by Mike London
Every school-day at Langtree Hill School began with an assembly in the hall. Today was no different. The schoolgirls filed in, class by class, the more senior girls sitting on the long wooden benches that ran across the back of the hall and the younger girls on the benches at the front, nearest the stage.
The teachers, too, had their assigned places; most sat on chairs on the stage arranged around the large desk, behind which the headmistress sat. Normally, apart from a few books and papers with the headmistress's notes, there was nothing on the desk. Today, however, a straight length of kooboo rattan, thirty four inches long - the senior school cane - was lying there.
None of the schoolgirls, apart perhaps from one fifth form girl, noticed it there against the shiny brown surface of the desk top. In addition to the teachers on stage, two teachers each day, chosen by rota, stood in the aisles on either side of the hall, assisting in keeping order.
Assembly and morning prayers were treated seriously at Langtree Hill, and girls who were caught talking or even whispering in assembly were more often than not sent out of the hall immediately to stand in the vestibule, below the school clock. There, after an unpleasant wait of several minutes until all the other girls were back in their classrooms, they would find themselves having to lean forwards, their blue school skirts tautening across their rears, to receive one or two smart slaps from a plimsoll, delivered by a senior teacher or by Mrs Cornwall, the headmistress, herself.
Today, as the girls of 5A took their places, Maria Hunt seemed reluctant to sit down. She hovered in the aisle as the others sat down and then signed to Emma Richardson to budge up along the bench a bit, so she could sit at the end. Emma thought it odd, but quickly obliged. Maria had looked rather agitated throughout registration, she remembered, and hadn't said a word to anyone.
Now that all the girls were sitting down, the headmistress made her entrance. The girls, and all of the teachers, stood up once again as she made her way behind the large desk and sat down. Everyone, except the two teachers in the aisles, now sat down again, and the assembly commenced as always with Miss Bowler playing the piano and the singing of hymns.
Nothing unusual or out of the way took place until Mrs Cornwall rose to make the announcements. These were normally rather tedious and most of the listening girls were preparing to be bored. Some of the more perceptive, though, had spotted odd expressions on some of the members of staff on the stage and wondered if something was up. Maria Hunt, unfortunately for her, had all too good an idea of what was to come.
"I am sorry to have to tell you, girls," the headmistress began, "that one of you has let herself and all of you down.
"She has indulged in disgraceful behaviour in public with a boy from another school - shameful behaviour which could bring the good name of this school, upheld for many years by past generations of schoolgirls, into disrepute. Such behaviour merits a serious punishment and you will not be surprised to hear that I have decided to cane the girl concerned, and to cane her severely. But the flagrant and public nature of her misbehaviour means that I feel that only a similarly public punishment is appropriate."
Mrs Cornwall picked the cane up from her desk and flexed it slightly. A gasp went up from the watching girls. Public canings at Langtree Hill were very uncommon. The last had been more than three years previously, and only girls in the fourth year and above had ever seen one carried out.
"Maria Hunt of 5A, stand up!"
Maria stood. She could feel the eyes of the whole school on her and she knew her face was turning bright red. She looked straight ahead at the stage and the headmistress still holding the cane. She didn't want to meet the eyes of any of her school friends. What must they all be thinking of her? Mrs Cornwall had made it sound so awful!
The truth was much more inconsequential. The day before, Maria and her boyfriend, a sixth form prefect at a nearby boys' school, had gone to The Beehive during dinner hour for a drink or two. It was a daring thing for a girl like Maria, who had never been in serious trouble at school, to do, but she knew that other girls had done the same and got away with it. She knew that, if caught, she could get the cane but she really hadn't thought it was likely that Mrs Cornwall would cane a fifth year girl like her for a first offence. The risk had made the meeting all the more exciting.
Unfortunately for Maria, the reputation of The Beehive as a pub where underage drinkers, even if wearing school uniform, would be served had become wider knowledge. A team of undercover television journalists had staked out the pub. When Maria and Alan came into the pub, the TV people must have thanked their lucky stars and, without revealing their presence, they filmed everything the teenagers did - the purchase of alcohol, drinking it, smoking cigarettes, their fumbled kisses. Even the swear words used by the pair of them were surreptitiously recorded!
Neither of them had realised that anything was amiss when they parted to go back to their respective schools, and Maria had remained in happy ignorance until just before going home time. Then she received a message to go to see the headmistress.
