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Elya Yelnats gets a skinny pig
Elya Yelnats is Stanley Yelnats IV's great great grandfather and lives in Latvia. About 150 years before Stanley gets sent to Camp Green Lake, Elya is given a pig from an old woman. He is told to carry the pig up the mountain every day to drink from the fresh river there. He does this to make the pig big and fat so that he can give it to the father of the girl he is in love. He hopes that her father approves of him as a suitable husband for the girl he loves. with. -
Elya gets cursed and leaves Latvia (2)
When Elya leaves Latvia he gives the pig as a wedding gift to the girl and the butcher. Elya forgets to carry the old woman up the mountain which leads to the old woman cursing his family and giving them bad luck. This is why Stanley blames his no-good-dirty-rotten pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather when something bad happends. -
Elya gets cursed and leaves Latvia (1)
When Elya is given the pig, there is only one criteria; after he carried the pig up the mountain for the 100th time, he had to carry the old woman up the mountain as well. When the pig is big and fat enough for him to give to the father of the girl he is in love with, the father says that the girl can choose whether to marry the butcher or Elya. When the girl can not deciede which of the two men she is going to marry, Elya gets really sad deciedes to leave Latvia and go to USA. -
Kissin' Kate Barlow (2)
The sheriff in town will not help Kate, so she has to run away from the village. The Green Lake gets cursed because of what the villagers did and there is no more rain at Green Lake. Katherine now becomes a criminal that robs and murderes a lot of people. Kissin' Kate Barlow then robs Elya Yelnats' son, Stanley Yelnats I for everything he owns at Gods Thumb near Green Lake. She leaves him there with nothing. Kate Barlow then burries Stanley's belongings in the Lake. -
Kissin' Kate Barlow (1)
Kissin' Kate Barlow (Katherine Barlow) was a school teacher that lived in a village near Green Lake 110 years before Stanley is born. At this point Green Lake is the biggest lake in all of Texas. She has a crush on the African American onion farmer because he is very nice and helps fixing the school she started. One time the two got caught kissing in public. Since it is illegal for a white person to kiss an African American, the other adult villagers burns down the school she started. -
Stanley Yelnats IV gets hit by a pair of sneackers
Stanley Yelnats' family has been unlucky for a long time because of Stanley's no-good-dirty-rotten pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. It is therefore no suprise for his family that Stanley gets hit in the head by a pair of sneackers from the famous baseballplayer Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston. The sneackers, that was originally going to be sold to give money for children without parents in an orphanage, turned out to be stolen by somebody else and Stanley is wrongly accused of stealing them. -
On his way to Camp Green Lake
In court, Stanley gets to choose whether to go to prison or to Camp Green Lake. For Stanley the choice was simple since he came from a poor family and has never been to a camp before. Stanley is the only passenger on the bus except the driver and a guard that is seated on the front of the bus facing him. Stanley is handcuffed to his seat with his backpack on the seat next to him. The bus ride is long and uncomfortable since there are no air-conditioning in the bus and it is really hot outside. -
Entering camp green lake
To Stanleys suprise, there is no lake at Camp Green Lake. There is a hard and dry ground and a few buildings near some tents. The only plants he can see are two large oak trees next to a cabin. Stanley walks into a room where he meets a guy called Mr.Sir. The guy tells Stanley when he should wear the clothes he is given and more importantly he tells Stanley that he is going to dig one hole each day and that the hole should be minimum five feet deep and five feet in every direction on the bottom. -
Stanley is assigned to tent D
In tent D, Stanley meets his counselor Mr.Pendanski. Mr. Pendaski tells Stanley that there is only one rule at Camp Green Lake, and that the rule is to not upset the Warden. Stanley also meets the other boys in his tent. The other boys are called X-Ray, Squid, Magnet, Armpit, Zigzag and Zero. X-Ray is the "leader" of the group since he has been there the longest. Zero is the most quiet one and Mr.Pendanski says he is called Zero because there is nothing going on in his head. -
Stanley digs his first hole
Stanley is told that if he finds anything, he must report it to the Warden. When he starts digging his first hole, his hands start to get fleshy almost immidiately. Stanley has a lot of trouble digging through the hard ground and after a while he figures out that he has to use his weight to be able to dig. He uses way more time to get started than the others to dig and he drinks up his canteen way to fast, not knowing that you can't get more water more than once a day. -
Stanley finds a fossile
After Stanley is almost halfway finished he finds something in his hole that lookes like a fossile. He remembers what he was told about the Warden and that he must show them everything he finds. He shows the fossile to Mr.Sir, but he told Stanley that they weren't interested in fossiles at all. Stanley starts to think that they are not digging just to build character. When Stanley returns to his hole, X-Ray tells him that Stanley must show him everything he finds before giving it to the Warden. -
