Authors: Anthony McGowan
The Donut Diaries (17 page)
And then Ludmilla Pfumpf took him in her strong arms, picked him up, and delivered a quite possibly fatal kiss to his mean lips.
It was the greatest moment of my life.
Oh, come on … I’ve wupped the Brown Phantom’s ass. What am I supposed to do to celebrate – eat a carrot?
1
As far as I am aware, no ancient tribe ever used the mammoth as an instrument of war, but if they had, no one would have been able to stand up to them. Unless they had war elephants. I’d actually quite like to see a battle between war mammoths and war elephants. I suppose the outcome would depend on whether the battle was fought in Africa, where the elephants would be at an advantage, or in the frozen north, where you’d have to back the mammoths. One day they’ll clone a mammoth from a frozen one in Siberia, and then we’ll be able to find out.
IT WAS LUNCH
time. I was in the headmaster’s office. It was quite crowded in there.
There was Mr Whale, his baldy head and grim features making him look slightly more like an Angry Porpoise than an Evil Baby today.
There was Mr Wells, not quite knowing in which direction to beam his friendliness.
There was Mr Fricker, wearing his normal hands, although they were set in a position that
made
him look like he was strangling an invisible hamster.
There was Miss Choat, more ostrich-like than ever. If only a male ostrich would join the teaching staff, then perhaps her life of loneliness would be over.
There was Doc Morlock, mouth like a cat’s bum, and, for all I knew, bum like a cat’s mouth.
And, of course, as it was his office, there was Mr Steele, his hairy ears and his look of total bafflement filling up all the remaining space. When we’d first been shown into his office by Miss Bush, the Head bellowed, ‘Abandon ship!’ tried to escape out of the window and had to be dragged back by Mr Fricker.
I’d told my story to Mr Wells after morning
registration
, and he’d arranged the meeting. He gave a quick outline of my story. Somehow, coming from an adult, it sounded even more ludicrous. That’s the trouble with the truth – sometimes lies are so much more believable. Mr Whale was the first to respond:
MR WHALE: And you’re seriously telling us that the person who’s been leaving these … these … these … deposits—
DOC MORLOCK: Stools! Can we please call a stool a stool.
MR STEELE: Stools.
Mmmmmmmm
.
MR WHALE: Fine, stools. That these stools really belong to an ape at Chimpsters Zoo?
ME: That’s it, yep, sir.
MR WHALE: And that someone at Chimpsters
was
supplying these, ah, stools to a boy in this school?
ME: Yes, sir.
MR WHALE: And that you can prove that this boy wasn’t you?
ME: I’ve given you the signed affidavit from the supplier stating clearly that it wasn’t me.
MR WHALE: And yet this person cannot identify the true culprit?
ME: Like it says in the document, sir – the kid was wearing a hoodie. But he was skinny, and I’m definitely not skinny, so it can’t have been me.
MR WELLS: Dermot has a point there, Mr Whale – no one would describe him as skinny.
MR WHALE: And you, Dr Morlock, can you confirm that it is possible that
these
stools
came from a chimpanzee?
DOC MORLOCK: It is perfectly possible. Probable, even. A chimpanzee or a human who likes eating banana skins …
MR STEELE: Bananas.
MR WHALE: I don’t know, I just don’t know.
ME: Sir, it’s really quite simple. Let me go over it again. Someone was out to get me, so they deliberately smeared poo around the place whenever they knew I wouldn’t be able to prove exactly where I was. They’d heard about me eating that banana skin, so they realized that if they could get chimp poo, it would look like it was mine, although I just ate that banana skin because it had some embarrassing writing on it. The Brown Phantom got the poo from a guy who sells ice cream at Chimpsters—
MR STEELE: Ice creammmmmmm.
MISS CHOAT: And what’s to stop the Phantom from continuing his reign of terror?’
ME: He only did it to get me expelled. Now he knows that I’m in the clear, he won’t bother any more. The days of poo in the corridors of power have gone.
MR WELLS: Well, that all seems clear enough. Dermot, get off to lunch.
MR WHALE: Not so fast. If the time you ate the banana skin in Mr Wells’s class was the first and only time you’ve eaten a banana skin, then how come Dr Morlock identified the, ah, stool sample as belonging to you?
DOC MORLOCK: That is a point I would also very much like to have answered, Dermot.
ME: OK. Confession time. Those poo samples
I
gave you last term, Doc, they weren’t from me. They were from Samson.
MR STEELE: Samson?
