adventure into love. [holes fanfic]

4 - Tiny Hearts

The invasive sound of a trumpet clouded my dreams. My eyes fluttered open to reveal the boys all getting up groggily, muttering complaints to themselves about digging holes. I swung my legs over the side of my cot, stretching them out. As I put on my orange jumpsuit, Magnet walked over to where I was sitting.

"Good luck today, chica. You'll need it." He said.

I sighed and thanked him. All of this talk about how difficult it would be to dig this hole had gotten me worried - surely they couldn't all be trying to scare me?

Sleepily walking outside, I saw all of the campers lining up in front of a wooden shed marked 'library'. One by one, the boys each grabbed a shovel and left. As expected, I got stuck with the last shovel, although it wasn't the longest one (thankfully).

On a table near the shed sat a tray of something that looked like tortillas soaking in a liquid. Realizing that everyone else was grabbing one, I did so too.

For the record, it was better than last night's dinner. (If what they served even classified as food.)

The trek down to the digging site was long and treacherous. When I say it was hot out, it was hot out. The worst part about it was that the day had only begun - it had to have only been around 6am.

A bit about me - my skin is quite fair and I get freckles easily from exposure to the sun. Along with freckles, I get sunburns. I did everything I could possibly do to try and prevent sunburns as I began digging my hole. I tried building up a pile of dirt on the side of my hole as I shovelled so it would block out the scorching rays. By the time I finished piling it up high enough, the sun had moved to beat directly on top of me. I kept my head down so only my scalp would have been burned. I'm pretty sure I even prayed to the sun gods to halt their heavenly sunshine, but as expected, none of it worked.

By the time I was finished almost half of my hole, I was sweaty, sunburnt, and incredibly bitter about it all. I hopped out of my hole and headed toward the water truck. Dr. Pendanski was filling everyone's canteens and handing them back rather roughly. I stood in line behind Caveman.

"Blisters?" He asked, noticing me rubbing at my palms.

I sighed. "Yeah, and I can already tell I'm going to have a really bad sunburn."
He winced at my words. "That's the worst. Maybe someone can get you some cream or something for it tonight. You never know what the boys can wrack up." Caveman chuckled.

I giggled to myself, my mind wandering into the endless possibilities that could be what the boys stole from the counsellors. First it went to candy, then to shower tokens, then to alcohol.

Ah, I love my mind. Always wandering too far.

Mr. Sir shook me from my trance when he stuck a shovel in my hole, measuring it. "Not bad, not bad." He looked away and mumbled, "for a girl."

"Pardon me?" I asked, exasperated. "I'm almost done my hole, and there's barely a callous on my hands."

"Well lookie here, Isla. Them fingers are gonna be blistered n' bleedin by the end of today." He said with a chuckle, turning around and heading for his truck.

Still shocked from his sudden comment, I continued into the rhythmic cycle of digging.

When I had finally finished my first hole, I looked around to see that most of the boys had completed the daily task already. The only ones left were Caveman, Zigzag, and Magnet.

"Damn, Isla's done before you, man!" Magnet exclaimed, wiping the sweat off of his forehead.  The other two boys looked out of their holes at me climbing out of mine.

Zigzag hopped out of his hole nonchalantly. "Need help, darling?" He asked like it was an easy task. I was struggling, trying every possible position to boost myself up and out.
Finally, I gave in and let him grab my hands. He took them and heaved me out of the giant hole, bringing me closer to him.

"Oh." was all I could muster as my cheeks turned a rosy pink once again. 

He chuckled and handed me my shovel.

"See ya back at camp."

I turned around slowly, still slightly shocked.
In the back, I could hear Caveman and Magnet talking to each other.

"Did you see her face, man?"
"Yeah, they've got something going on for sure."
"They better hope the warden doesn't find out."

They broke out into laughter as I walked further away from the digging site.

When I got back to camp, I sat down on my dirty cot and pulled out a notebook and a pen.
In the soft margins of the paper, I couldn't help but doodle a little heart.