I contemplated making a dash for it and shouting out Alan’s name down the corridors. I must have had a look of rebellion about me because Nigel lurched forward and grabbed my arm before I could get out my first cry of “Alan Froggley, where are you?”
“Now I’ve got you,” he said, and he lifted me off the ground!
“You can’t do this!”
“Looks like I can.”
I pedaled my legs like mad, but he wouldn’t let go. He was determined he was going to carry me out.
I looked outside for some support from my friends, but they were waving sticks around like lightsabers and were too deeply involved in their battle to notice. Panic took hold of me. Cardiff Analytics was my only lead to Alan Froggley—they couldn’t throw me out. I had to do something.
“Out you go.” Nigel started to push me into the revolving doors.
“No,” I said, and I can’t say that I’m one hundred percent proud of what I did next, but I dropped to the floor, wrapped myself around his legs, and began to beg.
“I will not leave until somebody gives me the information. Somebody must know something! Please tell me.” Turns out I can yell quite loudly when motivated.
Nigel tried to shake me off, but I clung on tight. Grams always said I could be dogged when I put my mind to something.
“Get off!”
“Not until you reveal the truth about where he is. What is this company hiding?”
Nigel began hopping around the foyer, but I did not let go.
“I’m not leaving until someone tells me what happened to Alan Froggley. I beg of you.”
Big-Face-Sparkly-Nails suddenly hollered over, “You alright there, Nigel? Want me to call security?”
“I am security, Tiffany. And I think I can handle some mixed-up kid.”
I loosened my grip a little. What if I was just some mixed-up kid? Maybe I’d made a massive mistake, maybe I’d got it all wrong.
But then Nigel stopped hopping and said, “Did you say Alan Froggley?”
I looked up at him. “Yes, Alan Froggley, who enjoys walking and swimming—where is he?”
He stared down at me. “I knew Alan Froggley. He left here over two years ago. Personal reasons.”
“You knew him?” I was actually talking to someone who knew my biological dad.
“We weren’t like friends or anything, but yeah—I knew Al.”
“Al? He called himself Al.” I let go of Nigel’s leg and slid onto the floor. “Where did he go?”
Nigel crouched down next to me and I saw that he had friendly eyes. “What’s all this about, kid?”
I didn’t want to get into a deep and meaningful discussion, so I said, “I need to find him, that’s all.”
“Think he was headed back home.”
“Do you know where that is?”
Nigel stroked his top lip. “Sorry, son.”
But Nigel didn’t need to be sorry because I’d worked it out. I’d seen Al’s registered place of birth on my birth certificate—I knew where his home was. I jumped to my feet. “Thanks, Nigel.”
“Hey, kid, you alright?” he called after me.
“Yes, Nigel. I’m alright. I’m more than alright.”
And then I stopped.
“Did he look like me?”
Nigel’s face crumpled into a frown and then he said, “Yeah, kid, he did a bit.”
I felt my heart do this little flutter in my chest.
I marched outside, and Charlie and Ben lowered their weapons.
“That was quick.”
“He’s not here. We’re off.”
They exchanged worried glances.
But I was too inspired to worry about worried glances, so I said, “Don’t just stand there—follow me!”
“Why, where are we going?” Charlie asked.
“St. David’s. The birthplace of Alan Froggley.”
8
Our journey to St. David’s continues (with a detour at Barry for some onions)
As none of us knew where St. David’s was, I googled it. “Looks like St. David’s is on the most western part of Wales. It says here that it is the final resting place of the patron saint of Wales, St. David.”
Charlie pulled a packet of bacon chips out of his back pocket but paused before he opened them. “What are the chances of that—finally resting in a place that has your name? Makes me want to stay clear of anywhere called St. Charlie.”
Ben set him straight: “I think it was named after he finally rested there, doofus.”
Charlie put a bacon chip most of the way into his mouth, then pulled it out and said, “So he’s still resting there now, this Saint David?”
“I dunno, probably. Let’s find out,” I said and marched off in the direction of the train station.
“You seem pumped,” Charlie said, running after me.
“I am pumped.”
Then Ben said, “How are you planning to pay for the tickets, Fred?” and that completely depumped me. I was obviously not thinking I would pay, I was thinking he would. “I was hoping—”
He butted in before I could start begging. “Because I don’t have any cash left.”
And that put the kibosh on that plan.
“Where’s all the money gone?”
“Feeding you two,” Ben said. “I only brought eighty quid and most of that’s gone on the tickets here and lunch and snacks. A lot of snacks.”
This was not ideal information to hear. “How much have we got left? Let’s get as far as we can on that.”
“About eleven quid.”
That wasn’t a lot.
“What are we going to do?” Charlie asked a bacon chip.
I put my hands on my hips. “Buses are cheaper. We might be able to get there by bus.”
So that was the extent of our plan—we’d get a bus to St. David’s.
It didn’t take long for us to find a bus stop. We didn’t know what number we needed, but I figured we’d wait for the first bus to come along and see where it was going. I hoped for a miracle that it might be going straight there, but my miracle didn’t happen in Cardiff.
Just as Charlie had finished his chips a number 96A bus pulled up and opened its doors.
