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“I’m glad Becca’s all right,” Hattie said contritely.
“I keep telling Jim he needs to wash his knives,” said Mr. Pike, who owned the general store.
Hattie Parker excused herself, then turned and quickly walked away.
“Tell Becca that when she feels up to it to come by the store for a piece of candy,” said Mr. Pike. “Thank you, I’ll do that.”
Before returning home, Mrs. Tennyson bought a dozen onions from Sam. She gave him a dime and told him to keep the change.
“I don’t take charity,” Sam told her. “But if you want to buy a few extra onions for Mary Lou, I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”
“All right then,” said Mrs. Tennyson, “give me my change in onions.”
Sam gave Mrs. Tennyson an additional three onions, and she fed them one at a time to Mary Lou. She laughed as the old donkey ate them out of her hand.
• • •
Stanley and Zero slept off and on for the next two days, ate onions, all they wanted, and splashed dirty water into their mouths. In the late afternoon Big Thumb gave them shade. Stanley tried to make the hole deeper, but he really needed the shovel. His efforts just seemed to stir up the mud and make the water dirtier.
Zero was sleeping. He was still very sick and weak, but the sleep and the onions seemed to be doing him some good. Stanley was no longer afraid that he would die soon. Still, he didn’t want to go for the shovel while Zero was asleep. He didn’t want him to wake up and think he’d been deserted.
He waited for Zero to open his eyes.
“I think I’ll go look for the shovel,” Stanley said.
“I’ll wait here,” Zero said feebly, as if he had any other choice.
Stanley headed down the mountain. The sleep and the onions had done him a lot of good as well. He felt strong.
It was fairly easy to follow the trail he had made two days earlier. There were a few places where he wasn’t sure he was going the right way, but it just took a little bit of searching before he found the trail again.
He went quite a ways down the mountain but still didn’t find the shovel. He looked back up toward the top of the mountain. He must have walked right past it, he thought. There was no way he could have carried Zero all the way up from here.
Still, he headed downward, just in case. He came to a bare spot between two large patches of weeds and sat down to rest. Now he had definitely gone too far, he decided. He was tired out from walking down the hill. It would have been impossible to have carried Zero up the hill from here, especially after walking all day with no food or water. The shovel must be buried in some weeds.
Before starting back up, he took one last look around in all directions. He saw a large indentation in the weeds a little farther down the mountain. It didn’t seem likely that the shovel could be there, but he’d already come this far.
There, lying in some tall weeds, he found the shovel and the sack of jars. He was amazed. He wondered if the shovel and sack might have rolled down the hill. But none of the jars were broken, except the one which had broken earlier. And if they had rolled down the hill, it is doubtful that he would have found the sack and shovel side by side.
On his way back up the mountain, Stanley had to sit down and rest several times. It was a long, hard climb.
41
Zero’s condition continued to improve.
Stanley slowly peeled an onion. He liked eating them one layer at a time.
The water hole was now almost as large as the holes he had dug back at Camp Green Lake. It contained almost two feet of murky water. Stanley had dug it all himself. Zero had offered to help, but Stanley thought it better for Zero to save his strength. It was a lot harder to dig in water than it was in a dry lake.
Stanley was surprised that he himself hadn’t gotten sick—either from the sploosh, the dirty water, or from living on onions. He used to get sick quite a lot back at home.
Both boys were barefoot. They had washed their socks. All their clothes were very dirty, but their socks were definitely the worst.
They didn’t dip their socks into the hole, afraid to contaminate the water. Instead they filled the jars and poured the water over their dirty socks.
“I didn’t go to the homeless shelter very often,” Zero said. “Just if the weather was rea
lly bad. I’d have to find someone to pretend to be my mom. If I’d just gone by myself, they would have asked me a bunch of questions. If they’d found out I didn’t have a mom, they would have made me a ward of the state.”
