I did not like to call round for Sarah after what had happened. I felt guilty and embarrassed, though with typical self-centredness, on my behalf, not hers. But some days after the incident it was Sarah who arrived at our back door. I suppose being bored with her own company, she had decided to put her punishment appropriately behind her and sought out my company. She did not mention her spanking and as I maintained a polite silence, a veil was drawn over the embarrassing incident and we resumed our old companiable relationship as if nothing had occurred. In fact, so resilient was Sarah’s personality that she soon recovered all her old brash bossiness as though I had never seen her having her bottom spanked. However, whenever she became too overbearing, Unfortunately, although I returned to visiting the Hibbard house quite often, I disappointingly neither saw signs nor heard talk of spanking, although I was always wondering what went on behind the closed doors of the Hibbard house. A few weeks later, it was the end of term, which for me was a day earlier than Sarah as I went to the Boys’ High School in a neighbouring town, while she attended a private girls’ school that occupied a large country house in a nearby village. It so happened that on this particular day, both my parents were going to be out, and rather than leave me to my own devices they arranged for me to spend the day with Mrs Hibbard. I still found this lady very daunting despite—or perhaps, because of—the incident with Sarah. She had certainly continued to be pleasant to me since then. I should explain here that Mr Hibbard was an engineer and spent a lot of time abroad. So I spent a happy day with Mrs Hibbard who was very kind and attentive, making sure I was well fed and happily occupied. Sometime after four o’clock, Sarah returned from school. She bounced in, threw down her satchel and began to run upstairs to change out of her school clothes. “Wait!” commanded Sarah’s mother. “Report!” Rather reluctantly, I thought, Sarah returned and handed over a long brown envelope. “Wait while I read it,” instructed her mother.. Sarah shifted uneasily from one foot to the other as her mother fetched a knife and slit open the envelope. Sarah was dressed in her school uniform of green blazer with yellow badge, green gingham check dress, white knee-high socks and brown buckled sandals. For school, her thick, honey coloured hair had been more neatly arranged in two, green-ribboned plaits. Mr Hibbard’ mouth set in a firm line of annoyance as she read. I felt the flutter of excitement in my stomach. Sarah’s fingers twitched the sides of her skirt. “Mathematics—‘Careless and untidy’; English—‘Offers only the minimum of effort’; History—‘Must try harder’; Geography—‘Could do better’; Art—‘Disruptive influence’, Scripture… But I need hardly go on. This is a disgraceful report.” “It’s not my fault,” Sarah said petulantly. “The teachers have all got it in for me.” “Are you suggesting your teachers are lying about you?” demanded her mother. Sarah hesitated. She was caught on the horns of a dilemma. Whichever way she answered was likely to land her in more trouble. “Sort of,” she temporised sullenly. “Well perhaps I should phone Miss Bowflower and check on her Headmistress’s report—‘Sarah’s lack of progress this term is due not to her lack of ability, but to her lack of effort in class and her lack of respect for the rules of this school.’ Do you think Miss Bowflower’s comment is inaccurate?” Once again, poor Sarah was in a bind and she actually wriggled as she again tried get off the hook. “Well, she doesn’t like me.” “I am not surprised. I am amazed she is willing to keep you in her school.” “I don’t care if she throws me out,” Sarah said defiantly. “You insolent, little brat!” snapped Mrs Hibbard and grabbed her daughter’s arm. Sarah resisted but was caught off balance and with the ease of eleven years of practice, Sarah’s mother ended up sitting on a kitchen chair with her daughter sprawled face down across her lap. I knew from my previous experience what to expect next and I was not disappointed. Sarah kicked and struggled and yelled, “Stop it! Ouch! Don’t! Ouch! It’s not fair! Ouch!!” Sarah’s mother took no notice of any of this, but kept a tight grip with one hand and hit hard with the other. But after a disappointingly short—for me—time Mrs Hibbard said, “Get up,” and with one last resounding slap released her hold. “Take out your books, put them on the table and sit down,” ordered Mrs Hibbard. Sarah sat sulkily and presumably uncomfortably, her exercise books piled in front of her, representing her term’s work. Her mother sat at the left adjacent side of the table and invited me to sit on the other side. Mrs Hibbard picked up one of the books, which was labelled ‘English’, and opened it at random. Half a sheet of scribble further blemished with blots and liberally underlined in red ink from the teacher’s pen marked Sarah’s literary effort at English. ‘Very poor work 2/10’ was written in red at the end. “So was Miss Orpinton overstating your failures at English?” enquired Sarah’s mother. Sarah shrugged. “Stand up and bend over the table.” Sarah pulled down her mouth and stuck out her lower lip and hesitated long enough for me to wonder whether she was going to defy her mother. Then she flounced to her feet, shoved back her chair and leant forward so that her body rested on the table and her bottom was bent over the edge. “It’s not fair,” griped Sarah, indignantly, “you’ve already spanked me for my report.” “Oh no I haven’t,” stated Sarah’s mother. “That’ll come later. You were the one who said your teachers were being unjust. This is an investigation. I shall spank you for each subject where the teacher’s comments were justified.” “Oooh,” groaned Sarah, “that’s not fair.” “It’s your own fault, Sarah, so stop moaning.” Sarah’s mother spanked her hard eight times. I could see Sarah’s