Graham mentioned two key examples: Tom Sawyer (in its several forms and adaptations) and Little House on the Prairie (books, but especially the TV series). Little House fashioned the imagination of many, including yours truly, and continues to fashion young minds today if reports out of the Kinky House are to be believed.

illustration by Mercer Mayer

I’d offer a couple more: The Great Brain, in which the title character gets paddled for something he didn’t do, memorably drawn by Mercer Mayer and less memorably portrayed by Jimmy Osmond in the 1978 tv movie (if anyone has a link to this video, please speak up, as I can’t find the scene in the parts of the film uploaded to u-tubby). This paddling is a great scene, even though I personally dislike the paddle as an implement (I find it rather brutish and blunt; unsubtle). It’s enjoyable because a) the victim, Tom, is such an insufferable manipulator most of the time, I don’t mind seeing him whacked unfairly; b) Tom is brave, refusing to give his tormentor, Mr. Standish, the satisfaction of seeing him cry. As narrated by Tom’s brother:

I felt tears come into my eyes as I watched Mr. Standish give Tom ten hard whacks with the paddle. The tears weren’t for the pain I knew Tom was suffering. I knew my brother could stand pain like an Indian without crying. The tears were for the humiliation I knew Tom was enduring (The Great Brain, 121).

c) Tom gets revenge on Mr. Standish, which appealed to me as a young reader, the rebel against unjust authority. But, d) ultimately Tom’s revenge is revealed as cruel and callous, earning a terrific rebuke from Tom’s father:

“I have never laid a hand on you,” Papa said, breathing heavily, “but right at this moment if I had that paddle, I’m afraid I would give you a paddling that would make the one you got from Mr. Standish seem like patty-cakes” (136-7).

I was absorbed for some time in imagining that if-statement.

From the children’s book shelves we find If You Lived in Colonial Times ¹ by Ann McGovern. I would direct the reader to page 24 “What happened if you didn’t behave in school.”

I was lucky enough once to get a first-hand encounter with the one-room schoolhouse. I grew up within field-trip distance of the Henry Ford Museum / Greenfield Village, which is a gigantic outdoor museum of bygone American life. People are dressed in 19th century garb, and you can make butter like they did back in the day, see men forge horse shoes, etc. There is also a one-room schoolhouse, the Scotch Settlement School. When I was in fourth grade (age 9) my class got to spend a day in it.

At that age I was in a mixed 4th and 5th grade class of about 30 kids taught by a husband/wife team. I’ll call them Mr. & Mrs. Sweet because we all adored them. They were perfectly firm and took no nonsense, but they valued fun and unconventional methods. We got to go on more field trips than any of the other classes; they’d give us long recesses when we got cagey in the winter; they kept all sorts of live animals in the room; they’d tear up your math book and skip you ahead if they thought you could handle it; they read aloud to us regularly; and they had a carpeted claw-foot bathtub, shaded by a rainbow umbrella, where you could go and read books when you’d finished your assignments.

Mr. and Mrs. Sweet also had a paddle on the wall of their classroom. This disconcerted me. As previously discussed, corporal punishment was not used at my school (although it was legal in the state), but most of us got it at home. I just didn’t know how to feel about the fact that my favorite teachers kept a paddle on the wall, and, worse, would jocularly (?) threaten kids with it from time to time. (e.g. kid getting wild would be asked sternly: Do you want a spankin’? To which the only answer was a fervent shaking of the head no.) What’s more, this paddle was covered in signatures, supposedly the signatures of those who’d been whacked with it.  The subject was far too serious for me, at age 9, to have any perspective on the Sweets’ possible tongue-in-cheek threats.

Scotch Settlement School Greenfield Village

Still with me? Right, the schoolhouse: it is winter of fourth grade and we are going to spend a day having school at Greenfield Village. We will have free dress (no uniforms), and period costumes are encouraged. Costumes!?! I wore one of my Little House on the Prairie outfits, and even better, all the other kids made an effort, and Mr. & Mrs. Sweet were wearing costumes, too! OMG!!!!!!

