The Donut Diaries

by Dermot Milligan

  ‘I wouldn’t betray my friends.’

  Silence.

  ‘But you know what, Donut? You cut a deal, didn’t you, with the Lardies? They gonna burn you, you know. They gonna sell you out.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’ve got a plan.’

  And then, in the dark and the cold, I realized that I needed J-Man for my plan to work.

  ‘You really want redemption?’ I asked.

  ‘I want it.’

  ‘The tunnel. You know where it is?’

  ‘I knows.’

  And he told me. And when he told me, like so many obscure truths, it turned out to be obvious.

  ‘OK, then, J-Man,’ I said. ‘Listen up good, and maybe I can save you all.’

  That night, once J-Man and I had been released, Renfrew and I returned to Hut Nineteen. I wanted to go alone, but Renfrew insisted on coming with me. ‘If you try to get through that window, they’ll find you half in and half out in the morning and feed you to the badgers.’

  He had a point.

  The stench hadn’t died down. And the terror of the badgers hung almost as heavy in the air as the stink.

  I found the loose plank exactly where J-Man had said I would. I lifted it, and the others around it. Underneath there was a trap door. I pulled it up and saw the first rungs of a roughly hewn ladder, leading down into the darkest place in the universe. But J-Man’s torch made the darkness flee.

  ‘You want to go first?’ I asked Renfrew. I didn’t say it, obviously, but I was thinking how the rodent thing he had going on probably made him highly adept at scurrying down holes in the ground. Plus, I balance out my fear of heights with a fear of holes.

  ‘I think it’s a job for the mission leader,’ he replied, appealing to my sense of responsibility, curse him.

  The ladder went down about two metres. At the bottom, a space the size of a small room had been excavated. And then the tunnel itself began. I shone the torch down it. It was dead straight, and was lined with wooden planks.

  ‘Nice job,’ I said admiringly.

  ‘That’s the Italians for you,’ said Renfrew, who’d followed me down once it was clear there weren’t any monsters down here. ‘Rubbish at fighting, but they make a very nice escape tunnel.’

  The tunnel may have been beautifully made, but it was very narrow. Could I fit in there? I shone the torch along it. Only one way to find out.

  ‘Away you go, Renfrew,’ I ordered.

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts. I went first into the hole, your turn to be first along the tunnel.’

  I gave Renfrew the torch, and he began to crawl. I waited till he was a couple of metres along – so I didn’t have to crawl with his bum in my face – and then I followed. It was hard work. My back scraped on the ceiling, and my butt brushed the sides, but I could squeeze through. A week ago I’d have got stuck for sure. I suppose those Italians must have been quite slim.

  It took us twenty minutes to squirm our way to the end of the tunnel. Renfrew, who was, as I suspected, a pretty good crawler, was waiting for me at the foot of another ladder.

  ‘I think I should probably go first again,’ I said. Renfrew reluctantly handed me the torch, and I started to climb.

  Tragically, the third run on the ladder had decayed with age and snapped. Renfrew helped break my fall, but I think I might have emitted a high-pitched, slightly girly scream, which was totally out of place in the context of World War Two escape tunnels. It also meant that Renfrew had to kneel down so I could stand on his back to reach the fourth rung. It was all pretty messy and confusing in the confined space.

  ‘I’m glad we’re not having to do this with an enemy attacking from the rear,’ I said.

  The exit section was even narrower than the rest of the tunnel. But I was just thin enough to press on. At the top of the ladder was another trap door. I knew that there were patrols in the woods, so I flicked off the torch, inched up the trap door, and peered out.

  It took my eyes a few moments to get used to the darkness, but then I saw that I was indeed in the woods, a hundred metres outside Camp Fatso. I listened carefully, and heard the sound of a car driving along a road in the distance. The sound of freedom.

  I had an almost uncontrollable urge to fling back the trap door and run headlong towards the road. Two things stopped me. The first was the sound of yapping. If the goons on patrol in the woods caught me now, the whole plan was finished. And the second was the knowledge that I had to save the badgers, and that meant waiting until tomorrow.