knuckles turn white as she gripped the far edge of the table. She kept her face between her arms and I heard muffled squeals as her mother slapped her buttocks. “Right, sit down again,” directed Sarah’s mother after a time. . “The next book was labelled ‘Mathematics’. Sarah’s work on this subject was represented by a messy page of sums against most of which were red Xs. At the bottom, the mark of 1/10 was recorded. “It’s not my fault. I don’t understand decimals,” Sarah said resentfully “Stand up and bend over.” Sarah stood and bent. This time she gave Sarah nine hard smacks. Sarah yelled more unrestrainedly and when she stood, she sniffed and wiped a tear from her eye. She returned to her seat very gently. So it went on. I noticed Sarah seemed to get as many spanks as she was the difference between the mark awarded and ten. So for history she got 4/10 on the exercise selected at random by her mother and was given six spanks, whereas she received ten slaps for a 0/10 for Scripture. Where the mark was over 5, she received no spanks at all, but she managed this only once. By the time Mrs Hibbard had gone through the pile of exercise books, had been crying loudly for some time. “Right,” said Sarah’s mother, taking her weeping daughter by the ear, “You can have half-an-hour in the corner before I deal with you properly for your school report.” This brought a redoubled outburst of tears from Sarah. , Mrs Hibbard and I drank tea and ate cake. As we did so, Sarah’s crying gradually diminished to sobs, sniffles and silence. After half-an-hour—closely clock-watched by me—Sarah’s mother said: Very well, Sarah, your time is up. Go upstairs and bring down the hairbrush.” “Oh no, Mummy! Not the hairbrush, please. I’m already awfully sore.” “And you’ll be an awful lot sorer if you don’t hurry. At the moment you are going to get ten swats, but I’m quite willing to make it twelve—or even fifteen…” “Oooh!” wailed Sarah and dashed from the room. I noted that this time Sarah was more concerned with her punishment than her imposed indecency. A minute or so later, Sarah came downstairs and back into the kitchen. She was now carrying a hairbrush. “Go into the sitting room,” instructed Sarah’s mother, “ and put the hairbrush on the coffee table, then bend over the arm of the settee and wait until I’m ready.” Sarah quickly turned and left. Sarah’s mother seemed to be in no hurry to deal with her daughter as she continued to finish doing a few jobs around the kitchen. After about fifteen minutes she said, I suppose it is about time to see to Sarah,” and walked towards the door. I was in a tricky fix. As you will have realised by now, I was not the most confident of boys. Despite all that had gone before, I did not think I could take it for granted that I could walk through to the sitting room to view Sarah being spanked. Always before I had already been present before the spanking started. Mrs Hibbard might consider it presumptuous for me to put myself forward without permission. So, I hesitated in an agony of indecision and frustration. I just didn’t have the pluck to follow her without some encouraging sign. “Well, Archie, don’t stand there like a ninny,” Mrs Hibbard said at the door, “come through and see the fun.” I needed no further encouragement and without even pretending indifference, I leapt after her. The first thing I saw when we entered the sitting room was Sarah’s bottom bent over the padded arm of the settee. I glanced towards the coffee table alongside. On it was a wooden hairbrush with a smooth oval back. I edged past this and took up an advantageous seat in the armchair to the right side and slightly behind Sarah’s settee. From here. She did turn, but not to look at me but at the coffee table where her mother would reach for the hairbrush. But for the moment, Mrs Hibbard left that implement where it was and instead looked disapprovingly at her daughter’s . “You should have put a cushion on the arm first, Sarah. Do it now.” “Oh Mummy!” griped Sarah, but she stood and picked up a cushion, which she placed on the arm of the settee before leaning back over it. “Hm,” Sarah’s mother said, clearly still critical of her ’s position. “You need another one yet. Here, “ she said, throwing one over, “put this under your tummy as well.” Sarah groaned, but put the cushion on top of the other and balanced herself over them. This time her upper body weight tipped her forward and, although she was tall for her age, her feet left the floor.” “That’s better,” commended Sarah’s mother. I now suddenly realised that Sarah was glaring angrily at me. I flushed guiltily and turned away, and then decided that was pretty stupid in view of our relative positions. Mrs Hibbard picked up the hairbrush. “Right, Sarah, twelve I said, didn’t I?” “No, Mummy,” came Sarah’s outraged voice, “you said ten.” “Hm, I’ve a good mind to give you the extra for all that messing about with the cushions, but I’ll let you off with ten hard ones.” Mrs Hibbard moved round and raised the hairbrush above it. I risked a quick glance back at Sarah’s face, but she had turned the other way. I looked back just in time to see the back of the brush sweep down and land with a resounding CRACK on Sarah’s left cheek. As with the slipper, Sarah’s mother left an interval of around half-a-minute between swats so the ten must have taken about five minutes. It seemed a lot longer for me and must have felt interminable to Sarah as her upturned bottom was ruthlessly whacked: left, right and centre; up and down, until it was an intermingled, overlaying mass of crimson oval blotches and Sarah was howling without restraint. After the ten hits, Sarah’s mother told her she could go upstairs and spend the next hour in her bedroom and the crying girl ran gratefully fled from the room. Mrs Hibbard tidied away the cushions and about half-an hour later, my parents collected me with grateful thanks to Sarah’s mother.