by Norland Hughes
Stephanie eyed the recently added photograph of her and her astonishing hockey team, all beaming like warm sunshine on a summer's day, despite the bleak December morning on which it was taken. It was in stark contrast to the serious expressions in the faded photograph below it; the one of their illustrious predecessors from a bygone age, clustered around the Hopkins Trophy, the very same trophy that proved to be her undoing.
Having just renewed her acquaintance with 'Popeye' as she had affectionately christened her aunt Eleanor's fearsome size ten plimsoll, she winced as her fingers traced the slightly raised slipper welts covering her bottom, and attempted to rub away the worst of the tingling.
She gave it that name because one of the poor thing's bottom eyelets was missing, no doubt knocked out by the regular vigorous applications to lots of girls' bottoms over the years. Despite the handicap, it always looked pleased to see her though.
She chanced a furtive glance behind, to see Aunt Eleanor (who was also her headmistress) still occupied in writing up her latest entry in her burgeoning punishment book, the desk light flashing off the gold nib of her fountain pen as she carefully recorded Steph's crime in that ornate, fluid hand of hers.
This time her aunt had not put her over her knee, but instead had her bend, skirt up, over the back of a chair; then came the hand pressing down on her lower back as Popeye's cool rubber sole came to rest across the centre of her bottom. A moment later it had lifted away...
Whop!
"Ow!"
Whopp!
"Ouch!"
Whopp...
She winced again. Her aunt had really laid it on today... a full dozen stinging wallops across the seat of her knickers. It was all she could do to stop herself crying towards the end, but it was nothing to what she knew was coming. Soon her aunt would put down her pen and walk over to the door, and then...
Eleanor glanced up at her as if she had read her thoughts. Their eyes met. Steph snapped her head back to the corner, but too late to avoid the rebuke.
Eleanor's eyes flashed. "Stephanie! Do as you're told, girl, and face the front."
Stephanie focused on the photograph once more, showing her in the centre with her best-ever friend. She heard the distinctive sound of her aunt's fountain pen top clicking home, and the squeak of her chair being pushed back as she prepared to rise.
Oh, she knew what was coming now all right, but not in her wildest dreams could she have imagined what life had in store for her, that day when her aunt turned up unannounced on her and her mum's doorstep, just three short months ago.
It was the first time in nearly three years that Eleanor had visited her sister, Emma. In the intervening time, she had been serving her rites-of-passage apprenticeship as deputy headmistress at a small boarding school situated in rural Cumbria. In that role, she had been very successful, earning a deserved reputation for achieving high standards and maintaining good order.
Her reward had come in the guise of her appointment as headmistress at Lexington Manor, a small, but highly regarded West London girls' school. Her new position came with a grace and favour apartment up on the top floor of the old school building, and even better, it had brought her back to within a few miles of where her younger sister lived.
So now here she was, sitting in the well-appointed lounge of her sister's beautiful, detached home in nearby Barnes. The welcome she had received had been genuinely warm. Emma had hugged her long and hard. Eleanor was impressed, the last time she had visited her sister she had been living with her husband and thirteen-year-old daughter in a modest semi, an ex-council house in unfashionable Southall.
Clearly things had improved markedly for her since then, but for all the obvious trappings of success, the strained look on Emma's face suggested all was not well. After the usual pleasantries, Eleanor went straight for the likely heart of it.
"How are Tom and Stephanie?" she asked.
Emma looked down at her cup, suddenly fascinated by the pattern of bubbles in her latte.
"Oh, you know how it is with executives, always on business trips all over the world; and when he isn't travelling he's never off the phone or laptop. We hardly see him these days."
Actually, Eleanor didn't know. She had long ago sacrificed any notion of a husband and children to single-mindedly pursue her career in teaching. It was not a matter for regret, she had known from an early age that family life was not for her, but her connection with her sister ran deep and she could sense she was desperately unhappy.
"And Stephanie?"
Again, the latte proved to be quite fascinating.
"Oh, she's a typical teenager you know, room looks like a bomb site, loud music, always out with her friends. Heaven knows what they get up to."
Eleanor searched her mousy sister's hazel eyes, and could see the worry clouding them. It was time for her to intervene. She leant forward and took hold of her hand, guiding the coffee cup she was squeezing the life out of down to the table.
"What's wrong Emma? I'm your sister, you can tell me."
Emma's shoulders drooped, as if she were trying to shrug off a heavy burden. Eleanor slid next to her on the huge leather sofa and took hold of her hand.
"Tell me."
