A painful memory

By Claris­sa

The fan on her desk shud­dered to its sec­ond unsched­uled halt of the morn­ing, and Miss Sven­son was assailed by the heat of the day. It had been a record May, with tem­per­a­tures reg­u­lar­ly reach­ing into the eight­ies: even her nor­mal­ly cool office was start­ing to stul­ti­fy. She took the fan in her hands and shook it gen­tly, but this time it remained unmoved. She stood up with a sigh, not­ing with dis­plea­sure that the leather strap that hung by her office door had some­how loosed from its moor­ings. She picked up the strap and start­ed tap­ping it uncon­scious­ly against the palm of her hand.

Sud­den­ly, she was back 30 years, back at Blue Mead­ows, a school for the daugh­ters of ex-pat colo­nials and diplo­mats, some 20 miles out­side Nairo­bi. There she was, stand­ing at the front of the class, as the geog­ra­phy teacher, Miss Hen­der­son, bran­dished a tawse before her. ‘Hold out your hand, Elsa,’ then whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. She curled back her fin­gers in sympathy.

Now she was in the office of the head­mistress, a grey-head­ed Scotswoman called Miss Firth. ‘Bend over, girl’; ‘Bend over; Bend over; Bend over.’ Three times she had been in Miss Firth’s office that term, and on the fourth, she was suspended.

‘So, what have you been binned for this time?’ asked her step­fa­ther cool­ly, tak­ing a swig from his large tum­bler of whisky.

‘For swear­ing – in Swahili.’

‘Well, we can’t have you talk­ing like a local can we?’ he con­tin­ued, slam­ming his glass down on the table.

Wham, wham, wham. She couldn’t remem­ber how many times he rained down the cane, nor the colour of the dress she was wear­ing, nor the weave of the fab­ric into which she clenched her fists, all she could remem­ber, she thought with a pang, was the sound of his cold, venge­ful anger.

Miran­da part three

by Claris­sa

Miss Sven­son regret­ted her words almost as soon as she had uttered them. Yes, Miran­da Spears was a par­tic­u­lar­ly obsti­nate pupil, and might well respond to the dou­ble humil­i­a­tion of being dis­ci­plined by a man, but it was a prac­tice of which Miss Sven­son did not gen­er­al­ly approve. But Spears’ inso­lence had got to her; so there it was, she couldn’t change it.

She sent the girl out of the room while she pre­pared to make the phone call. As she con­tem­plat­ed her options, an image of Don­ald Rudd, head­mas­ter of Till­wood, came to mind. Although now in his late-fifties, and in need of con­stant glass­es, he was well known for still being able to lay down a par­tic­u­lar­ly pow­er­ful can­ing, some­thing of which he was inor­di­nate­ly proud. She picked up the phone.

‘Hel­lo again Elsa,’ came Rudd’s voice, ‘have you had any luck with my lit­tle prob­lem?’ ‘Yes indeed,’ replied Miss Sven­son, ‘I have iden­ti­fied the offend­ing fifth for­mer.’ ‘That’s excel­lent news,’ came the reply, ‘may I ask what you pro­pose doing with her?’ Miss Sven­son cleared her throat then went on, ‘Actu­al­ly, Don­ald, I was won­der­ing whether a dose of med­i­cine from you might be more effec­tive in this instance, with the offend­ing boy a wit­ness to her trou­ble.’ Before she had time to catch her breath, Rudd came back with an enthu­si­as­tic ‘That’s a splen­did idea – six of the best with the senior?’ Miss Sven­son hes­i­tat­ed; no doubt this is what he had giv­en the cap­tain of the rug­by XI, indeed, twice that num­ber, but it was not what she want­ed for Spears. ‘No, Don­ald, I think six with the strap from your strong arm should work won­ders.’ ‘You’re too kind,’ replied Rudd immod­est­ly, ‘of course, I agree.’

Miss Sven­son put down the tele­phone and called in the girl. She had no doubt Miran­da Spears would resent her more than ever, but it was a nec­es­sary pun­ish­ment and, she knew in her heart, a just one.

Miran­da part two

by Claris­sa

‘Do you enjoy Shake­speare, Miran­da?’ asked Miss Sven­son of the tall school girl who stood before her. The girl didn’t reply, but flicked back a strand of fair hair, betray­ing a slight ner­vous­ness. ‘Well, do you?’ con­tin­ued the head, fix­ing the girl with her light blue eyes. ‘Yes, Miss,’ came the mut­ed response.

Miss Sven­son stood up and walked towards her study win­dows. The win­dows revealed a scene of some dev­as­ta­tion: branch­es felled by wind and rose bush­es beat­en down by rain; she would have to tell Mr Jef­freys, the head gar­den­er, to take an urgent look at this, Miss Sven­son thought to herself.

