by Susan Thomas
Chapter 1
Butterfly McKendrick was on her way to see her Uncle Dragonfly McKendrick. Her uncle was undoubtedly the cleverest and most eccentric of anyone in a family noted for its intelligence and oddity. His many inventions had made him immensely rich but he still lived in the small house with the large garden that he and his wife Posy had bought when they first married. The house looked in need of some tender loving care because Dragonfly McKendrick simply didn't notice unpainted windows or leaking gutters. Butterfly pushed open the front door, which was never locked, and made her way through the narrow walkways which was all that was left as every conceivable space was covered in bookshelves which in turn were packed with books.
She walked into the kitchen but her aunt, a wonderful cook, shouted, "Stay out I'm making turnip soufflé."
Butterfly stayed out for she loved her aunt's turnip soufflé and went out into the garden. Much of the garden was given over to animals: there were two goats, many chickens, a few geese, two turkeys, a whole host of rabbits and a peacock. At the bottom of the garden there was a beech hedge which shielded the wooden workshop where her uncle produced the fruits of his genius. She walked in. In the centre of the workshop was the weirdest contraption she had ever seen in a long history of weird contraptions created by her uncle.
"What is that?"
"Oh hello, Butterfly. It's my latest invention... a Fiction Insertion Device, or F. I. D. for short"
"What?"
Her uncle laughed, "I don't know, Butterfly! Really, with your ability I'd have thought you capable of at least taking a guess. I'll explain. The human mind has always created stories, fables, and tales. We tend to say they are not real but what is real? Well of course it depends on your definition of reality. If we take Tabor Staskorski's definition, the reality is there, it is just in a different dimension. The problem is then how do we bridge the distance between the story and its real self. I have found how to do that. It doesn't work well with music but I may be able to solve that; art is very difficult and moving images extremely dangerous. However, anything in written fiction is ideal. My machine can insert the operator into any fiction ever written. Of course you can't do anything much, especially to famous books, because you might change the plot and that would be awful. So, for example, you can follow Oliver Twist as he walks to London or see him in court after he gets falsely accused of picking pockets but not rescue him."
"Don't be silly, Uncle Dragonfly, you can't go swanning around in Oliver Twist with that thing, someone would notice."
"No, that stays here, you use this." He held up something the size of a smartphone. "This is tuned to your mind, so if you turn it on and press 'insert' then think of the book you want to get into, you'll go there. To come home you just press 'home' and it takes you back to wherever you came from. Simple, and you don't have to be here, the machine broadcasts over a wide area. Want to try?"
She did and he quickly tuned the little transmitter to her brain. Butterfly pressed 'insert' and thought of A Christmas Carol. Immediately, Butterfly found herself shivering in a rather rundown street outside an even more run down establishment with a sign that read 'Scrooge and Marley'. She was shivering with cold but noticed the stink around her. It was a mixture of horse shit, unwashed bodies, coal smoke, dirty slush and wet clothes. It was also rather noisy, and the many people looked underdressed for the cold weather, not to mention underfed and rather grubby. A small thin man came out of the Scrooge and Marley premises. He was a miserable looking man with a permanently frosted nose and he too looked underdressed for the cold but somewhat better dressed than the others.
"Scrooge," she breathed softly. Butterfly got closer. She loved A Christmas Carol and had read it quite a few times. At that moment Scrooge slipped on the slush. It may not be in the book but that is what happened. Butterfly's hand shot out and she caught his elbow steadying him so that he did not fall.
Scrooge glared at her. "You needn't think you're getting a penny from me, you little guttersnipe."
"Don't want one," smiled Butterfly, "but you're going to have the best Christmas for a very long time, Mr Scrooge."
"Bah Humbug," he retorted and walked on.
Butterfly pressed 'home' and was instantly back in the workshop.
"That was fab, uncle. I got Scrooge to say, "Bah Humbug' to me. Fantastic, truly awesome."
At that moment, Aunt Posy called to them and they went in to enjoy her delicious turnip soufflé followed by goat casserole. The talk was of many things but that evening when Butterfly was back in her own bedroom she began to think of all the books she could get into with her new transmitter.
Now I wish I could list all sorts of wonderful works of fiction that she considered but I can't because Butterfly was odd like the rest of her family. At eighteen she had already been obsessed for many years with spanking stories. On her Kindle were many romantic spanking stories from Bots That Blush... silly stories but great spankings. She regularly logged in to a website that featured a library of spanking stories, leaving comments under the name of Naughtymissy, and also frequented other sites such as Bend over Girl. The list of works she was considering was a list of spanking stories.
One of her favourites was a story about a boys' boarding school where the cane and the slipper were in frequent use by both teachers and prefects. Into the sixth form come twenty girls, the first admission of girls ever, but not the last planned. Their parents have all agreed that the girls may receive the same corporal punishment as the boys. Butterfly was deeply attracted to the whole idea, and she reasoned that she could both pass for sixteen and that an extra girl getting her bum walloped couldn't possibly disrupt the plot of a spanking story. If it all got a bit much she could of course press 'home' and be gone in a flash. Pressing 'insert' on her transmitter she thought of Kane Court School and - whoosh - she was in a dormitory with four beds and three other girls.
Immediately, she discovered something her Uncle Dragonfly didn't know. He had told her that she was stuck with whatever she was wearing when she inserted herself into a book but she found herself in full school uniform. Somehow the machine was detecting the difference between a short visit (no change of clothes) and a long one, where it would enable one to blend in.
She was kitted out in a dusky pink blazer, grey A line skirt, white blouse with the pink and grey striped tie of the school, white socks, black shoes and, quickly hoisting her skirt to check, dusky pink school knickers. One of the girls was talking to her; somehow she knew it was Annabelle Matchless.
"Come along Butterfly, you know the headmaster wants to see us. Do hurry up, we don't want to be in trouble now, do we?"
Speak for yourself, was the thought that ran through Butterfly's head as she quite fancied getting a few wallops with the slipper over her dusky pink knickers, but she hurried along in the wake of her chum all the way to the head's office.
Dr Gasket was sitting with the head boy, David Jones, more man than boy at six foot with a strong jaw, blue eyes and the body of a Greek god.
"Ah girls, thank you for being so prompt. I have been in conference with David and it is obvious to us that the disciplinary system we use will have to be amended slightly to accommodate you girls. Currently, boys who get pulled up by a prefect come along to the prefects' court and, if found guilty, drop their trousers, and either David, a senior prefect or one of the other prefects gives them a dose of the slipper or cane as appropriate."
Butterfly raised a question. "What if they are innocent?"
"Rarely happens," replied David, "but if they are the prefect gets walloped instead."
"Now," continued the head, "obviously girls can't drop their trousers but they can raise a skirt or just lower it as they wish but I don't think it appropriate to have David or one of the prefects administering punishment to girls, do you?"
Butterfly looked at the Greek god and clearly Annabelle was thinking the same: getting him to wallop their bottoms while only clad in their knickers was no problem whatsoever.
The girls spoke together. "Well no, headmaster, it really isn't a problem. All of us girls knew that we could well end up getting our bottoms walloped over our knickers by the male teachers and by the prefects. We accept that everything must be fair, and honestly, it isn't fair to the boys if we get treated differently."
David looked pleased and the headmaster relieved. The headmaster went on. "Jolly good attitude, and on the subject of fairness we think it only fair that the girls have some prefects too. Going on the records from your previous schools we have decided to appoint you two as prefects. Annabelle, we know your family so you are senior prefect and you, Butterfly, will be a prefect."
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