He won't die, the Warden had said. Unfortunately for you.

He realized that once again he would be digging long after everyone else had quit. He hoped he'd finish before Mr. Sir recovered. He didn't want to be out there alone with Mr. Sir.

He tried to imagine how he must have felt after Kissin' Kate had left him stranded in the desert. It probably wasn't a whole lot different from the way he himself felt now. Kate Barlow had left his great-grandfather to face the hot barren desert. The Warden had left Stanley to face Mr. Sir.

It was a long walk back to his hole. Stanley looked out through the haze of heat and dirt at the other boys, lowering and raising their shovels. Group D was the farthest away.

Walking across the desolate wasteland, Stanley thought about his great-grandfather -- not the pig stealer but the pig stealer's son, the one who was robbed by Kissin' Kate Barlow.

Somehow his great-grandfather had survived for seventeen days, before he was rescued by a couple of rattlesnake hunters. He was insane when they found him.

Stanley heard a twitching sound. He stopped in mid-step, with one foot still in the air.

He didn't feel like going into details. If he didn't talk about it, then maybe it didn't happen.

Stanley backed his leg away, then turned and ran.

The rattlesnake didn't chase after him. It had rattled its tail to warn him to stay away.

He spent nearly a month in a hospital. He ended up marrying one of the nurses. Nobody ever knew what he meant by God's thumb, including himself.

"What'd she do?" asked Zigzag.

Stanley shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing. She got mad at Mr. Sir for bothering her."

The rattlesnake would be a lot more dangerous if it didn't have a rattle.

"What'd you tell her?" asked Magnet.

"Hey, Caveman!" called Armpit. "You're still alive."

When he was asked how he had lived so long, he said he "found refuge on God's thumb."

A rattlesnake lay coiled beneath his foot. Its tail was pointed upward, rattling.

"I told her I stole the seeds," said Stanley.

"What'd the Warden say?" asked X-Ray.

"Thanks for the warning," Stanley whispered as his heart pounded.

"Good going," said Magnet.

Then he turned to Zero, who had been quietly digging in his hole since Stanley's return. Zero's hole was smaller than all the others.

"Hey, thanks," he said.

He went over to his hole, and to his surprise it was nearly finished. He stared at it, amazed. It didn't make sense.

Confused, Stanley looked around -- from Magnet, to Armpit, to Zigzag, to Squid. None of them took credit for it.

"Don't look at me," said X-Ray.

Or perhaps it did. He smiled. Since he had taken the blame for the sunflower seeds, he realized, the other boys had dug his hole for him.