Disclaimer: I certainly do not own Zero ((but he's sooo cute)) nor do I own many other things Louis Sachar and Walt Disney have made up. HOLES belongs to Mr. Sachar, THINGS-YOU-DO-NOT-RECOGNISE probably belong to me.

My Angel, My Only

Chapter Seventeen ll Whacky Decisions

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Zero's condition continued to improve. Slowly, but surely.

Stanley had been busy, digging away at the water hole with the shovel. It was now almost as big as the ones they had to dig back at Camp Green Lake. Zero had offered to help, but Stanley simply told him he should rest up.

"Save your strength," he had said.

Sometimes, it made Zero laugh to think about what he and Stanley had done over the past couple of days. They both resolved that their feet stank, so they took off their socks and washed them with the murky water.

Stanley had been about to dip his two very dirty socks into the water when Zero gave a feeble shout.

"Stop! You're going to contaminate the water! If we drink it, we'd surely die."

Stanley laughed, "What are we going to do then?"

Zero shrugged, and thought, "Scoop out some water and dump it on the socks?"

But Stanley shook his head, "It'll waste a lot of water and it'll take too long."

They both sat in silence, deep in thought.

"Oh, I know," Stanley suddenly said. He moaned a little as he twisted his body and reached for the sack that was lying about a foot away from him. He grabbed it and dragged it over.

Zero watched as Stanley took out a jar, then another one. He gently rolled a jar towards Zero.

"We can fill these with water and dump them over the socks."

"Good idea," Zero agreed. So then they had cleaned their socks.

A few seconds later, Stanley said, "Do you think we should wash our feet as well?"

That caused both of them to laugh.

"There isn't enough water in the world to clean our feet," Zero chuckled.

Later that evening, when the boys were having their evening meal of onions, Zero felt like talking about his past. Stanley listened.

"I didn't go to the homeless shelter very often. Only when the weather was really bad," he said, looking at the darkening sky and taking a crunchy bite of his (possibly) hundredth onion.

"I'd have to find someone to pretend to be my mum. If I'd gone by myself, they would've asked me a bunch of questions. If they'd find out I didn't have a mum, they would have made me a ward of the state."

Stanley peeled a layer of an onion off, "What's a ward of the state?" he wanted to know, turning his head briefly towards Zero.

Zero really had no idea. He shrugged and smiled, "I don't know. But I didn't like the sound of it."

Neither boy said anything as they took another bite of their onions.

"I liked sleeping outside," Zero continued on confidently, "I used to pretend I was a Cub Scout. I always wanted to be one. I'd see them at the park in their blue uniforms."

"I was never a Cub Scout," Stanley said, reaching for another onion, "I wasn't good at social stuff like that. Kids made fun of me because I was fat."

Zero re-thought about the whole situation, and shrugged, "I liked the blue uniforms. Maybe I wouldn't have liked being a Cub Scout."

Stanley shrugged as well.

"My mother was once a Girl Scout," Zero said suddenly, before he could stop himself. He glanced at Stanley, before resuming back to his onion.

"I thought you said you didn't have a mother."

"Everybody has to have a mother," Zero said logically.

"Well, yeah, I know that," Stanley said uncomfortably.

"She said she once won a prize for selling the most Girl Scout cookies. She was real proud of that."

Zero smiled a little as he thought back to his wonderful mother, "We always took what we needed. When I was little, I didn't even know it was stealing. I don't remember when I found out. But we just took what we needed, never more. So when I saw the shoes on display in the shelter, I just reached in the glass case and took them."

"Clyde Livingston's shoes?"

"I didn't know they were his. I just thought they were somebody's old shoes. It was better to take someone's old shoes, I thought, than steal a pair of new ones. I didn't know they were famous. There was a sign, but of course, I couldn't read it. Then, the next thing I know, everybody's making this big deal about how the shoes are missing. It was kind of funny, in a way. The whole place is going crazy. There I was, wearing the shoes, and everyone's running around saying, 'What happened to the shoes?' 'The shoes are gone!' I just ran around the corner and ran down the overpass. When I heard the sirens, I panicked and took them off. I tied the laces together and chucked them. I remember they smelled really bad."

Zero drew a deep sigh of relief. He was glad he had gotten that off his chest.

"Yeah, those were them. Did they fit you?"

Zero strained his memory, "Pretty much."

Stanley didn't respond. He seemed to be thinking about something, so Zero decided to tell the rest of his story.

"I should have just kept them. I'd already made it out of the shelter and everything. I ended up getting arrested the next day when I tried to walk out of a shoe store with a new pair of sneakers. If I had just kept those old smelly sneakers, then neither of us would be here right now."

Both boys took a bite of their onions at the same time, and seemed to be deep in thought.

---

"Let me dig some of the water hole."

Zero looked at Stanley persistently, who seemed uncertain. Zero had recovered. The onions and sleep had cured him of whatever illness he had had. Now he felt perfectly fine. He felt strong.

"Oh, alright then. But stop as soon as you get tired," Stanley said reluctantly, handing him the shovel.

Zero rolled his eyes, "Okay, okay."

He dug at the water hole. It was a lot more difficult than digging at the dirt at the dried up lake, but he still managed.

When Stanley called for him to stop because the water hole was big enough (six feet deep), they both hunted for rocks.

