The Donut Diaries (11 page)

(Mr Alexis’s donut counter was completely empty. He gave me a stale muffin out of sheer pity.)

Wednesday 27 September

AT MORNING BREAK
today the FHK came up to me.

‘We haven’t properly met, have we?’ he said.

I’d only ever really heard him say, ‘Get lost, fatty’ before. His voice was so posh he sounded like someone off the telly. I don’t mean
EastEnders
, I mean posh telly – the news or something. He stuck his hand out and continued, ‘My name’s Paul Steerforth.’

I didn’t know what to do. This was my enemy,
my
tormentor, and now he was being friendly. Almost by itself my hand went out to his, and he shook it firmly.

‘I’m—’ I was going to say Dermot, that being my name, but for some reason I stopped myself. ‘I’m Donut,’ I said defiantly.

The FHK smiled. He had very white teeth. ‘Good to meet you, Donut. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about the other morning. I tried to stop those kids … that stupid prank with the tuba—’

‘Sousaphone,’ I said.

‘What? OK, whatever. Anyway, I thought it was pretty poor behaviour. I believe in giving everyone a chance. That’s all, really. See you around.’

Then he clapped me on the back and wandered off. I asked Renfrew to check my back to make sure he hadn’t stuck on
a
‘kick me’ sign, but it was clean.

All very mysterious.

Soup tonight for dinner. Leek and potato. It would have been OK if it hadn’t had the leeks and potatoes in it. Makes you sort of wonder what the stuff is in leek and potato soup that isn’t leek or potato. Is it just soup? Reminds me of a sort of joke I heard once (one of those jokes that aren’t really very funny, but still manage to stick in your head).

Q. What’s the white stuff in bird poo?

A. Well, that’s bird poo too, stupid
.

Anyway, I ate three bowlfuls and still felt hungry, because everyone knows you can’t get full on soup. Ruby and Ella ended the meal by
fighting
about whether
Twilight
was rubbish because it was too gloomy (Ruby) or not gloomy enough (Ella).

I sneaked off and had a cinnamon donut, which is my least favourite kind of donut, but the only one Mr Alexis had left. The fact that it was the last one makes you wonder why they bother making them, as obviously nobody really likes them. Is it because there’s some law about using up all the cinnamon so it doesn’t cover the world like volcanic ash and kill us all? Or maybe the guy in overall control of world donut production likes cinnamon donuts and is forcing his warped tastes on the rest of us. I suppose we’ll never know.

DONUT COUNT:

Thursday 28 September

FHK WAS FRIENDLY
again today. He didn’t say anything to me, but he waved and smiled when he was with a group of kids, and I found myself waving back.

‘Maybe he’s not so bad,’ I said to the guys.

Renfrew went ‘
Ungth
.’ Corky said, ‘B-b-b-bb-b-b-h-h-h-h-h-h-h,’ and then he did a short, sharp fart. Not sure what it meant. Might just have been clearing his throat, if you see what I mean. Spam didn’t say anything.

What’s weird is that I’ve now gone three whole days without being humiliated. What gives?

But today’s main event wasn’t the FHK’s weird friendliness. It was my next encounter with Doc Morlock, the worst so far.

‘Good afternoon, Dermot,’ she said.

Already her mouth was pursed and her nose wrinkled as if I’d brought a bad smell into the consulting room with me. Actually, I’d done a little tummy squeak before I came in, so I probably had.

‘Hi.’

‘And how is the new regime coming along?’

‘The new …?’

‘Your diet and exercise plan, Dermot.’

‘Ah, yeah, not bad.’

I studied the ceiling. It wasn’t very interesting, even by ceiling standards (which are low), but it was better than looking into that face with its cat-bum mouth and cruel eyes.

‘You have the journal?’

I nodded, reached into my school bag and passed her the fake Donut Diary. I’d drawn some donuts on the front cover. Then I’d drawn some dinosaurs (a triceratops, a T-Rex and a brontosaurus, to be precise) eating the donuts. And then I’d drawn some fighter planes attacking the dinosaurs. The fighter planes were a combination of Spitfires and Hurricanes with some modern jets of my own design, plus the Red Baron’s Fokker triplane, which was probably the coolest plane in the history of aerial warfare, even if it hovered on the edge of being really silly. Just one more wing – if it had been
a
Fokker
quatro
plane – and it would have been a laughing stock. There’s an important lesson in there somewhere, although I’m not sure what it is …

I’d drawn the fighters because I was a bit worried that kids of my age shouldn’t be interested in dinosaurs any more – it’s only one step up from having a special blanky and getting a goodnight kiss from your mum. Anyway, they were some of my best drawings, although I hadn’t got the neck on the bront—

‘Dermot!’ snapped Doc Morlock.

‘Yes?’

‘Am I seriously supposed to believe this?’

