hello this is mr. Daniels and we are reading holes brand-new book coming onto YouTube here at chapter 1 there is no lake at Camp Green Lake there was once a very large lake here the largest lake in Texas that was over a hundred years ago now it's just a dry flat wasteland there used to be a town of green lake as well the town shriveled and dried up along with the lake and the people who lived there during the summer the daytime temperature hovers around 95 degrees in the shade if you can find any shade there's not much shade in a big dry lake the only trees are two old oaks on the eastern edge of the lake a hammock is stretched out between the two trees and a log cabin stands behind that the campers are forbidden to lie in the hammock it belongs to the warden the warden owns the shade out on the lake rattlesnakes and scorpions find shade under rocks and in the holes dug by the campers here's a good rule to remember about rattlesnakes and scorpions if you don't bother them they don't bother you usually being bitten by a scorpion or even around snake is not the worst thing that can happen to you you won't die usually sometimes a camper will try to be bitten by a scorpion or even a small rattlesnake then he'll get to spend a day or two recovering in his tent instead of having to dig a hole out on the lake but you don't want to be bitten by a yellow spotted lizard that's the worst thing that can happen to you you will die a slow and painful death always if you get bitten by a yellow spotted lizard you might as well go into the shade of the oak trees and lie in the hammock there is nothing anyone can do to you anymore chapter 2 the readers probably asking who why would anyone go to Camp Green Lake most campers weren't given a choice kept Green Lake is a camp for bad boys if you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot Sun it'll turn him into a good boy that was what some people thought Stanley Yelnats was given a choice the judge had said you may go to jail or he may go to cut Green Lake Stanley was from a poor family he'd never been to camp before chapter 3 Stanley Yelnats was the only passenger on the bus not counting the driver or the guard the guard sat next to the driver with his seat turned around facing Stanley a rifle lay across his lap Stanley was sitting about 10 rows back handcuffed to his arm rest his backpack lay on the seat next to him it contained his toothbrush toothpaste a box of stationery his mother had given him he promised the writer at least once a week he looked out the window oh there wasn't much to see mostly fields of hay and cotton he was on a long bus rides know where the bus wasn't air-conditioned and the hot heavy air was almost as stifling as the handcuffs Stanley and his parents had tried to pretend that he was just going away for camp for a while just like the rich kids do when Stanley was younger he used to play with stuffed animals and pretend the animals were a camp can't fun and games he had called it good sometimes he'd let them play soccer with the marble or other times they'd run an obstacle course or go bungee jumping off a table tied to broken rubber bands now Stanley tried to pretend they're going to camp fun and games maybe he would make some friends he thought at least he'd get to swim in the lake he didn't have any friends at home was overweight and the kids in the middle school often teased them about his size even his teachers sometimes make cruel comments without even realizing it on his last day of school was math teacher mrs. Bell taught ratios as an example huh she chose the heaviest kid in the class and the lightest kid in the class had them weigh themselves Stan Lee weighed 3 times as much as the other boy mrs. Bell wrote the ratio on the board three-to-one unaware of how much embarrassment she had caused both of them Stan Lee was arrested later that day he looked at the guard who sat slumped in his seat and wondered if he had fallen asleep the guard was wearing sunglasses so Stan Lee couldn't see his eyes Stan Lee was not a bad kid he was innocent of a crime for which he was convicted he'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time it was all because of his no-good dirty-rotten pig-stealing great-great-grandfather he smiled it was a family joke whenever anything went wrong they always blamed Stan Lee's no-good dirty-rotten pig-stealing great-great-grandfather supposedly he had a great-great grandfather who had stolen a pig from a one-legged gypsy and she put a curse on him in all his descendants Stan Lee and his parents didn't believe in curses of course but whenever anything went wrong it felt good to be able to blame someone things went wrong a lot they always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time he looked out the window of the VAT at the vast emptiness he watched the rise and fall of a telephone wire in his mind he could hear his father's gruff voice softly singing to him if only if only the woodpecker sized the bark on the tree was just a little after all the wolf which below hungry and lonely he cries to the moon if only if only it was a song as father used to sing to him the melody was sweet and sad but Stanley's favorite part was when his father would howl out the word move the bus hit a small bump in the guard sat up instantly alerts Stanley's father was an inventor to be a successful inventor you needed three things intelligence perseverance and just a little bit of luck Stanley's father was smart had a lot of perseverance once he started working on a project he would work on it for years often going days without sleep he just never had any look every time an experiment failed Stanley could hear him cursing his dirty-rotten pig-stealing great-great-grandfather Stanley's father was also named Stanley illness Stanley's full name was Stanley Yelnats the third hour Stanley is Stanley Yelnats the fourth everyone in his family had always liked the fact Stanley Yelnats was spelled the same frontward and backward so they kept naming their son Stanley Stanley was an only child as was every other Stanley Yelnats before him all of them had something else in common despite their awful luck they always remained hopeful as Stanley's father liked to say I learned from failure but perhaps that was a part of the curse as well if Stanley and his father weren't always hopeful then it wouldn't hurt so much every time their hopes were crushed not every Stanley Yelnats has been a failure Stanley's mother often pointed out whenever Stanley or his father became discouraged so they could actually started to believe in the curse the first Stanley Yelnats Stanley's great-great-grandfather have made a fortune in the stock market he couldn't have been too unlucky at such time she neglected to mention the bad luck that befell the first Stanley illnes he lost his entire fortune when he was moving from New York to California his stagecoach was robbed by the outlaw Kissin Kate Barlow if it weren't for that Stanley's family would now be living in a mansion on a beach in California instead huh huh they were crammed in a tiny apartment that smelled of burning rubber and fuller if only if only the apartment smelled the way it did because Stanley's father was trying to invent a way to recycle old sneakers the first person who finds the use for old sneakers he said will be a very rich man it was the latest profit of this latest project that led Stanley's to Stanley's arrest the bus ride became increasingly bumpy because the road was no longer paved actually Stanley had been impressed with when he found out his great-great-grandfather was robbed by kissing Kate Barlow true he would have preferred living on the beach in California but it was still kind of cool to have someone in your family robbed by a famous outlaw Kate Barlow didn't actually kiss Stanley's great-great-great grandfather that would have been really cool but she only kissed the man she killed instead she robbed him and left him stranded in the middle of the desert he was lucky to have survived Stanley's mother was quick to point out the bus was slowing down the guard grunted as he stretched his arms welcomed the cab great Mike said the driver Stanley looked out the dirty window he couldn't see a lake and hardly anything was green you