by Philip Kemp
The shrilling of the phone woke Tom Drummond out of a deep blissful sleep. Blearily focusing on the bedside alarm, he registered that it was 2.45 in the morning.
"Yeah - hallo?" he grunted resentfully into the phone.
"Tom, it's Joe - Joe Fraser. Sorry to wake you at this ungodly hour - but it's Cindy..."
His daughter's name jolted Tom awake. Joe, an old friend from his schooldays, was now the police sergeant in their small Northumberland town. "Cindy? But she's here - asleep in her bed!"
"'Fraid not, Tom. She's down here at the station."
"But - but - hang on a moment, Joe." Still woozy, Tom lurched out of bed and into the corridor. He knocked quietly at the door of his daughter's room and opened it. Through the half-closed curtains, pale moonlight shone on an empty bed.
Back in his room, now wide awake, Tom grabbed the phone again. "Joe - is she ok? Is she hurt?"
"Don't worry, Tom, she's fine. A little the worse for drink, that's all. And the same goes for her friends."
"Drink? Joe, I think you'd better tell me everything. No, wait - I'll come down, you can tell me then. Give me twenty minutes."
"Know that sleazy new club that's opened a couple of miles out on the Haslings byroad - the Purple Pussycat? Yeah, that's the one. Well, about two o'clock we had a call from them. Four young women causing quite a rumpus."
Joe's audience listened, their jaws dropping. Besides Tom there was Pat Henderson, Geoff Morris and Wally Drew. All fathers of teenage girls. Each under the impression, until less than an hour ago, that his beloved daughter was safely tucked up in her bed.
"Seems they were dancing on the bar, smashing glasses and bottles, singing and generally carrying on. The bouncers didn't like to touch them, seeing as they were young girls - scared of sexual harassment charges or whatever. So the manager phoned us and we headed out there. And believe me, he wasn't exaggerating. Those girls had really hung one on. It was all we could do to get them into the van. And listen - they still haven't cooled off."
From somewhere downstairs, as the fathers listened, came the sounds of raucous singing, interspersed with giggles and shrieks.
"Normally with rowdy drunks, I'd just leave 'em in the cells overnight to sober up. But since we're all friends, and I've known those girls since they were babes in arms..."
"Thanks, Joe," said Tom. "We appreciate it." He glanced round at his friends. "Well, guess we'd better go down and see what's what?"
Downstairs, two of the four cells were occupied. In one a scruffy down-and-out lay slumped, dead to the world and snoring loudly. Even louder, though, was the off-key rendition of 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' emanating from the next cell - three voices raised in caterwauling discord. In one corner Libby Morris, a petite blonde, was hunched over the toilet retching miserably - but Cindy Drummond, Melissa Henderson and Alison Drew, oblivious to their friend's discomfort, seemed set on partying the night away.
But at the sight of four stony-faced fathers advancing towards them, with Joe Fraser at their heels, the teenage voices faltered and died. "Oh, er - hi, Dad," faltered Cindy, with an unconvincing attempt at nonchalance. "What're you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" retorted Tom grimly. "I think, my girl, that a much better question would be what the hell are you doing here? Especially since you were supposed to be in bed and asleep!"
"Right," snapped Pat Henderson. "I might ask the same of you, young lady." His daughter Melissa giggled nervously then burped in an unladylike fashion. Alison gave a yelp of laughter then fell silent, gazing at her father's unamused expression.
There was a moment's embarrassed silence. Then, since no answers seemed to be forthcoming from the girls, "You know," Tom commented to the other dads, "I don't think we'll get much sense out of them tonight. I suggest we get 'em home, let 'em sleep it off, then get together in the morning and decide what we're going to do about it. And I'll phone the club manager tomorrow and find out about any damage. Agreed?" The others nodded. "That ok with you, Joe?"
"Sure, fine by me, Tom. Be glad to get 'em out of my hair. Though I'll tell you this for free, all of you - if my daughter were one of 'em, she wouldn't be sitting down comfortably for a good long time!"
Wally Drew laughed nervously. "Bit old for that, isn't she, Joe?" Kathy Fraser was 19, one of the brightest girls in the town, and about to start her second year at Cambridge.
Joe smiled grimly. "Not as long as she's living under my roof, she's not."
He unlocked the cells. Geoff Morris retrieved his daughter from the corner and cleaned her up as best he could, and the four miscreants, half-walking, half-stumbling, were escorted upstairs by their fathers. Wally, supporting the woozy Alison, found himself next to Tom. "Can't believe what Joe said, can you?" he remarked. "Kathy's the best-behaved girl for miles around."
"Hmm, so she is," Tom responded thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why..."
The girls were poured into their respective fathers' cars. "Saturday tomorrow," said Tom. "Meet up at the Corner Cafe around ten-thirty?" The other three agreed, and goodnights were said.
The journey home was completed in grim silence. Once Cindy, who appeared to be sobering up fast, began, "Dad - I..." But Tom cut her short. "Tomorrow, my girl. I'll hear your story tomorrow."
