Clark has been a very bad boy. He knew he shouldn't have done it. But when Monday morning came around, and he still didn't have his English composition assignment completed, he panicked and resorted to the unforgiveable. That it was unforgiveable had been made very clear by Mr. Boyd the first day of class. C. P.Boyd had stood before the wide eyes of his students, flexing his cane as he waited for an answer to his question. Only ten minutes of class time remained. As no answer was forthcoming, he flipped open the roll book with the end of his cane, stabbed at a name, and said, "Clark!"
Clark, roused from his open-eyed slumber, stammered, "Yes, sir?"
"I'm waiting for an answer, boy!"
"Um...I forgot the question, sir."
Mr. Boyd released a sigh that bounced through the open door, echoed through the long halls of Jim Cause High, and slipped through the band room sonics to the donkey-like ears of Mr. C. P. Liszt. Had the music instructor not been deaf, he might have recognized the tone of exasperation. Mr. Boyd then said, "I shall repeat the question for your benefit, Clark."
"Thank you, sir."
"At the beginning of this class, young man, I named one crime that was, of all crimes possible in this classroom, the one and only, truly unforgiveable sin. The question I now put to you is this:what is that one unforgiveable crime?"
Rending the cobwebs of his memory, Clark desperately searched for the answer. "Um..."
"Perhaps," suggested his teacher, "if you checked your notes, your memory might be jogged?"
Clark peeled back the blank pages of his scribbler. "I must have missed that, sir. Was it on the board?"
"If you'll cast your enquiring gaze behind me, young man, you'll find that it is still on the board."
Clark read the word chalked in enormous letters across the length of the blackboard. "Plagiarism."
"Well done!" beamed Mr. Boyd. "Perhaps you were too engrossed in your note-taking to notice it before;too focused on the topic of my lecture, no doubt."
"Yes, sir."
"Yes. And what, by the way, was the topic?"
"Um...I.."
"Having trouble reading your notes? Bring your notebook up here, and I'll help you decipher it."
Clark walked slowly from the back of the room and handed his scribbler to Mr. Boyd. He stared at the cane as it ran down the pages like a pointer. Turning over a new leaf, Mr. Boyd remarked, "There seems to be something missing."
"Sir?" "Perhaps you wrote with invisible ink? Or is the light bad in this room? You appear to have missed the crux of your lesson. Somewhere in your extensive notes should be the statement that you are to return to this classroom at precisely three o'clock for an application of six strokes to your bare bottom."
Now, a month later, as he furiously copied his older brother's story, Clark remembered the burning sting of those six strokes - two for failing to take notes;two for not paying attention;and two for making the other four necessary. Could it be worse if he were caught doing the unforgiveable? If he handed in an incomplete assignment, Boyd was sure to inscribe the missing parts on his butt. But this way, there was a chance the old coot wouldn't catch on. "After all," he thought. "It's not like my bro is somebody famous. And ol' Boyd never taught him anyway. He never would have read it before." Stuffing the paper into his backpack, Clark dashed from his brother's room, out of the house, and along the street toward the school.
Arriving just as the bell rang, Clark set the assignment on his desk and waited, breathless, while Mr. Boyd wander up and down the rows, collecting the fruits of his students' labours. Nervous, Clark glanced at the story, wondering if he should have made some changes. Just in case. Then he saw his mistake, and his heart fluttered against his ribs. Did he have an ink eraser? He thrust his arm into his knapsack, past the jumble of books and gym clothes, and rummaged the bottom. Pulling out an eraser, he grabbed the assignment and scratched at the stubborn ink.
"Something wrong, Clark?"
His hand covering the evidence of his crime, Clark looked up at Mr. Boyd. "Um...no, sir. Just wanted to change something."
"Ah...you've thought of a better word, perhaps? - one more direct, more honest?"
"Yes, sir...that's it."
"I'm sure the class would appreciate your telling us the words with which you are struggling and the reasoning behind your choice."
"Well...it's a little personal, sir."
"Come now. Now need for shyness. What word did you first choose?"
"Um...Steven."
"Ah! I see. You wanted to change a character's name."
"Sort of."
"And now you wish to call him...?"
"Clark."
Mr. Boyd pinched the edge of the paper, slid it from under Clark's hand, and gazed thoughfully at it. "You have an older brother named Steven, do you not?"