All morning we sat at double desks, wrote on slates, did lessons out the McGuffey Reader, and got to sample the full range of old-fashioned responses to incorrect answers and misbehavior: writing lines on the blackboard, the dunce cap, holding books out in front of you, and—yes—whipping! This is where I got a little confused about how real it all was. Mr. and Mrs. Sweet, with the deep thespian instinct of all good teachers, introduced the punishments one by one, beginning with the mildest, and working up to the whipping. They looked for victims, choosing the typically naughty kids in the class, robust kids, kids who would play along. When it came time for the first whipping, Mr. Sweet put on his gravest scowl, selected a long switch from the supply, and wordlessly beckoned the naughty boy to follow him. They exited behind the blackboard wall.

The Scotch Settlement School at Greenfield Village

[When you entered the schoolhouse, there was a row of pegs for hanging your cloaks, and on each side a doorway leading to the schoolroom itself. It was to this "cloakroom" that Mr. Sweet & boy repaired.]

A hush fell over the class and then we heard it: the unmistakable sounds of a switch being applied. Thwick… thwick… “Ow!” the boy cried out plaintively. Thwick-ow! Thwick-ow!! Thwick-thwick-thwick! Sobs.

Can you imagine my uncertainty and fear?

great pic of the hooks by Devonhaupt

Soon Mr. Sweet emerged, conducting the boy by the collar. The class found this risible, but Mr. Sweet merely glared at us and deposited the boy into the corner, where he continued wiping his eyes. The twitters in the class probably communicated to Mr. and Mrs. Sweet that we were with them, but also possibly that not all of us were sure how real the performance was. I, for one, was starting to feel sick to my stomach. My seatmate, Frances (the best friend of my friend) assured me it was just pretend. But wasn’t the boy crying? I asked. His face was red. Frances wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t long before Mrs. Sweet had to whip someone. They, too, were taken off to the cloakroom and subjected to the same painful treatment. They, too, emerged rubbing their eyes. This was quickly becoming a very anxious field trip for me. I wondered when we’d get to go visit the crafts people, or have recess. As the morning wore on and more punishments were meted out, kids started to vie with one another to get punished, eager for the excitement and attention. Everyone was getting it, bad kids, good kids. You didn’t even have to misbehave for the Sweets to find a reason to include you in the drama. Frances told me not to worry; it wouldn’t be bad if I got in trouble. But I was worrying, and worrying all the more because the Sweets were running out of victims. The majority of the class had got in some kind of trouble or another. I sat very quietly at my desk and worked very hard on my slate.

The whipping reached a climax with the execution of a girl called Beth, who was generally well-behaved and a great favorite of Mr. Sweet. He summoned her to the cloakroom with thespian gravitas, we heard the requisite sounds, but when they emerged, she had her hands over her face—to conceal her passionate tears? or… was it to conceal her laughter? For Mr. Sweet was holding a broken switch aloft for the whole class to see. He wore an expression of disgust and shock, that this girl had been so very bad that she had actually broken the switch! The schoolroom exploded in laughter. If there had been a curtain, it would have fallen.

It was probably then that I began to cotton on, but unfortunately, it was time for recess, lunch, and touring the rest of Greenfield Village. Beth, who was a trustworthy friend, later revealed the stagecraft (whacking the coats, with the kids crying out).

I can’t tell you how much I would like to have a second chance at that day. Or how much I’d like to take some of my former students on such a field trip. Or even, how much I’d like to try it on with various friends who could be relied upon to rustle up authentic costumes, and swot up authentic practices. Wonder what it would take to book a field trip there today…

Norman Rockwell's classic illustration for Tom Sawyer

¹ This book is the antecedent for an in-joke M and I had. Once when we were staying at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, I accidentally got smashed before lunchtime on Brandy Alexanders. We retired to our room where I (uncharacteristically) took off all my clothes, sprawled across the bed, and (reportedly) said: Tell me about the colonial days! before passing out. M teased me with this thereafter whenever a drink started to go to my head. Other people took it as an amusing, drunken remark, but he and I knew I had been asking him to tell me about birching of school children in the American colonies. lol.