Zero returned with his arm full of rocks. He felt happy. He felt like he was out camping. Like the Cub Scouts.

He met up with Stanley, and the two filled the bottom of the water hole with the rocks, to separate the dirt from the water.

When they were finished, Zero picked up the shovel and threw it back down, further away from the hole.

"That's the last hole I will ever dig," he declared. Stanley smiled, though there was something bitter about his smile.

The two boys sat down and ate their late-morning onions. Zero looked up at Big Thumb.

"It must have a hole at it," he said to Stanley absently, "Filled with water."

"You think?"

"Where else could the water be coming from?" Zero asked, still staring at Big Thumb. He put down his onion, "Water doesn't run uphill."

Stanley didn't say anything, so Zero didn't say anything either. They sat and ate in silence.

Zero wondered if people could live on onions forever.

"How many onions do you think we've eaten?" Stanley suddenly asked, as he put down his half-eaten onion.

Zero shrugged, "I don't even know how long we've been here."

"I'd say about a week. And we probably eat about twenty onions a day, so that's..."

Like magic, numbers whizzed and fitted together in Zero's head.

"Two hundred and eighty onions," he said promptly, glancing over to Stanley.

"I bet we really stink," he said with a grin.

---

Zero resolved that he really liked sitting with Stanley, just sitting and talking and eating onions. It was like they really were at a camp, sitting around a bonfire and toasting marshmallows. Zero enjoyed it so much that he sometimes forgot that they were actually stranded at the top of a mountain.

But he didn't care.

They had spent their days running around, picking onions and rolling around in the flowers. They got covered in fluffy white petals and usually resolved in having 'grass fights'.

Stanley had taught Zero how to play tag, and when they didn't have to pick onions to eat or gather water to drink, they would race across the greenish-white field.

Two days later, they were looking up at the dark starry sky, joining up stars to form pictures.

And of course, eating onions.

After they had seen (with the help of their vivid imaginations) a rabbit, lollipop, racing car and shovel in the sky, both boys went into silence. It wasn't an awkward silence. They were just thinking.

Zero hadn't a whiff what might've been running through Stanley's mind, but he knew that he himself was thinking about his mother. He had been thinking about her quite a lot, recently.

He remembered a yellow room... a yellow room in which he slept in. And that his mother would always sing to him. She was such a sweet person.

Zero gave a small sigh that Stanley didn't hear.

"You know what," Stanley suddenly said, still star-gazing, "I feel lucky."

It was such a random statement that Zero almost burst out laughing.

"Yeah?" he scoffed, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah," Stanley grinned and bit into his onion, "I feel really lucky."

Zero grinned as well as he lifted his onion to his mouth, "The onions are gettin' to your head."

Stanley continued to smile, but stayed silent.

"How do you feel about diggin' one more hole?" he finally asked the surprised Zero.

He crunched at his onion, staring into space. Then he frowned and looked at Stanley.

"Huh?"

"Well," Stanley looked around, "We can't stay here forever, and neither of us wants to go back to camp, right?"

"Right," Zero said uncertainly. He hadn't thought about that just yet.

"And we both know that the Warden's making us dig for something, right? We're not just digging to 'build character'."

"Right."

"I know where the lipstick tube was found. The Warden went psycho, making us dig where she thought X-Ray had found it. But we didn't find anything 'cos we were digging in the wrong place. If we go back now, and dig at the place where I really found it, we might be able to find what the Warden's looking for."

"Which is...?"

"Kate Barlow's treasure."

Zero stared at him.

Did onions cause people to go insane?

"Kissin' Kate Barlow," he repeated, looking at Stanley cautiously.

Stanley just shrugged, "Sounds crazy, I know, but it's worth a shot, don't you think?"

"Alright," Zero took a deep breath, "Suppose we manage to survive to climb down the mountain and back to camp. Suppose you remember exactly where the lipstick tube was found. Suppose we'll be able to dig it without getting caught. Suppose we find whatever it is the Warden's looking for. What are we supposed to do then?"

"Hitchhike back to civilization," Stanley said simply.

Zero stared into space.

He took another bite of the lovely onion.

Then he looked back at Stanley and grinned.

"What the heck. We've done enough crazy things, one more can't hurt."

Stanley grinned as well.

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---- A/N: HI EVERYONE! Hehe, I felt like adding an extra part of the conversation Stanley and Zero had after Stanley asked him if he wanted to dig one more hole. Bwahahaha. If I dedicated this chapter to two people, I would dedicate it to Mellabee and Ronniekinsgrl. DEFINITELY. :) Yay! You guys completely ROCK. And I hope I updated quick enough! Okay, I shall be off now. Oh! And Zero shall speak.

Zero: Yo! 'Sup, mah homieth?

Haha, little boy speaking big boy. Weird.

Zero: Thwank woo fwor reviewin'.

(Zero hugs Mellabee, Ronniekinsgrl, Spice of Life, Nosilla and Holes' Chica.)

(Zero and MSQ then hand out cookies to LadyGlory, Kirjava Deamon, Wrennie, sophianwin, Lucky38 and ilovecyberchase.)

WE LOVE YOU!

(Zero smiles very much the same way he did in Holes when... ahh, he always smiles cute.)

--MSQ.