Hours later, Stanley is woken up by Zero. Stanley starts to dig and Zero goes to refill their water jars. The night is very dark and neither of them can see if they are digging up anything valuable. After a while, Stanley volunteers to go grab more water, but Zero insists that he do it instead because Stanley is too noisy and big. When Zero returns, Stanley feels “the shovel bounce off something hard” (200). Stanley digs around a box-like object to get it loose. He struggles to move it. Finally, he pries it loose. The Warden reveals that she is there watching them.

The Warden, Mr. Pendanski, and Mr. Sir are outside Stanley and Zero’s hole waiting for them. The Warden starts talking but then backs away when she sees that a “lizard had crawled up on top of the suitcase” and other lizards are crawling over Zero in the hole (205). The Warden tells the adults just to wait it out, even though the state will probably have questions about what happened. She reveals that her parents would dig holes every day and that when she was a kid, she would have to dig holes too.