The Donut Diaries (12 page)
Authors: Anthony McGowan
‘Sit down, Millicent,’ he said. ‘I’m just going
to
attach these wires to your fingers. Nothing to worry about – they simply record temperature and moisture levels and electrical activity.’ He taped wires to both my forefingers. He was surprisingly adept with his gloved hands. ‘There, comfortable?’
‘Not really, sir.’
‘Good. I’m going to begin by asking you some simple questions. Answer as truthfully as you can.’
‘OK.’
‘Tell me your name.’
‘Dermot Francis Milligan.’
The green light came on. Fricker checked the dials on his machine. He made a little grunting noise.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m twelve years old.’
Another green light. Another check, another grunt.
‘What do you think of bananas?’
‘I like them.’
After a brief pause, the red light came on.
Fricker raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? I suggest you reconsider your answer.’
‘OK, I love them.’
Green light.
‘Excellent. Now tell me, where were you two Mondays ago at eleven-fifteen a.m. when the first outrage took place?’
I had to think fast. Did I own up about being in the toilets, or did I try to fool the machine?
Well, a wise man once said that you should only tell lies when you really have to, or when you are trying to stop girls from crying. This time I was going to use truth as my shield and honesty as my sword.
‘I was in the school toilet.’
Green light.
‘What were you doing there?’
‘I was sitting in the cubicle.’
Green light.
‘And?’
‘That was it, sir. I heard someone come in and chuck something on the floor. When I got out of the cubicle, it was just there, on the floor.’
‘The stool?’
‘Yes, the poo.’
Mr Fricker stared at me, and then the green light went on.
For the next ten minutes Mr Fricker asked me about all the other incidents. I got green-lighted on everything. At the end he stood up, and spoke facing away from me.
‘There’s something you should know about me, Millicent.’
‘Sir?’
‘I am an implacable enemy. Get on the wrong side of me and—’ He spun and slammed his leather-clad metal hand down on the table, karate-style, with a terrific crash. ‘But if I’m your friend, then … well, let’s just say that I can make your life easier. I think you’re innocent, Millicent. But, frankly, that may not be enough to save you.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘There’s been a crime, and the top brass want a scapegoat. At the moment, that’s you. I can try to keep them off your back for a while, but unless we’re able to find the real criminal behind all this, then I’m afraid …’ He seemed to be a bit lost for the appropriate words or gesture, so once more, with a mighty ‘Ay-yah!’ he karate-chopped the table.
‘Were you really just in the Catering Corps, sir?’ I asked him.
‘It pays me to let them believe that, Millicent.’
‘One more thing, sir,’ I added. ‘Your lie detector …’
‘Yes?’
‘It was just rubbish, wasn’t it, sir? I mean, you just pressed a button to make the red or green light go on.’
‘Get out of here, Millicent,’ he said, but I thought I spotted a faint smile on his face as he said it.
Yeah, I know that’s crashed through the new limit, but I thought I’d earned a small reward for writing such a massive entry in the Donut Diary.
1
‘Et tu, Brute’ were Julius Caesar’s last words, spoken to his best mate Brutus, when Brutus stabbed him in the guts. It probably means something like: ‘Get stuffed, Brutus, you dirty scumbag.’ Actually, his last words are more likely to have been, ‘
Aaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh
…’
I CALLED A
full War Council on Saturday. All the guys came round, plus Jim. We did it sitting on the wall by the canal. We figured it was best to be out of range of any listening devices. However, my opponents seemed to be very well equipped and financed, so there was a chance the ducks might have been bugged. Corky wanted to throw some stones at them to scare them away, but I thought that was going a bit far, as the chance of them really being bugged was about one in a billion, and the chance of us being fined for stoning ducks was much higher, so I said, ‘Let he who hath not sinned cast the first stone,’ which I remembered from church. Nobody cast any stones, although Jim did push me off the wall and kicked me a couple of times when I tried to climb back up.
Then we began. I summed up the recent events for those who were not fully abreast of the situation. When Jim had stopped laughing, I carried on:
ME: So, basically, my theory is that the Brown Phantom is just out to frame me.
SPAM: Cool. It’s like we’re in a movie.
ME: It’s not in the least bit cool, Spam. I’m going to get expelled.
SPAM: Yeah, sorry, not cool.
JIM: But funny – you have to admit it’s quite funny.
ME: You wouldn’t think it was funny if it was you getting framed.
JIM: Yeah, but if it was me it really wouldn’t be funny.
ME: How do you work that out?
JIM: No offence, Donut,
1
but it’s because you’re fat. That makes everything slightly funnier. It’s not fair, I know, but I don’t make the rules.
