Thursday 24 May 2012

The Pecking Order (F/m)


This story is a more descriptive version of a piece I wrote of a man looking back on an event from his time at school when he was nine years old. You could say that this is a ‘Whacking Tales’ slant on that story, a gentle tale intended for general circulation. You could also say I nursed a desire to enter the headmistress’s study with the two main characters. It didn’t happen in the original version. It certainly does here. An offstage strapping can be so frustrating.– Alfred Roy

 When I was nine years old, which is much further back than I care to admit to, I lived in a microcosmic world. I didn’t know it was microcosmic, you don’t know such words when you are nine years old, but I did know it was my world. It consisted of me and most of the other seven to eleven year old boys and girls whom fate had determined should go to a particular school. And within that world there were lots of even smaller worlds which formed and shaped in the playground. Nine year old boys didn’t mix with younger or older kids and, outside of the classroom, they especially didn’t mix with nine year old girls. So my world was essentially a world of forty or so nine year old boys. If one is being pedantic, another word I didn’t know at nine years old, I should say it was also my world when we were eight and would continue when we were ten and eleven. But this story is about when we were nine. I have no doubt that when we were eight, or ten, or eleven, we had other tales and other dramas. But this is about when we were nine.

Jonny Napier was top dog when we were nine. He wasn’t a bully, far from it. He was a nice kid with a nice mother. She gave me sweets on my first day of going to school and I liked her and I liked her Jonny. The youngest of five. But he was strong and tough and it did not take long for all of his contemporaries, his schoolmates, to discover he was the important top dog. Nobody could beat Jonny Napier in a fight. I certainly couldn’t, I didn’t even try. Fighting was not my strong point and I was quite happy to defer to Jonny Napier, neighbourhood friend with a nice mother, and call him the best. And most of our schoolmates felt the same as me. You don’t fight Jonny Napier, you don’t win. But there are always two or three who kick at the status quo. And no, I did not know what that phrase meant either but, for the purpose of this narrative, just accept that I eventually got educated and words like contemporaries and phrases like status quo have got added as I grew older. But when I was nine I just knew that two or three kicked at whatever it was. It probably happened in schools, in small worlds, all over the place. In our place, in our school to be precise, there were three who occasionally and rashly took Jonny Napier on. They always lost so, naturally, not being able to be number one they took on each other in that fascinating, vital, search to be number two. The story really starts because all the individual fights at the second level, all the fights between these three resolved nothing.

The problem was that Mickie could always beat Dougie but could not, however much he tried, get the better of Ray. And Ray was so good he made Mickie look useless but, when taking on Dougie he folded like the proverbial newspaper. So whichever of the three was watching the other two fight he knew, confusingly and annoyingly, that he could thrash the winner but would always succumb to the loser. The second place, the revered number two to nine year old Jonny Napier’s number one, remained unresolved and irresolvable. If only one of them could up his game then the number two slot would be sorted and the two losers could settle for numbers three and four. Order in the nine year old world would be defined and everyone would be happy. But try as they might Mickie continued to beat Dougie, Dougie continued to thrash Ray, and Ray always came out on top with Mickie. The situation needed a catalyst to shake up the intractable pot and it got one in the shape of a new, slightly foreign, intrusion going by the name of George. His full name was Georgio Ramonti and this olive skinned nine year old took on and whupped the revered Jonny Napier, our number one, twice in the space of a week. A new order was being established and the word in the playground was that this boy, this Italian intruder, was good. Trouble was he wasn’t that good and, one by one, the three jockeying for the coveted number two slot proved it. George or Georgio might have knocked Jonny off his seemingly impregnable perch but clambering on to it himself was to prove premature. He took on the squabbling second strings and lost to them all. The small, microscopic, world of nine year old boys was in confusion.

