The Donut Diaries (17 page)

‘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 originally 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.