Miss Blue-frock and Mr. Stripy-blazer approached the summerhouse from opposite directions. Natty wiped the lenses of opera glasses and focused them on the gap in the hedge that gave on to the summerhouse. Mr. Stripy-blazer had attended many of Uncle A’s house parties and never failed to provide entertainment, at least from Natty’s vantage. She was never permitted to meet any of Uncle A’s guests, but she listened to the servants’ gossip. Mr. Stripy-blazer had recently Come Down from Oxford, where he had rowed. He was well-connected, well-mannered, a sportsman, a Good Catch, and a Cad. Whenever Uncle A held a house party, Natty watched for Mr. Stripy-blazer’s diverting antics in the summerhouse. Just now, in fact, he and Miss Blue-frock were moving rapidly on from their first, abrupt kiss. Natty shifted on the windowsill for a steadier view as Mr. Stripy-blazer disappeared beneath Miss Blue-frock’s skirt.

“Natalie!”

She jumped, heart pounding. The opera glasses clattered to the floor.

“Come down from there, child.”

Trembling, Natty climbed down from the windowsill and stared at the woman who had just discovered her hiding spot.

“What are you doing in here?” the woman asked. Natty picked up the opera glasses and tucked them into her pocket. “What were you spying on up there?”

“Nothing.”

The woman frowned. “Come with me.”

Natty crossed her arms. “Who are you?”

“Miss Bea.” Then, seeing the puzzlement on Natty’s face, “Miss Bea’s sister.”

“But you’re old!” Natty’s nurse was not yet twenty, she had said. This woman’s hair was turning gray around the edges. How could she be Miss Bea’s sister? How could she be called Miss Bea too? And, where was her Miss Bea?

“We’re a large family,” said the woman. “Carrie is our youngest.”

“You mean my Miss Bea?”

“My sister has been called away on urgent business, and I’ve come to take her place for the time being.” Natty’s face fell. She’d liked her Miss Bea. Old Miss Bea wrinkled her brow as if she knew more than she was saying. “And not a moment too soon, I think.”

She took Natty by the wrist and led her out of the linen cupboard and back to the nursery. Her hand was soft but strong in a way that made Natty uneasy. Why would she say not a moment too soon? Old Miss Bea sat on the window-seat and drew Natty in front of her.

“You were supposed to be resting, I thought.”

“I was. I –“

“Leaving the nursery and spying out of cupboard windows is not resting,” Old Miss Bea said firmly. Natty’s stomach churned. “Your fever is back, I think.”

“It isn’t!” Natty protested. “And I don’t need to rest!”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Miss Bea put a hand on the back of Natty’s neck and led her into the little bathroom. She rattled through the cupboard and emerged with a jar. From her apron she produced a thermometer, then she sat down in the straight backed chair. “Come here,” she said.

Natty opened her mouth, confident in her ability to move the thermometer discreetly from underneath her tongue.

Miss Bea took her by the elbow. “Don’t be silly.” Before Natty knew what was happening, she had been tipped across Miss Bea’s knee.

She struggled, panic setting in. “I never have my temperature taken that way! I’m too old!”

“Nonsense,” said Miss Bea, lifting her dress and unceremoniously whisking down her knickers. “It’s the most reliable method. Hold still.”

Natty felt a sharp smack on her bottom, then something wet on Miss Bea’s finger, then the cold glass of the thermometer going into her bottom.

“I’m too old!” she cried.

“Apparently,” said Miss Bea, “you aren’t. Now, stop fussing. No one’s hurting you.”

Natty felt another slap, less hard this time, on the top of her thigh. She stopped squirming and closed her eyes.

It wasn’t really happening. She wasn’t a baby. She wasn’t really having her temperature taken this way. In a minute this Miss Bea would disappear and her Miss Bea would be back, the nice Miss Bea Natty could fool without much trouble. Nice Miss Bea who never did more than scold her. Nice Miss Bea who felt sorry for her, being orphaned and being sick so much of the time. Nice Miss Bea who brought her nice things to eat and then disappeared conveniently for hours at a time with the gardener’s boy. Nice Miss Bea who always said how clever she was, clever beyond her years. Nice Miss Bea who—

The thermometer moved as Mean Miss Bea took it out of her bottom.