"Yes, sir."
"I, too, have a brother," said Mr. Boyd, sitting on Clark's desktop as though he were joining him for chit-chat over coffee. "I bet you didn't know that, did you?"
"Um...no, sir."
The teacher gazed through the windows, looking at nothing in particular, as though he were seeing something in the distant past. "It's a peculiar thing," he said.
"Sir?"
"My father used to get our names mixed up. We never said anything to him about it, of course. We always understood to which of us he was speaking. Especially if he was annoyed with one of us. I suppose it's a common occurance in families. I've never before heard of an individual doing it to himself, though - confusing his own name with that of his sibling, I mean. It seems to be a thing intrinsically parental." He turned his eyes on Clark. "Does it happen in your family, too?"
"I...guess so." "Then I shall take extra care, when I speak to your father later today, that he understand clearly which of his sons won't be able to walk for several days. He'll want to be sure which of you he'll have to escort home." He rose from the desk, saying, "You will knock on my office door promptly at three." Then he continued collecting assignments.
The morning dragged on. Clark's eyes darted repeatedly to the clock over the classroom door. The second hand flashed like a cane over the rounded rump of the digit 3. The minute hand, heavier, strap-like, seemed with each hourly sweep to linger over the curves, causing the number to swell and tremble. Clark rubbed his eyes.An optical illusion. That's all it is.Sixty minutes later, the digit was again swollen and distorted by the heavy hand. And through it all, the hour hand's paddle crept nearer to its mark. Eleven-thirty arrived, and he darted beneath the clock and headed for the cafeteria.
After lunch, he attended band practice. Try as he might, he could not get his lips to tighten on the mouthpiece of his horn. Perhaps it was Mr. Liszt's incomprehensible baton, marking the downbeats a little too strictly, that made his lips tremble;or maybe it was the percussion section, a battery of whacking to his rear. Whatever the reason, he was glad when the hour was up and he could escape to gym class. For a while, the physical strain of gymnastics took his mind off his appointment with pain. He swung his legs enthusiastically over the horse, twirling through his favorite exercise with great daring. As he prepared to dismount, the crack of the coach's paddle resounded in the gym. Distracted, he fell across the horse on his stomach, and the wind was knocked out of him. He raised his head with a gasp, and saw a classmate bent over cluching his ankles. The coach gripped the waistband of a boy's shorts, yanked them down, and swung his wooden paddle. Clark winced with his classmate as the paddle struck, as though he were feeling the sting on his own upturned bum. Then he glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes. He scrambled from the horse and headed for the locker room.
"Just where do you think you're going?" hollered the coach.
"I have an appointment at three," replied Clark.
"No one's leaving here until I say class is over. Six laps." Clark ran. His sneakers smacked the floor, a counterpoint to the coach's paddle and his classmate's cries. The coach's words repeated in his mind like a ground bass:six laps laps laps class is over over laps.
Clark finished his last lap as the paddle drew its ultimate squeal from the punished boy. Then the coach blew his whistle and announced, "Class dismissed. Hit the showers."
Tapping the paddle on his thigh, the coach watched to ensure that the boys showered properly. Clark scrubbed his lean body as quickly as he dared. But he knew the coach's eyes were on him. Were he to lather and rinse less than thoroughly, he would find himself bent over for a paddling then hauled into the showers for a more ritual ablution. Twice before, the coach had swatted him back under the spray with a bathbrush, alternately scrubbing and smacking until Clark glowed with more than mere cleanliness. Trying to remain calm, he stepped past the man, towelled off, and scurried to his clothes.
The door to Mr. Boyd's office was open when he arrived. The teacher glanced up from the papers on his desk when Clark rapped. "Enter," he said.
Clark stepped in, stood before the desk and waited. Finally, the man leaned back in his chair and said, "You're late."
"I was held up in gym class."
"Close the door."
While the boy turned away, Mr. Boyd unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his shirt sleeves. "I've had a long talk with your father. He'll be here to pick you up in an hour. If I were you, I wouldn't plan on taking any dates to the movies for the next few months."
Clark looked down at the desk and saw his brother's story sitting by the phone.