  So I gently lowered the door and together Renfrew and I scooted back down the tunnel, and returned, eventually, to Hut Four.

  We had reconnoitred the route. Everything was now in place.

  DONUT COUNT:

  But just wait till tomorrow.

  Friday 13 April

  NO WORK FOR me today. Today I prepared for the battle of a lifetime.

  I’ve kept the mystery a secret long enough. Here’s what the loathsome Hercule Paine proposed, back in the stifling warmth of Hut One.

  ‘Friday is, as you know, the last day of the school holidays, and so, for most of the Camp Fatso inmates – those not blessed, as I am, with the gift of permanent residence – the end of their time here. This event is traditionally marked by a celebration, enjoyed by the members of staff who have laboured so hard to care for us all. And the invitation is extended to others who have helped Camp Fatso. Local dignitaries, the occasional cabinet minister, junior members of the Royal Family, the rich and the powerful: our particular brand of entertainment has drawn them all.

  ‘We Lardies like to help out with this, as our way of saying thank you. And generally, gambling – just a little flutter, you understand – plays a major role. This . . . entertainment will take place in two parts. Firstly, a contest between two champions—’

  ‘A contest?’

  ‘Yes, a Clash of the Titans. You will be one of the contestants. But I think it is a contest that you will enjoy.’

  ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Eat, dear boy, eat!’

  ‘What, gruel?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all. The contest will be to see who can eat the greatest number of . . . donuts.’

  At the mention of donuts I sort of blanked out. The world became hazy and unfocused, and my mouth filled with drool. Was he really saying that I was going to take part in a donut-eating contest? I felt like a kid who’s waited up all night on Christmas Eve and actually seen Santa. But Paine was still talking and I had to zone back in.

  ‘Word has gone around the camp about your own epic consumption, while in the outside world, of that particular deep-fried delicacy. And it has been noted that you have refrained from much of the food on offer at the camp.

  It was therefore generally assumed that you were preparing yourself for this very challenge and that you would be unbeatable. My own donut champion here’ – he gestured to Demetrius the Destroyer – ‘is a fine eater, but the view of the experts is that he cannot stand up to a donut guzzler like you. So most of the betting is on you, Donut, my friend. You are the hot favourite. The odds are now seven to one. It means that even a modest investment on Demetrius would pay handsome dividends, should he win. You take my meaning, I’m sure . . . ’

  All I could think was DONUTS DONUTS DONUTS. But I had to concentrate.

  ‘You want me to lose on purpose to this doofus?’

  SMACK! And that one stung. But it was useful. It cleared my mind of the delicious donut fug.

  ‘It would be a very good idea, I think, if that were to happen. Good for everyone. You will get your escape. I will make a lot of money.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Then I will ensure that you rot here for the rest of your fat childhood, and your friends in Hut Four will suffer . . . reprisals.’

  ‘And secondly?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You said the entertainment was in two parts.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Do you know what the dachshund was origina
lly bred for?’

  ‘Yapping?’

  ‘Not at all. It was bred to pursue, subdue and kill . . . the badger.’

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘Oh, yes. And so after the first round of amusements . . . well, I’m sure your imagination is vivid enough to paint the picture.’

  The monster smiled blandly, as if we’d been discussing the weather or the weekend football results.

  So that was it. The awful truth. Or rather an even awfuller bit of the truth that I already knew was pretty awful. And yet, to get what I wanted, I was going to have to steep myself in the corruption of the Camp Fatso Lardies.

  But on the plus side I was going to eat a MOUNTAIN OF DONUTS.

  Anyway, back to Friday. There was to be no worm dig on this, our last full day. And I knew why: the badgers would be sacrificed tonight, so there was no need to supply more food.

  What it meant was that we had a full day of World Sports with Mr Fricker. In the morning none of us really got to grips with Maori asymmetrical tennis, a game played by teams of seven on one side and nine on the other, on a court shaped like a jellyfish, with a moveable net and a ball traditionally made from a live wallaby. The part of the net was played by me and that of the wallaby by Renfrew, who was the nearest creature to an actual wallaby the camp could manage.