‘Is The Tem­pest a par­tic­u­lar favourite?’ Miss Sven­son asked at last. ‘Well, I was named after one of the lead char­ac­ters,’ flashed back the girl.

‘Don’t be so inso­lent,’ boomed Miss Sven­son turn­ing around, ‘you know exact­ly what I am talk­ing about!’ The girl flushed just slight­ly, and looked down at the floor.

‘I’ve had Dr Rudd on the phone, who has been telling me all about your the­atri­cal prowess,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son. No reply from the girl.

‘Yes,’ went on Miss Sven­son, ‘most impres­sive.’ Still noth­ing from the girl.

‘You are not going to deny it was you with that boy from Till­wood, or that you were unaware such unchap­er­oned encoun­ters were entire­ly against the rules?’ Still no response from the girl: this was typ­i­cal, thought Miss Svenson.

‘Look me in the eye,’ she com­mand­ed; the girl com­plied. ‘Are you going to deny it?’ A moment’s hes­i­ta­tion, then ‘No, Miss.’ Miss Sven­son breathed an inward sigh of relief: Miran­da Spears real­ly was the most obsti­nate pupil.

‘Are you going to cane me?’ asked the girl sud­den­ly, rais­ing her gaze from the floor.

‘Don’t be so inso­lent,’ thun­dered Miss Sven­son, ‘it is for me to tell you such things, not for you to ask!’ The girl looked down again.

‘But no, I am not going to cane you; or strap you; or slip­per you; or put you over my knee and spank you.’ Still no response, though Miss Sven­son detect­ed a def­i­nite red­den­ing of the girl’s complexion.

‘What I am going to do is ring up Dr Rudd and tell him about our lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion. And, on this occa­sion, as I find you so exceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, I am going to ask him to decide what to do with you.’

Now the girl looked def­i­nite­ly perplexed.

‘But..?’

‘No Miran­da,’ assert­ed Miss Sven­son, ‘that’s enough ques­tion­ing for now. I am sure you will Dr Rudd will have all the answers you need.’

Miran­da part one 

by Claris­sa

It real­ly was the most filthy day thought Miss Sven­son as she lift­ed her eyes from the gov­er­nors’ report and lis­tened to the rain lash­ing at the mul­lion win­dows and the wind scur­ry­ing around the rooftops: the most filthy day, and prac­ti­cal­ly dark out­side, even though it was only 11 o’clock in the morn­ing.  She turned back to the report, only to be inter­rupt­ed by the ring of the tele­phone. ‘Yes?’ she enquired some­what testi­ly. It was her sec­re­tary, Edith: ‘Sor­ry to trou­ble you Miss Sven­son, but I have Dr Rudd on the phone.’

Don­ald Rudd, head of Mill­ward, the boys’ school prac­ti­cal­ly adjoin­ing Cams­ford House.  If Camsford’s grounds yearned for the sea, Tillwood’s pulled in the oppo­site direc­tion, its out­er reach­es skirt­ing the coun­ty town of Shrewton.

‘Put him through,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son. ‘Hel­lo Elsa,’ came a loud voice, ‘it’s Don­ald.’ Miss Sven­son winced slight­ly at Rudd’s infor­mal­i­ty, but fol­lowed suit: ‘Hel­lo Don­ald, how may I help you?’ ‘Well,’ con­tin­ued the head­mas­ter, ‘I do have a slight prob­lem I am hop­ing you can assist me with. Yes­ter­day after­noon, before prep, one of my pre­fects caught one of my fifth form boys with one of your girls – just talk­ing you under­stand.’ ‘Car­ry on,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son. ‘I saw the lad first thing this morn­ing, hav­ing giv­en him a night to con­tem­plate the prospect of our meet­ing. This nor­mal­ly opens them up but this time, despite six of the best for being out-of-bounds, and anoth­er six for meet­ing up with this girl, the boy refused to dis­close her name.’ ‘I see,’ said Miss Sven­son. ‘I have giv­en him a week’s deten­tion for his trou­ble, but I don’t real­ly want to pun­ish him fur­ther; you see, he is cap­tain of the rug­by XI.’ Anoth­er slight wince from Miss Sven­son, then ‘Did your pre­fect have a descrip­tion of the girl?’ ’Most cer­tain­ly,’ con­tin­ued the head­mas­ter with gus­to, ‘excep­tion­al­ly tall with long fair hair.’ ‘Any­thing else?’ ‘As a mat­ter of fact there was some­thing else: when the pre­fect asked the girl what she was think­ing of, she replied “O won­der! How many good­ly crea­tures are there here. O brave new world. That has such peo­ple in’t!” which, if I’m not mis­tak­en, is a slight­ly trun­cat­ed line from Shakespeare’s’ ‘The Tem­pest,’ inter­rupt­ed Miss Sven­son abrupt­ly. ‘Yes, that’s right, The Tem­pest. Now you see my prob­lem: I do need to find out this girl’s name and, I imag­ine, so do you: any ideas?’ Miss Sven­son wrin­kled her nose slight­ly and lis­tened again to the lash of the rain. ‘I believe I do: I’ll get back to you, if that’s OK?’ ‘I would be most grate­ful,’ con­tin­ued Rudd, ‘you will let me know the out­come?’ ‘I will,’ assert­ed Miss Sven­son; ‘Good morn­ing, Don­ald.’ ‘Good morn­ing, Elsa.’

