very hungry. And so, of course, were my friends.
And that’s when I decided to break it up and share it out, tossing the chunks along to the others through the bars. So it did become a symbol donut. A symbol of our friendship and our solidarity against the cruelties of Camp Fatso.
I ate my fragment crumb by crumb, like Charlie eating the Wonka bar he gets for his birthday.
So, at last I have a donut count:
DONUT COUNT:
1 Actually, ‘monstrous’ is a little unfair. Inside Ludmilla’s massive form were some pretty huge bones. But inside those was a heart that was yearning to love and to be loved, and I was actually quite fond of her.
Monday 9 April
THIS MORNING, BEFORE breakfast, we had a secret Hut Four talk. The subject, of course, was betrayal. As Doc Morlock had told me, someone had snitched our plan.
‘It had to be Gogol,’ said Igor.
I agreed.
‘Are we sure it was anyone?’ said J-Man. ‘Couldn’t it just have been that the goons eyeballed you? Or maybe those two chicks got seen, and we all got caught as collateral damage?’
‘Just a quick tip, J-Man,’ I said. ‘In case you ever meet them, don’t call Tamara or Ludmilla a “chick” to their faces or you’ll be like the guy who asked for crushed nuts with his ice cream and ended up in hospital. But the truth is, if someone looks like a traitor, acts like a traitor and happens to be the only one of us who didn’t get thrown in the cooler, then logic says that he must be the traitor. The only question is what we do about it.’
‘Hello, old chap, delighted to make your acquaintance,’ said Dong.
‘I hear you, China D,’ said J-Man, shaking his head sadly, ‘but that’s a tough thing to do, even to a snitch.’
‘What?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.
‘The Oriental Deester was saying that we should use the traditional snitch’s punishment on Gogol. Ain’t that right, Dong?’
The Chinese kid smiled politely. ‘Hello, old chap, delighted to make your acquaintance.’
J-Man nodded, as if resigned to the inevitable.
‘What is the traditional punishment?’ I asked.
He told me.
‘Let’s take a vote,’ he said, looking deadly serious, as well he might.
He went round the room, asking each of us in turn.
‘Donut?’
‘I say yes.’
‘Dong?’
‘Hello, old chap, delighted to make your acquaintance.’
‘OK, that’s another yes.’
‘Igor?’
Igor silently shook his head.
‘Fair enough, big guy. You got a kind heart.’
‘Flo?’
Florian had his hands cupped around a ladybird he had found.
‘Didn’t like it in the nasty cooler, did we, Lady? Ernesto should be sorry for what he did, but he hasn’t said sorry, has he? And if you don’t say sorry then you’ve got to be punished.’
In the afternoon Mr Fricker looked strangely pleased to see me.
‘Good to have you back with us,’ he said, although he couldn’t stop his hands from making the by now traditional strangling motions.
Luckily we’d moved on from Peruvian shoe-throwing.
‘Today’s World Sport,’ Fricker announced, ‘is Eskimo seal-wrestling. Right, I need a volunteer to be the seal . . .You, Dermot? Good man.’
I don’t really want to say much about what followed, except that I was stripped down to my boxer shorts, covered in grease and . . .Well, you can fill in the rest for yourselves.
In the evening I ate my gruel and even considered eating the piece of meat. But the image of the things hanging in the cooler haunted me, and I just couldn’t make myself do it, even though my poor body was crying out for sustenance. There was another reason I couldn’t eat much: I knew what was coming. And that was enough to kill even a raging appetite.
At midnight the hut began to stir. J-Man shook me awake – I’d fallen asleep and was in the middle of a dream about – well, you can guess.
We gathered around Gogol’s bunk. J-Man shone the beam of his torch in the creepy kid’s face. He woke with a startled cry.
‘Hey!
And that’s when I decided to break it up and share it out, tossing the chunks along to the others through the bars. So it did become a symbol donut. A symbol of our friendship and our solidarity against the cruelties of Camp Fatso.
I ate my fragment crumb by crumb, like Charlie eating the Wonka bar he gets for his birthday.
So, at last I have a donut count:
DONUT COUNT:
1 Actually, ‘monstrous’ is a little unfair. Inside Ludmilla’s massive form were some pretty huge bones. But inside those was a heart that was yearning to love and to be loved, and I was actually quite fond of her.
Monday 9 April
THIS MORNING, BEFORE breakfast, we had a secret Hut Four talk. The subject, of course, was betrayal. As Doc Morlock had told me, someone had snitched our plan.
‘It had to be Gogol,’ said Igor.
I agreed.
‘Are we sure it was anyone?’ said J-Man. ‘Couldn’t it just have been that the goons eyeballed you? Or maybe those two chicks got seen, and we all got caught as collateral damage?’
‘Just a quick tip, J-Man,’ I said. ‘In case you ever meet them, don’t call Tamara or Ludmilla a “chick” to their faces or you’ll be like the guy who asked for crushed nuts with his ice cream and ended up in hospital. But the truth is, if someone looks like a traitor, acts like a traitor and happens to be the only one of us who didn’t get thrown in the cooler, then logic says that he must be the traitor. The only question is what we do about it.’
‘Hello, old chap, delighted to make your acquaintance,’ said Dong.
‘I hear you, China D,’ said J-Man, shaking his head sadly, ‘but that’s a tough thing to do, even to a snitch.’
‘What?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.
‘The Oriental Deester was saying that we should use the traditional snitch’s punishment on Gogol. Ain’t that right, Dong?’
The Chinese kid smiled politely. ‘Hello, old chap, delighted to make your acquaintance.’
J-Man nodded, as if resigned to the inevitable.
‘What is the traditional punishment?’ I asked.
He told me.
‘Let’s take a vote,’ he said, looking deadly serious, as well he might.
He went round the room, asking each of us in turn.
‘Donut?’
‘I say yes.’
‘Dong?’
‘Hello, old chap, delighted to make your acquaintance.’
‘OK, that’s another yes.’
‘Igor?’
Igor silently shook his head.
‘Fair enough, big guy. You got a kind heart.’
‘Flo?’
Florian had his hands cupped around a ladybird he had found.
‘Didn’t like it in the nasty cooler, did we, Lady? Ernesto should be sorry for what he did, but he hasn’t said sorry, has he? And if you don’t say sorry then you’ve got to be punished.’
In the afternoon Mr Fricker looked strangely pleased to see me.
‘Good to have you back with us,’ he said, although he couldn’t stop his hands from making the by now traditional strangling motions.
Luckily we’d moved on from Peruvian shoe-throwing.
‘Today’s World Sport,’ Fricker announced, ‘is Eskimo seal-wrestling. Right, I need a volunteer to be the seal . . .You, Dermot? Good man.’
I don’t really want to say much about what followed, except that I was stripped down to my boxer shorts, covered in grease and . . .Well, you can fill in the rest for yourselves.
In the evening I ate my gruel and even considered eating the piece of meat. But the image of the things hanging in the cooler haunted me, and I just couldn’t make myself do it, even though my poor body was crying out for sustenance. There was another reason I couldn’t eat much: I knew what was coming. And that was enough to kill even a raging appetite.
At midnight the hut began to stir. J-Man shook me awake – I’d fallen asleep and was in the middle of a dream about – well, you can guess.
We gathered around Gogol’s bunk. J-Man shone the beam of his torch in the creepy kid’s face. He woke with a startled cry.
‘Hey!
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