Once inside the house Cindy once again tried to speak, but Tom silenced her with a gesture. "We'll talk tomorrow, girl. Now upstairs with you!" He emphasised his order with a whack on his daughter's tight-skirted bottom.
"Owww! Daddy!" she yelped, scuttling off upstairs.
Too angry to sleep, Tom headed for the sitting-room, poured himself a Scotch and settled into an armchair to think. In the eighteen months since his wife died, he'd done his best to be father and mother to Cindy and, knowing how much she missed her mother, had made allowances for her teenage moods and tantrums. Too many allowances, perhaps. Just recently she'd been kicking over the traces more and more often, treating his attempts to remonstrate with her - however tactfully phrased - with a teenage repertoire of sighs, rolled eyes and mutterings of 'Whatever...' Much of the time she'd been running around with her three best mates - Melissa, Libby and Alison. The Fearsome Four, they called themselves, like they were comic-book heroes or something, egging each other on to ever more outrageous behaviour: four teenage girls increasingly out of control. Tom found himself recalling Joe Fraser's remark, "If my daughter were one of 'em..." Yes, he mused again - if Kathy Fraser's such a well-behaved girl, maybe that explains why.
Tom hadn't spanked Cindy since she was 14, reckoning she was getting too old for that kind of childish punishment. Besides, by then Judy was starting to get ill, and it was obviously only a matter of time. And when the cancer finally claimed her, Cindy had taken it hard - as had Tom, though he'd tried to be strong for his daughter's sake. So what with that, and the natural rebelliousness to be expected at her age, it had seemed only fair to cut her some slack.
But this - this was getting totally out of hand. Something had to be done - and Tom, draining his Scotch and standing up with new-found resolution, knew exactly what it was. Near-adult or no, his daughter was in for the spanking of her life.
The only question, though was - what about the other three? After all, he reflected as he climbed the stairs, it sounded as though they were all equally to blame. Would it be fair for Cindy to get her bottom royally tanned if her fellow culprits got off with a scolding and maybe a few days grounding? That was something to be seriously discussed with the other dads.
Passing Cindy's room, he glanced in. As he'd expected, she was dead to the world - flopped out on her bed fully dressed, without even having taken her shoes off. With a sigh, half exasperation and half affection, Tom gently undressed his daughter and slipped her into her pyjamas. As he did so, he couldn't help noticing that she'd developed into a very lovely young woman - and that her bottom had become even more shapely and rounded since the last time he'd put her across his knee. Well, he thought with a wry grin as he tucked her into bed, that's a bottom just made to take a good long hard spanking. And that's what it's going to get, too...
The next morning, leaving Cindy still sleeping it off, Tom met the other three fathers at the local café as arranged. He had some bad news for them.
"Phoned the club manager this morning, lads," he told them grimly. "He reckons our lasses caused over £800 worth of damage."
The others gasped. "Eight hundred quid?" exclaimed Pat. "I don't believe it! He's trying it on."
"Probably is," agreed Tom. "But how do we prove it? And anyway we're lucky he's not pressing charges. Ok, maybe we could threaten him with trouble for serving underage girls - but could be difficult to make it stick."
The other dads nodded glumly. "Two hundred quid each," muttered Geoff. "Bang goes our new widescreen telly."
"What's more important, though, I reckon," Tom continued, "is what are we going to do about it?"
"Well, suppose we'll just have to pay it-" Geoff began.
"No," Tom broke in. "I mean, what are we going to do about the girls? I'm just about at the end of my tether with Cindy - and from what I've heard, it's much the same for all of us." He glanced round the table; the other dads' expressions confirmed his words. "Yeah, that's what I thought. So I've got a suggestion. Remember what Joe Fraser said last night - about if it was his lass? Well, I reckon Joe's got the right idea."
All round the table, dawning comprehension. "You mean - we should spank 'em?" asked Wally uncertainly. "Dunno about that, Tom. I mean - I've never spanked Ali. Well, not since she was a little 'un, anyway. And then it was no more than a few taps, really."
"Well, maybe that's just the trouble," remarked Pat, his jaw set. "We've been too soft with 'em. Not that Mel hasn't been over my knee a few times while she was growing up - but not for a while now. I reckoned she'd maybe outgrown that kind of thing. But now I'm starting to wonder if..."
"My thinking exactly," Tom responded. "I thought Cindy was too old for spanking, too. But nothing else seems to make much impression on the little darlings, does it?"
"Maybe if we ground 'em?" suggested Wally. "For a good long time - say a month or so?"
"Oh come on, Wally," said Geoff. "We've all tried that one, haven't we? I certainly have. Half the time Libby wheedles her way out of it after a day or two. And even if she doesn't, it means June or I have got to be there all the time keeping an eye on her. It's as much a punishment for us as it is for her. No, I think Tom's got the right idea. A good thorough arse-warming, that's what'll get through to 'em."
"Thanks, Geoff," said Tom. "And Pat - you're with us on this, I think? So how about you, Wally? Because seems to me it's only fair, since they were all in this together, that they all get the same punishment, right?"
"Well, yes," said Wally slowly, "I suppose so."
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