“Hmm,” she said disapprovingly. “Your fever most certainly is back, young Natalie, and you most certainly haven’t been resting as you were told.” Abruptly, she pulled Natty to her feet. Natty reached down to pull up her knickers, but Miss Bea slapped her hands away. “We’ll have those off, I think.”

“What!”

But they were already at her ankles and Miss Bea was taking them off her.

“I need them!”

“Little girls who aren’t well belong in bed and do not need pants.”

“I am well! And I don’t need to rest.” Miss Bea just looked at her. Natty could tell she didn’t believe her. “All I do is rest. I hate resting! I’m so sick and tired of resting I could jump out the window and smash up my brains on the pavement!”

Without warning, she burst into tears. Then, equally without warning, Miss Bea pulled Natty into her arms. “I know,” she said.

“You don’t know!” Natty sobbed. “No one knows.”

“Perhaps not,” said Miss Bea, “but I know what it’s like to be unwell for a long time.”

Natty’s tears ebbed. “You do?”

“Yes. But that is neither here nor there. When I was young, I had no Nurse Bea to look after me.”

“You’re a nurse?”

“Certainly. And who knows how much quicker I would have got well if I had.”

“What was the matter with you?”

“Again, neither here nor there. The point, young Natalie, is that you do have Nurse Bea to look after you, for the moment. And in the time we have together, you can rely on me to do what’s best for you in every possible way.”

It sounded luckier than finding a penny under the rug. Natty wondered why it made her tummy feel funny. Nurse Bea proceeded to examine her, feeling her throat, looking in her eyes, at her tongue, then turning her around to unbutton her dress.

“Oh!” Natty protested.

“Yes, yes,” Nurse Bea replied. “Let’s take all that as read, shall we?”

Natty wasn’t sure what she meant, exactly, but she had an uneasy feeling that Nurse Bea knew her entirely too well. Already. She removed Natty’s dress and then sat her on a stool. “Right, you get those shoes and stockings off and fold your things up neatly.”

Without a glance to ensure her orders were being followed, Nurse Bea adjourned into the big bathroom, the one with the lead-lined tub, the water closet, the fireplace, and the windows overlooking the rose garden. Natty untied her shoes and heard water running in the basin, then the grate being lit. Presumably Nurse Bea had drawn the bath earlier. Natty didn’t like being watched in the bath, unless there were bubbles to hide under. She hoped Nurse Bea would understand, and she hoped there would be no new and horrible medicine to take.

Nurse Bea appeared at the door, a bath towel draped over her arm. “I don’t call that folded neatly,” she said, glancing at Natty’s things. Sighing pointedly, Natty refolded them. It didn’t matter if her things were folded neatly or not. It wasn’t as though she was ever allowed out to see people. “Neatness is always worth the trouble,” Nurse Bea said, as if reading her mind. “Now, come here.” She took Natty by the wrist again, unnecessarily, Natty thought, and led her into the big bathroom.

A fire was burning in the grate, but the bath had not been drawn. The armless upholstered chair that Miss Bea always sat in while Natty had her bath had been moved into the middle of the room. Next to it stood the side-table, and on the table a white, enameled bowl full of soapy water.

“I don’t like sponge baths,” Natty protested as Nurse Bea sat down in the chair. “Why can’t I have a regular bath?”

“Oh, you shall, when we’re done here.” Nurse Bea spread the towel over her lap and then patted it. “Over you get.”

Natty’s face burned. “What! Why? I haven’t done anything!”

Nurse Bea gripped her wrist and pulled her firmly across her knee. “Don’t be silly. You’re not well enough to have a spanking.” Natty struggled to get up. Nurse Bea tightened her grip. “However, if you insist on misbehaving…” Natty heard something being taken out of a container behind her. Something swished through the air, spraying her with water. Then that something fell with a light thwick on her bottom.

“Oh!”

“I can’t imagine that hurt very much,” said Nurse Bea, bringing the light twigs down again. It didn’t actually hurt, but Natty was incensed by the indignity. “However,” Nurse Bea continued, “a nursery willow switch can grow quite stingy without doing the slightest bit of damage.” She brought it down ten more times, building the sensation from a tingle to a sting, so much that Natty was quite glad when she stopped. “If I’ve made my point, perhaps we can begin.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Natty asked, employing her most suspicious and pitiable voice, the one she reserved for doctors she hoped to cow into mercy.

