By now I felt really dreadful. There was another long pause. The office door opened. I thought I was going to be sick. Lindsey stumbled out, tears were pouring down her face, half hidden by a tissue. Behind her Mrs Seaton beckoned to me: “Marling!”
Trembling with fear, I walked into the office. I saw a cane, about three feet long, lying on the teacher’s desk.
Mrs Seaton gave me a real telling off, saying how important it was to behave in class and not to disrupt the lessons for everyone else. I tried to pay attention, so that she would see how sorry I was, but all I could think of was the effect that awful cane had had on poor Lindsey and that I was about to get the same.
“You were sent out of the classroom three times last week, Marling. I am going to give you one stroke of the cane for each time and one extra one, for putting me to this trouble. How many strokes is that?”