"Dr. Holzer, I really must protest most strongly," Gerald Hines faced the startled headmaster.
"Please sit down, Mr. -?"
"Hines. Gerald Hines," the red-faced man snapped. He remained standing.
"What seems to be the problem?" Dr. Holzer asked patiently.
"Its about my daughter, " the man replied. "I received a letter that she had been given a severe caning. I will not tolerate this."
"Please do sit down, Mr. - er - Hines," the headmaster said. "I will try and find out what happened." He picked up the telephone and pressed a couple of buttons. "Yes, Freddy? Please bring me the records for - what is her name, Mr. Hines?"
"Elizabeth," the father replied. He sat down.
"Elizabeth Hines," Dr. Holzer finished. He hung up.
"Please, this will only take a few minutes." The sat in silence while they awaited the requested files.
After about 5 minutes, a young man brought in the file.
"Thanks, Freddy," Dr. Holzer said. "Just wait until I have looked at these and then you can take them back."
"There is no record here of any punishments for your daughter," Dr. Holzer finally said, laying down the several pages. You said Elizabeth Hines, is that correct?"
"Yes, this is correct," the man said. "You are sure all penalties are noted in the records?"
"Absolutely," the headmaster replied.
"Excuse me, headmaster," Freddy suddenly interjected, "but we have a George Hines, a junior boy just started this term. Perhaps they mixed up the first names."
"Thats my son," Gerald Hines grumbled. "Elizabeth is 3 years older."
"Well, that would explain it," Dr. Holzer said with a smile of relief. "Bring me his file and take this one back, will you?"
The atmosphere in the headmasters study had noticeably lightened. The two men chatted amicably while they waited for the second set of records.
When Freddy returned with the folder in question, Dr. Holzer reviewed the few pages and then looked up.
"I see here that young George and another boy were caught out of bounds with several girls, one of which was your daughter. I see that George and a Thomas Butler were each awarded 8 strokes of the cane. The girls were given extra homework and confined to their rooms for that evening. No further punishment was deemed necessary."
"Ah, that explains it. The letter that was sent to me instead mentioned my daughter by mistake. Well, I am certainly sorry I made this fuss. Thank you for having cleared it up so quickly."
The two men shook hands and Hines was about to leave when he turned by the door.
"By the way, Headmaster, 8 strokes of the cane is not enough for George. You dont know him yet, but if I were you, I would instruct the form and house masters to punish him more severely than that in the future. Good bye."
Actually, the 8 strokes with a very serviceable cane across the bare buttocks felt more than severe enough, young George would have said had he learned of this exchange. He now sat shifting painfully on the hard wooden seat of his desk trying to make sense of what the teacher up front was going on about. His bottom still hurt even though the caning had taken place 3 days ago.
"All right, children," the teacher wound up in a louder voice that made the students suddenly perk up. "Lets see how much you have absorbed. Jane, please answer the first question in the textbook."
A pretty blond girl stood. "Er - The reason for the invasion - er - they wanted to - er -"
"It seems you did not listen to what I just explained or didnt understand a word. You will read the chapter carefully and I will expect a correct answer later. Sit down. Thomas, explain the second point."
Eleven-year-old Thomas slowly got to his feet, making a face. His hand went to the seat of his tight shorts. He stood and shifted from one foot to the other. His face grew red. He mumbled a few words and then fell silent.
"Really, what is the matter with you children? Whats so difficult about this lesson? A bit more effort would be helpful. Thomas, come up here and we will see if we can persuade you to put in that extra effort."
The boy slowly approached the teachers dais, climbed the 3 steps and stood before the teacher. The man surveyed him for a moment, then turned to the wicker basket in the corner and selected a cane from the collection he kept there. Thomas stared at the cane with big eyes.
"But, sir," he whimpered, "thats the senior cane."
"Its a cane manufactured for the purpose of inculcating some knowledge into the thick heads of small, lazy boys," the man replied, unmoved by the boys stricken face. "Take your shorts down and bend over the desk. You should know the procedure by now."
The boy certainly did and soon lay across the hard desk surface. his shorts around his ankles. The teacher slowly pulled down the childs white underpants and stood back, measured the distance and the size of the small, wealed bottom. Then he raised the cane.
"Eight strokes," he announced and brought the cane down full force. The small bottom quivered at the impact, the cane digging deep into the firm flesh. Thomas gasped with pain and tears began to flow.
Stroke followed hard on stroke, each applied with considerable strength. The children in the class, 4 girls and 7 boys, looked on, some, mostly the girls, with grins and giggles, others with anxiety and empathy.
Thomas was blubbering by the fourth stroke but maintained his position, not daring to reach back or straighten up. But the fifth and sixth strokes made him shriek as they branded his upper thighs. He kicked out one foot and his entire lower body twisted back and forth.
"Lie still, boy," the master said. "Two extra for moving."
The boy groaned and gripped the edge of the desk even more firmly. He controlled himself during the next four cuts and the teacher replaced the cane.
"Get up, pull up your shorts and get back to your seat. I will call on you again so you had better study the lesson more carefully before then."
Young Thomas retrieved his small shorts with trembling fingers, pulled them up together with the underpants and carefully walked back to his seat. His face was red and tear-streaked, his mouth still trembled with pain.
George Hines had sat and watched the procedure. He was new in the school and quite shaken by what he had observed - and experienced - during these few days at the new school his step father had sent him to.
"It is a very good school, Thomas," Mr. Hines had told him. "Elizabeth loves it there and so will you. I dont want to hear anything more about it," he had added when Thomas started to protest. At that time, his main objection had been the schools uniform which included brief, tight grey shorts. He had been in long trousers since he was six or seven and resented having to go back into shorts, especially such skimpy ones.
But by now the shorts were the least of his problems. It was what was inside of them that caused him his present difficulties. From the first day on, he had learned what a cane feels across the seat of the shorts or on the bare. He had seen the marks the cane leaves across a boys backside and had wondered why he had never seen a girl being punished in class. At first he had thought they were caned in private but soon learned from other boys that the girls were exempt from corporal punishment.
On the first day at the school, a lady teacher had been assigned to show him around the school. The fields and buildings were all very impressive but he had admired the small bedrooms. They were simply, but tastefully furnished with a comfortable bed, down covers, thick carpet and large windows looking out on a nearby lake. It had made him feel a little more comfortable and his stay here not really that unpleasant.
"These are the girls quarters," the teacher, Miss Cross had explained. "We will now go to the boys place."
These were located at the top floor, a long, narrow space just under the roof rafters. The wooden floor was uncovered, the walls bare, one small window high up left in a minimum of light. There were about a dozen bed, six along each wall. But the beds were hardly beds. They consisted of a metal frame, a thin, used-up-looking mattress on top of the springs and a thin blanket of coarse wool.
George looked around in dismay. This was where he was going to sleep? It looked more like an armys barracks.
"Boys do not wear pyjamas," Miss Cross informed the disappointed boy. "They are not allowed to leave this room from lights-out to the morning bell. Any boy caught out of bed during that time will be severely punished."
Severely punished? George had trouble understanding the exact meaning of this phrase, but it would not be long before he found out, to his cost.
"Boys use the lavatories before going to bed, juniors like yourself under the supervision of a prefect and will have to wait for a prefect to take them in the morning. I will have no excuses. We know what dirty little boys are like and what they need to learn manners and hygiene - very frequent, severe canings, my boy. Remember that."
George had been in a trance-like state during that first day. A bad dream, a nightmare from which he desperately hoped to awaken soon. But it was no dream.