"Apparently your brother - Steven, I believe? - apparently he's familiar with the assignment you handed in to me this morning. It appears to be virtually identical to one he claimed to have written himself. Of course, the similarity might just be a genetic trait. With this in mind, I asked your father if he had written a similar story when he was a student. And you'll never guess what he said." The teacher waited for a response he didn't expect to hear, then continued, "When I read the first paragraph (which is quite good, by the way) to your father, he told me it was an exercise he had submitted for an English class in this same school many years ago. So we decided it must be genetic. Somehow this assignment was passed on to your brother and to you. Does that sound reasonable?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes. I thought it might. Unfortunately, your father and I didn't have time to explore the possibility farther. He seemed anxious to discuss it with your brother and said he would call back. We were speaking for the second time just moments before you arrived. It turns out that Steven admitted to a certain amount of cribbing. I don't suppose you have a similar confession?"
Anxious to get it over with and put an end to Boyd's wordiness, Clark jumped at the opportunity. "I stole it from my brother and copied it this morning."
"Ah. That explains the...similarities. I'm intrigued that you copied the name of the author along with the body of the work. Perhaps you were in a great hurry?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you remember the unforgiveable sin?"
Clark nodded. "Plagiarism."
"Good. I don't suppose you know what the consequences are?"
"A caning?"
"Partial marks awarded. Remove your clothes and bend over the desk." Mr. Boyd cleared his desk, setting the stacks of papers atop a filing cabinet. Clark placed his clothes on a chair and bent over the desk, grasping the far edge. From inside a desk drawer, the teacher removed a strap and stepped behind the boy. Finding any further explanation unnecessary, he whipped the thick belting against the bottom of Clark's left cheek in six fast, hard strokes. Hollering, the boy pulled himself farther onto the desk, as though in doing so he could escape the searing sting. "Feet on the ground!" ordered his teacher. The faint line that separated Clark's left cheek from his leg was now a broad, red welt. As soon as his feet touched the ground, six burning strokes descended on his right cheek, forcing him to cry, "Please! It hurts!" "It hasn't even begun to hurt, boy."
Backhand and forehand, the strap alternated left and right, working its way gradually up Clark's ass, then down, until the entire surface was mottled and red. As it worked its way back up, Clark jumped sideways to escape. Mr. Boyd gripped him around the waist and savagely whaled his bucking ass.
Suddenly he stopped, stepping away. Clark remained on the desk, sobbing bitterly. "Stand up," demanded Mr. Boyd. "That's just the first part of your lesson. Put your nose in that corner and stay there until I tell you to move." Clark dashed to the corner while his teacher tossed the strap on the desk, took a stack of papers from atop the filing cabinet, and sat down to resume marking.
Clark listened while his teacher's ravaging red pen, punctuated by grunts of displeasure and exclamations of approval, scratched its way through several short stories. Eventually he heard shuffling of paper and the scraping of Mr. Boyd's chair on the floor. "Part two. Step back from the wall and grab your ankles."
As Clark bent over, stretching his tight skin, the faded eidolic soreness reentered his bum like a vengeful spirit.
Mr. Boyd ran his hand over the welted flesh and said, "Tough as leather now. We'll just see if the senior cane gets through to you, shall we?"
"Please, sir! I promise I won't ever cheat again!"
"That's correct." Mr. Boyd selected a heavy cane from the bucket behind his desk and pressed it firmly on Clark's bum. "Now then. Your assignment for this week." He whipped the cane across the middle of the boy's butt, producing a dark track and a loud scream. Clark jumped forward and grabbed his cheeks. "Back into position! That just earned you an extra assignment, boy."
Clark stepped back and dove for his ankles.
"Now..." said Mr. Boyd, whipping a parallel track onto the bare flesh. "Your first assignment. I want a 600 word description of the strapping you received today, using no adverbs and a maximum of three sentences."
"Yes, sir!"
"Let me make it clear. That's three sentences. One..." The cane whistled and a third track formed above the other two.
"One, sir!"
"Two."
Clark screamed, "Two!"
"Three." "Please, sir!...Three."
"Stand up." Mr. Boyd returned the cane to the bucket and sat down. "Come here."
Clark turned and stepped closer to his teacher.
"Over my lap."
After positioning the boy, Mr. Boyd began smacking the swollen cheeks with steady, hard precision. "Your second assignment will be a 1,000 word essay on the evils of plagiarism. That's 1,000, which is about how many times my hand will make contact with your bottom." The burning blows seemed to go on forever, until Clark's hollering faded to a resigned moan. Then he was told to stand in the corner and await his father's arrival.
