“Hey, Bark

you gonna get the stick?”

I glared resentfully at the fair-haired older boy approaching to torment me.

“What makes you ask that?” I whispered,

glancing around to make sure others wouldn’t overhear.

James grinned saucily and spoke loudly.

“Heard you got your third demerit in a week —

the third one’s the charm, boy.

Always an automatic trip to the HM,

bent across his desk, six-of-the-best.”

I struggled vainly for dignity but I could feel my cheeks steaming.

My prepared defensive response vanished from my mind at the terrifying image

James painted. “Six?” I mumbled,

trembling despite my resolve to act brave before my mates.

“He wouldn’t do six, would he?

It’s my first time!”

By this time Andrew and Tom were approaching,

wonder and amusement on their faces.

“You got a third?” asked Andrew,

a touch of respect in his voice.

“Ouch!”

“Buck up, Barkley,” grinned Tom, punching me on the shoulder.

“It goes quick. Bam! Bam! Bam! and it’s over.”

I nodded glumly, staring at the floor.

My stomach twirled with sick fear.

How could this be happening?

How could I have been so stupid?

It was all that girl’s fault

a blonde named Gretchen.

When she smiled prettily at me and slipped me a note to pass to her friend Rene, I couldn’t refuse.

Of course, I was the one caught.

I didn’t dare tell Mrs Davenport the truth

I simply nodded when she wrote me down for a demerit.

Fortunately, the teacher didn’t recognize the handwriting.

So now I was in the lockers,

changing into the required gym kit,

readying for my trip to the head.

My gray shorts were thin and very tight

the thought of a long cane smashing across them was dreadful.

“Better get going,” said James, laughing as he pointed to the clock.

“It’s nearly four o’clock.

If you’re late the Head gives ’em pants and knickers down.”

 

Icy terror lanced through my body as I stared at the older boy in disbelief.

He couldn’t be serious,

could he?

The head would cane me bare bummed?

But Tom and Andrew weren’t denying his assertion,

which meant either they were party to his joke or he was telling the truth.

Slipping on my white gym shirt I hurried from the lockers,

the laughter of the boys echoing after me.

My dawdling had cost me

I had exactly three minutes to reach the head’s office.

I made it, though I was panting and flushed when I got there.

The pretty secretary, Melinda, took the note I offered her.

“I am here to-to… to see the Head.” I hung my head low, embarrassed.

Melinda licked her ruby lips as she studied the note from Mrs Davenport.

It showed that she’d given me my third demerit in a week,

which was an automatic trip to the Headmaster’s office.

Her brown eyes went large.

“Oh!” she said. “I see you’ve been a naughty boy, Barkley.

Better go right in.

The Head’s not here but you can wait in his office.”

She gave the note back to me with a sympathetic smile.

I gulped and nodded,

my hand trembling shamefully as I grabbed the piece of paper.

My face burning,

I turned away quickly and started down the long corridor to the Head’s office.

His door was at the far end,

nearly twenty feet away.

“Headmaster Grimm” the sign on the door read.

I’d only been inside once before,

not long after arriving at school,

and that time I’d gotten a stern lecture and six strokes with the slipper across the seat of my shorts.

Even now my bum tingled at the memory.

Suddenly I felt woefully underdressed.

The door creaked open slowly, revealing a dark room filled with Dreadful Things.

I could feel the invisible presence of generations of naughty schoolboys and schoolgirls crying,

and I could hear the appalling “swish-crack!” of a slender cane whacking a tender bottom.

I flicked on the light, fully expecting to see dozens of teary-eyed pupils staring at me woefully and rubbing their sore bums,

but the room was deserted.

The room was exactly as I remembered it.

A large bookcase stretched across the wall in front of me.

To my left was a small couch where guests or waiting students would sit,

large stuffed chairs on either side.

To my right was the Head’s huge mahogany desk,

clean and tidy,

and gleaming with shine.

Next to the desk were wooden filing cabinets and storage systems.

But the Featured Item was on prominent display behind the desk.

Attached to the wall was a large wooden gun case with a glass door.

Through the glass, I could see three crock-handled canes.

They were light brown, slender, and slightly warped from years of use.

My mouth went dry as I stared at them.

Though I didn’t want to see them,

I couldn’t have looked away for a million dollars.

The shortest one was at the bottom.

It was perhaps two-and-a-half feet long and very thin.

That, I knew, was the junior cane.

It was most often used on first offenders, and usually on the hands.

The other two were the same length

over a yard

but the top one was much thicker and knobbed in places.

It was frightful, and I prayed that I’d never taste the senior cane.

Surely for me, it would just be the junior one,

hopefully, no more than two or three strokes.

Time passed with agonizing slowness.

The room was as still as a tomb.

I was nearly afraid to breathe because any sound unnerved me.