  Mr Fricker became increasingly irate with our inability to understand the rules, but he was rapidly losing his authority, partly because it was the end of our stay at Camp Fatso, and partly because the toothbrush attachment he’d used that morning had got stuck, and it’s always quite hard to take a person seriously when they have a toothbrush for a hand.

  After lunch – two carrots, as a special last-day treat – we had an intense session of Norwegian ear-flicking, a game apparently invented by the Vikings to help pass the time in between raids.

  And then, to cap off our sporting journey around the globe, Mr Fricker announced that we were to play a final round of British Bulldog.

  Given all the beatings (and flickings) I’d taken in the previous sports, my heart sank. If you’ve never played British Bulldog (and you probably never should), one person is the bulldog and stands in the middle of the field. Everyone else has to run past him (or her, if it’s a lady bulldog) and reach the other end. The bulldog tries to grab the runners long enough to shout, ‘British Bulldog, one, two, three!’ The person so caught becomes a bulldog, and they then work together to catch more people, converting them into bulldogs.

  All sounds like a perfectly normal game of tag, except that the aim is to cause as much physical damage to the enemy as possible, whether you’re catching or running. The most dangerous position is that of the first bulldog. There’s a real chance of just basically getting trampled to death.

  As soon as Fricker announced that we were playing British Bulldog, I assumed that this was it: the huge herd of buffalo that was the Camp Fatso kids would stampede over me, leaving nothing but a squished and gory corpse.

  ‘Right,’ said Fricker, ‘we need our first bulldog.’

  I started to walk forward, resigned to my fate.

  ‘Not you, Millicent,’ Fricker continued. ‘You.’ He pointed with the toothbrush at Igor. As the others lined up on the field, Fricker said to me out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Don’t want you getting too badly hurt this afternoon. Greater things planned for you. Here, help me get this ruddy thing off, would you?’

  And so, while carnage took place on the field (most of it enacted by, not upon, Igor), I unscrewed Fricker’s toothbrush.

  Although I was, obviously, happy about not getting crushed to death, I also felt strangely disappointed in Fricker. Brutal, simple-minded, insane he may have been, but I never thought that he was corrupt. Yet here he was, clearly part of the rotten core of the Camp Fatso establishment, keeping me out of danger so that I could take part in the evening’s barbaric entertainment.

  8 p.m. The time had come.

  Renfrew was coming with me, but I said goodbye to all my old comrades in Hut Four. Each one knew his role. Each one was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to bring down the Evil Empire that was Camp Fatso. I shook them all by the hand. Igor, a tower of strength and a chess genius (I never was to beat him); Dong, inscrutable to the last, but undoubtedly very pleased to meet you; Florian Frost, beetle expert, gentle soul; and, finally, J-Man, my flawed hero. Had he really come good at last, or was he going to betray us all again?

  We had a group hug, got slightly embarrassed about it, and then I was off.

  The venue was the administration block, where I’d signed in on my first day at Camp Fatso. We were met at the door by a couple of Lardies: hard-faced blimps, smartly dressed in tuxedos and bow-ties, who’d rather crack your head than a smile.

  ‘What’s the vole doing here?’ said one, shoving Renfrew in the chest.

  ‘He’s my second.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘You know, like in a duel – the guy who helps the main guy.’

  A grunt and we were in. The bouncers led us past the reception desk, through the room beyond it, out another door, and down a stairway. One of the blimps opened a final double door, and suddenly I was confronted with a space full of light and noise. There were seats banked up around a central area, in which I stood. It was the size of a boxing ring. This probably isn’t the time to bring this up, but why do they call it a boxing ring when it’s square? Anyway, this space actually was round. Or rather, it was an oval. It all reminded me of the Colosseum, where gladiators and animals fought in Rome. And that was pretty well what this place was about too.

  The seats were full. Goons and Lardies, and other people I didn’t recognize. Receding chins and braying laughs. Badwig was there, and Boss Skinner, with Gustav on his lap. The loathsome Hercule Paine, looking more like Jabba the Hutt than ever, gave a little tinkling wave with his fingertips.