Mr. Wright shook the teacher's hand and stepped into the office. Gazing at his trembling son, he said, "I see you've made a good start, Mr. Boyd. Feel free to continue."
"I'm perfectly content to leave the matter in your hands now, Mr. Wright."
"Thank you...Clark!"
Turning from the corner, Clark saw his dad's hands grasp his belt buckle. "I'm sorry, dad! I won't ever do it again. I swear!" His fear multiplied as his father yanked the thick leather strap from around waist, doubled it over, and waved it angrily.
"You're _d_a_m_n_ed right you won't do it again! Now pick up your clothes and get your sorry ass out to the car."
Clark scooted past his dad. Grabbing his underwear, he bent over to thrust a leg into them. Instantly, his dad's belt landed hard across the back of his thighs. "What did I tell you to do?"
"To pick up my clothes and go to the car."
"Did I tell you to get dressed?"
"No, sir. But, Dad!"
Mr. Wright raged, "What? You dare question me?"
"No, Dad! I didn't mean..." "Bend over. Now!"
The belt curled around the back of Clark's thighs, leaving each leg striped like a barbershop pole. "Now do as you're told." While his son grabbed his clothes and ran out the door, Mr. Wright thanked Mr. Boyd for his dedication to the boy's enlightenment. Taking the offending assignment with him, he strode through the halls, the belt swinging from his hand. In the parking lot, he found Clark leaning against the car, his clothes bunched over his crotch. School had been out for some time, so only three cars remained in the lot. The janitor stood nearby holding a garbage bag, a grin widening his face as he watched the father march toward the son. Mr. Wright said nothing as he approached the vehicle. He unlocked the passenger door, strode to the other side and got in. As though the sound of the boy's sobbing were intensely gripping, he sat still for a while before starting the engine and heading for home.
Mr. Wright pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. "Go straight to your room and stay there," he said. Clark ran into the house, bounded up the stairs to his room, and threw himself on his bed. He cried for a long time, then fell asleep.
He was awakened by a knock on his door. "Clark." It was his brother's voice. "Dad wants us in his study."
"Okay." When Clark opened the door, Steven was already descending the stairs. The marks from their dad's belt glared on Steven's butt. Wondering how he could possibly stay in position for another thrashing, Clark followed Steven's flaming cheeks into the study. Their father ordered them to sit on the leather sofa, then stood before them. Dangling from his hand was something they had never seen before:a long, thick, razor strop.
"This strap belonged to your grandfather." Draping it over the boys' laps, Mr. Wright continued, "Take a good look at it."
Loath to touch the thing, the boys stared at the leather resting heavily on their thighs.
"You will soon be well aquainted with it. This Saturday, at four o'clock, you will report to this room. When I return from the golf course, I'll expect to find you both here, naked and bent over. This will happen every Saturday from now on, until I say otherwise. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Now..." Pulling up a chair, he sat facing his sons. "I want you to understand something. You're not the first boys to make a mistake. Nor will you be the first to be corrected by that strap." The boys looked up at their dad. "When I was about your age, that story you stole got me a _d_a_m_n_ed good mark in my English class. It also got me a _d_a_m_n_ed good hiding. My teacher liked it so much, he published it in the school paper as an example to the other students. Unfortunately for me...at the time...your grandfather, my dad, came across a copy of that paper. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
The boys gaped at their father.
"You mean...?" said Steven. "Yes," replied Mr. Wright. "And after a month of Saturdays with that strap, I never stole another word. I've worked hard since then. And now I can say I've put my own stamp on the world. And that's the kind of pride I want you boys to feel when you're my age. Hard as it was, those strappings did me a big favour. It's the best thing one man can do for another. And I don't intend for you boys to miss out on that. Hand me the strap." Each boy grabbed one end of the strap, held it out to their father. He grasped it from the middle, and they let go, so that the two ends fell smacking against each other. Mr. Wright smiled, "Now go get your dinner. Then straight to bed."
When the boys had closed the door behind them, Mr. Wright went to his desk and laid the strap beside the story. He sat and read the story, and his smile widened. Then he chuckled, reading it again, his hand stroking the worn leather.