Mrs Cornwall had been very angry. The journalists had identified the schools concerned from the uniforms, and someone had been to interview her. She was shocked at the irrefutable evidence that a girl from her school had been drinking at a pub, and was almost panic-stricken when she realised that footage of a Langtree Hill girl out of school bounds at lunchtime, smoking, drinking and swearing was going to be broadcast on national television. By the time the oblivious Maria arrived, Mrs Cornwall was very angry indeed.
Now all eyes were on Maria as she stood up in her place. Everyone was wondering just what she could have done, especially the other girls in 5A who had always thought of Maria as one of the better behaved girls in their class.
"It is disgraceful to you that this is necessary, Maria," said the headmistress, "but it is necessary. Up here! Now!"
Poor Maria had to walk almost the entire length of the hall. She tried her best to look as dignified as she could in the circumstances, without seeming defiant in a way that might make the headmistress even more angry. But it was awful having everyone looking at her - her friends, her teachers, girls who hadn't known her name before, all wondering what on earth she could have done, and knowing that this tall sixteen-year-old girl would soon be bending over in front of the whole school with her bottom exposed to the headmistress's cane.
Maria could not remember exactly what the headmistress had said to her at their meeting, but she knew that her slightly rebellious trip to the pub at lunchtime had become something altogether more serious, and that she was to receive a public caning.
When she had got home she had told her mother, and later her father, everything that had happened. She knew that she had no choice. Public canings were so rare that they always created a massive scandal; and even if her parents had not heard anything from someone at the school, film of Alan and her drinking and smoking at the pub was going to be broadcast to the nation!
Mr and Mrs Hunt were shocked, but were sympathetic to their daughter's situation. Maria had been caught smoking and drinking during the school day, and she had known that she had risked the cane by doing so. But they felt that she was very unlucky to be getting a public caning and the additional punishment of nationwide publicity.
Her parents had never spanked Maria, but they knew that Langtree Hill used corporal punishment, and had always told Maria to behave herself at school if she didn't want to get the slipper or the cane.
"I've never told you this before," said her mother, "but when I was a little bit younger than you are now, I got the cane myself at school. It was me and my best friend, Angie, who you've met - she lives in Bedford now.
"We were caught smoking in the girls' toilets and were sent to Miss Scott who was the PE mistress. She was really strict and had absolutely no sense of humour - much more rigid and prudish than your Mrs Cornwall. Neither of us had ever been in real trouble before, but she got her cane out straight away and took us out to the changing room.
"She made Angie bend over first, holding onto one of the benches, and then she rolled her skirt up and also pulled her knickers tight into the crack of her bottom so she was practically bare. Then she gave her six strokes of the cane - really hard. She was a PE teacher, remember, and a really good hockey player. Angie was a tough little thing, but she was crying after the first two strokes, and howling by the time Miss Scott told her to stand up. I was already crying just seeing her get it.
"Then it was my turn and I got the same as Angie, six real stingers that left me howling and sobbing and feeling as if I'd sat in a tub of concentrated acid.
"All our friends knew we'd had the cane - neither of us found sitting down easy for the rest of the day. But it taught us both a lesson and neither of us have smoked again from that day to this.
"I know it's not fair, and that other girls have been to the pub and got away with it. But you were caught. You have to accept your punishment and learn from it. You shouldn't have broken bounds and gone to a pub during dinner hour. You shouldn't have drunk alcohol. You shouldn't have smoked. Any of those things could be punished with a caning. I want you to accept it as a deserved punishment; take it bravely and learn from it."
Maria had her mother's words in mind, and was trying to stay brave as she continued her long walk along the aisle. She looked straight ahead, not wanting to catch the eye of anyone, pupil or teacher, whom she might know. She wanted to be brave, but she was so scared of how much the cane was going to hurt. Her mother's story had been bad enough, but Maria had also been remembering the last time Mrs Cornwall had caned girls in assembly, three years before.
Two girls had been caned on that occasion for bullying a first year girl. The first girl to be punished, Janice Rogers, had been in the second year, as Maria herself had been at that time, and she had taken her three strokes bravely enough, though she had been in tears when she was told to stand and face the school. But Linda, who everyone knew had been more to blame than Janice, had been an instance of the saying that bullies are often cowards. She was a fourth year girl and had yelled and howled from the very first stroke.
Maria remembered that Mrs Cornwall had had to ask a member of staff to hold Linda down across the desk for the last two strokes. She could clearly recall how loud the noise had been as the cane crashed down across Linda's bottom, and how Mrs Cornwall had completely ignored the bully's yells and sobs and her writhing and squirming as she was held down, and had continued to deliver six of the very best, which had made even Linda's victims sympathise with the girl stretched over the headmistress's desk.
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