My name's Mark Brewer. I'm sixteen. This winter I changed schools for the third time in four years. My dad keeps moving up in his firm; but every time he gets a promotion, we have to move.

This time I was expecting the worst because the move came in the middle of the school year and we had to move to a small town in Vermont. I thought that somebody who moved in from Evanston in February wouldn't stand a chance of finding any friends.

I was wrong.

In my fourth period French class the teacher put me next to a good-looking guy--short and on the slim side, but well-built, with dark brown hair. At the end of the period he said, "Hi, I'm Mike Ogden," and we talked a bit on the way to the cafeteria. It turned out that he lives just down the street from me with his father and his older brother.

As he was paying for his lunch, he said, "Where do you want to sit?" seeming to take it for granted that we would have lunch together.

The next day was Friday. We ate lunch together again, and he said, "Are you doing anything tomorrow?"

I said I wasn't, and he invited me over to his house.

I met his brother, Jim, who's is a senior and a jock. He plays football and wrestles and in is on the track team besides. He's a big guy with bulging muscles and classic good looks--blond hair and blue eyes. I expected him to have an attitude, but he was really nice. Their father seemed pretty cool, too.

The following Monday, when Mike and I met for lunch, he was looking very unhappy. I asked him what was wrong. "I got into trouble in biology class. We were throwing earthworms around, and Miss Scarpetta gave us all detention."

"So?" I said. "You stay after school for a half hour. What's the big deal?"

"When you get detention in this school, they give you a form that has to be signed by your parents," Mike explained. "This'll be the third one I've brought home this month. My dad isn't going to be too happy."

"So? He'll yell at you."

"If that's all he does, I'll be lucky."

"What else is he going to do?"

"Punish me. Maybe even give me a licking."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "A licking?" I said.

"Yeah!" Mike answered. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"But that's ridiculous," I said.

"Why?" he asked.

"You're too old for that," I protested.

"Try telling him that..." Mike said.

The next day I asked him what had happened.

"He let me off this time; but he said that if I brought home another one any time soon, I'd really get it."

"I had no idea your old man was such a prick. He seems like an O. K. guy."

"He is an O. K. guy. He's just strict about some things."

Later that week on a night when my parents weren't coming home for dinner, Mike invited me to eat at his house.

"Don't you have to ask your father first?" I asked.

"No. He won't mind."

"My parents would have a cow if I brought somebody home for dinner without asking."

"Everybody's parents are different," Mike said. "He doesn't mind at all."

When Mike told Mr. Ogden that I would be staying for dinner, he actually seemed pleased. Mike and I hung out in the kitchen with him while he prepared the meal.

The telephone rang, and he answered it. I heard him saying something about a meeting. Then the expression on his face changed. "He was at your house last night? ... How long? ... He told me he was going to the library to work on his term paper. ... O. K.

Thanks, Marion. I'll see you at eight."

As soon as he had hung up, he dialled another number. "Mrs. Stuart, this is Jeffrey Ogden. Do you happen to remember whether my son Jim was in the library last night? ... Only two or three people the whole evening? O. K. Thanks, Mrs. Stuart."

Mike looked in my direction. "The kid is dead," he whispered.

"Wait until I get my hands on him," Mr. Ogden said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Jim's not allowed to watch TV on school nights until he brings up his grades," Mr. Ogden explained. "There was a basketball game on last night that I knew he wanted to watch. If he had asked me, I would have let him watch it. But he told me he was going to the library to work on his term paper, and he went over to Bob Hardy's house to watch the game instead."

Jim came in from wrestling practice, ready to sit down to dinner. "Marion Hardy called a few minutes ago," Mr. Ogden said to him. "She wanted to tell me about a church committee meeting. She also mentioned that you'd been at her house last night."

"Oh yeah, Dad..." he said, trying to concoct an explanation.

"I'm listening..." Mr. Ogden said, staring at him intently.

Jim gave up trying to cover himself. "I guess you've already figured out what happened."

"Yes. You lied about going to the library and went over to Bob's to watch the game."

"Yes, sir."

"I guess you can figure out what's going to happen next."

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Go to your room and take your pants down."

"Yes, sir," he answered once again.

I had found it hard to believe the Mr. Ogden would spank Mike, who's a sophomore. But Jim's a senior--bigger and probably stronger than his old man. Mr. Ogden was about to spank him on the bare ass, and he wasn't even protesting. The whole scene was unbelievable.

Jim went to his room. Mr. Ogden opened a drawer and pulled out a heavy wooden brush with a short handle--like a hairbrush, but bigger. It was probably a bath brush. He headed for Jim's room and didn't even bother to close the door. Mike and I could hear everything from the kitchen.

"Shouldn't we get lost somewhere?" I said to Mike.

"No. What for? I want to hear this," Mike said, with a broad smile.

"Get down on the bed," Mr. Ogden ordered. Then he wasted no time getting down to business. Mike counted the swats. Jim took the first five without making any noise. Then he started yelling, "Ow," "Ah," OWWWW."

Mr. Ogden kept them coming. Before long Jim was crying. Then he started punctuating his cries with pleas: "I'm sorry, Dad. Really. Please stop, Dad. I'm sorry I lied to you."

