Read Online The Donut Diaries by Dermot Milligan - Free Book Online
Authors: Dermot Milligan
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would discourage Garry Martin from bothering him, and I tended to agree – it would discourage me from doing pretty well anything, including breathing.
Then Jim asked, ‘What are your new mates like, then?’
‘Oh, they’re OK. Quite cool, really,’ I replied, throwing another stone in the canal so I didn’t have to look him in the eye. Everyone knows it’s OK to fib to your mates as long as you don’t look them in the eye when you do it. Otherwise, if they find out, they tell everyone that you lied to them and did it while you stared right into their eyes. Yep, definitely way worse than ordinary lying.
And just then who should I spy coming along the canal towpath but Renfrew. Not looking cool at all . He was walking his slightly jerky walk and you could see his lips moving as he talked to himself, which was one of his weird little habits. I didn’t think he’d seen me.
I know what I should have done. I should have waited till he reached me and Jim and introduced them and let Renfrew hang out with us for a while, chucking stones into the canal and talking about our favourite flavours of milkshakes.
But instead I got up and said, ‘Let’s go to the shopping centre,’ and then I just walked away and up the stone stairs that take you from the canal to the road.
I felt really bad about what I’d done, although I wasn’t sure exactly why. It wasn’t like I’d bullied Renfrew or thrown him in the canal or made fun of him, was it?
Hang on.
I suppose that if there’s any point at all to a diary like this it’s to have a poke around in your own head to try to understand what’s going on in there. I did know why I’d avoided Renfrew. It was because I was ashamed of him. There. It’s out. He was about the least cool-looking kid in the universe, and I was worried that Jim would think that I was uncool too.
Writing that made me feel a bit sick. Truly, the human soul can be a dark and dismal place.
Sunday lunch was OK – salmon baked in tinfoil parcels, with potato wedges and broccoli. I found that if you just eat the fluffy bit at the end of each sprig it doesn’t really taste too much of actual broccoli, although you still get that faint feeling you’ve walked into a room five minutes after someone has farted.
I had a sneaky couple of donuts up in my room. I thought they might make me feel better about running away from Renfrew. But it worked the other way round – thinking about Renfrew ruined the donuts. It felt like trying to swallow lumps of cement.
DONUT COUNT:
Monday 25 September
AS I’VE GOT to think of something I can put in my donut diary that I could actually let Doc Morlock see, I thought I’d try to describe some of the teachers. I haven’t really mentioned them much, except for Psycho Fricker, Woodpecker Brotherton, Hairy Braintree and nice Mr Wells.
For maths we have Mr Kennilworth, who looks like a poodle surprised in the act of licking its own bottom. He’s OK. He knows a lot about maths, but doesn’t know anything about how to control the class, so people just talk all the way through his lessons.
Mr Khan teaches chemistry. He’s pretty funny and tries to tell at least one joke per lesson. When I say ‘pretty funny’ I mean by teacher standards. By normal human standards, he isn’t that funny.
Here’s a typical Khan joke:
‘Why do all the other subatomic particles hate the electrons?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because they are so negative! ’ 1
Yeah, well, I warned you.
Mr Beal teaches RE. His main job seems to be to show you how unhappy believing in God can make you.
The Head of the Year is called Mr Whale – he was the short bald man with the megaphone on the first day. You get sent to him if you do something really bad. He then breathes his eggy breath all over your face as a punishment. Or so I’ve been told – I haven’t been sent to him yet.
The headteacher is called Mr Steele. He only ever appears for Friday assembly. He mumbles a few words, then
Then Jim asked, ‘What are your new mates like, then?’
‘Oh, they’re OK. Quite cool, really,’ I replied, throwing another stone in the canal so I didn’t have to look him in the eye. Everyone knows it’s OK to fib to your mates as long as you don’t look them in the eye when you do it. Otherwise, if they find out, they tell everyone that you lied to them and did it while you stared right into their eyes. Yep, definitely way worse than ordinary lying.
And just then who should I spy coming along the canal towpath but Renfrew. Not looking cool at all . He was walking his slightly jerky walk and you could see his lips moving as he talked to himself, which was one of his weird little habits. I didn’t think he’d seen me.
I know what I should have done. I should have waited till he reached me and Jim and introduced them and let Renfrew hang out with us for a while, chucking stones into the canal and talking about our favourite flavours of milkshakes.
But instead I got up and said, ‘Let’s go to the shopping centre,’ and then I just walked away and up the stone stairs that take you from the canal to the road.
I felt really bad about what I’d done, although I wasn’t sure exactly why. It wasn’t like I’d bullied Renfrew or thrown him in the canal or made fun of him, was it?
Hang on.
I suppose that if there’s any point at all to a diary like this it’s to have a poke around in your own head to try to understand what’s going on in there. I did know why I’d avoided Renfrew. It was because I was ashamed of him. There. It’s out. He was about the least cool-looking kid in the universe, and I was worried that Jim would think that I was uncool too.
Writing that made me feel a bit sick. Truly, the human soul can be a dark and dismal place.
Sunday lunch was OK – salmon baked in tinfoil parcels, with potato wedges and broccoli. I found that if you just eat the fluffy bit at the end of each sprig it doesn’t really taste too much of actual broccoli, although you still get that faint feeling you’ve walked into a room five minutes after someone has farted.
I had a sneaky couple of donuts up in my room. I thought they might make me feel better about running away from Renfrew. But it worked the other way round – thinking about Renfrew ruined the donuts. It felt like trying to swallow lumps of cement.
DONUT COUNT:
Monday 25 September
AS I’VE GOT to think of something I can put in my donut diary that I could actually let Doc Morlock see, I thought I’d try to describe some of the teachers. I haven’t really mentioned them much, except for Psycho Fricker, Woodpecker Brotherton, Hairy Braintree and nice Mr Wells.
For maths we have Mr Kennilworth, who looks like a poodle surprised in the act of licking its own bottom. He’s OK. He knows a lot about maths, but doesn’t know anything about how to control the class, so people just talk all the way through his lessons.
Mr Khan teaches chemistry. He’s pretty funny and tries to tell at least one joke per lesson. When I say ‘pretty funny’ I mean by teacher standards. By normal human standards, he isn’t that funny.
Here’s a typical Khan joke:
‘Why do all the other subatomic particles hate the electrons?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because they are so negative! ’ 1
Yeah, well, I warned you.
Mr Beal teaches RE. His main job seems to be to show you how unhappy believing in God can make you.
The Head of the Year is called Mr Whale – he was the short bald man with the megaphone on the first day. You get sent to him if you do something really bad. He then breathes his eggy breath all over your face as a punishment. Or so I’ve been told – I haven’t been sent to him yet.
The headteacher is called Mr Steele. He only ever appears for Friday assembly. He mumbles a few words, then
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