“You can drop that tone,” Nurse Bea said with a light laugh. “It doesn’t impress me. And I’m not going to do anything to you. You’re clearly in need of a wash-out. You’ll feel much better afterwards and entirely ready for sleep.”

Natty froze, dread engulfing her. “Castor oil makes me throw up,” she protested.

“I entirely disapprove of castor oil,” Nurse Bea said. She reached for the jar on the table. Natty felt something being smeared on her bottom. “Now hold still!” Nurse Bea admonished.

“You just took my temperature!”

“Stop being silly.” The switch came down again, quickly and sharply, twelve times, until Natty lay still. “Thank you.” Natty’s eyes stung. She wasn’t a little girl. She didn’t like being held across Nurse Bea’s lap as if she were. She was about to say as much when Nurse Bea took something from behind the enamel bowl and put it into the soapy water.

“What’s that?”

“Gracious, child, don’t tell me you’ve never had an enema this way.”

The burning in Natty’s face spread to every inch of her skin. Nurses had threatened her with that word before, but she wasn’t precisely sure what it meant. All she knew was that it was something embarrassing that happened to you when you were very bad.

“I’m not that bad! I’ve never been that bad!”

“Whatever are you on about, Natalie? Don’t tell me you’ve never had an enema?”

“No!”

“Heavens!” Nurse Bea sounded shocked. “Well, that explains quite a bit. No, don’t move. You’re having one now, and not a moment too soon.” Natty felt something cold against her bottom. It slid slowly inside, like the thermometer had. Then, a faint gurgling sound, and a warm and peculiar feeling inside her.

“Let me go!” Natty cried.

Slowly, the thing was pulled out of her, dripping some warm water, which Nurse Bea wiped off with a cloth.

“I’m not a baby!” Natty shouted, wriggling while keenly aware of the water in her bottom.

“You’re certainly behaving like one,” said Nurse Bea dryly. “Now hold still.” The switch fell again. “No one’s harming you.” Thwick. Thwick. “You’re simply getting an enema.” Thwick. Thwick. Natty held still. “Now just you concentrate on holding that until it’s time to sit on the toilet.”

Natty’s face burned at the mention of such unmentionable things. But the switch had resumed and was stinging again. Just as it got too stingy, it stopped, and she felt that thing pressing into her bottom. Slowly, Nurse Bea squeezed the water out. Her tummy started to hurt.

“I need to go now!”

“Nonsense. You only think you do.” Nurse Bea set down what Natty now saw was a kind of bulb and took up the switch. She used it lightly, but firmly enough to make Natty lie still. Just as the sting was building, she stopped and exchanged it for the bulb. “This is doing you a lot of good, I see. A lot of good.”

Natty simply did not know what to say. The idea that such a mortifying thing could be doing her good was simply outrageous. And it was very strange indeed the way Nurse Bea kept trading the just-stingy switch for the just-achy bulb. It was even stranger how she felt comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time held across Nurse Bea’s lap, the big white towel beneath her, wearing only her vest, her fingertips toying with the fringe of the rug.

She wasn’t counting how many times Nurse Bea used the bulb thing, but her tummy was hurting again, strongly, and she didn’t know how long she could wait. She held her breath.

“Is that cramping?” Nurse Bea asked. Natty nodded. “Don’t hold your breath, Natalie.” She put one hand on Natty’s bottom and with the other hand rubbed her back until the cramping subsided. “Right,” she said, lifting Natty to her feet. “Time to let that water out.”

Natty’s face was burning with embarrassment, hotter than any fever she could remember, as Nurse Bea took her by the wrist and led her to the toilet. Natty sat down, scowling, and looked away while Nurse Bea left the room.

Only Nurse Bea did not leave the room. “Come along, now, let’s have that water out.”

“I can’t go with you here!”

Nurse Bea pursed her lips. “You can and you will. You’re certainly not being left alone during your first enema, child.”

