Mark Lowery - The Jam Doughnut That Ruined My Life

Contents

For S, J, S and O

Hello. My names Roman Garstang and my life was completely ruined by a single jam doughnut.

Jam doughnuts only have two parts: jam. And doughnut. Oh, and a sprinkle of sugar on the top. They should be pretty easy to eat

1. Bite into doughnut with front teeth. (If you have no front teeth, use your gums.)
2. Chew doughnut using back teeth. (If you have no back teeth, see Step 1.)
3. When doughnut becomes sloppy, swallow.
4. Repeat steps 1) to 3) until you have no more doughnut. (Note: Professional doughnut-eaters like me always attempt to reach stage 4) without licking their lips. If you manage to do this, you may return to step 1) and enjoy a fresh doughnut.)
5. Feel magnificent!

See? Simple.

Or at least it shouldve been, especially for me. Im not brilliant at much but Im an expert jam doughnut eater. I eat them every single day morning snack, afternoon snack, after-school snack, after-snack snack you get the picture. I mustve eaten thousands of them. And until last week, the worst problems theyd ever given me were sticky fingers or a jammy chin.

Its no wonder I thought they were harmless.

But theyre not harmless: theyre deadly, like guns. Or sharks. Or sharks with guns.

Or trousers.

Yes, thats correct, trousers.

Every year in the UK, six thousand people are injured putting on their trousers. Can you believe that? Six thousand! Only a hundred people in the whole world are injured each year by sharks.

This means that trousers are way more dangerous than sharks. You wouldnt see a horror film about tracksuit bottoms terrorising a seaside town, though. And you wouldnt get lifeguards on beaches shouting: Everyone out of the water! Quick! Theres a pair of man-eating jeans swimming round out there!

Sometimes its the everyday things that you think are the safest that cause the most damage.

Theres a reason why I know that trousers are more dangerous than sharks, and its all because I was so worried the other night that I couldnt get to sleep.

My class, Year Six, have just finished our end of year tests. To celebrate this, our teacher Mrs McDonald organised a trip to an aquarium. Most people were excited but, as we got closer to it, I became more and more worried.

Normally my life is simple. I like it that way. I like how usually you can pick out any random day and youll know what to expect. Up at seven-thirty. Go to school. Try to look busy. Stop for a doughnut. Go home. Have tea. Eat another doughnut. Watch TV or play computer games. Go upstairs. Choose underpants for the next day. Go to bed. Repeat.

Maybe this is why I love jam doughnuts so much. There are no nasty surprises you know when you bite into one that sooner or later youre going to hit that delicious pool of sweet, sticky raspberry jam.

Unless of course youve picked up a lemon-flavoured one by mistake, that is. Lemon doughnuts are filled with this horrible yellow gloop called curd (personally I think a better name for it would be crud). They look perfectly nice from the outside almost exactly the same as jam doughnuts, in fact but inside they are pure, liquid evil.

Biting into a lemon doughnut by mistake is like waking up on Christmas morning, finding a BMX-shaped parcel at the end of your bed, tearing open the wrapping paper then finding out that, actually, youve been given a model of a BMX made entirely out of an old mans stinky toenail-cheese.

Disgusting.

Although I reckon the cheese from under an old mans toenails would taste slightly nicer than a lemon-flavoured doughnut.

Surprises can be bad news. So its always better to know whats coming next. I didnt know what was going to happen on the aquarium trip and thats why I was worried about it. And two things were worrying me most of all:

1. Pairs. On school trips you have to pair up with a friend. Im always stuck with this kid called Kevin Harrison who gets travel-sick. When we went to Skipton Castle, he barfed into my woolly hat (and I didnt realise until after Id put it on, so I spent the rest of the trip combing chunks of half-digested Frosties out of my hair). Ever since then, Kevins had the nickname The Vomcano.
2. The Shark Tunnel. In one of the rooms at the aquarium, you walk through a massive shark tank. Its a tunnel made of glass, so the sharks swim right above your head. Darren Gamble reckons that sometimes they flood the tunnel and youve got to swim through instead. According to him, the aquarium loses about nine kids a year but no one complains cos sharks is endangered, innit.

I didnt really believe him (Gamble also claims that his grandmas got the longest neck in Europe and that he once found a live baby kangaroo inside an onion) but everyone had been going on about this flipping glass tunnel for weeks and I couldnt get it out of my head.

The night before the trip I had a nightmare about sitting next to a puking shark on the bus. I couldnt get back to sleep so I sneaked online, which is how I learned that sharks are actually much safer than trousers (there were no websites that said if they puke or not).

Afterwards I went back to bed feeling much more relaxed, but when I fell asleep I had another scary dream. In this one, Kevin Harrisons radioactive puke caused his trousers to come to life. I woke up just as they were trying to strangle me.

Because of this:

I finally got back to sleep at about four a.m., which meant

I overslept till eight-thirty, which meant

I didnt have time for breakfast. Then, at the last minute

I changed my trousers for a (much safer) pair of shorts and swapped my planned undies (grey briefs) for a pair of swimming trunks. You know, just in case they did flood the tunnel. As a result

I was tired, hungry and very late when I got to school. All of these things made me uncomfortable: (especially the trunks, which were a little bit too tight around my you know sensitive areas).

By the time I flopped into my chair with my coat and lunchbox, Mrs McDonald had already started The Talk. The Talk happens before every school trip. It goes like this: Blah blah best behaviour yakkety yak representing the school nyaaa nyaaa no eating on the bus etc..

Nobody seemed to be listening apart from Jane Dixon, who is really clever and nice, and would never ignore a teacher. Most people were too excited about the trip to concentrate. Plus we were all in our own clothes (which makes you feel like youre not at school). PLUS Mrs McDonald was wearing