Stanley finds lipstick
While digging his third hole, stanley finds something weird in the ground. He finds an old lipstick with the initials K.B. Stanley thinks that K.B must stand for Kate Barlow which is the one that robbed his great grandfather. He thinks that the rest of his great grandfathers belongings might be near, but remembers what X-Ray told him. Stanley gives the lipstick to X-Ray, who then shows it to Mr.Sir. After speaking with the Warden Mr.Sir tells X-Ray that he gets the rest of the day off. -
Stanley teaches Zero how to read
After many days of widening the hole where X-Ray supposedly found the lipstick the boys are back to digging one hole each. Zero, who is often accused of being dumb, now wants to learn how to read. Stanley and Zero makes a deal that Zero digs part of Stanley's hole, and in return Stanley teaches Zero to read after they are finished digging the holes in the afternoon. Zero is a quick learner and manage to learn how to read different letters and sounds in only a couple of days. -
Zero runs away
One day, one of the boys starts confronting Stanley and calles him a princess because Zero digs parts of his hole. He then starts hitting Stanley so that he falls to the ground. Zero sees this and gets so angry that he runs at the boy and hit him in the face with the shovel so that the boy starts bleeding quite heavily. Zero then turns around with the shovel in his hand and runs into the dessert that is "Green Lake" so that he will not get caught by Mr.Sir or the Warden. -
Stanley goes to look for Zero
After almost a week of wondering where Zero is and what happened to him Stnley finally goes after him. When the water truck comes to fill their canteens Stanley sees that the keys are in the truck, so he deciedes to drive in the water truck and look for Zero. After driving in almost a straight line for a a hundred meters, stanley crashed the truck and started running towards the desert. Since Stanley was in a shock after crashing the water truck he forgot to fill his canteen. -
Stanley finds Zero and is on his way to God's Thumb
After going all day out in the hot sun Stanley thinks he sees some water, but every time he goes towards the water it seems to move. He is therefore not suprisided when he sees a boat since he has been halucinating. When he gets closer to the boat he sees that the boat gets bigger, so he understands that this actually is real. When he gets to the boat he hears some sounds and he sees a familiar face. He finally found Zero and it is a miracle that he is still alive. -
Zero keep collapsing
Zero has been living of a drink that he calles sploosh that he found inside the boat. When Stanley arrives, Zero gives Stanley a bit of the last jar with sploosh before they go towards big thumb. Stanley suggests that they go back to the camp, but Zero does not want to dig any more holes. The boys take the unbroken empty jars with them in hopes of finding water. Zero collapses multiple times along the way to the mountains. Halfway up the mountain close to God's Thumb, Zero collapses again. -
Stanley and Zero eating onions and drinking water
When Zero collapses on the way up the mountain, Stanley can not manage to wake him up. Stanley deciedes to leave the shovel and the jars and climb up the rest of the mountains while carrying Zero. When Stanley reach the top, he falls to the ground in mud and thinks he is going to die until he realize that it cant be mud if there are no water. He starts to dig and after a while he finds water and some roots that turns out to be onions. He drinks some wter and then pour some on Zero's face. -
Stanley finds the treasure
It seems like the curse in the Yelnats family is abolished. Therefore the boys deciedes to go back to the camp and look for the treasure that Stanley thinks is around the same hole he found the lipstick after a few days. When they arrive Zero goes to get some food, but he wakes up Mr.Sir and the Warden. Stanley finds the suitcase that belonged to his great grandfather and gives it to Zero. The Warden then point a flashlight at them and tells Stanley that his lawyer is going to come. -
Stanley and Zero gets the suitcase
Stanley's lawyer has claimed Stanley innocent so when she gets there, Stanley is free to go. When Stanleys lawyer gets there, the Warden says to the lawyer that Stanley stole the suitcase from her office. Zero turns the case around and points out that the case has Stanley Yelnats written on it, so Stanley gets to take the suitcas with him. Since the Warden deleted Zero's files when he left, he is also free to go. Stanley and Zero then shares whats inside the case and gets 1 million dollars each -
Stanley and Clyde Livingston
After Stanley carried Zero up the mountain, it seemed like the curse had been reversed. The Yelnats' now had really good luck. Stanley found the suitcase and Stanley's father Stanley Yelnats III invented something he called sploosh that makes your feet smell good. During the superbowl, Stanley is together with Zero, his family and the one and only Clyde (Sweet Feet) Livingston. They were not there for the game, but for the commercial of Stanley Yelnats III's invention starring Clyde.