You may be wondering where I come into this story. Well this is it. I might not have fists but I have a brain and Jonny Napier was my friend. I told him, and the others, that as fighting couldn’t settle the situation they would need a different test. Especially now that the young Italian had helped create an even more complicated mix. I’m Tony by the way. Or Anthony as I prefer to be known now I am older and wiser. My adult skills lie in negotiation and arbitration and, even at nine, those skills were clearly in evidence. They weren’t that good though because whilst imagination and execution earned me a few playground brownie points, consequences didn’t get too much of a look in. As you will find out. I told Jonny and George, plus the three squabbling seconds, that they needed a new way to determine who was really number one. Swimming was out as only two of them could swim, running was also dumped as the lanky Dougie had a head start on all of them, and neither marbles nor a conker competition engendered much enthusiasm. No, they needed something special and, talking to Jonny Napier, I came up with it. An uncle had bought me a young readers edition of ‘The labours of Hercules’ the previous Christmas and, I suppose, I must have been influenced by it. There was a lot of slaying or capturing tasks in that book and it got me thinking. Slaying was out, but capturing or stealing something seemed to be rich with possibilities. Especially if it was something iconic, that’s another word I didn’t know when I was nine, something special. The first boy to get it would become top dog for the rest of the year. We told the other four and the all nodded enthusiastically. I gulped. It was my idea but, as I looked into their eager eyes, I had no idea what that something should be.

It took me a week to come up with an idea that seemed to have all the necessary ingredients. Danger, but not too much, daring, audacity and a little bit of cunning. They had two morning assemblies at our school and in the one I went to, the nine to eleven year olds, the nine year olds sat at front. One teacher took the assembly and three others helped to keep order. They kept it short, usually about fifteen or twenty minutes, and then we were sent off to our various classes. The teacher taking the assembly stood behind a small table and on that table, amongst other things, was the school’s blue and gold bible. It wasn’t very big but we always knew it was there because every now and then the teacher taking the assembly would pick it up and quote something from it. They didn’t hark on too much about religion at our school but it was, I guess, symbolic. And it was always on the table when we were dismissed. I know this because I watched carefully for a week or so before making my proposal. They all nodded apart from Dougie, who said it was too difficult and dropped out. So no number one for him we said. Mickie said that being slippered for spitting the previous week had made the lanky Dougie nervous. But all the others were in. Mickie and Ray and Jonny Napier and the olive skinned George knew what they had to do. Whoever took that bible during assembly, showed it to the others in the break and then returned it, would be top dog for the rest of that school year. No arguments. When we split I was very pleased with my idea.

Nothing happened for a few days. I reckon they were all assessing the possibilities and then, the Wednesday following my proposal, Ray went to pick it up as we were being dismissed and was promptly told by an adult voice to put it down and get to his class. Two days later Mickie made a try for it and was just about to put it under his jumper when a teacher grabbed him. He was taken off and, we reckon, got slippered. He never said, but he returned to class with tell-tale red eyes, and when we saw him later he said the whole thing was stupid and he wanted nothing more to do with it. Another potential number one had, nursing a sore bottom, retired from the fray. But that still left George and Jonny and the thwarted Ray who, in spite of his earlier failure, was still prepared to give it a try. Problem is the teacher’s were getting suspicious, adults aren’t stupid and they sensed something was going on. And they sensed that the something involved the blue school bible with the gold lettering. All adult eyes were firmly fixed on that bible during assembly. At least for the next week or so. But you can’t remain on constant vigilance forever and they gradually relaxed. And it was when they relaxed that somebody, a young girl, fainted in assembly. And all the teachers rushed to her to check she was all right. And when she recovered, when normality was restored and everyone dismissed, they discovered that the bible had gone. Thinking back to it now, I can’t help but admire George’s cheek and audacity. If that is tautology then I apologise but, what the heck, who knows about tautology when you are nine. He did what the nervous Dougie and the contrite Mickie were scared to do and what Ray and Jonny Napier hadn’t the wit to perform. He created a distraction. The olive skinned Georgio bided his time and, when things relaxed, he deployed his older sister and struck. While all were attending the young girl he nicked the bible. Job done. Italians rule okay. And he displayed it to us in the break. A worthy number one in the private, secluded, world of nine year olds. It was only when he went to return it that he got caught and a trip to the headmistress’s study beckoned. And when it did this, not so bright, future negotiator in the adult world reluctantly made the journey with him.