And Nurse Bea was right. The water was coming out, and Natty couldn’t stop it even if she wanted to. Nurse Bea watched her the whole time, not even looking away in consideration for her feelings. She didn’t even look away when it made horrible, embarrassing noises. Natty wanted to cry, but she was too focused on the pain in her tummy and the way it waxed and waned. Nurse Bea stood by her side, and at one point when Natty thought she was done, Nurse Bea told her to turn and look over her right shoulder. There was nothing there, but the turning made the water start again. Eventually, Nurse Bea agreed that she was indeed done. Natty felt very tired. Tired, and somewhat lighter. She reached for the toilet paper, but it wasn’t in its place.

“Up you get,” said Nurse Bea.

“I need the paper!”

But Nurse Bea was having none of that. Natty wasn’t sure if it was more embarrassing to have Nurse Bea wipe her bottom for her, as if she were a baby, or to have Nurse Bea look into the toilet bowl and declare that she certainly had needed that enema, more seriously than expected.

Then Nurse Bea was taking her to the chaise longue by the window and making her lie down and covering her with the towel. “Twenty minutes rest,” she announced, adjusting the watch on her lapel. She produced a book from her pocket. “Would you like reading to?”

Natty didn’t want to say yes. She didn’t want to cooperate in any way with Nurse Bea’s hideous regime. But she did like being read to. Not knowing what do say, she scowled.

“Right then,” Nurse Bea replied, opening the book, “Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome.”

They’d just gotten to the bit about housemaid’s knee, or something anyhow to do with a dog, or a seal that stole things and was naughty, and Natty had turned into the seal, a gray seal with no clothes that swam in the sea and climbed up onto the beach and onto the lap of someone who loved it, and the seal never had to rest, in fact never did rest, it just swam and swam through the whole of the sea, down in the dark and up on the pebbles, a little animal exploring a vast, wild world…

Sometimes she would sneak into his room at night and stand by the side of his bed. He’d put his willy away, scootch over, raise the covers, and then put his arms around her from behind. Sometimes she cried, but it didn’t stop him hugging her. He wasn’t Marky, but when the hug reservoirs were so catastrophically low, any hug felt like rain after drought. Sometimes in an attempt to cheer her up, he’d whisper bits of The Mikado libretto, to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark, dock, his striped palms around her elbows, knees behind hers, breath on her cheek.

You should have heard the bellyaching this week about the wildcards. All we have to say is: Suck it up, buttercup; hard words will continue until morale improves!

Read other folks tuff enuf to write this week:

• Rafi
• Travis
• Abby
• Nettagyrl

“Justin said you had a question?” Her tone conveyed mistrust of her younger brother, in this and everything.

He gestured to the footstool. She approached but did not sit.

“What?” she demanded, injured innocence.

“I’m wondering,” he said idly, “whom you are texting in the middle of the night.”

She crossed her arms. “No one. And if Justin says different, then you should talk to him about lying.”

“Differently,” he correctly. “Do you mean to say you aren’t texting after bedtime?”

“I’m not stupid, Dad.” Her voice exasperated, and so very plausible, as usual.

She’d talked him into the unlimited plan, promising to pay for it herself with earnings from her job at The Sno-Kone, and having agreed she would not violate her bedtime. He’d agreed, unwisely he saw now. He’d never been through this with his eldest daughter, who was too busy with her violin in Aspen this summer to be tempted by technology. His soon-to-be tenth grader, however…

“This plan is excellent,” he said. “You can’t exceed the limit, so we can avoid the run-ins that plagued us last year.”

She blushed and scowled. “That was the point, Dad.”

He reached for a paper on his desk. “Also, they provide the most helpful itemized bills, date, time and source of each text.” She blanched, and then burst into tears. “I think you’d better go cut a switch,” he said, setting the gas bill back on his desk.

Read other folks writing this week:

• Travis King
• Frenchies
• Rafi
• Nettagyrl
• Papatomla

It’s hard to describe what it’s like to knock around the same house wearing things he would have fancied an awful lot and not have him here to say things.

Last weekend I ventured  into a form of half-mourning with some dark-dyed jean shorts. Up until now, I’ve been wearing all black every day, with the exception of the grey suit I wore to a graduation this June. Here in Gotham, lots of people wear all black, so it doesn’t quite communicate what it might have in other times, but then I don’t wear it for other people. These dark blue short, however, felt…gaudy, even when paired with a black top and shoes. I can completely see the point of half-mourning, i.e. mixing greys and other dark tones in with the black for a half a year. After 14 months of all black, color feels alarming.

