“A word before you leave, Susan,” Abigail Miller said as the class packed up for morning break.

Susan Wilson nodded and hoped she was not in more trouble; her caning a little over half an hour earlier was quite enough for one day. She rubbed her still-throbbing bottom as the last of her class mates filed out. When the door had closed behind them, the maths teacher beckoned Susan to the front.

She obeyed and stood silently.

Miss Miller sighed. “Susan, you were extremely late to my lesson.”

“I told you, I…”

“Had to see Mrs Braithwaite. I think I’m owed a little more information.”

Susan fiddled with her long dark ponytail but said nothing.

“I couldn’t help noticing that you were squirming in your seat in a manner not normally associated with Sixth Form girls, but more commonly seen in Lower School girls who have been to the Headmistress.”

Susan felt her face heating up. “I’ve had the cane, miss.”

“So I surmised. What have you been up to?”

“Nothing! I was late so I was in a bit of a hurry. I bumped into Mrs Braithwaite and knocked her over. In front of some Lower School girls. Also, I dropped my bag and it spilled everything on the floor, including my cigarettes, which she saw so she sent me to her office. Then she made me wait the whole of period one before she caned me. I knew I was going to get it too.”

Miss Miller gently squeezed her arm. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, thank you miss. Apart from a sore bum.”

“Well, in the circumstances I won’t sanction you for lateness, but you’ll have to catch up with the work you missed.”

“Yes Miss. Thank you Miss.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

“No Miss.”

“Off you go, then.”

Susan left, and found her friend Helen waiting outside, looking concerned.

“I couldn’t help overhearing.”

“You mean you had your ear jammed to the keyhole!”

The red-headed girl waved away the distinction as trivial. “Did the old cow really cane you?”

Susan started walking down the corridor. “Oh yes. And I have the lines on my bum to prove it!”

“Wow! I didn’t think Sixth Formers got the cane.”

“Neither did I! I thought I was going to get through my whole school career without being caned.”

As Susan had expected, word got around the school that she was ‘the caned prefect’ but fortunately her friends were sympathetic and, as she was still a prefect, the Lower School girls couldn’t give her lip about it, unless they wanted an invitation to discuss the humour of the situation with Mrs Braithwaite. All in all, the embarrassment factor was much less than she expected and as the marks on her bottom faded it appeared the incident was being quietly forgotten.

There was, however, one consequence she had overlooked.

Susan returned home that Friday afternoon to find her mother in a fearful rage. She waved a letter in Susan’s face.

“What’s this all about? When were you planning on telling me?”

With a sinking feeling, Susan took the letter and read:

Dear Mr & Mrs Wilson,

I regret to have to inform you that today it was necessary for me to cane Susan. Her conduct fell far below that required of any girl at this school, let alone a prefect. Not only was she running in the corridor, putting others at risk of injury, she brought cigarettes onto the premises, a clear and blatant breach of the rules.

I trust this experience of corporal punishment will prove to be a salutary lesson for her, and with your help she will revert to her normal standard of behaviour and will once more be a credit to the school, you and herself.

Yours sincerely

Thelma Braithwaite BA, Headmistress

Susan dropped the letter on the table.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“There’s not much to be said. I was caught with cigarettes and caned for it.”

“You showed very poor standards of behaviour which reflects badly on me and your father!”

“Not everything is about you, mum.”

“This is. It says so, there in black and white.”

“For god’s sake, mum, Mrs Braithwaite is criticising me, not you.”

“She’s criticising me by implication.”

Susan sighed. Her mother had probably been reading that letter over and over again ever since it arrived, getting more and more overwrought. She wished her father was home. He was far better than her at defusing these situations.

“Tell you what, mum. I’m going to go upstairs until dad gets home, then we’ll all talk this through.”

“No! I’m going to go upstairs to fetch my slipper, then I’m going to come back down and put you over my knee!”

“Mum! I haven’t been slippered since I was twelve.”

“If you’re not too old to be caned, you’re not too old to be slippered.” She stomped off upstairs.

“Great logic, mum,” Susan muttered.

Her mother returned with the slipper, grabbed Susan’s arm and pulled her over her lap. Susan’s pony-tail fell past her cheek as she was pushed nose to the floor. Her skirt was flipped over her back and her knickers pulled down to mid-thigh.

Whap! The first stinging blow landed across the middle of her bottom.

“Ow!”

Whap! Susan squirmed at the second blow. Perhaps it was the undignified position she was in, but she found this far more humiliating than the over-the-desk caning she had received from Mrs Braithwaite. She really hoped her brothers would keep out of the house until this was over.

Whap! Whap! Unlike her caning, the blows from the slipper were already overlapping, creating an even heat in her bottom.

Whap! Whap!

Susan tried to get up, but her mother tightened her grip round her waist.

“We’re not finished yet!”

She slowly struck Susan’s suffering bottom six more times, then her mother released her.

Susan stood without a word and adjusted her clothes. Then, with as much dignity as she could muster, she went to her bedroom, closed the door and flung herself face down on her bed. This was worse than the caning.

Sometime later, she heard her father return, followed immediately by her mother’s raised voice. Susan, still lying on her stomach, continued working on her maths homework. After a while the conversation downstairs ceased and she heard her father’s heavy tread on the stairs and landing, followed by a knock on her door.

“Come in.”

He did so and sat on the wooden chair by her desk. “Your mum told me what happened.”

“And?”

He sighed. “You know she’s not well.”

Susan turned her head to look at him.

“I do. And she knows it, too, but she ignored my suggestion that we waited until you got home before discussing things. Maybe I deserved the cane, but I didn’t deserve being walloped with a slipper as well. I feel like I’ve been punished twice for the same offence.”

“I know, Susan. But please try to understand. And forgive.”

“I’ll try, Dad, but it’s not easy.” She sighed. “I’ll be hopefully away at university in a few months so I’ll be out of it. But she’ll probably start taking things out on Tom and Paul when I’m not around.”

“I’ll talk to her. And the doctor. Again.”

“Thanks dad.”

He left and Susan went back to her maths homework while trying to ignore her hot, throbbing bottom.

The End

© John Switch 2021