Mrs Perkins was one of the nicest teachers at our school. She didn’t shout, she didn’t get cross and she never spanked. She was young, or youngish, certainly nowhere near as old as my mother. She had a sweet smile, a lovely smell, and razor sharp eyes. Whatever you did, good or bad, she knew you had done it. If you did something really good she would praise you, put a gold star in your book, and give you a smile that warmed your feet. If you were bad she would shake her head and quietly express her disappointment. Shame would pour from your small body. But if you were very bad, beyond redemption bad, she would send you to Mrs Pecking. Mrs Pecking was her mother-in-law but she didn’t send you to her for that reason. She would send you to her, with regret and a sigh, because she was the headmistress. Our headmistress. And she was nowhere near as nice, and didn’t smell as nice, as Mrs Perkins. It was our bad luck that on the fateful day, Mrs Perkins’s first class included the ten year old, olive skinned, sister of George. She was the centre of attention. You don’t get people fainting everyday in assembly. And being the centre of attention she probably, definitely, said more than she should to her classmates. One of them, it will never be known who, told Mrs Perkins. For the rest of the day a very close, unseen, eye was kept on George. And on anyone who closely associated with him.

Georgio Ramonti was a bright and popular boy. His beautiful deep blue eyes, jet black hair, and silky olive skin made him a hit with both the girls and the teachers. And when he smiled some of them, young and old, immediately fell in love him. And the boys, unimpressed by such attributes, liked him for his charm and sense of mischief. And like Jonny Napier he was no bully. They all knew he had nicked the bible and pushed it up his jumper as they left assembly. They all knew and they all approved. And they weren’t telling. Being bright he hid it in the school library, where else would you hide a book he said, and at lunchtime he showed it to me and Ray and Jonny. All agreed he was to be number one for the rest of that year, all he had to do now was return the bible to the assembly table. Easy, he said, after school broke up for the day he would collect it from the library and put it back on his way home. Trouble is that whilst we were making our plans an unknown ten year old girl was singing unwelcome songs to Mrs Perkins. He was watched as he collected it from the library shelves, he was watched whilst he pushed it back up his jumper, and he was watched as he took it back to the assembly room and placed it on the table. And as our new number one George put the gold lettered and blue bible back in its rightful place, the watcher pounced.

Now that should really be the end of this story. George was an honourable boy and he would not tell that others were involved. He would take his slippering or whatever, this no doubt being a serious offence, and still be top dog in the nine year old world. All would sympathise, especially the contrite Mickie, as all would be convinced that his slippering would be near the top of the scale. You don’t nick the school’s bible and, being caught, just get told off. Ask Mickie. But this story has a nasty twist. Someone, definitely not George, had defaced the bible. Someone had written inside it that George was number one. In bright red crayon lettering. When the watcher pounced she opened the bible and saw the message. The watcher was Mrs Perkins and, for probably the first time at that school, her face flushed and the razor sharp eyes blazed. As George stared, open mouthed, she told him firmly that there would be an inquest tomorrow and he would definitely be in the dock. Of course she didn’t use those words but that was the gist of it. When the nine year old Italian boy walked to school the next day he knew it would probably be the most uncomfortable one in his short life. Jonny and me and the rest of us heard all this on our way home and we made three important decisions. We would try and find out who scrawled in the bible, we would not let George take all the blame, and we would leave Dougie and Mickie out of it. In the end we decided that I would accompany George. I would like to say that I volunteered on the basis that nicking the bible was my idea. But, as I said earlier, I wasn’t a fighter and I know when a battle is lost. And Ray and Jonny, even my friend Jonny Napier whose mother gave me sweets, saw the justice in my sacrifice. What they actually said was that if they got slippered they would beat me up, but the sense was the same. So when George was called out of assembly to go to the headmistress’s office, I went with him. And that is why I am writing this story. For the first time ever, as far as is known, two of the small boys of a microscopic nine year old world got the  strap. They didn’t get in the sense that they stole it, like the bible, but they got it all the same.

