The summer is well underway now and our cousin Kai, who came to live with us here in America to work with us in our grandfather's business and study English, has proven to be quite a handful. I seem to be suffering the most from his antics. Most recently I got one of the worst spankings I ever got and all because of Kai. Since we're close in age (he's almost 14 I just turned 15) we hangout together a lot. It's easy for him to get in trouble, either by himself or with whoever he's with, which often means me.
Recently he got moved into our English class because he's improving and getting almost as good as us. We are in a class of about 15 boys who are all here for the summer away from our home country in Asia too. Several parents got together and hired a private teacher to teach the class. Education is stressed very much in our culture and we are disciplined in class and at home when we are bad or do poorly so the teacher was told to treat us the same way we are when we are at school at home. That means spankings for the boys who misbehave or are doing badly academically.
I'll never forget the first day that I went into the class three years ago. I was anxious to prove that I already could speak some English and wanted to talk to the teacher. As I walked in the room I noticed something hanging on the wall behind his desk that had writing on it. We display the characters of our language on the walls in our country the same way. After the class I stopped at his desk and said "Teacher, that's a nice wall hanging you have, we have them in our country also to display our characters. What does yours mean?"
He told me "That's not a wall hanging" as he took it down to show me. "Let me give you your first lesson about English in this classroom." He put it in front of me on his desk. It was made of wood and long and narrow; about 18 inches and rounded on one end. "Read what it says Lau" teacher instructed me." I read it out loud: "Board of Education." I was confused. "What does that mean teacher."
"A board can be two things in English. One is a group of supervising administrators, such as for a school like this example. Another board is a flat piece of wood, also like this" He continued: "When a handle is cut at one end like this one has, it then has a different name: A paddle"
"What's it for?" I asked. "Look closer at it Lau" said teacher. I noticed at the end of it was a drawing. Two boys about my age and size were bending over, You could see their rear ends. A man who looked very much like Teacher was spanking them with a paddle like I was now holding. The illustration showed the paddle sweeping down from high, with quick wind lines behind it, showing the speed. The teacher had his hand firmly on the back of the boy he was spanking, his finger raised up in disapproval. The paddle was just striking the one boy who was bent over closest to the teacher. As the paddle met the boy's behind, several red stars and force lines jumped out from it, showing the pain and heat of the swat. The other boy's rear end cheeks were already rosy red. The whole drawing was only in black and red so it was striking. I was amazed.
"This what happens to boys in this class who act up or don't do their homework and get bad grades" said teacher as he returned the paddle to the hook on the wall "so you had better behave and do your homework Lau." I walked out of the room thinking how much that paddle must hurt; it was big and my rear end was little. I vowed then and there not to ever do anything that would make teacher spank me with that scary paddle. I behaved very well in class and always did all of my homework and did well on tests. It worked too; teacher never once used the paddle on me, up till now that is.
I have seen the paddle used on several boys in our class over these three summers. Either one or a couple of boys get it for fooling around or fighting, or at routine times for bad grades. If you get a spanking, you have to go to the front of the room and bend over the teacher's desk, with your rear end facing the class. Teacher will then give you between 3 – 6 sharp swats with the paddle. You then have to bow before him and return to your seat; if you can sit that is. Some boy's behinds are stinging so much that have to stand next to their desk for rest of the class. Most boys don't cry and a couple even manage a little smile: all to belie their loss of face at being spanked in class.
We have four tests a summer, if your grade is below 95, you get one swat with the paddle for each five-point drop: below 95 - one swat, below 90 – two swats, below 85 – three swats, etc. After tests are over, at the next class the grades are read out loud and all boys who have done poorly line up in front of the room and take their turns bending over the desk for their spankings, with the highest grades going first, descending to the lowest grades who get the most swats. All the boys in class stand around and watch and it's humiliating, so I have worked hard to never go below a 95.
When Kai came in the class, I thought for sure he would get paddled the first day because he's usually in trouble a lot at home. He surprised me though because in the first week, the teacher didn't even have to say anything to him. He was real well behaved and never acted up in class; that is until yesterday.
It was time for the first test of the summer and as the teacher handed out the test copies to us he said, "Now put everything away, nothing should be on your desks. And don't forget the penalty for cheating: 10 swats from the Board of Education." We put all of our things in the open area under our desks and started the test. Teacher walked around the room observing.
Towards the end of the test Kai, who was sitting in the desk next to mine, finally couldn't resist making some trouble. The teacher was in front of the room with his back to us. Kai leaned over and reached in my desk's storage space and pushed a button on my electronic translator. The mechanical voice emitted: "Optimum", one of our vocabulary words on the test that I had looked up before class. The teacher whipped around and saw me trying to turn it off quickly while Kai had returned to his test, a little grin on his face.
"Lau, stand up" teacher said sternly and walked quickly over to my desk and reached in and took out my translator. "You know using this is cheating Lau, and you also know the rules" as he took my ear between his two thumb and forefinger and marched me up to the front of the class.
"But, but...." I sputtered. "The only butt I am interested in is yours: Over my desk young man" as he took the paddle off its hook. I realized it was useless to argue, it would only make things worse. I did as I was told and bent over, my mind fearing what was about to happen and rear end clenching in anticipation.
WHACK, came the first swat. It seared my behind, feeling like a hot poker was laid across it, my mind exploding in white light. WHACK, came the second, quickly after the first. WHACK, WHACK, WHACK. By now my butt was on fire and I had to hold my eyes tightly closed to keep from crying. I suppressed all the cries of pain in my throat. It felt like I was choking.
WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, came the last five in quick succession. My rear end was now consumed in unbearable heat. I managed to raise up, though slowly, and I bowed to teacher as is required in our culture. The teacher hung the paddle up and as I was returning back to my desk I caught a look at Kai who had a sly grin on his face, you could tell he was giggling under his breath. Some other boys too were covering their smiles with their hands.
I stood next to my desk, as the heat in my seat gave me no other choice. I regained my composure as best I could and concentrated on finishing my test, though if I could have, I would have burst out crying. You can do that at home in front of your brothers or parents but never at school where you have to maintain face constantly.
As we filed out of the classroom at the end of the afternoon, I looked at the paddle on my way out. "Three perfect summers and no paddlings" I thought, "and Kai shows up and I get one the first week he's here." I knew this was gonna be a long summer.
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