Authors: Anthony McGowan
The Donut Diaries
The Bit Before The Story Really Gets Going
Saturday 13 January/Sunday 14 January
Saturday 20 January/Sunday 21 January
Saturday 27 January/Sunday 28 January
My second term at
BIG SCHOOL
has just begun. And things are worse than ever.
My
INSANE
PE teacher, Mr Fricker, despises me. My nemesis, the
EVIL
Floppy-Haired Kid, has sworn to get his revenge. And I just can’t kick the
DONUTS
, no matter how hard I try.
And to top it off, I’ve been accused of a
TOTALLY GROSS
crime. I’ve got to prove I’m innocent …
To Rosie, Gabriel and Rebecca,
who helped to make this.
A NEW TERM
is about to begin and everything in the world is slightly less rubbish than it used to be. My first term at St Michael’s began at the bottom and spiralled down from there, with every kind of humiliation and embarrassment being heaped on my chubby shoulders. I was teased, bullied, goaded, mocked and shunned. And not in a good way.
The main reason for this is that I was (and
am
) a bit overweight. The main reason for
that
is that I eat too many donuts.
Do you need to know why I eat too many donuts? If you do, then frankly YOU’RE INSANE! Have you never rushed feverishly to the bakers or the supermarket or the donut stall, handed over your money with a shaking hand, snatched away the donut, hurried to a quiet corner and filled your mouth with its warm flesh like a tiger feasting on a hapless Indian villager? And while the lovely fluffy donut matter is in your mouth, you are happy, truly happy. As happy as a princess who has found her prince. Ah …
NOTE TO SELF: NEVER AGAIN DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS A ‘PRINCESS’ UNLESS YOU DO ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IN UTTER MISERY.
So, no, you don’t need a reason to eat too many donuts. You need a reason
not
to. And I’ve got that reason. I can see it now when I look down: a belly that bulges and tries to escape out of my shirt, like some cheesy monster from an old science fiction movie. I keep thinking a woman in a hat is going to point at it and scream, ‘It’s horrible! It’s horrible!’ and then faint.
That’s my dilemma. I love donuts, but I know they’re turning me into a joke. A fat joke. So my goal for this term is to cut down to one donut a day. Except in emergencies. Or special occasions. Or if I’m celebrating some unusual triumph. Or if something rotten has happened and I need to be cheered up. Or if I need to turn to the Sweet Donut of Forgiveness because I’ve done something bad.
Being the fat kid is always a challenge. You need guts and determination to pull it off. But add being the fat kid to the already traumatic experience of starting at a new school and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Last term, my persecutor-in-chief was the evil Floppy-Haired Kid (or FHK), whose real name is Steerforth and
who
has a mind as cunning as a weasel with a PhD from the University of Sly. His speciality is appearing friendly whilst secretly stabbing you in the back. He quite often then stabs you in the front as well.
But he who laughs last gets the last laugh (or whatever the saying is), and I got my revenge. The revenge involved a plan that was just as ingenious and sly and evil as any ever cooked up by the FHK. But even though it was evil, it wasn’t, you know, Evil, because
I’m
a goody and
he’s
a baddy. Plus it concluded with him getting a big dollop of monkey poo in the face, which is absolutely the best way for a plan to end. In fact, any plan which doesn’t end in the bad guy getting a face-full of monkey poo should consider itself a failure.
1
In all this I was helped by my new friends, Renfrew, Spam and Corky. Renfrew looks more like a rodent than some creatures that are actually members of the rodent family. Spam is a skinny giant, like a daddy-long-legs that’s been gigantified by a gigantifying ray.
2
Corky has a stutter so bad he sounds like someone making fun of someone else with a stutter. But a fat kid really couldn’t wish for three better friends.
I began writing my diary because it was part of the treatment plan invented for
me
by a gruesome nutritionist called Doc Morlock. I was supposed to write down how many donuts I ate every day and, what’s even worse, my ‘feelings’ about things. It’s difficult to explain to someone like Doc Morlock that as I’m a boy rather than a girl I don’t really have feelings. What I have are moods.
Failure to comply meant being sent to the dreaded Camp Fatso. Camp Fatso is where fat kids are sent to be tortured with gruel and cross-country runs.
Well, mainly because of my brilliant Evil Plan – I mean evil plan – I managed to avoid getting sent to Camp Fatso. But it still hovers over me like the shadow of Something Really Bad …
1
It was, in fact, chimpanzee poo, but for some reason monkey poo sounds funnier to me.
2
Such rays remain in the realm of science fiction, but I reckon that sooner or later one will be invented, so you could super-size your own McDonalds without having to pay extra. You could also use it to take over the world.
I WALKED IN
through the school gates on the first day of the new term a bit less terrified than I’d been on my first day of the first term. My mates were already there in a huddle, sheltering from the icy January wind. That wind felt a lot like when you’re in the bath and your horrible sister bursts in and pours freezing water down your back just because you put a firework up her teddy’s bum and blew the stuffing out of it.
NOTE TO SELF: ALWAYS REMEMBER TO LOCK THE BATHROOM DOOR AFTER YOU’VE BLOWN UP ONE OF RUBY’S CUDDLY TOYS.
‘Hey, Donut!’ they all shouted with one voice (my friends, I mean, not Ruby’s cuddly toys, who talk to her and nobody else, and do it in teeny-weeny voices that only Ruby and the pixies can hear).
‘Hey, guys,’ I said.
They were talking about what they’d got for Christmas. Spam’s parents are pretty rich, so he’d got an iPad. Renfrew’s mum and dad don’t believe in technology so he’d ended up with a violin, which we all found pretty funny, although not as funny as it would have been if he’d got a tuba.