We were nervous when we went to school the following morning. I didn’t know what was being discussed in George’s house, I doubt if his sister was too popular, but in ours silence reigned over breakfast. My mother asked me what was up and when I reluctantly told her she expressed little sympathy. Nowadays mothers would be up at the school demanding rights for their child but, back then, the view was that if you upset the order you took the consequences. And it was consequences that I, in my enthusiasm, had seriously overlooked. And there were no mitigating circumstances in my mother’s eyes. You and Georgio may not have scrawled in the bible but you created the situation which allowed it to happen, was all she said. She should have been a judge, a hanging one. I left our house early, not eager to get to school but eager to meet my pals, and called round for Jonny Napier. Information was required and Jonny, and the others when they joined us, supplied it. Neither George nor I had ever been in serious trouble before and desired to know what to expect when we made our first, and hopefully only, visit to Mrs Pecking’s study. Dougie said that he got three whacks with the slipper for spitting and it hurt like hell. He had to bend over a stool and hold onto the rungs. And yes he cried, but not as much as Mickie. As Mickie wasn’t with us we could not verify the truth of this statement and it wasn’t until we reached the school gates that we found out from him that he got four whacks and as he bent over the stool Mrs Pecking had said that he was very fortunate that his pants were not coming down. Mickie remembered those words almost as much as he remembered the whacking. Stealing bibles was way up there on the gravitas scale. Neither Jonny nor Ray had ever paid a visit to the headmistress’s study but both knew boys, and one girl, who had and none wished for a repeat. But we all agreed that nobody had ever had their pants taken down and Mrs Pecking saying what she did to Mickie was merely for effect. Make him more scared. Adults do that sort of thing, say that sort of thing, but they don’t mean it. Not that it made us feel any better. If Mickie got four whacks of the slipper for attempting to steal the bible then poor old George would probably get six for actually taking it. And as the author of the crime I would most likely be boiled in oil or something similar. We made our way to assembly and, sick in heart, George and me joined in the singing and half listened to the announcements. As we listened I had this fleeting, irrational, thought that they may have forgotten about yesterday and, for a moment, my stomach stopped being sick. But they hadn’t forgotten, adults don’t, and when the assembly teacher called out George’s name and told him to go and wait outside Mrs Pecking’s study my stomach churned again. It was still churning as we left the assembly room, conscious of enquiring eyes, and it was still churning as we stopped outside the study. I have no idea if George’s stomach was doing the same but I couldn’t help noticing that his small and shiny knees, his olive skinned knees, were twitching and trembling. We both gulped simultaneously and prayed for an earthquake. Or at least I did.

I have never forgotten that study or the nine foot woman standing in it. Oh all right she was nearer six foot I suppose, but from our small perspective she seemed much bigger. We had seen her around the school of course and her frightening presence always made us a little nervous, she was the headmistress and headmistress’s spanked, but in that study the nervousness increased to blind fear. We stood respectfully in front of her, both of us feeling very hot in our smart school jumpers and even smarter short trousers, and as she lectured I absorbed all the details of her inner sanctum. We were standing by the door and I remember, as we went in, Mrs Pecking expressing surprise at my attendance. I told her why I was there and, to avoid her penetrating gaze, registered her cluttered desk, the books lining his walls, the large black telephone and two posh fountain pens, and the stool. I especially registered the stool. Both Dougie and Mickie had referred to it and both Dougie and Mickie had bent over it. And Mickie, when bending over it, had been told that he was lucky not to have his pants taken down. So I definitely registered the stool. I was still staring at it when I realised that Mrs Pecking was addressing me. She had told George that what he did was reprehensible and shameful and she had no choice but to teach him a sharp lesson. Georgio Ramonti would be severely punished. And then she told me that I was equally culpable. Okay, she didn’t say that George was reprehensible or whatever or that I was culpable but that’s what she meant. She probably told two contrite and nervous boys that they had been very naughty. That’s what you do with nine year olds. But I remember her telling me that I had done the decent thing in owning up my involvement. I remember her saying that. I also remembering her saying it made no difference. And I remember her thinking, silently, for a moment and then saying that given the offence we would both receive six strokes of the strap usually reserved for the eleven year olds. We both gulped at that and I saw George’s knees start to twitch again. How much they twitched I have no idea but when Mrs Pecking said that, in view of the seriousness of our offence, that eleven year old’s strap would be applied to our bare behinds I swear that those olive skinned knees twitched and trembled so much that you could hear the noise they made in the land of his birth.