ME: Yes, Samson – the big male in the chimp enclosure. I, er, got hold of some of his poo and pretended it was mine, Dr Morlock. Sorry about that, but I really didn’t want to go to Camp Fatso …
DOC MORLOCK: I see. Well, you know, of course, what this means?
ME: I know, yes. You’ll tell my parents and I’ll be spending my next holiday in Camp Fatso.
MR STEELE: Fatso, fatso.
MR WHALE: Mr Fricker, what do you think of all this?
MR FRICKER: He did pass my lie-detector test …
MR WELLS: And he really hasn’t got a bad record at school.
MR WHALE: I think it has to be up to you, Headmaster … Headmaster …?
But when we all looked over to the Head’s desk we realized that he was no longer there. We rushed over to the open window, and saw that Mr Steele was already halfway down the fire escape. At the bottom, he kicked off his shoes and began to run across the car park. As he ran, he tore off his jacket. His shirt was next, and then his trousers. He disappeared from sight, still wearing his vest and underpants.
‘You’d best go and collect him again, Mr Fricker,’ said Mr Whale. ‘I suppose he’ll be in the dog-food aisle at the supermarket, as usual.’
Then
he looked at me. ‘Not a word, Milligan. Not a word.’
‘No, sir,’ I said, and I knew then that I was not going to be expelled.
Later on, in the schoolyard, I talked it over with the guys.
‘But Camp Fatso …’ said Spam, still unable to believe what I’d done. ‘It’s a living hell.’
‘And you could have got that slithy tove out of our hair for ever,’ added Renfrew.
We all looked over at the FHK. He was on a bench. Next to him, with an expression of bliss
on
her face, was Ludmilla Pfumpf. As we watched, she bent her head towards his, and we saw Steerforth’s eyes open wide with terror as she delivered another of her kisses. You could hear it go off like a hand grenade.
‘But look how much happiness I’ve managed to bring into the world,’ I said sweetly, and all the guys laughed, except for Corky, who let out one of his spectacular celebratory farts. ‘And the thing is, I had a bit of a revelation back there by the canal. I’m twelve years old and I couldn’t get over that stupid little wall without Spam giving me a leg up. That’s totally rubbish. I’m too fat. No, no, don’t contradict me. I am.’ (Actually, nobody contradicted me.) ‘Camp Fatso may be hell on earth, but it’s only for two weeks, and at the end of it I’ll be able to do all sorts of things that I can’t do now. I’m going to come out a lean, mean fightin’ machine. You wait and see.’
At that moment Tamara Bello appeared before us. Looking as cute and as haughty as ever. I was expecting some sort of snooty put-down, but she handed me something.
‘I heard what you did for Ludmilla. I thought it was … cool.’
I probably should have said something back, but I was too slow. She spun like a ballerina and walked away on her tiny pointed feet.
1
I looked down. There was a banana in my hand. Something was written on it in a rather elegant script.
It said:
1
Feet are, of course, the best things for walking away on.
Dermot Milligan is eleven, obese and about to start at Big School. He’s a big fan of
The Lord of the Rings
, and he hates his evil sisters, Ruby and Ella (Rubella). His all-time favourite donut is the classic ring, but he’s also very keen on jam.
Anthony McGowan was born in Manchester in 1965. Educated at a Leeds comprehensive, he won’t say that his characters’ schooldays are exactly based on his own but he certainly writes from experience. Before turning to writing full-time, Anthony gained a PhD in Philosophy, worked as a nightclub bouncer, an Open University tutor, a journalist and a civil servant. He won the 2006 Booktrust Teenage Prize and Catalyst Award for his teenage novel
Henry Tumour
. He is married to Rebecca Campbell, a fashion designer and novelist. They have two young children and live in north London.
Also by Anthony McGowan:
The Donut Diaries
Einstein’s Underpants
And How They Saved the World
(Shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2010)
The Bare Bum Gang and the Holy Grail
The Bare Bum Gang and the Valley of Doom
The Bare Bum Gang and the Football Face-off
The Bare Bum Gang Battle the Dogsnatchers
For older readers:
Hellbent
Henry Tumour
(Winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2006)
The Knife That Killed Me
Ludo, Noah, Jamie, The Moan, and Jennifer are THE MIGHTY
BARE BUM GANG!
Well, OK, not
that
mighty, but they are about to face their toughest challenge yet.
An old tramp begs the gang to save his mysterious treasure from an abandoned block of flats. Standing in their way are ruthless security guards, a terrifying tunnel of doom and a vicious dog that is almost certainly Zoltan, Hound of Dracula
.
Could the tramp really be King Arthur reborn? Could his treasure be the fabled Holy Grail? Probably not, but anything is possible …
9781862303898
