For the next week and a half, the boys continued to dig in and around the area where X-Ray had supposedly found the gold tube. They widened X-Ray’s hole, as well as the holes Armpit and Squid had been digging, until the fourth day, when all three holes met and formed one big hole.

As the days wore on, the Warden became less and less patient. She arrived later in the morning and left earlier in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the boys continued to dig later and later.

“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 Squid.

It was the wrong thing to say.

At just 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 tiny spots of blood.

“You’re giving these boys too much water,” the Warden told Mr.

Pendanski.

They continued to dig until late afternoon, long after all the other groups had finished for the day. Stanley was down in the big hole, along with the other six boys. They had stopped using the wheelbarrows.

He dug his shovel into the side of the hole. He scooped up some dirt, and was raising it up to the surface when Zigzag’s shovel caught him in the side of the head.

He collapsed.

He wasn’t sure if he passed out or not. He looked up to see Zigzag’s wild head staring down at him. “I ain’t digging that dirt up,” Zigzag said. “That’s your dirt.”

“Hey, Mom!” Magnet called. “Caveman’s been hurt.”

Stanley brought his fingers up the side of his neck. He felt his wet blood and a pretty big gash just below his ear.

Magnet helped Stanley 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 Stanley’s wound. Then he told him to get back to work. “It isn’t nap time.”

When Stanley returned to the hole, Zigzag was waiting for him. “That’s your dirt,” Zigzag said. “You have to dig it up. It’s

covering up my dirt.”

Stanley felt a little dizzy. He could see a small pile of dirt. It took him a moment to realize that it was the dirt which had been on his shovel when he was hit.

He scooped it up, then Zigzag dug his shovel into the ground underneath where “Stanley’s dirt” had been.