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.”

Ben bashed his onion into mine and said, “Cheers.”

I swallowed hard. My mouth knew what was coming because it began to fill with saliva.

Keith bowed at all us competitors, turned to face the audience, and bellowed, “Eat.”

Nobody moved in case they’d misheard.

Keith said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Eat!” And then did another little toot on his trumpet.

We were off!

I took a breath, closed my eyes, and sank my teeth into the onion. For a split second it was okay. In fact, the first crunch was quite satisfying. But as I began to chew, my nose got very hot and my tongue began to tingle. And then my tongue began to throb. My lips pulsated. I began to sweat. My vision became blurred because my eyes streamed. Then my nose started to run. Saliva pooled out of the side of my mouth. My whole body was leaking.

It is a well-known fact that the average human child’s body is sixty-five percent water. I r eckon halfway through my first mouthful of onion, I was down to under thirty-five percent.

Another well-known fact is that raw onion is disgusting.

I wasn’t the only one in onion hell—Ben was struggling too. Like me, he was a snotting, dribbling, crying mess. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was bright red. He gave me a look of such desperation that I wanted to tell him it was okay, he’d tried and he could stop if he wanted to.

Charlie was faring much better. He was plowing through his onion like it was a chocolate orange. He had this look of utter determination in his eyes. He really wanted that win. And I wanted it too. More for him than the money.

I glanced around at the other competitors. Ben and I, at only two bites in, were well out of the running. It was now between Charlie, a tangerine-orange crinkly-faced woman with toilet paper stuffed up each nostril, and a skinny man in a shiny green jacket.

They all had very different techniques. Charlie was going for the chomp and chew. The orange-skinned lady was nibbling it very quickly and spinning it around in her hands like corn on the cob. The skinny man put the whole thing in his mouth at once and was working his way through it. He looked like a snake swallowing an egg.

Anyway, it was all very close. Charlie and the orange lady—who I now know is called Clementine!—raised their hands and opened their mouths almost at the same time to show they had finished. If I’m honest, I think she might have clinched it. Snakey-thin man finished a fraction after them both.

Keith blew on his trumpet and Ben and I dropped our half-eaten onions down on our plates and groaned. My belly was already complaining about the evilness I was making it digest. The lady in the tear-gas T-shirt hurried onto the stage and whispered in Keith’s ear. When I say whisper, it was a loud sort of angry whisper so that everyone on the stage could just about hear what she was saying. I think she said, “We can’t have another draw—not after the largest onion competition. We need a winner.” She glared at Keith and jabbed her finger at her clipboard, then she looked over at Charlie and Clementine and raised her eyebrows very meaningfully.

Keith must have got the message because he nodded somewhat solemnly, then announced to the crowd: “It was a closely fought battle here today at Barry’s 114th Onion-Eating Competition. A ‘well done’ to all the competitors . . . but there can only be one winner.”

Charlie wiped his mouth on his T-shirt and gave the orange lady a sideways look. He must have been thinking the same as me—she’d got in there before him. The fifty quid didn’t look like it would be coming to us. This was completely disappointing.

“There has been another disqualification.” Keith tugged at his collar and waited for the gasps and grumbles from the crowd to die down. “According to rule sixteen, section 1.2a, contestants may not use any of the following: goggles or masks to cover the eyes, pegs or clips on the nose, or any material inserted into one or both nostrils.”

Clementine tried discreetly to remove the toilet paper stuffed up her nose, but she was onstage in front of the whole of Barry. It wasn’t going to go unnoticed.

“This means I am pleased to announce that”—Keith checked the piece of paper that he’d been handed—“Charlie Anderson is the 114th winner of Barry’s Onion-Eating Competition.”

This was totally the opposite of disappointing! I’m not big on rules, but rule sixteen, section 1.2a, is a particularly good one. In fact, in that moment, it was my favorite rule of all time.

Charlie looked like he couldn’t believe it at first.

Ben had to say, “Charlie, dude, you did it—you won.”

Charlie’s whole face stretched into this huge smile. He punched the air, pulled his T-shirt over his head and started running around the stage like he’d just scored the winning goal in the World Cup final. To be fair to him, the people of Barry were cheering like it was the World Cup final.

Afterward he said to me, “I never thought I’d find out what winning felt like.”