  But pride of place was reserved for the gaunt, sneering figure of Doc Morlock. She was wearing a black gown with a high collar, and looked like a science fiction version of Queen Elizabeth I, crossed with an evil Roman emperor, crossed with a cat’s bottom. She was on a sort of throne, and was surrounded by a bodyguard of Lardies.

  There was no sign of Mr Fricker, but I didn’t have the time or the headspace to work out why. I gave Renfrew a little nod, and he shrank back beyond the inner doorway.

  Waiting for me in the ring was Demetrius the Destroyer. He was wearing a wrestler’s leotard, in a very stretchy fabric – obviously this was his donut-eating costume. And there, piled up before us, on platters, were the donuts.

  Fifty each.

  The joy! No, this was beyond joy. It was cosmic. It was the greatest love story in history. It was the coming together of two things that have been searching for each other for all eternity: Dermot Milligan and a platter of fifty donuts.

  And I was pleased to see that they were of the plain kind, with just a dusting of icing sugar. There was also a glass of water for each of us, which was considerate.

  And vital, for my plan.

  Demetrius pointed one massive stubby finger first at me, and then at his mouth. I think he was saying that once he’d eaten the donuts, then he’d eat me. Frankly, I thought he was bluffing, but you never knew with the Lardies.

  A trumpet fanfare played, and then Doc Morlock stood.

  ‘I’d like to welcome you all,’ she began graciously, ‘members of Camp Fatso, family, friends and supporters, to our end-of-camp celebration. We will begin with the traditional donut-eating contest. The rules, for those of you who have not been here before, are simple. The first of these two noble warriors to consume fifty donuts will be declared the champion. Vomiting, fainting, or death from overeating will result in the disqualification of the competitor. Needless to say, the donuts have been prepared using my own virtually fat-free, low-calorie donut mix, which includes ground mung beans and go-go berries, available at all good supermarkets as part of my Dr Morlock range of healthy eating produce.’

  Hang on, healthy d
onuts? That was wrong, so wrong. And yet they still looked like donuts, real donuts. Perhaps they’d be OK.

  Doc Morlock peered down at me and my mountainous opponent. ‘Are you ready?’

  The Destroyer and I faced her, and spoke the ancient and noble words:

  ‘We who are about to eat salute you.’

  Then Doc Morlock held up a silk scarf. Silence descended. She let the scarf drop. And so began the mightiest donut-eating challenge of my life. Heck, of any life.

  Hercule Paine had told me that it had to look like a close-run thing, and I knew at once that matching Demetrius the Destroyer was going to be tricky. I could tell straight away that he was a canny donut eater.

  An amateur would have gone off at full speed, cramming the round portions of heaven into his mouth faster than his chops could chew. Result: a serious choking situation. And even if you could get it all down, there was a chance of filling up too quickly. No, the secret of the donut marathon was taking it nice and steady. And that’s what Demetrius was doing.

  His hand moved slowly but surely, backwards and forwards from the donut platter; three bites and each donut was history, and the process would begin again. No rush, no hurry, just world-class donut eating.

  However, you have to remember that I had been on a starvation diet for nearly two weeks. So, even though I knew that I should copy the Destroyer’s style, I just couldn’t. Like a rank beginner, I stuffed the first one straight into my mouth. I didn’t even bother to bite: the whole thing went in. In all the pomp and pageantry of the occasion I’d forgotten that these were supposedly healthy donuts. So it was a bit of a shock when it was actually in my mouth and, rather than the meltingly lovely sugary explosion of mouth-bliss, I got a bland ball of stodge, with a faint aftertaste of bean. But it was still the best thing I’d eaten in a long time. And, when all’s said and done, a donut is a donut is a donut, and I was put on this good earth to eat them.

  Soon I had got through ten. Demetrius was on eight. I glanced up and caught the eye of Hercule Paine. He looked a little worried. He’d invested the entire Lardy fortune on this match, and if he lost the bet, then his empire would be wiped out.