(NB: I asked my American spank-buddy for help with some of the English, but the story is my own, part based on a true incident I read about in an English newspaper a few years back.)
ëYouíre Dutch?í
A look of surprise passed across Miss Svensonís normally expressionless face.
ëYes, Miss Svenson.í The red-haired girl smiled demurely. ëFrom Amsterdam. Do you have a problem with that?í
Miss Svenson scowled. Twenty-five years of dealing with lippy teenagers had made her alert to the slightest trace of sarcasm. Did she have a problem with that? Honestly! As if she, Miss Elsa Svenson, pillar of moral rectitude, was some kind of closet racist who would look down her nose at Dutch people. The face of the girl sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk, her legs chastely crossed, still wore the politest of smiles. But there was devilry underneath. Miss Svenson would bet her mortgage on it.
ëíOf course not, of course not,í she said hastily, keen not to over-react ñ there would be plenty of time to lay down the law later, if needed. ëDutch girls are as welcome at my school as French girls and German girls and, er, other girls. Amsterdam? Charming place! Rembrandt and tulips and, er… Youíll be most welcome in our new, expanded sixth form, Miss, er…í
ëPhilippa.í The smile was as seraphic as ever. ëPhilippa von Haasen.í
The girl rose, bobbed a curtsey, then shook Miss Svensonís extended hand as if butter wouldnít melt in her mouth.
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.