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Elya tried his best to translate it from Latvian into English, but it wasn’t the same. “It rhymes in Latvian,” he told her.
“I could tell,” said Sarah.
A year later their child was born. Sarah named him Stanley because she noticed that “Stanley” was “Yelnats” spelled backward.
Sarah changed the words of the pig lullaby so that they rhymed, and every night she sang it to little Stanley.
“If only, if only,” the woodpecker sighs,
“The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.”
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moo—oo—oon,
“If only, if only.”
Stanley’s hole was as deep as his shovel, but not quite wide enough on the bottom. He grimaced as he sliced off a chunk of dirt, then raised it up and flung it onto a pile.
He laid his shovel back down on the bottom of his hole and, to his surprise, it fit. He rotated it and only had to chip off a few chunks of dirt, here and there, before it could lie flat across his hole in every direction.
He heard the water truck approaching, and felt a strange sense of pride at being able to show Mr. Sir, or Mr. Pendanski, that he had dug his first hole.
He put his hands on the rim and tried to pull himself up.
He couldn’t do it. His arms were too weak to lift his heavy body.
He used his legs to help, but he just didn’t have any strength. He was trapped in his hole. It was almost funny, but he wasn’t in the mood to laugh.
“Stanley!” he heard Mr. Pendanski call.
Using his shovel, he dug two footholds in the hole wall. He climbed out to see Mr. Pendanski walking over to him.
“I was afraid you’d fainted,” Mr. Pendanski said. “You wouldn’t have been the first.”
“I’m finished,” Stanley said, putting his blood-spotted cap back on his head.
“All right!” said Mr. Pendanski, raising his hand for a high five, but Stanley ignored it. He didn’t have the strength.
Mr. Pendanski lowered his hand and looked down at Stanley’s hole. “Well done,” he said. “You want a ride back?”
Stanley shook
his head. “I’ll walk.”
Mr. Pendanski climbed back into the truck without filling Stanley’s canteen. Stanley waited for him to drive away, then took another look at his hole. He knew it was nothing to be proud of, but he felt proud nonetheless.
He sucked up his last bit of saliva and spat.
8
A lot of people don’t believe in curses.
A lot of people don’t believe in yellow-spotted lizards either, but if one bites you, it doesn’t make a difference whether you believe in it or not.
Actually, it is kind of odd that scientists named the lizard after its yellow spots. Each lizard has exactly eleven yellow spots, but the spots are hard to see on its yellow-green body.
The lizard is from six to ten inches long and has big red eyes. In truth, its eyes are yellow, and it is the skin around the eyes which is red, but everyone always speaks of its red eyes. It also has black teeth and a milky white tongue.
