Sarah knew what to expect so I decided to deal with her first so that Delia here would know what was soon coming her way. “Shut up telling him!” Delia suddenly muttered. Sarah gasped. “Right, that’s it,” Mrs Hibbard said, taking the pan of boiling water off the stove and putting it safely away. “I will not be spoken to that way, Delia. Stand up and come over here.” “No!” Delia said defiantly. “You can’t make me!” “I’d have thought you’d have learnt better than that yesterday, Delia. I smacked your bottom last night and I shall smack your bottoms again this morning.” This was more like it! But what was with this brat? Surely she must know she couldn’t win against Sarah’s mother. But she was keeping her bottom firmly planted on the seat of her chair and tightly gripping the underside of it. Sarah was looking on with eager interest—for once she was in the clear. I wondered how Mrs Hibbard was going to resolve this stand off. “I think you have been taking advantage of your mother’s pregnancy, Delia, and have been getting away with things too much, especially with your father being away. Sarah’s daddy is abroad a lot too, but that doesn’t stop me from disciplining her when she needs it.” All the while she was speaking, Mrs Hibbard walked around the kitchen table, sometimes in front of Delia and sometimes behind. Delia was looking increasingly nervous. I guessed that she had got herself into this position and now didn’t know how to get herself out of it and the stress was beginning to tell. “But I understand that your father is more strict with you than your mummy, so no doubt there’ll be some catching up to do when he gets home. I believe the Navy is arranging a seat on a plane so he’ll be able to see your new brother or sister.” Delia was becoming quite mesmerised by this little speech and the thought of a vengeful father arriving home. I could see that her hands did not grip so tightly as she tried to follow the pacing woman with her eyes. “Of course, I don’t want to have to add to his troubles—” Was Sarah’s mother threatening merely to tell Delia’s father rather than dealing with her herself? I had expected better from her. “—but …” Her circuit had taken her behind Delia so that as she said this she was reappearing to the girl’s right eye. Delia had gripped the chair more firmly when Mrs Hibbard was out of sight, but as she came back into view the child relaxed slightly. Seizing her chance, Sarah’s mother darted quickly close and pulled her hands from the seat. Having released the girl’s grip, she hauled her upright. After that it was the work only of moments to divest the girl of her pyjama trousers. Next, Mrs Hibbard sat her self down where Delia’s had been and the yelling Delia was stretched out on her tummy over Mrs Hibbard’ lap, her bottom perfectly positioned for a sound spanking. And a sound spanking is just what Delia got. When you consider that Delia’s bottom must still have been tender from her midnight spanking, Mrs Hibbard really slapped down hard. Experience was making me into something of a connoisseur of chastisement. I noticed that this time Mrs Hibbard adopted a policy of spanking repeatedly on the same portion of her target so that a hand sized part of Delia’s bottom rapidly turned a burning fiery red. This obviously hurt a good deal and she began yelling straight away , but Delia’s noisy dissent did nothing to persuade Sarah’s mother to stay her hand. If anything, it had the opposite effect as Mrs Hibbard angrily ordered Delia to stop making such a noise and emphasized the instruction with even harder smacks to Delia’s bottom cheeks. Naturally, this only made her bawl even louder. Delia struggled desperately under the onslaught of Mrs Hibbard’ hand. She tried the trick of putting her own small right hand over her bottom in an attempt to protect it. This was quite futile as Mrs Hibbard simply gripped her wrist in her own left hand and removed it leaving the target clear again. Mrs Hibbard paused and called to Sarah. I must admit I had been so taken up with the sight of Delia getting her bottom spanked that I had quite overlooked the fact that there was another witness. For the first time that I had been a spectator Sarah herself was not in the line of fire! I noticed that far from being sympathetic to her friend or resentful on her behalf, her face showed only eager glee at her pal’s predicament—much as did my own, I suppose, when she herself was in a similarly perilous situation. “Sarah!” Mrs Hibbard said sharply, “go and fetch me the spatula.” Sarah promptly left her seat and went over to a pot in which there was a range of kitchen utensils. “The big one or the small one?” she asked helpfully. Clearly there was no fellow feeling there enough to persuade her to try to protect her chum. Sarah’s mother considered while poor sobbing Delia remained poised across her lap awaiting her fate. “The small one, I think,” came the reply, “unless this insolent girl annoys me any more with her silly screeching, in which case I shall give her something that will really make her wail!” So Sarah brought back the small spatula with a look of plain disappointment. All the same, from Delia’s reaction when Mrs Hibbard applied it to her bottom and thighs, it was no mean instrument of punishment as Delia was soon kicking and crying convincingly. This time Mrs Hibbard made no complaint at Delia’s noisy reaction to her punishment, but simply continued with it regardless. After some time of spanking, Mrs Hibbard let Delia go. After this, Delia was made to stand in the corner, after which she was allowed to replace them and she and Sarah ate their boiled eggs. Later on in the day, long after the girls had dressed and Delia had recovered from her , a phone called came from the hospital to say that Delia’s mother had given birth to a baby girl—as it happened, at just about the time Delia was receiving her spanking. About a week later there was another post script when Sarah told me that Delia’s father had indeed been given leave to return to this country to see his new daughter. Unluckily for the daughter he already knew so well, Delia, he heard about her bullying exploits at school and decided to take punitive action. “He was furious!” Sarah said, “He told Delia there is nothing lower or more loathsome than a bully. Then he made her bend over the arm of the settee. After that he really whacked her bottom with a slipper. Delia said it was a lot, lot worse than when Mum spanked her over here. And I saw the marks quite a long time after he’d done it and they were still very red. Delia said her bum was sore for ages after and she couldn’t sit down comfortably.”