He would have liked these blue shorts, a lot. They would probably have made him want to take out a paddle, or a strap. Maybe, if worn up in the country, they would have made him want to take them down, and perhaps apply some switch cut from the yard, or just his hand.

I don’t really know. I won’t know. These days I’m no longer a temptation in shorts, but just a middle-aged woman slobbing around in clothes that are probably too young for her.

“Pay attention, Padawan,” James was saying. She tried to concentrate on the rope he was holding. “You’ve got to let go at the top of the arc.”

“Or I’ll swing back and get smashed, I know.”

“Don’t be scared.”

The wine they filched was supposed to kill fear. In him it seemed to work. If she let go in time, she’d fall beyond the rocks. It was like flying, he said, especially in the dark.

“What will Carrstairs do if he finds out?”

James shrugged, moon on his bare shoulder. “You afraid of the third degree from the Rector?”

She shrugged, too, wishing it could kill the burning in her stomach. The Rector went in for more like the sixteenth degree, though he spread it out over a day or more, catching you unawares when you didn’t know you were being questioned. She wondered how it would feel to be held across Mr. Carrstairs’s knee, his foot braced against a boulder, while he applied a switch to wet skin. James wore faint marks two days later. It would be a change, anyhow, from being treated distantly out of pity for her circumstances.

The Rector saw her too much, the others not at all.

She took the rope from James’s hands and backed up the slope.

Read other folks writing this week:

• Rafi
• Nettagyrl
• Travis King
• PapaTomLA

A tall man strode down the footpath, wearing grey trousers, dress shoes, white billowy shirt, and a black-and-red striped tie. He nodded as he passed, purposeful.

A few minutes down the path, she glimpsed him at the edge of the quarry, trimming the leaves off a thin branch with a pocket knife, a bundle of clothing at his feet. Below, a boy her age treaded water, his voice echoing up the bank.

“Sir, can’t we discuss it?”

“Certainly,” said the man. “Out you get.”

She watched as the boy hoisted himself, naked, from the water. The man tucked his tie into his shirt, gripped the boy by the shoulder, bent him over the tree trunk, and applied the switch.

“You do not swim alone.” Thwack-thwack-thwack. “You do not swing from this rope.” Thwack-thwack-thwack. The boy yelped. “As previously discussed.” The man tightened his grip and continued.

Afterwards, he handed the boy a handkerchief and told him to dress. She dashed away before she was seen.

After supper that night, the Rector brought a visitor into the garden.

“Casey, say good-evening to Mr. Carrstairs, your summer tutor.”

She stood, trembling. He wore a jacket now, and a silk handkerchief. “I believe we’ve already met,” he said.

As it happens, I came upon this very spot on a footpath in sunny Shepperton this week (photo not local, obv). There was in fact a pile of apparently abandoned clothes by the broken rope-swing, but no-one else in sight. Been wondering about it ever since…

What is Flash Fiction Friday?

Check out the other writers this week:

• Rafi
• PapaTomLA

But I’m attracted to this character of Rip’s, to his unswerving moral compass; to his compassion and firmness which co-exist without conflict, in fact in service of each other; to his persistence; to his even-tempered nature; to his honesty; to his huge dependability. Even as a p.o.v. character, he is focused on his sons and their needs (which makes him perhaps a bit unrealistic?).

I don’t remember if I ever discussed Rip’s “In…” stories with M. I remember discussing “Keene’s” briefly and him saying it wasn’t his thing exactly but that he could see it was mine. He liked a more severe, non-con quality in his stories and fantasies, veering into the sexual. Less of the emotional stuff that I like. I can’t see him being too interested in these two stories whose implement is a very unaesthetic nylon cane/switch. Marky would also find them very wet because there are all these tears, but no marks from the whacking – s-nore, he’d say. Yet, M. would have liked this family, I think, and approved of a lot of it. Would we have been that kind of parents if we’d had kids? I wonder if he ever did read those stories and what he thought. I can’t quite grasp the reality that I’m not ever going to know.