ME: Can we please stop talking about how fat I am, and get down to business?
RENFREW: Donut’s right. We should try and find out who’s behind this.
ME: Exactly – we have to unmask the Brown Phantom.
JIM: How do you know he wears a mask? It’d be a bit stupid, wearing a mask around school. A teacher would just tell him to take it off and then everyone would know who the Brown Phantom was. You may as well just go around with a sign saying ‘Me, I’m the Brown Phantom’.
ME: It was just a … Oh, never mind.
SPAM: We could be like detectives!
RENFREW: Bagsy I’m Sherlock Homes!
SPAM: You can be him. He’s lame. I’m Batman.
RENFREW: Batman’s not a detective, you doofus.
ME: What is he, then?
RENFREW: He’s a superhero.
SPAM: A
crimefighting
superhero, i.e. a detective.
RENFREW: My dad’s got a Sherlock Holmes hat.
CORKY: (
Emits a short, sharp fart, indicating disapproval
.)
ME: Corky’s right. This isn’t helping me. I need to find out who the Brown Phantom is, and I need to find out fast. Any ideas?
JIM: Any thingamajig …
surveillance
footage?
RENFREW: Nah. All the security cameras at school are just dummies.
ME: How do you know?
RENFREW: My brother and a load of other Year Tens all mooned one of them at the end-of-year disco, and nothing happened.
CORKY: T-t-t-t-t—
ME: Exactly, Corky.
JIM: You should set a trap.
ME: How?
JIM: Well, as I see it, the Phantom has only ever struck when you haven’t got an alibi. That’s the weakness in your defence. But it’s also a weakness in the Phantom that you can whaddya-call-it …
exploit
.
ME: I don’t get it …
RENFREW: I see … it’s a way we can control the Phantom. He’ll make his move when you’re on your own, without anyone to say you didn’t do it.
JIM: Yeah, exactly. Make sure he knows you’re alone, then he’ll strike, and you’ll be ready to nab him.
ME: That’s one thing that’s really been bugging me. How the heck does he know where I am?
I
mean, like the first time, even I didn’t know I was going to the loo until I actually went.
SPAM: He must have followed you.
RENFREW: But how? No one else left our classroom after you.
CORKY: Sp-sp-sp-sp—
ME: A spy, Corky? You mean there was a spy in our class who must have informed on me?
SPAM: Could be.
RENFREW: How?
SPAM: Text would be the obvious way.
RENFREW: They’d have to be sly about it, though. Mobiles being banned in school and all.
ME: Right, we’ve made progress. We’ve got two possible lines of investigation. We know the Phantom has someone on the inside, someone leaking information. And we know that he’ll
strike
again when I’m alone. The spy could lead us straight to the Phantom. And even if they don’t, then we can trap him when he tries to trap me.
SPAM: I told you it was like a movie. And I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to be 007. Batman’s for babies.
RENFREW: I’ll stick with Sherlock Holmes. He’s a classic, and the classics never go out of style. Plus, I’ve got the hat.
JIM: There’s another thing. The Brown Phantom creep has somehow got hold of a load of old chimp poo, yeah?
ME: Yeah.
JIM: Well, that’s another clue you’ve got – where do you get hold of chimp poo?
SPAM: The internet?
JIM: Think you can download it, do you?
SPAM: No, but …
JIM: Whoever it is has a reliable source of chimp doo-doo. Find the source, catch the Phantom.
ME: Excellent. Three lines of investigation. We have our work cut out, gentlemen.
That was yesterday. Today, I plotted and planned and texted.
And ate some donuts.
I also spent some time in the lavatory, groaning loudly and faking some rather horrible noises.
Why?
Go and look up ‘suspense’ in the dictionary.
By the way, Dad seems a bit more cheerful since our talk. I think maybe I should write a book in which I solve all the problems of the world using donuts. Global warming, the
Arab–Israeli
conflict, runaway population growth, etc. etc., could all solved by the surgical application of donuts.
I know that seems excessive, but I brought extra supplies for the War Council, then forgot to hand them out. And then what was I supposed to do – throw them away?
1
My school friends mainly call me Donut now, which I don’t mind, and Jim has picked up the habit, even though it sounds a bit weird when he says it. Personally, I think school nicknames should stay in school, and home friends should think of different nicknames or just use your actual name, e.g. Dermot.
THE PLAN WAS
desperate, but desperate times called for desperate measures by desperate kids in desperately large trousers. And those big trousers of mine needed to be filled to the brim with courage, because this was going to need more than I had ever called on before in the whole of my life. And it was quite possible that my reserves would dry up before the end, and my trousers prove to be empty.
