprising that he could see out of them at all.
"Hey, X-Ray, chill, alright?" said the tallest boy in the group. He had frizzy blond hair that stuck up in every direction, giving the impression that he had just stuck his finger into an electrical outlet.
"Don't you tell me to chill, Zigzag," said the boy called X-Ray, starting to get out of his hole.
"Guys, cool it! If we start a fight the Warden'll come down on all of us," said the boy called with the yellow hat, putting out an arm to prevent X-Ray from trying to hit ZigZag.
As the Warden's name was mentioned, a shiver seemed to pass through the group like a sudden breath of icy wind. None of them had ever met the Warden, and they sure weren't in any hurry. No, they liked living, thank you very much. Number one rule at Camp Green Lake: Do NOT upset the Warden.
It was about 3:30 in the afternoon by the time all of the boys had finished their holes. When each boy had finished, he would use his shovel to measure that his hole was five feet deep and five feet wide. Then, he would climb out of his hole and spit into it. Finally, each of the five boys had finished except for the one called Armpit.
"Hey, Armpit, HURRY UP!" called the tan, Spanish-looking boy.
"Hey, Magnet" said the boy called Armpit.
"What?"
Armpit made a rude gesture with his hands, evoking raucous peels of laughter from the others.
When Armpit had finished his hole and spat into it, the five boys trudged back to camp, their long, dark shadows trailing behind them, the only source of shade on the parched earth.
As they walked back along the dusty road, they passed several other orange-clad boys from other tents. To an outsider, the scenery at Camp Green Lake would have been most unusual. It wasn't so much a lake as a sea of holes - hundreds of thousands of them - going on for miles in every direction. They knew there had been a lake there at one point, X-Ray had even found a fossil of a pair of fish once, but as far as any of them knew, not so much as a drop of water had touched the "lake" for over a hundred years. That was back when the Warden's grandfather had owned Green Lake and most of the town around it, but the lake had long since dried up, and any buildings there had been back then were certainly not there now.
As the five boys drew nearer to the camp, they could clearly make out six large tents, the Mess Hall, Wreck Room, showers, and a small shed marked "Library," where the shovels were kept. At the far end of the camp was a log cabin, in front of which were two large oak trees. This was the Warden's cabin. Those trees and that shade belonged to the Warden.
Once they were inside the camp, the boys walked past three large tents made of canvas that was so dirty that it looked as though it had never been washed. The tents each had an old wooden sign swinging above the entrance that was marked with a large letter, carved into it and roughly painted over in black. These three tents were marked 'A', 'B', and 'C'. Then, they came to the tent marked 'D' - their own. A little further on, they could see a couple of boys outside E-tent messing around with an ancient radio, which was belting out static for all it was worth. The last tent, F, was for the counselors. The campers tended to avoid this tent whenever possible.
The D-tent boys took off their dust-caked boots and deposited them next to the wooden block that served as a step up to the tent's opening. The tents were all built up on top of wooden platforms held up by stilts, so there was a foot-high gap between the ground and the tent floor. This was supposed to prevent the tents from getting wet if their was a flood, but as it never rained anywhere within about a hundred miles of the camp, they didn't really need to worry about that.
The five boys went into the tent to get their shower tokens and second set of clothes. There were seven cots spaced around the tent, and each one had a plastic crate at the foot of it labeled with the name of the boy to which it belonged. To no one's surprise, one of the cots was already occupied by a smallish person in an orange jumpsuit. They could usually expect to come back from digging to find Zero in the tent, lying on his cot, staring blankly at the ceiling. What did surprise them, however, was that he wasn't lying on his own cot, he was fast asleep on the one with the crate marked "Squid".
"Hey, rise 'n shine, Zero. " said the boy called Squid.
Zero didn't respond, he didn't even move. Squid went to shake him awake, but jumped back in surprise, because the boy lying fast asleep on the cot definitely wasn't Zero.