With relief, Emma opened up and told her about Stephanie's increasingly unruly behaviour since she reached the age of fourteen. Eleanor listened intently as she reeled off all the classic traits of an out of control teenager. Now she suspected her daughter was falling in with a bad crowd at school. She had found a pack of cigarettes when she was cleaning her room, and worse still, suspected she may have gone even further.
"One night last week, she came home really late, and she was quite tipsy I think... just like a cider drinking high, you know?"
Oh, she knew all right. The memory of them sharing an illicit bottle of their mother's Strongbow when she was home from boarding school once, sprang into her mind. Emma was just about bouncing off the walls, and even she became uncharacteristically giggly. The difference was, they had been up in Emma's bedroom in the relative safety of their home. Stephanie had been out drinking with goodness knows who.
Eleanor listened to the mounting charge list with growing concern.
"Oh my word! Why do you put up with it? She needs taking in hand now, before things go too far."
Close to tears, Emma cradled her coffee cup. "I know, I know. But it is so difficult with her father being away all the time, and I just can't bring myself to do anything other than trying to ground her, and even then she doesn't take much notice of me."
Eleanor put her arms around her sweet natured little sister and pulled her into a hug. In the three years she had been away, her niece had turned from a cute thirteen-year-old, into a rebellious monster it would seem - and she was making her mother's life miserable.
"Try not to let it upset you Emma, we can sort this out." She paused before continuing, and her voice took on a firm edge. "I think she might take a bit more notice of me... that is if you will allow me to intervene?" Eleanor could feel the tension drain from her sister's shoulders as she gave voice to the suggestion.
"Oh, would you, please? Do you think you could talk some sense to her?"
A look of mild amusement flickered across Eleanor's face. "Oh, I think I could make her see the error of her ways. But I think she needs a bit more than a talking to, and you must let me handle it my way. Is that understood?"
Emma had a vague notion of what Eleanor's way might be. They had discussed the subject of discipline as practised in the schools that Eleanor had attended and now taught in on several occasions.
The idea of disciplining Stephanie was completely alien to her. She had never so much as laid a finger on her daughter. She had always tried the reasoning approach with her and had never even hinted at the prospect of any physical punishment. Now she was having to accept that perhaps she should have been firmer.
"You won't be too harsh with her, will you?"
"Well... that will rather depend on her," Eleanor said. Sensing her beleaguered sibling was wavering, Eleanor brushed a tear from the corner of her eye and placed her hands on her shoulders. "Listen to me, Emma, she needs bringing into line, and that will need more than just a few stern words. I will only be as firm as I need to be, no more, I promise."
Emma nodded her acceptance. "You're right, I know. You must think me an awful mother to her, Elle."
"No, I don't, she's just going through a rebellious phase. I wasn't exactly an angel myself at that age." Her mind flashed back to the first time she had felt the correcting smack of a slipper applied to her bottom, and the jolting effect it had on her. Even then it had taken several applications of that, and other implements, before she had finally got the message. Eleanor smiled as she stood and pulled Emma to her feet. "That's agreed then, come on, show me round your lovely home and let me have a quick look at this 'bomb site' of hers."
The smile faded when the door opened on Stephanie's room. It was worse than a bomb site. The floor was littered in discarded underwear, outer clothing, magazines, and miscellaneous bits of clutter. The dressing table was festooned with perfume bottles and open make-up containers of all sizes. A bra dangled half in and half out of the side table drawer, and somewhere beneath a heap of crumpled tops and jeans, was a bed.
Emma stooped and was about to pick up a slip.
"What are you doing?" Eleanor asked, a look of undisguised amazement on her face.
"Oh, I just thought I'd make a start, it's a few days since I last t-"
"Leave it!"
Emma stopped dead, jarred by the harsh, authoritarian tone of her sister's voice.
Eleanor reined back under control the mounting fury she was feeling. She stroked Emma's upper arm, and her voice became soft and reassuring once more.
"Just leave it, Emma. She is going to have to learn to tidy her own room, and she may as well start now."
Eleanor pressed an ornate, cream business card, embellished with the school crest, into her sister's hand. "Send her round to see me at six o'clock tomorrow. Don't tell her what it is about, let it be a surprise. Oh, but do tell her she had better not be late."
The reaction Emma got from her daughter later that evening, when she told her about the visit from her aunt, and the arrangement made for Stephanie to visit her, was not entirely unexpected.
Stephanie glanced at the card her mum had handed her, indignant at being summoned, but grudgingly noting the rather posh address.
"Why? What does she want to see me for?"
"I don't know. It's been ages since she last saw you, perhaps she just wants to see how you're doing," her mum said in reply, but it was rather unconvincing.
Stephanie was as sharp as she was awkward. She just knew her mum wasn't telling her the whole story. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at her mother, and she placed her hands on her hips.
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