The Donut Diaries (14 page)

Sickened, I turned away and so I missed the final act. But I heard the shouts of the goons, heard the yapping of the sausage dogs, heard, above all else, the utter silence from the splattered body of Ernesto Gogol.

Dong looked at me. ‘Hello, old chap, delighted to make your acquaintance,’ he said, in a way that was sad, guilty and accusatory all at the same time.

DONUT COUNT:

Zero, of course. But even if I’d had a brimming box full of the finest donuts ever made by the hand of man, I’d have said no thanks, so disgusted was I with what we had done. Well, I might have eaten one or two, in case it gave offence to whoever had gone to the effort of making them. Perhaps just a chocolate icing, and a butterscotch.

Tuesday 10 April

WE NEVER SAW
Ernesto Gogol again. Either he was sent to another camp, or perhaps – and I hope this is true – he was released on compassionate grounds. He’d done his dirty work for the goons, and been punished for it. Now I hoped he could find some peace and forgiveness.

Anyway, on the next day’s worm hunt I mentioned the mysterious Hut Nineteen to J-Man.

He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.

‘Ain’t no such hut. Ain’t never spoken to no boy from Hut Nineteen. No sir.’

‘But what about these badges that Tamara mentioned? Do you know what they could be?’

‘Badges? Well, we all got these.’ He pointed at the insignia on the left breast of the tracksuit – three boys, one fat, one just overweight, one skinny. ‘Guess she talkin’ ’bout that.’

And then a paintball shell thumped into the ground right between us, spraying us in a gory red mist.

‘You boys want to find out what it feels like to get one of these babies in the face?’ asked Boss Skinner, his quiet voice somehow carrying the twenty metres from his truck to our worm hole.

‘No, Boss,’ I said, and got digging.

***

I arrived back at the hut tired and dirty and depressed, but something, or rather someone, was waiting for me there who put an astounded grin on my face.

‘RENFREW! What on earth . . .? Is it just you, or are the other guys here?’ I babbled.

Renfrew smiled his little rodenty smile. It was
the
best thing I’d seen since the beginning of my Camp Fatso ordeal.

‘It’s just me – Spam and Corky are still away on holiday. I got a text from Tamara Bello. She said she’d had to bribe one of the guards to get her phone back, and that you were in desperate trouble and I had to get in here to help you.’

Renfrew always made a strange sort of ‘ungth’ sound before he spoke. It could be quite annoying at times, but now it was music to my ears.

‘Trouble’s right. Did you tell my mum and dad what was going on?’

‘I tried. I said Camp Fatso was rubbish and like a jail, but your mum said that it was just you kicking up a fuss about not having any donuts for a couple of weeks. She said that your nutritionist warned her that you’d be like this, but that in the end you’d be happier and healthier.’

‘What did my dad say?’

‘I didn’t see him. Er . . . he was in the—’

‘Don’t tell me, the toilet.’ Did I mention that my dad hides from life in the toilet all day? Well, he does. ‘But how the heck did you get in here?’

‘That part was easy. I told my parents that I actually wanted to go to Camp Fatso, and they jumped at it. My dad’s always been worried that I’m too much of a weakling, and they think I’ll get some muscles and learn to stick up for myself. And it was dead cheap, because the Camp Fatso people said that some kid had just had to leave early . . .’

‘Ah, yes, that would be Ernesto. You’re sitting on his bed.’

At that moment I sensed the others come into the hut and fan out behind me.

‘Is this a new boy I see before me?’ said J-Man.

‘You won’t believe this, but he’s a friend of mine,’ I said. ‘From the outside.’

‘Hmph,’ said J-Man, unimpressed. ‘That don’t change nothin’. You know what we gotta do to a new boy.’

He sounded tough, but he gave me a little wink.

‘What’s he talking about, Donut?’ Renfrew asked, looking a little worried. In fact, as he saw my massive hut buddies looming around him, he looked
very
worried.

‘Sorry, old friend,’ I replied ruefully. ‘But tradition is important here. PILE ON!!!!!’

We didn’t give Renfrew the full treatment – it would have squashed him flat. It was just enough to make him feel like one of us.

Afterwards I did the introductions, and then we told Renfrew what had been going on here. He shook his head in amazement.

