The Donut Diaries (12 page)

‘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:

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.