plot.txt

Plot summary for holes

Stanley Yelnats IV is an unpopular, overweight teenage boy who lives in an apartment with his entrepreneur father, mother, and grandfather. The family, while riches in spirit, has no luck at all. They believe this was caused when their ancestor Elya Yelnats tried to win the hand of the lovely (shes very stupid, like the kids that have problems) Myra Menke. Elya is helped by the elderly Madame Zeroni, who asks as payment that he carry her up the mountain and sing to her as she drinks from a stream. If he fails however, he and his family will be cursed "for always and eternity". When he tries to marry Myra, Elya becomes disgusted at her inability to decide between him and an old, disgusting man. Elya leaves for America, forgetting to fulfill his promise to Madame Zeroni. As a result, the family has since been plagued by bad luck. Misfortune strikes Stanley himself, when he is falsely accused of stealing a pair of sneakers that baseball star Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston donated to an orphanage (his defense, that the sneakers fell from the sky, is not believed). Given the choice of going to prison or Camp Green Lake, Stanley chooses the latter. He arrives to find the "camp" is a dried-up desert where the boys there must dig a hole every day to "build character". The camp is run by the Warden and Mr. Sir. He is put in Group D, and his counselor is Mr. Pendanski.

Many years prior, in contrast to today, the lake is full of water and has a small town nearby. The lake is owned by Charles "Trout" Walker, an arrogant man who tries to unsuccessfully court the lovely schoolteacher, Katherine Barlow. Instead, she gravitates to Sam the "onion man," who is famous for using onions as a cure-all, as well as a repellant for the dangerous yellow spotted lizards, which plague the area. Paying him with her famous spiced peaches, Katherine gets Sam to fix up her schoolhouse to be near him. When everything is fixed, she tells him that her heart is broken and he kisses her to fix it. Because he is black and she is white, it is illegal for a black man to kiss a white woman, so the townspeople kill Sam under Walker's leadership. Furious, Katherine kills the sheriff and becomes an outlaw called "Kissin' Kate Barlow" (so known because she kisses the men she kills). One of the people she robbed was the first Stanley Yelnats, whom she left to die in the desert. Instead, he climbed a mountain and found water and food. Kate died when threatened by Trout Walker and his wife, Linda, who believe that she buried her loot in the lake, which dried up after Sam was shot. She responds by letting a yellow spotted lizard bite her and tells them to start digging.

In the present day, Stanley slowly gains the respect of his fellow diggers. When he finds what appears to be a golden bullet casing and sees the fuss the Warden makes over it, he begins to suspect that they are digging holes to actually find something. Meanwhile, he begins to teach Hector Zeroni (Zero), a lonely boy at the camp, how to read and write, in exchange for Zero digging Stanley's holes. When Stanley gets into a fight with Ricky (nicknamed Zigzag), Zero saves Stanley by choking Zigzag almost to death. The other boys, resentful of Stanley's shirking of his hole-digging, reveal Zero's and Stanley's arrangement. The Warden, Mr. Sir, and Mr. Pendanski hear about the fight and begin to insult Zero's intelligence. Zero hits Mr. Pendanski across the face with the shovel and runs into the desert.

A few days later, as Mr. Sir is filling water bottles, Stanley steals his truck with the intent of finding Zero, only to drive it into a giant hole. Continuing on foot, Stanley eventually finds Zero in an overturned boat (actually the wreckage of Sam's boat) subsisting on "Sploosh," a jarred food that tastes like peaches (Kate's spiced peaches). The two climb the same mountain that Stanley's ancestor climbed, hoping to find the source of water that saved Stanley Yelnats I. Along the way, Zero becomes ill, requiring Stanley to carry him up the mountain. At the top, the two find water. Stanley, relieved at their salvation, sings to Zero as the latter drinks. Stanley and Zero return to the camp to find whatever is hidden there. They dig in a hole where Stanley unearthed a gold lipstick tube and find a suitcase. Unfortunately, they are trapped by the Warden, Mr. Sir, Dr. Pendanski and a nest of yellow spotted lizards. The lizards do not attack due to the boys' consumption of onions and they are rescued by Stanley's lawyer. She takes Stanley, Zero, and the suitcase home. As Stanley and Zero leave, it begins to rain again in Camp Green Lake, after a hundred years of drought. The suitcase holds the treasure that "Kissin' Kate Barlow" robbed from the first Stanley Yelnats. Stanley and Zero each receive about a million dollars. Using the money, the Yelnats family moves into a bigger house and Zero is able to find his mother. At the end, Stanley and Zero's families, Clyde Livingston, and his wife are seen having a Super Bowl party at the Yelnats's house. A commercial for "Sploosh" (Stanley's father's cure for foot odor) is aired, featuring Clyde Livingston.