Miss Sven­son returned the receiv­er to its cra­dle, rest­ing her hand there a moment. She picked it up again: ‘Edith, could you ask a pre­fect to fetch me one of the Upper Fifth?’ ‘Of course, Miss Sven­son,’ came the slight­ly crack­ly reply, ‘who?’ ‘Miran­da,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son; ‘ask them to fetch me Miran­da Spears.’

Uni­form

By Claris­sa

From time to time, head­mistress Miss Sven­son had to deal with mis­be­hav­ing girls dur­ing the school day, but, most­ly, girls were sent to her after the end of lessons, lin­ing up, nose to the wall, out­side her office. This was by no means a dai­ly occur­rence, but it cer­tain­ly hap­pened often enough to keep her spank­ing arm in good fettle.

Today, she only had one girl wait­ing out­side her office: a fourth for­mer, and first-time offend­er. At pre­cise­ly 4 o’clock, the girl knocked on her door. ‘Come in,’ com­mand­ed Miss Sven­son, the door swing­ing back to reveal a slight girl with fair hair tied up in a pony tail. ‘Come here,’ said Miss Sven­son, point­ing to a spot direct­ly in front of the desk. The girl moved for­ward as Miss Sven­son glanced again at the note from Miss Simms detail­ing a num­ber of uni­form violations.

Miss Sven­son looked up at the fourth for­mer and stud­ied her a moment. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘I am glad to see that you have tak­en the trou­ble to look smart for me, Jemi­ma.’ The girl said noth­ing. ‘Still,’ Miss Sven­son con­tin­ued, ‘it doesn’t excuse the dis­grace­ful list of uni­form vio­la­tions I have before me, does it?’ ‘No, Miss,’ came the awk­ward reply. Miss Sven­son shook her head then stood up. ‘Go and fetch me that chair,’ she said, indi­cat­ing a straight-backed wood­en chair, ‘and put it in the mid­dle of the room.’ The girl didn’t move. ‘Go on,’ assert­ed Miss Sven­son, com­ing out now from behind her desk. Chair in place, Miss Sven­son sat down and smoothed her skirt. ‘Come here,’ she said to the girl, ‘and bend over my knee.’ The girl looked strick­en with pan­ic but did as instruct­ed. ‘I am going to spank you for five min­utes with my hand; do you under­stand, Jemi­ma?’ ‘Yes,’ came the reply, and with that Miss Sven­son flung down her hand onto the seat of the girl’s skirt. ‘Do we wear our ties knot­ted and tidy or loose and unruly?’ she demand­ed. ‘Knot­ted and tidy,’ came the reply. Anoth­er spank from Miss Sven­son; ‘Do we wear our shirts hang­ing out from our jumpers or neat­ly tucked in?’ ‘Tucked in,’ came the reply as Miss Sven­son start­ed to deliv­er a vol­ley of spanks, the girl slight­ly wrig­gling in response.

After about two min­utes, Miss Sven­son stopped the spank­ing and lift­ed back the girl’s skirt. Silence, then a thun­der­ous ‘What colour are school knick­ers, pink with pur­ple stripes?’ ‘No, Miss,’ came the mut­ed reply, the girl’s body vis­i­bly sink­ing into Miss Svenson’s lap. ‘Stand up,’ said Miss Sven­son; the girl com­plied. ‘Go and fetch me the slip­per from the cor­ner cup­board.’ The fourth for­mer was close to tears now, but did as instruct­ed. To her hor­ror, on open­ing the cup­board door, she dis­cov­ered two canes – and noth­ing like a slip­per. She turned to Miss Sven­son. ‘It’s the black gym shoe,’ Miss Sven­son assert­ed with some annoy­ance, ‘a reg­u­la­tion item which, you are about to find out to your cost, is a most par­tic­u­lar part of school uniform.’