Chapter Twenty

For the next week and a half, we continued to dig in and around the area where Squid had "found" the gold tube. We widened Squid's hole, as well as the holes Armpit and Lewis had been digging. As the days wore on, I could tell the Warden became less and less patient. She arrived later in the morning and left earlier in the afternoon. Meanwhile, she kept making us dig later and later into the day.

"This is no bigger than it was when I left you yesterday," she said after arriving late one morning, well after sunrise. "What have you been doing down there?"

"Nothing," said Lewis.

My idiot brother had just said the thing that would bring doom upon us all. At that moment, Armpit was returning from a bathroom break.

"How nice of you to join us," she said. "And what have you been doing?"

"I had to…you know…go."

The Warden jabbed at Armpit with her pitchfork, knocking him backward into the big hole. The pitchfork left three holes in the front of his shirt, and three thing spots of blood.

"You're giving these kids too much water," the Warden told Mom.

We continued to dig until late in the afternoon. Long after all the other groups had finished for the day. The guys were all down in the big hole, and us girls were moving the wheelbarrows. As Caveman was raising his shovel to put it in my wheelbarrow ZigZag's shovel hit him in the side of the head. He collapsed.

ZigZag looked over Caveman and when he opened his eyes he said, "I ain't digging that dirt up. That's your dirt."

"Hey, Mom!" TC called out. "Caveman's been hurt."

Magnet helped Caveman to his feet, then up and out of the hole. Mr. Sir made a bandage out of a piece of his sack of sunflower seeds and taped it over Caveman's wound. Then he told him to get back to work. "It isn't nap time."

When Caveman returned to the hole, ZigZag told him, "That's your dirt. You have to dig it up. It's covering up my dirt."

It took Caveman a moment to realize what he was talking about, but in the end, he scooped up his dirt and put it in my wheelbarrow. The rest of our digging day was rather pointless. We all went back to the camping ground to take our showers and headed to the Wreck Room to relax.

"Stanley," Mom said coming in with a stack of letters.

"My name's Caveman," said Caveman.

"Well, I have a letter here for someone named Stanley Yelnats," said Mom. He turned over an envelope in his hands. "It doesn't say Caveman anywhere."

"Come on, Mom, give me my letter," said Caveman.

"Sorry, I can't give mail to someone who isn't the addressee," Mom said holding the letter above his head.

"Uh, thanks," Caveman said taking the letter out of Mom's hand. It was actually pretty funny.

"Who's it from?" Squid asked. "Your mother?"

Caveman put it in the big pocket of his pants.

"Aren't you going to read it to us?" asked Squid.

"Leave him alone," I said. "if Caveman doesn't want to read it to us, he doesn't have to. It's probably from one of his friends."

Caveman smiled in gratitude towards me; and Squid glared.

I didn't bother with going to dinner, I just went to the tent and made myself a sandwich. I fell asleep before the other girls came in. I woke up around midnight and found myself having to go to the bathroom really badly. I got up and walked outside to the bathrooms and did my business. But on the way back, I heard a funny noise. It was coming from the guy's tent. I walked over and found Squid sitting on the steps.

"Squid?" I asked timidly.

He looked up at the sound of my voice, I saw that he was crying.

"Are you okay?" I asked again coming over to sit on the steps.

He sniffed and caught his breath. "Yeah, I just…I'm fine," he whispered, and sniffed again.

"Squid, I may not have lived that long, but I know that 'I'm fine' means 'I'm not fine.' What's wrong?"

"Like you would understand, or even care," he said coldly.

"Squid, I know we haven't been seeing eye to eye on things the past couple of days, but I think I should have taken in what you had to say. And if you tell me what's wrong, I take everything hurtful I've ever said about you back: to your face and behind your back," I said to him as seriously as I could. "And I don't do that for just anybody."

"Okay, but if you laugh or tell me to suck it up, I will not hesitate on hitting you."

"I promise. Now, let's go walk, and you can tell me."

"Okay, when I was little I had a good life, my mom and dad loved me. But then something happened and my dad just left. Literally got up in the middle of the night and left. I never heard from him again. For awhile, everything was fine at home, but then my mom started drinking. At first it was just a glass of wine or a beer, then it started to be a whole bottle of wine and a six pack. First, she just drank and fell asleep on the couch and I cleaned up and went to bed; then, she started to get agitated over the smallest thing, like a broken plate or an overflowing garbage can. When she got really mad, she started to beat me," Squid was explaining all of this to me and he was starting to cry again. I held his hand to comfort him, so he could continue. "After a while, she lost her job, we lost the house, everything was falling apart. Most of the time, we didn't have any food. So, I started stealing food. It was just a loaf of bread or a box of cereal, nothing big. But, my mom was always yelling at me to buy her more alcohol, so I had to learn how to shoplift bottles too. That's how I ended up here. My mom was beating me because we didn't have anymore whiskey, and I was breaking into the grocery store was the police showed up."

I felt like crying, and I did. I couldn't imagine my parents hurting me. Sure they hardly knew I existed until the police were calling them telling them their daughter had been arrested. But, they would never ever hurt me physically. I didn't really know what to say to Squid to tell him I was sorry about his past. The only thing I could think to do at that moment was to kiss him, so I did. I think I surprised him at first, but when I pulled away he just smiled.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"That was an apology for everything. I know I'm always calling you an idiot or stupid or-"

"I get it, you're always making fun of me."

"Yeah, but I really do like you."

"Yeah, I really like me too."

"Squid."

"No, I really like you too."

We walked back to the camp site in silence. He walked me to my tent and gave me a kiss good night. I walked back in to find Stranger up.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"The bathroom."