“We want to go to St. David’s.”
“You won’t be going to St. David’s on this bus.”
“Where’s this bus go?”
“I’m driving to Barry.”
“Well, where’s Barry going to then?”
“Barry isn’t going anywhere, boyo! Barry’s a place.”
Charlie leaned in. “Is it named after a Barry?”
“Maybe.”
“Is he still resting there too?”
“I’ve got a busy day, what with Barry’s festival. Are you getting on or not?”
“That depends,” I said. “Is Barry closer to St. David’s than here?”
“I suppose—”
“In that case, three tickets to Barry, please, driver.”
I fidgeted the whole journey. Grams would have told me I was like a ferret in a sock, but it was impossible to calm my brain down. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I should say to Alan when I met him. If I met him. I mean, there was still no guarantee I’d actually find him. But I’d already started imagining him as a kind of reserve dad, I guess. In case of emergencies. I probably wouldn’t sell it to him as a backup position though. No one wants to be on the bench. But then maybe he wouldn’t want to be on the field either.
In all honesty, my head was a jumble and I was still no clearer about things when we arrived at the last stop, Barry Docks.
It had turned out to be a nice day and as I watched the little boats bobbing about in the water, my muddled head began to clear and I actually started to feel a little more optimistic, despite our financial situation. It had cost us a fiver to get to Barry from Cardiff. It would have been more, but Ben had haggled the driver down by promising that we’d clear all the rubbish off the bus floor. He’s quite entrepreneurial like that. But even
with the discount I knew we were going to struggle to get much farther without a serious cash injection. Which was why it was lucky for us that Charlie found a flyer hidden under a crumpled copy of the Barry Gazette.
“I could do this,” Charlie said, waving the flyer in the air.
“Do what?” Ben asked.
“This—I reckon I could win it, easy.”
I took the piece of paper he was holding and read it out loud: “Barry’s Annual Onion-Eating Competition—the highlight of Barry Festival.”
“I might not be a runner or a soccer player, I can’t even swim that well, but this—this I could win.” There was something about Charlie’s big excited eyes that made me think he really could.
Ben snorted. “Onion eating? Who wants to eat an onion?”
“Someone who wants to win fifty pounds,” I said.
That got Ben’s interest.
“Give me that. Fifty quid to eat an onion?”
“And onions are a very good source of vitamin C. They are also close relatives of the leek, chive, and garlic,” I said, because I had just remembered those facts.
“Can a vegetable have relatives?” Charlie asked.
Ben grinned. “Well, you do.”
I pointed at the flyer. “Says here that to win you have to eat one onion faster than anyone else. You really reckon you could do it, Charlie?”
Charlie shrugged. “Easy money. I was born for this.”
The driver, who was having a cigarette outside in the sun (despite my impassioned warning regarding the 5,000 chemicals he was inhaling), must have been eavesdropping on our conversation because he said, “There’s nothing easy about eating raw onions.”
Ben said, “I don’t want to be disrespectful, Mr. Bus Driver, sir, but really—how hard can it be?”
Turns out very hard.
On the walk from the docks to the park we realized that the Barry Festival was a really big deal to the people of Barry. The place was swarming. Banners hung from streetlights; we passed three ice-cream trucks and a band of bearded old men playing country music on banjos. For some reason we still can’t work out, the trees and road signs had been covered with colorful knitting.
We followed the crowds to where the onion-eating competition was being held. Charlie remained admirably confident about his chances. This was despite spotting an enormous man who was wearing cowboy boots and a massive belt—the type that prize-winning boxers wear. But instead of boxing logos, this belt was decorated with three metal onions. We later found out that his name was Big Trev and he was the reigning champion.
A stage had been erected in the middle of the green. We had to pay fifty pence each and give our names to a lady wearing a T-shirt that said, What do you make with onions and beans? on the front. I considered this for a while but when she turned around the answer was on the back. It was Tear gas. We all thought that was very funny.
While we waited for the competition to start, we had a look around the booths. Ben and I turned down all the free samples of onion-based products to make sure we had an empty stomach for the competition.
“No sense in filling ourselves up,” Ben said.
Charlie was not of the same opinion. He went for it. He tried onion jams, chutneys, marmalades, jelly. Even onion-flavored ice cream. At the time I thought he might be killing his chances, but it turned out that Charlie had the right idea. All the sampling had a twofold positive effect.
1.His taste buds were acclimated.
2.His stomach was lined.
Ben and I were about to find out the hard way that professional onion eaters never compete on a completely empty stomach.
Once we’d been around the booths, we took a look at the entrants for the scarecrow competition, which was Sunday’s big event. I thought they’d be nothing, but they were actually quite good. There was a SpongeBob SquarePants scarecrow and one that was supposed to be a guy called Tom Jones, who is apparently some famous Welsh singer. Our favorite entry was three scarecrows dressed as superheroes. We took a selfie in front of Spiderman, Batman, and Supergirl.
After that we listened to an old man playing a keyboard. His name was Keyboard Keith and he was pretty funny. He kept replacing the words of famous songs with onion-themed lyrics. For example, Lady Gaga’s song “Poker Face” was changed to “Onion Face.” It was hilarious, and it didn’t take long before we joined in really loudly. The Welsh certainly know how to have a good time.