‘I wouldn’t believe you if it wasn’t for the stuff I dug up on the internet. It’s mostly rumours, but there are some amazing things about the history of the place.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like in the Second World War it was a prison camp for captured Italians.’

‘No way!’

‘It totally was, and there was a bust out in 1944. They dug a tunnel and . . .’

His tale ran on excitedly and only stopped with the siren announcing PE, at which point it was my turn to astonish Renfrew by telling him the identity of the new Camp Fatso PE instructor.

***

That afternoon’s World Sport was angry Japanese grunting (the angriest grunter is the winner, and you get disqualified if you accidentally miaow or make any other cat noises). As this involved very few opportunities to make my life miserable, Mr Fricker followed it up with a quick round of Smack the Rhino, a game originating in Mozambique.

And yes, I was, surprise surprise, the rhino.

Fricker hardly batted an eyelid when he saw Renfrew, which I thought was a bit odd. I suppose Renfrew isn’t quite as noticeable as me, being small and gerbil-like. But still, as I say, it was strange . . .

At dinner time we had a long, droning talk from
Badwig
about ingratitude, and how some people were determined to spoil it for all the others, which was why the carrot ration was being further reduced.

‘I name no names,’ he said, looking straight at our table, ‘but you can all work out who is responsible for this and take appropriate action.’ Then he pointed at us in case anyone hadn’t got it yet. Using the age-old tactic of divide and rule, it neatly turned the anger away from the goons and onto us. So while trudging back to Hut Four we had to endure punches and kicks and general, all-purpose abuse from the rest of the camp.

But for once I didn’t really care. I didn’t care, because I had a plan. OK, not really a plan. More just a thing to do. But having a thing to do is
the
best thing short of an actual plan for slightly cheering you up. Especially when you’ve got an old friend to do it with.

DONUT COUNT:

So far, anyway. But I suppose there’s always the faint chance that I might stumble across one on my way to Hut Nineteen.

Wednesday 11 April

HORROR!

Horror!

Horror!

And in case I haven’t got my point across adequately,

HORROR!

I slipped from my bed at midnight and woke Renfrew. We were quiet, but not quiet enough.

‘Where you guys going?’

It was J-Man, as ever watching over us.

‘I’m showing Renfrew the way to the latrine hut.’

I’d decided to keep my plan secret from the rest of the hut. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them, it was just that I thought the fewer people in the know, the smaller the chance of something leaking out. Plus, if we were caught, the others wouldn’t have to face the cooler again, which was something I really didn’t want to have on my conscience.

‘Cain’t he use the bucket like everybody else?’ groaned J-Man.

‘Hey, he’s only little – if he falls in he’ll drown.’

‘If the goons catch you, you goin’ in the cooler again. Maybe this time you don’t come out.’

‘We’ll take our chances. Can I borrow your torch?’

‘Take it. But you turn that sucker on and the goons will be all over you like flies on a cow flop.’

‘I hear you. It’s for when we’re in the latrine. We’ll be careful.’

‘Mind you are. I don’t wanna lose that flashlight.’

Luckily there was just enough light from the half-moon for us to see without the torch.

‘You sure you know where you’re going?’ I hissed to Renfrew.

‘Of course. I printed the plan out from the internet.’ He pointed to a piece of crumpled paper – I really didn’t want to know where he’d hidden it when he sneaked it into the camp. ‘See, this line is the fence, and we just follow it round to here, where there’s an opening indicated. That leads to Hut Nineteen.’

I thought again about what Renfrew had told me.

‘It was all there on the internet,’ he said. ‘Most of it was in Italian, but I just ran it through
an
online translation engine. What we call Hut Nineteen, they called
Capanna Diciannove
.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Hut Nineteen, doofus, but in Italian.’

‘Oh, OK. But how do you know that their Hut Nineteen is the same as our Hut Nineteen? I mean, surely Camp Fatso isn’t just using the same huts today as back in the war?’

Renfrew nodded. ‘After the war the camp became a British Army training camp. Then the army sold it and the huts were used for battery chickens. Then the Camp Fatso people bought it. I’ve checked the plans for the old camp against the satellite images of the present camp, and it’s a perfect match. These are exactly the same huts, on the same foundations.’