- The boys prepare to walk back to Camp Green Lake. They gather as many onions as they can carry in the sack and fill their glass jars with water. They're ready for anything. Or they're ready for a trek down a giant mountain at least.
- While they spend their last night in the onion patch, Zero and Stanley share some pillow talk. Zero tells Stanley that when he was very little, he and his mother lived in a house: he even remembers a yellow room with a crib where he slept. He's not even sure why they became homeless. Sigh.
- The next morning, the boys start walking down the mountain. Onward!
- Zero is amazed at how far Stanley carried him on the way up.
- In a quick scare, Stanley slips on a patch of weeds and falls a little way down the mountain. They lose some onions, but their water jars are okay. Oh, and Stanley's fine, too.
- As they walk, they playfully compete to see which of them can go longest before drinking any of the water. Well that's one way to make the thirst more bearable, we guess.
- When they reach the Mary Lou, they take a break to eat some onions. Zero continues talking about his past and tells Stanley about the last time he saw his mother.
- She used to have to leave him places, he says, and tell him to wait there until she came back. Once, she left him in a park and never came back, although Zero waited there for over a month.
- Talk about heart-wrenching.
- Finally, the boys reach the outskirts of the camp (thanks to some great navigation from little Zero), and hide in some holes until dark. (Um, Shmoop is a little worried about the whole lizard thing, but we'll let it slide.)
- Once it's safe, they plan to dig for the treasure as long as they can and then head up the road away from camp before it gets light.