To little blond ten-year-old David Anderson, spray-painting the hat of Mr. Bradley, their stuffy old neighbor, while the man had sat droning on and on to David's parents in their living room, had been hilariously funny. But David had not reckoned on the hard spanking that his father gave him as a consequence of his mischief--pulling David's pants and white jockey underpants down and smacking his bare bottom right then and there in front of everyone, including Mr. Bradley!
Not only did the pain and embarrassment of his punishment penetrate to the very core of his being, but also, as he lay in his bed trying to drift off to sleep, little David recalled the ominous comments of his parents and neighbor: Little boys who do things like that one time too many will end up getting sent to reform school. There you have to wear a uniform and do everything they tell you, or you get whipped every day.
That spanking from Daddy had hurt bad enough! The idea of getting whipped every day....Gee, that was scary!
The next thing David knew, it was time to get up and get ready for school. Something didn't seem quite right this morning, however. Daddy and Mommy were unusually quiet at breakfast and seemed to avoid looking at David and his twelve-year-old brother Reggie. Moreover, the schoolbus was late, and when it did arrive, was black instead of yellow. The trip to school seemed much longer than usual. For some reason the bus kept going through dingy, gray neighborhoods which David seemed never to have seen before. Then, when they did arrive, the school itself--Rawlings Elementary and Middle School--looked decidedly different: It had a grim, forebidding look about it; the buildings seemed colder and denser, the fences higher.
David's perplexity deepened into astonishment when he approached the lockers for the students in his class. His best friend, Billy Massey, who was just now closing his locker door and about to head for class, was wearing no pants nor underpants, just his green and white soccer jersey with matching knee-socks and tennis shoes. And, far from appearing ashamed or embarrassed at being seen bare-bottomed in the middle of school, Instead Billy showed deep concern for David, warning him:"You'd better get changed like me on the double. You're late already, and that's bad enough. If you go into class all dressed like that, you're dead!"
"What about the girls?" David gasped.
"There aren't girls here any more, remember? Now hurry up!"
Incredulous, but trusting his friend, David wriggled out of his pants and hung them in the locker. He felt ludicrous walking into class in his tight, white cotton jockey underpants, but hoped that they would be covered by the length of his soccer jersey. He couldn't believe that he was expected to take off his underpants too.
He was wrong, however. The teacher, Mr. Bryce, spotted him at once and ordered David to remove his underpants in front of the whole class. David blushed in shame as he did so, no less when he looked around and saw that all the other boys in class also were wearing nothing to cover their bodies from waist to knee. After all, they were seated, while he was standing in front of everyone.
That was not all. Mr Bryce ordered David to march down to the principal's office at once to see how little boys would be treated from now on when they broke rules at Rawlings School. As David turned off of the main corridor to the alcove where the office of Mr. Stark, the Principal, was located, the boy's sense of anxiety increased even more.
There he heard the whimpering and crying of several boys, and the loud WHACK! of something hard and flat coming down on something round and soft--the impact of a paddle or strap striking bare boy-bottom and thighs. Three fifth- and sixth-grade boys--Danny, Kevin, and Ryan--were all bent over the top of Mr. Stark's desk in the same half-naked state that David was in. The bottoms of all three boys were now as bright pink as ripe tomatoes, and the backs of their thighs were also showing marks from the strap, which still continued to descend now on one boy, now on another.
Then David became aware of the presence of three middle-school boys in the corridor with him. With relief he recognized them as his big brother Reggie and Reggie's friends Bobby Drake and Michael Paulson. But here too among the familiar was something strange: Reggie and his friends also were not wearing pants! Like David, they were wearing knee-socks, shoes and shirts. Reggie and Bobby, though not entirely naked from waist to knee, were wearing jockstraps. Michael was wearing well-fitting, new, white, cotton Jockey underpants, in which he evidently felt quite well dressed, even to the point of ordering around the other boys.
"Golly!" Reggie exclaimed. "It's so tight! Coach made Bobby and me run all the way here from the gym like this--in our jockstraps--to watch this whipping. Everybody saw us outside with bare bottoms! It's so embarrassing!"
"You think that's embarrassing? What about me?" David exclaimed. "I'm naked in front as well! How come I have to run around bare-bottomed, with no pants or underpants?"
Michael then answered David in a tone of withering superiority and condescension:"'Cause LITTLE KIDS are 'sposed to run around with no pants or underpants on, so you can have your bottom patted when you're good and get it whipped when your bad. You have to stay bare-bottomed at this school until you're THIRTEEN YEARS OLD!"
"And what then? Run around like you, with the longest legs and the shortest underpants I've ever seen?" David retorted.
Before Michael could respond, Bobby called out: "Oh, wow! Look how red their bottoms are! And listen to them yell! That whipping must really HURT something awful! I'm never going to misbehave at this school!"
"Me either!!" the other boys chorused.
Just then the whipping in the office was concluded. The boys in the hall heard Mr. Stark declare: "Let that teach you a lesson. Now get your young red butts back to class!"
Quieter now but still crying profusely, the three who had been punished just now, dragged themselves out into the hall and proceeded on their way, gingerly rubbing their aching behinds.
Then Mr. Stark suddenly announced: "All right, you three middle-school boys in the hall, bring David Anderson into my office so that I can take the skin off his little bottom."
"No, please, sir!" David begged. "I wasn't sent here to be whipped, just to watch the other ones, as a warning to me!"
"Nonsense!" Mr. Stark snorted. "Michael, get this impertinent child into the proper position over my desk. Hold him there until I am finished!"
"Yes, sir!" Michael answered, not at all reluctantly. Before David realized what was happening, he felt Michael's strong hands seize him by both arms and propel him into the office, toward the desk. David struggled in vain. Reggie and Bobby either could not or dared not help him. Michael was more than a head taller, much stronger, and thirty pounds heavier than little David--as well as three years older.
"Michael, you brat, let me go! Let me go, or I'll tell everyone on our block that you run around all day in your underpants! I'm only going around bare-bottomed because they make me, but you're going around in your underpants because you like to, and I'm going to tell everybody!"
Michael's grip seemed to relax somewhat, and for some reason David heard his brother Reggie say:"Calm down, David. It's all right!"
"No, it's not!" David protested. "Michael's got me, and he's trying to drag me in there to be whipped by the principal!"
He heard Reggie's voice again: "David, come off it! Michael's at his house, not here. And he wouldn't do a thing like that. He's our friend. And our principal never whips anybody!"
David opened his eyes. He was in his own bed, at home, in the room which he shared with Reggie, who now stood over him, one hand on his younger brother's shoulder. It was seven-fifteen in the morning, and Reggie was wearing his customary flannel pajamas. On the bed lay his shirt and jeans, which he would wear to school that day--all day.
"You're not wearing a jockstrap!" David remarked.
Reggie laughed and shook his head in good-natured perplexity. "Of course I'm not wearing a jockstrap, dummy! Wouldn't I look stupid going around school with my butt hanging out! Brother, some of the things that go through your head....Honestly!"
*** THE END ***