Chapter 17

Names: Lily Sturrock, Emily McChlery, Kate Savage

For the next few days, the boys dug in and around the hole where X-Ray had allegedly discovered the gold tube. After digging two more holes, they connected to form one large hole on the fourth day. The warden's impatience began to grow, and the boys dug later and later into the evening. After arriving late one morning, the warden was vexed to see that the hole that was dug had not changed in size. She was sarcastically approaching Armpit and poked him in the arm with a pitchfork; leaving him with three holes in his shirt and three spots of blood. They ploughed until the late afternoon. Stanley and the six other boys were in the big hole and stopped using wheelbarrows. Stanley spooned dirt and raised it to the surface when ZigZag's shovel hit him in the side of his head, causing him to collapse. He looked up to see ZigZag glaring at him. Stanley put his fingers alongside his neck, and felt blood and a wound just below his ear. Magnet helped Stanley get out of the hole. Mr Sir made a bandage from a piece of his sunflower seed sacks and taped it across Stanley's gash. ZigZag was awaiting his arrival. Stanley was dizzy and saw a pile of dirt that had been on the shovel that was used to hit him. He scooped it up, and ZigZag dug his spade into the ground below where "Stanley's dirt" had been.