‘Well, er, yes, I guess so …’

‘Let me read this back to you. “Fourteenth September. Went for a quick half-marathon after school. Snacked on three brazil nuts and a
handful
of raisins. Dinner was broccoli quiche with steamed broccoli on the side and chilled broccoli mousse for pudding.”’

The secret to a good lie is that you mingle up some truth with it. We really did have all that broccoli muck. The broccoli mousse was about the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. I made a joke about it being broccoli that had been pooped out of a moose (you know, an animal like a big, gormless deer).

‘You can ask my mum,’ I said, putting on my good little angel face.

Doc Morlock stared at me. Then she said, ‘Let’s see, shall we? Just step on the scales.’

I did. On tiptoes, which makes you a little bit lighter.

Sixty-one kilograms.

The first time it had been 61.5.

I was actually quite pleased with that. My cutting down from four donuts a day was having some effect.

But Doc Morlock was not impressed. ‘This won’t do,’ she said, shaking her scrawny head. ‘Won’t do at all.’

‘It could be that some of my fat has turned into muscle …’ I sort of trailed off as Morlock did her cat-bum mouth thing, then I added hopefully, ‘I’ve heard that muscle is, er, heavier than fat.’

She looked at me in the same way a vulture would look at a dead wildebeest.

‘Do you have a secret desire to go to Camp Fatso?’ she asked, her voice eerily soft.

I looked down – I couldn’t meet that cold, inhuman eye – and I shook my head.

‘All I’m asking for is for a little honesty. At the
moment
we’re living a lie, aren’t we, Dermot?’

She was too strong for me. I nodded.

‘What will it be like, Dermot?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Your stool.’

‘I don’t know.’ I was still looking down. I was in hell, I really was.

‘Show me on the chart, Dermot.’

I stood up and moved over to the wall. I looked around for Doc Morlock’s special pointing stick but I couldn’t see it.

‘Just use your finger, Dermot.’

Slowly I pointed to the Type 3 stool, the one that was labelled:
like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft
.

‘That’s what I’d
like
to see, Dermot. But if what I see is this’ – she leaped up and was suddenly right beside me, pointing at Type 1 –
‘if
what I see is nasty little hard balls, then you know where you’re going, don’t you?’

‘Camp Fatso,’ I murmured.

Then what she had said sank in. ‘See …?’

‘Yes,
see
,’ she snapped and I recoiled, as if from a slap. ‘I need a stool sample.’

‘Stool …?’ Against all logic I still vaguely hoped that she might be referring to the thing you sit on.

‘Number twos,’ she said, rapping the chart with her knuckles. ‘One of these. I need to analyse exactly what you’ve been eating, and that’s the only way to get at the truth.’

I felt suddenly very dizzy. And panicky. I actually sort of hoped I might faint, which would get me out of this INCREDIBLY EMBARRASSING SITUATION. But I stayed annoyingly conscious.

‘B-but I don’t think I could go now. I mean, I went this morning and …’

‘Not
now
, Dermot. When you next come in – I want to see you again in about two weeks. Use this.’ Doc Morlock rummaged in her desk and handed me a clear plastic bag, containing a small plastic tub.

I don’t really know what happened in the rest of the session. The next thing I know is that I was staggering out of there. I probably burned my way straight through the wall using my red-hot face.

DONUT COUNT:

I know, I know
. But what do you expect? From tomorrow I cut down. I have to.

Feelings? Work it out for yourself.

Friday 29 September

REALLY DON’T KNOW
what to do about filling the little pot that Doc Morlock gave me. There are two problems. Number two problems, you’d call them if you were trying to be funny.

The first was: how on earth were you supposed to get
it
into the pot? You’d have to have the aim of Robin Hood, plus the ability to stop at exactly the right moment, or else … Well, I’ll leave that up to your imagination. There were other ways, but they were even more disgusting.
And
if you’re imagining those, then I suggest you stop, right now. I did wonder if maybe they’d given me the wrong sort of container. One for little people. With little poos. What I needed was something bigger …

Then there was the even trickier problem of the poo itself. Doc Morlock was going to do her scientific test on it and find out exactly what I’d been eating. Then she was going to feed back to my mum.

Then it was Camp Fatso. Plus I’d feel like I’d let everyone down, which is even worse. OK, feeling like you’ve let everyone down isn’t, actually, worse than being sent to fat prison, but it’s still pretty rubbish.

But what could I do? I couldn’t talk about it with the guys at school. Somehow news would spill out, like poo from Doc Morlock’s little pot.
Couldn’t
even talk about it with Jim. It was just too embarrassing and yucky.

Stop eating donuts, then?

Unthinkable.

Even thinking about thinking about it is unthinkable, which is why I’m not going to think about thinking about thinking about it.

All this not thinking about things is making me hungry. And what do I have in my secret drawer?

Ah yes, two fresh, moist, succulent, irresistible donuts.

DONUT COUNT: