The Donut Diaries (4 page)

Here’s a sample:

• ‘Usually, if you really beg them, they’ll punch you in the belly and not the face.’
  
• ‘The key is not to let them see you cry. Always cry in the toilets. But never get caught crying in the toilets, because then you’ll get your head flushed.’
  
• ‘When you run, follow a zigzag pattern. It makes it harder for them to slap the back of your head.’
  
• ‘No girls will talk to you. If any do talk to you, by mistake or whatever, then just stare
  at
  the ground and mumble.’
  
• ‘At lunch time, don’t ever drink anything that is in a jug – it will have been spat in by some kid with whooping cough or consumption.’
  

I guess this was all based on his experience.

DONUT COUNT:

Monday 11 September

WELL, THAT COULD
have been worse. I might have turned up and the school entrance could have been a portal to one of the Hell dimensions where donuts don’t even exist, and I’d have to spend eternity getting stung in the eyeballs by giant scorpions and bitten on the butt by giant tarantulas and totally eaten by giant sabre-toothed tigers although, to be honest, a normal-sized sabre-toothed tiger would have done the job just fine.

My alarm was set for 6.45 a.m., which is basically the earliest I’ve ever had to get up apart from when we go on holiday and there’s a plane to catch. I was having a nice dream about—Well, you won’t need three guesses. Except maybe you will, because donuts don’t usually have big white wings like a swan.

I felt very weird getting dressed in my clown outfit – I mean, school uniform – in the morning. I knew that this was a big day. That I was in a new phase. That things had changed for ever. Mum chatted to me while I ate my Weetabix (I had three) but I couldn’t really hear her because of all the thoughts in my head.

I had to get the bus to St Michael’s. My mum would have driven me but there was
no
way I was letting her kiss me in public view on the first day. I wasn’t
that
dumb. I pretended that I preferred to take public transport because of global warming and saving the rainforest. My dad came with me on the bus. It was a big wrench for him to leave his toilet, so I suppose I should be grateful.

He did a triple flush before he emerged.

Outside the school, Dad patted my shoulder and wished me luck. We both knew that anything like a hug would be very bad news for my credibility. The weird thing was that I actually wanted a hug. But a pat on the shoulder it was, and then Dad headed back towards the safe refuge of our toilet. I was on my own.

I followed the steady stream of kids through the gates. There were three tall boys and a tall girl standing there. They had badges on. I peered
to
see what one said. Then the guy whose badge I was peering at grabbed the back of my head and rammed my face against the badge.

‘Prefect,’ came a voice that was both a sneer and a shout. ‘You blind as well as fat?’

A slightly more friendly voice said: ‘Newbie, Ivan, give him a break.’

‘Sure, leg or arm?’

They all laughed, including the tall girl, and I scuttled past.

The schoolyard was mental. There were millions of kids of all shapes and sizes. Most of the kids were already in little clumps and gangs. I felt the loneliest I’ve ever felt in my life. I saw one other boy standing on his own. He had black hair that flopped carelessly across his face. The hair made it hard to read his expression, but I thought that maybe he also looked a bit lonely, so I decided to go and say hello. I walked towards him and opened my mouth, pleased at having thought of something to do, rather than just standing around like a dummy.

‘Get lost, fatty.’

He’d said it before I’d even uttered a sound. His lips hardly moved when he spoke, as if it wasn’t worth the effort. I realized that the look on his face wasn’t loneliness. It was withering contempt.

NOTE TO SELF: NEVER AGAIN GO UP TO SOME KID YOU DON’T KNOW AND TRY TO MAKE FRIENDS
.

I wandered away, bumping into more kids, and others bumped into me.

The school building was in two parts. One was made out of red brick and looked about a thousand years old. The other part was glass and concrete. The old part appeared solid enough to last another thousand years, but the new part
looked
like it was about to fall down.

I reached into my blazer pocket and found my donut. I’d meant to save it till break time, but this was a crisis. My standard three bites and it was history.

