Madame Zeroni’s curse follows him, affecting his entire family.

He only realizes his mistake while ocean-bound on the ship. In his frustration, he forgets his promise to Madame Zeroni and moves to America. Instead, she directs them to guess the number she is thinking of, but Elya has had enough. Myra is given the choice, but she cannot choose. He almost wins Myra’s hand, except his and Igor’s pigs are the same size. If he doesn’t take Madame Zeroni, then he and his family will be doomed.Įlya promises and takes the piglet every morning up the mountain. Once this happens, he has to promise to carry Madame Zeroni to the top of the mountain so that she can drink from the spring.

Madame Zeroni gives him a tiny piglet and tells him that if he climbs the mountain with the piglet every day and lets the pig drink from the spring while singing to it, the pig will soon be bigger than Igor’s. She agrees to help him since she sees that Elya loves her. However, Elya is in love and does not listen to Madame Zeroni. He goes to his friend Madame Zeroni, who warns him that Myra is not very intelligent.

He has offered Myra’s father his heaviest pig in exchange for permission to marry Myra.Įlya thinks that Myra deserves better. Elya is desperately in love with Myra, but she has also attracted the attention of an older pig farmer, Igor Barkov. The boys are instructed to pay careful attention while digging they will be rewarded for bringing the Warden anything interesting.įrom here, the story moves back to the 19th century, to the time of Stanley’s grandfather Elya Yelnats. According to the Warden, who is in charge of the facility, this builds character. When Stanley arrives at Camp Green Lake, he learns that the boys at the detention center must dig a hole five feet wide and five feet deep every single day they are there. Although Stanley tells the truth about how the shoes fell out of the sky and hit him in the head, the judge doesn’t believe him and sends him to a detention facility called Camp Green Lake. This curse is responsible for him being wrongfully convicted for stealing a pair of tennis shoes once owned by a famous athlete. Stanley Yelnats IV is a 14-year-old boy whose family claims it is cursed due to his “no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather” (8).

Stanley holes