ëI am watch­ing you, Philip­pa von bloody Haasen,í thought Miss Sven­son, as the girl turned and left her study, dis­play­ing a pert bot­tom sheathed in jeans that were frac­tion­al­ly too tight. ëIím watch­ing you.í

*

One of the peren­ni­al chal­lenges fac­ing the head of a busy Lon­don com­pre­hen­sive was choos­ing your moment. Some pupils bad­ly need­ed tak­ing a peg or two. You knew that as soon as they walked through the school. There was some­thing cocky, self-sat­is­fied about them, and Miss Philip­pa von Haasen, the high-born of a wealthy Dutch banker who worked in the City, was a text­book case. What they were cry­ing out was some old-fash­ioned school dis­ci­pline, the thwack of a cane on their rumps and the hot tears after­wards. The trou­ble is that you could­nít sim­ple pun­ish them for no bet­ter rea­son that than you did­nít like their man­ner. You had to have an excuse.

But it was near­ly Christ­mas before Philip­pa von Haasen pro­vid­ed Miss Sven­son with the cast-iron excuse she was secret­ly crav­ing. The girl still wore that infu­ri­at­ing­ly haughty air, as if she was bet­ter than every­one else, but although sev­er­al of her class-mates felt the sting of Miss Sven­sonís cane, she kept out of seri­ous trou­ble. Aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, she was out­stand­ing and looked a cer­tain­ty to get top marks at A‑level. But that faint hint of arro­gance… Miss Sven­son hearti­ly detest­ed it and so did the oth­er staff.

It was pure chance ñ a flur­ry of snow in the sec­ond week of Decem­ber, an impromp­tu snow­ball fight in the play­ground, and a stray snow­ball land­ing on the head of Mr Plinth, the his­to­ry teacher ñ that blot­ted her pre­vi­ous­ly unblem­ished copybook.

Miss Sven­son had been watch­ing the snow­ball fight from her win­dow with a kind­ly air ñ snow remind­ed her of her child­hood in Nor­way ñ and pri­vate­ly thought that Mr Plinth was a pompous toss­er who deserved a snow­ball in the neck. But when she peered through the win­ter fog and saw that it was Philip­pa von Haasen who was respon­si­ble, her eyes lit up a like a traf­fic war­den see­ing a Rolls-Royce on a double-yellow.

ëPhilippa!í she boomed. ëCome and see me in my study at once.í Then she went to her cup­board, quiv­er­ing with pent-up excite­ment, and fished out her senior cane.

*

Giv­en the fact that hit­ting some­one on the head might have caused seri­ous injury ñ ëYou could have put his eye out, you sil­ly girl,í Miss Sven­son explained to a blush­ing, con­trite Phi­ip­pa ñ it clear­ly count­ed as a Cat­e­go­ry One offence, demand­ing the ulti­mate sanc­tion ñ six of the best on the bare bottom.

ëTake off your jeans, fold them neat­ly and place them on that chair,í Miss Sven­son ordered, in her cold­est, cru­ellest voice. Then she stopped in aston­ish­ment. She could hard­ly believe her luck! Miss Philip­pa von Haasen, who was about to get a very sore bot­tom indeed, was wear­ing a bloody thong! As Miss Sven­son had warned girls only a week ago that any­one caught wear­ing one of these vile, tar­ty gar­ments ñ which Miss Sven­son loathed and would­nít even have worn to tit­il­late her toy­boy lover Fabio ñ could expect condign pun­ish­ment, it was the work of a moment to dou­ble the sen­tence she had just announced.

ëTw-w-welve?í stam­mered the Dutch girl, who sud­den­ly was­nít look­ing quite so cocksure.

ëCorrect,í said Miss Sven­son, mak­ing a valiant effort not to gloat. ëYour arith­metic is a lot bet­ter than your dress sense, Philip­pa. You may remove that revolt­ing thing and throw it in the bin. Thereís a good girl. Now if you could be so good as to bend over that chair, with your bot­tom raised. Just a lit­tle high­er, please, Philip­pa. Thank you.í Even at her most stern, Miss Sven­son was always scrupu­lous­ly polite.

Before the first stroke land­ed, with a resound­ing thwack which caused the next-door geog­ra­phy class to look up from their books, Miss Sven­son had time to admire the 17-year-oldís smooth, lily-white cheeks It seemed almost a shame to mark them, let alone dec­o­rate them with a dozen angry red stripes, some over­lap­ping with oth­ers to raise impres­sive welts, but it had to be done. Stuck-up young miss­es like Miss Philip­pa von Haasen need­ed the odd sore bot­tom to keep them hon­est, Miss Sev­en­son remind­ed her­self as she whipped back her cane and brought it down, singing through the air.

After eight strokes, the girl was sob­bing con­vul­sive­ly, and there was a part of Miss Sven­son which was tempt­ed to show mer­cy and admin­is­ter the final four strokes more gen­tly. But the mar­tinet in her pre­vailed ñ as it usu­al­ly did. She did­nít make the final four stokes gen­tler, she made them hard­er. It was an extreme­ly chas­tened young Dutch girl who limped out of her study five min­utes lat­er, still clutch­ing her bot­tom as if the fires of hell had engulfed it.