When he finished, a hush fell over the crowd as a group of anxious-looking people appeared on the stage to arrange some onions on long tables. I had never seen anything like it. They were humongous. The onions, not the people. Ben nudged me, Charlie gasped, and I wondered what we had got ourselves into.
“There’s no way I’m going to manage to eat a raw onion the size of a soccer ball. Fifty quid or no fifty quid,” I said.
Ben let out a long, low whistle and then said, “I’ve never seen onions like those.”
Charlie stretched his neck to one side, then the other, then cracked his knuckles. “Don’t worry, guys, I’ve got this covered.”
We all breathed a sigh of relief when Keyboard Keith explained that the judging of the largest onion competition was about to start. Following a very lengthy deliberation to decide the winner between Dyllis’s onion, which was the tallest, or Eric’s onion, which had a greater mass, a somewhat anticlimactic tie was announced.
Keyboard Keith then took to the microphone again and invited all those involved in the main event—the onion-eating competition—to come on up.
Charlie rolled his shoulders and jumped on the spot a couple of times. “Let’s go! I’m hungry and I’m hungry for onion.”
Ben and I followed behind with distinctly less enthusiasm.
There were three rows of tables. Big Trev got to sit right in the middle of the front row on a special seat that had been decorated with plastic gold onions to make it look like a throne. We were in the back row with the other debut onion eaters. A lady came along and put a paper plate in front of each contestant. Another woman followed her with a basket and put a peeled onion on each plate.
Ben, who was sitting on my left, started speaking to his onion. He kept saying, “You’re just an onion, I can eat you. For fifty quid, I can eat you.”
I don’t think the onion was any more convinced than I was. I picked up my onion and sniffed it—just to get a sense of what I was dealing with—but was quickly shouted at by the basket woman.
“No touching until he finishes the fanfare.”
I looked where she was pointing and saw that he was Keyboard Keith. He was holding up a trumpet with a little flag dangling from it. The flag was embroidered with an onion motif. Barry really had gone to town on this event.
After Keith had finished quite a long trumpet solo, children from the scout troop of Barry lined up, one behind each competitor. Each scout was armed with a stopwatch.
“Competitors, raise your onions to your mouths,” Keyboard Keith declared. “But do not begin eating until I give the command.”
“What’s the command?” Ben asked.
Keith scowled. “The command is to eat.”
Big Trev must have misunderstood, because he took a bite of his onion. The crowd gasped. Charlie and I looked at each other. Something bad had happened.
Keith blew angrily into his trumpet and then shouted, “Disqualified!”
Big Trev was instantly on his feet, shouting, “You said eat!”
“I didn’t.”
“You did actually,” Ben said, looking a bit like he was enjoying himself.
“I was explaining the procedure because you asked,” Keith said, waving his trumpet in Ben’s direction.
“It’s not my fault. I asked a legitimate question. He’s the one who bit his onion. Nobody made him.”
Big Trev rounded on Ben. Things were getting tense up there onstage. “I’m the reigning champion of Barry’s onion-eating competition.”
“Not anymore you’re not,” Ben said matt
er-of-factly.
I was convinced Big Trev was going to flatten him.
But he didn’t. Instead he turned around with a look of desperation on his face and threw himself at Keith’s mercy.
“Can’t I have another onion?”
“You know the rules.”
Big Trev slumped into his chair. “No. No. No. It can’t end like this. I was on course for a four-year streak—that’s never been done before.”
Keith patted Trev’s shoulder twice. “Come on now, pal, don’t make a spectacle of yourself. The rules can’t be broken. You took a bite before the command was given. Now, please leave the stage.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Big Trev looked like he might explode. There were a few heckles of “Give him a chance, Keith.” But Keith would not be swayed. Eventually, Big Trev removed his prize belt, kissed it, and placed it on the table. He then took a slow bow and left the stage, while making the slit-throat sign at Ben.
As everyone else felt the awkward silence wash over them, Ben whispered to Charlie, “It’s down to you now. That’s your main opponent dispatched.”
He then leaned over to me and said, “The fifty quid is as good as ours.”
To this day I don’t know whether Ben had planned to sabotage Big Trev’s record attempt. I never thought of him as that sort.
I looked over at Charlie, who was performing a few last-minute warm-up lunges, and realized something. All that stood in the way of continuing our journey to find Alan was Charlie’s ability to eat an onion faster than the residents of Barry. If I’m honest, it wasn’t the most reassuring of realizations.
9
This is where we all eat raw onions. Spoiler alert: they taste rank
I’m not a huge fan of vegetables, so chomping through an onion was always going to be a challenge. I ate raw onion once before by accident. It was hiding in a plate of fried shrimp. It was red and I didn’t know what it was. It ruined my trip to my favorite restaurant and I vowed never to eat raw onion again. But there I was, on a stage in Wales, facing a glistening white orb. I was prepared to try—for the bus fare to get me to St. David’s final resting place. And hopefully to Alan Froggley.
Keith gave the command. “Competitors, raise your onions.”
The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates Page 4