"You'll be sorrier before I'm finished," Mr. Ogden said unsympathetically.

Finally he stopped. "Wow," Mike said. "Fifty. The most I ever got was thirty."

"I can't figure out your old man. Sometimes he's O. K., and sometimes he's a real son-of-a-bitch."

"Why?" Mike asked. "He gave him exactly what he deserved."

Mr. Ogden came back to the kitchen and finished fixing dinner. "It'll be a long time before he tries anything like that again," he said.

Mike and I went to wash up for dinner. Then Jim came out of his room. His eyes were red; but otherwise he looked O. K. We all sat down at the table. Both Jim and Mr. Ogden behaved as if nothing had happened.

After dinner Mr. Ogden said, "You guys will have to clean up tonight. I have to be at a meeting and eight o'clock. He put on his coat and went out. It took the three of us only a couple of minutes to handle the clean-up. Then Mike said, "Let's see the damages."

Right there in the kitchen Jim dropped his pants and showed us his ass. It was a deep red all over, with purplish marks showing through.

"_s_h_i_t_," I said. "Your ass is turning purple."

"I've had plenty of lickings," Jim said, "but this one was definitely the worst. You can't believe how much that hurt."

"You know how he hates lying," Mike said. "What did you expect?"

"I really thought he wouldn't find out. If it hadn't been for that stupid church meeting, I'd have been O. K."

"He didn't have to beat you like that. He could have grounded you or something."

"We get grounded for coming home late or leaving our clothes on the floor. For lying we get the brush," Jim said.

"That sucks."

"How do you get punished?" Mike said.

"I don't," I answered.

"Are you serious?" Jim asked.

"Yeah," I answered.

"I don't know. That may sound like a good deal; but I'm not so sure it is," Mike said.

"More than once it's been the fear of that brush that kept me from screwing up real bad," Jim said. "I'm surprised you haven't gotten into real trouble--growing up without any discipline."

About a month later Mike and I had a French test coming up, and we weren't prepared for it. 'Let's stay home sick and take a make-up" I said.

"Dad'll never let me do that," Mike said.

"Don't tell him about it,: I said.

"You have to bring a note," he countered.

"No _s_h_i_t_." I said. "So I'll write a note for you, and you can write a note for me."

It worked. The nurse in our school, Miss Darling, is a real space cadet. She just stamped the notes and put them into our files.

About a week later Jim had a history test that he didn't want to take. I wrote a note for him, and no one was any the wiser.

"I can't believe your scam worked," Mike said. "Every other time I do something wrong I get caught."

Then report cards came out. Mr. Ogden noticed that both Mike's report card and Jim's report card showed "Absences: 1." He immediately called the school and said that as far as he knew neither of his sons had been absent during the past marking period. Miss Darling told him she had notes in the file. He left his office and headed straight for the high school. He looked at the notes and told Miss Darling they were forged. She called the principal. Mike and Jim were summoned to the office. They got suspended for a day, and I don't have to tell you what happened when they got home.

While they were still in the office, Mr. Ogden asked them who had written the notes, and they were scared not to tell him. So the principal sent for me, and I got a day's suspension as well.

They called my mother at her office. She came down to get me. "This is embarrassing," she said. "You know how people talk in a small town." She dropped me off at home and went back to work.

That night she started going on about how embarrassed she was, but my old man said, "Get off the kid's case, Alice. You made your point."

She shut up.

The next day, since we were all suspended, I decided to go over to Mike's house and hang out.

"Besides getting sixty with the brush," Mike said, "we both have to write 1500-word essays on honesty. And they can't be bull_s_h_i_t_. If they're not good, he's gonna rip them up and make us do them over."

"What happened to you?" Jim asked me.

"My mother told me I had embarrassed her. She went on about how people talk in a small town; but my old man told her to leave me alone."

"The whole stupid idea was his," Mike said, "but we get fried, and he gets off scot-free."

Then, with a gleam in his eye, Jim said, "No he doesn't. Let's go get the brush."

"I'm getting out of here," I said half-heartedly; but Jim put his arm around my chest and carted me into the bedroom while Mike went to the drawer in the kitchen and got the brush.

"Take your pants down," Jim said.

"And the correct response is, 'Yes, sir'," Mike added.

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Now get down on the bed," Jim ordered.

"Yes, sir," I answered once again.

"How many should we give him?" Jim asked Mike.

"A hundred and twenty," Mike answered. I thought he was serious.

Jim spanked me first. He gave me ten swats. They hurt so much that I started to cry almost immediately. Somehow I managed to stay down on the bed. I wanted at all cost to prove I could take it.

Mike gave me the next ten. He hit me every bit as hard as Jim and paid no attention to my bawling.

I thought we were only at the beginning, but when Mike gave the brush back to Jim, he said, "He's never had it before. I'd say he's had enough." The he said to me,

"O. K. You can get up now."

When I got up, I had a hardon. I rushed to pull up my pants, but I noticed that Jim and Mike's crotches were bulging a little bit, too. I went into the bathroom to wash my face.

When I came out, Jim said, "Are you pissed?"

"No, sir," I answered with a smile.