Then a klaxon blared. It sounded like a five-minute nuclear warning and made me want to hide. Suddenly kids were forming up into lines, patrolled by teachers and more of the prefects. After some shoving and jostling and shouting, the lines marched off towards the school building. It was a bit like a military parade, but performed by the worst army you ever saw, worse than the Italians or, I don’t know, the Paraguayans or something. You wouldn’t want them guarding your borders. You wouldn’t really want them guarding your sock drawer.

After a while I worked out that it was just Year Sevens left, but it still seemed like a big crowd. I guess there were about a hundred and fifty kids.

Then a small baldy man in glasses raised a megaphone to his lips.

‘
ARSHPLAJZBUTUNICORD
,’ he said, or something like that – it was hard to tell because the megaphone distorted his voice so badly. More mangled shouts from the megaphone. Shoving, elbowing. Other teachers and prefects moved among us. The message got through. We were being put into classes.

‘
DURSHNUTMILLINSHA
.’

It took a couple of seconds to de-scramble it in my head. Dermot Milligan, i.e.
me
.

The baldy man pointed towards a line. This was it, my form class.

I was relieved to see that the floppy-haired kid wasn’t there. The line moved. We went into the school. There was a strong smell of cabbage and sweaty feet, which was pretty impressive as there can’t have been any cabbage or sweaty feet in the place for months. I imagined for a second that this was where cabbage and sweaty feet came to get their smell. It made me smile. There was a girl looking in my direction. I think she thought that I was smiling at her, and she tutted and tossed her head.

I blushed.

Bad start.

Then we were in a classroom. I found a desk in the second row, right on the edge next to the window.

The teacher was introducing himself.

‘Hi, I’m Mr Wells,’ he said, his smooth young
face
shining in the morning light. He seemed quite nice. ‘I’m your form teacher, and I’m sure we’re all going to be good friends.’

Someone sniggered behind me.

‘Well, that’s me, now I’d like to find out who you are,’ continued Mr Wells. ‘I’d like you to stand up, one at a time, and tell me your name and, let me see … yes, what your favourite thing is.’

There was a big collective groan from the class – the first thing we’d all managed to do together.

‘Well, let’s start with you,’ said the teacher, pointing to the girl sitting in front of me.

It seemed that Mr Wells began almost every sentence with the word ‘well’, which was kind of ironic, given his name. I wondered if they were connected.

There was an expectant pause. The girl stood up slowly. I realized it was the same girl who’d thought I was grinning at her earlier. She had raven-black hair. She’d obviously been in the shop when her parents bought her uniform, because it actually seemed to fit her.

‘My name’s Tamara Bello,’ she said in a slow voice.

I don’t mean to sound like a softy, but it was kind of … I don’t know,
nice
, you know, for a voice. It made me think of donuts dunked in hot chocolate.

‘And I like pulling the wings off flies.’

There was a shocked silence, then a kind of nervous giggle from the class.

‘Well, that’s great, Tamara,’ said Mr Wells.

Most of the other kids kept it straight after that. Pretty boring, really. You know, ‘My
name’s
Robert and I like to play on my computer’ sort of thing.

My turn was coming round, and I thought I’d try to play it for laughs. I could mention that I liked donuts, and maybe give my tummy a bit of a pat. It was a high-risk strategy, but I thought it was worth it. It might just get the class on my side. I’d learned that if you can make fun of yourself before the other guys do, then it takes away the sting.

Then Mr Wells was smiling at me. I stood up too fast and my stomach caught the front of my desk and knocked it flying forward, right into the back of Tamara Bello’s chair. Everyone laughed like crazy, and even Mr Wells had a bit of a smile, though he tried to hide it.

Any normal person would have spun round to see what was going on, but Tamara turned slowly, like an owl, and gave me a look of … well, I’m not sure there’s even a
word
for it. Her skin was like milky coffee, and I felt funny inside, like I’d eaten one donut too many.

So now I was in a double fluster. I picked up the desk, but somehow managed to knock over my chair. I was blushing again and my hands
were
as sweaty as two boil-in-the-bag kippers.

Finally I got everything picked up. I cleared my throat and announced loudly, ‘My name is Donut, and I like Dermots.’