The new boy was short, though he was still a little taller than Zero would've been. His skin was a sort of soft tan color, like burnt honey, and he had his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing a floppy blue sun hat pulled down over his eyes, so the other boys, now crowded around Squid's cot, couldn't see his face. Squid, thoroughly irritated at having somebody he didn't even know taking a nap on his bed, leaned over the boy and said,
"Hey!" very loudly.
The boy didn't move, so Squid gave him a gentle poke in the side. Without warning, the boy rolled over and, as he did so, stuck out his arm, catching Squid hard in the stomach. Squid, caught by surprise, toppled over backwards, tripped on a crate at the foot of the cot, and fell hard onto the floor, completely winded.
Meanwhile, the boy on the cot turned his head and his hat slipped off his face. The members of D-tent around the cot yelled in surprise and jumped backwards, knocking over another cot as they did so. The boys (minus Squid, who was still on the floor) were gaping, speechless and open- mouthed, at the person lying asleep on the cot.
"What?" asked Squid, getting up off the floor and rubbing his stomach. He too looked over at the boy on the bed, and his jaw dropped. Lying there, still fast asleep, was...
"He's... he's a GIRL!" said Squid weakly.
Just then, the girl let out a low moan and rolled onto her back again. She yawned, and slowly sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. The guys all backed away, glancing from the girl to each other and back again, not exactly sure what to do.
As the girl's vision became clearer, she suddenly realized that she was in a tent full of boys, boys, moreover, who were all staring avidly at her.
From what the boys could see of her, she was about average height and had long, dark brown curls with flecks of bronze in them that were reflecting the sunlight coming in through the tent flap. She had hard, almond-shaped, emerald green eyes, and long, dark eyelashes. She also had a thin scar right below her left eye that made her eyes stand out sharply, hard among her other, softer features.
For a while, she just sat there, staring back at them, until finally she asked,
"So, are you gonna tell me who y'all are, or am I gonna have to guess?"
The boys suddenly realized how long they had been staring and looked away, fidgeting uncomfortably. Then Squid seemed to come to his senses and began introducing his tent mates,
"This is X-Ray, Zigzag, Magnet, and Armpit." He pointed to each of the other boys in turn.
"And I'm Squid," he added.
She smiled shyly at them, shifting nervously as they were all still looking at her as though she had sprouted an extra head. Though slightly unnerved, she tried to be as friendly as possible.
"I'm Avita. Which one of you did I accidentally punch in the stomach?" she asked, her hard eyes softening and an impish grin playing on her lips .
"Me" said Squid grumpily, still subconsciously rubbing his stomach where she'd hit him.
"Oh - well, sorry about that - didn't mean to, I was half asleep, ya know?"
Avita was looking around at all of them, considering. Her eyes traveled over each boy in turn, taking in X-Ray's glasses, Zigzag's hairstyle, Magnet's teasing smile, the grime on Armpit's jumpsuit, and Squid's odd assortment of hats. Each of them certainly seemed to have their quirks, she thought, but they didn't look like a bad bunch.
Then, Squid spoke, jolting Avita out of her thoughts.
"Say, you want me to show you around?" he asked.
"Sure - let me just change out of this stupid jumpsuit first."
Then, she proceeded to undress, right in front of them. She didn't seem embarrassed at all. The boys were all staring, wide-eyed at her as she began unbuttoning her jumpsuit and pulled it off her shoulders so it hung around her waist. They realized why she hadn't minded changing with them all there - she was wearing other clothes underneath her jumpsuit. She had on plain black tank top and a pair of too-big cargo pants that hung loosely at her hips and looked as though they might have been stolen from and older brother.
"What?" she said, raising an eyebrow at them and, rolling her eyes at their still stunned faces, moved towards the tent flap. She pushed it aside and hopped down onto the dusty earth below, little dust clouds rising as her feet hit the ground.
Squid followed her out of the tent, leaving the other boys temporarily dumbstruck.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...Hope ya liked it, the second chapter might take me a while cause I'm not exactly sure what to write yet, but I'm working on it... REVIEW PLEEEEEZE!
By the way, thanx to Vega-chan1 for being my first ever reviewer! You rock!