She took George first. I don’t know to this day whether she did this because the boy was clearly more nervous than me or whether she thought, because I was the architect of the incident, that I was the more to blame. I was definitely nervous and I was definitely sticky. My thin grey short pants were clinging to me and my small bottom was feeling both threatened and vulnerable. I was going to get a strapping, with a big strap usually kept for eleven year olds, and I was going to have to take my pants down to get it. In a few minutes a nasty strap, as yet unseen, would hit my bare bum. I did not welcome the prospect and if my folks had a million pounds I would have offered it to Mrs Pecking and, if she let me off, would work out the details of how to steal it later on. But my folks did not have a million pounds. They did not have anything like that. Mrs Pecking probably didn’t have a million pounds either but she did have a strap and, as she took it from the drawer of her desk, George and I saw it for the first time. George looked at it and started to cry. It was most likely then, in a moment of compassion, that she decided to deal with George first. She flexed the strap, a piece of shiny leather about two feet long, and told George to take down his trousers and anything underneath and bend over the stool. For a moment there was just silence, except for George’s sniffling. And then, being a good Italian boy, he did as he was told and moved towards the stool and undid the snake designed belt which held up his grey school shorts. He fumbled with the buttons of those shorts for what, in the circumstances, seemed an eternity and then pushed the loosened trousers down to his knees. A little pair of white cotton under shorts was revealed and, still snuffling, the small Italian boy put his hands to the side of them and pushed then down his olive skinned legs to reveal, not surprisingly, a small and blemish free olive skinned bottom. He bent over the stool and held onto the rungs and, as he did so, I could not help thinking that to do anything to that beautiful bottom would be a violation. The small and smooth cheeks glistened in their presentation and submissiveness and to hit them, especially with a senior school strap, would spoil a vision that should be preserved for eternity. But Mrs Pecking clearly lacked such sensitivity, teacher’s hell bent on doing their duty often do, and I am sure all she saw was a small bottom presented for deserved chastisement. And so she whacked it. Six times. Six times the large strap whacked across the olive cheeks of Georgio Ramonti’s Italian buttocks and six times he screamed and six times I winced. And when it was done, lasting no more than a couple of minutes, the boy with a livid red rear cried his heart out and his crying continued for longer than I care to remember. He was still crying when he rose and rubbed his naked bottom. He was still crying when he pulled up his under shorts and pants and moved to stand by the book lined walls. And he was still crying when Mrs Pecking, flexing the well exercised strap, told me it was my turn.

In my mind I had felt every one of Georgio Ramonti’s six strokes of the strap. Every time it hit his bottom I felt that it was also hitting mine. I was standing only about six feet away from the dreaded stool and I watched as he lowered his pants and bent over it and continued to watch as the hard leather connected with his naked bum. And each time the strap landed, each time he flinched, and each time the tiny fingers squeezed the rungs of the stool I both heard the cries and felt the pain. And now I was moving towards that very same stool. Now I was nervously, frantically, pulling at my schoolboy belt and undoing the buttons of my short trousers. Now I was undoing those trousers and pushing them down to my scrawny schoolboy knees. And when it was done, I nervously and clumsily pulled down the under shorts that only my mother usually saw. I pulled them down to my knees, pulled them down to join my grey school pants and, conscious of my nakedness, bent over the stool and gripped the rungs. It was as Mrs Pecking lifted my shirt that I started to cry. I had been so good, so brave. All through the witnessing of George’s thrashing I had held back the tears. But now, as the moment of retribution drew close, as I sensed my raised and naked small bottom beckoning the strap, I blubbed. And as the leather landed, with a splat across both of my cheeks, much whiter than George’s, I blubbed even more. I had never felt such fire, never experienced such pain. I gripped the rungs of the stool and screamed and screamed and screamed as strokes two, three, four, five and, finally, six, hit across the exact centre of my little backside. When I rose all the tears that were flowing, and there were many, could never wash away one bit of the warming fire that burned with throbbing intensity in my bum, I pulled up my under shorts and school grey pants and desperately tried to rub away the pain. I was still rubbing, as was George, when we were both sent back to our class. Mrs Pecking said she hoped never to have to do the same thing again. If we were capable of concurring, a big word when you are nine, we would have done so. As it was our incessantly throbbing bottoms did it for us. And even at this distance in time I am sure that my behind continued to concurringly throb for the rest of the day. As it did so, I vowed that I would never, ever, do the decent thing again. When George and I compared our marks, as boys do, after school in the toilet we spent five minutes cursing top dog and number one competitions, and ten more working out how we could discover who defaced the bible. Whoever he or she was they deserved our revenge because I swear, and am still convinced to this day, that new boy George and clever clogs Tony only got that strap on their bare behinds because someone decided to scrawl a message in it. It might take us a week to find out who did it but, when we did, we intended to make sure that they suffered. Especially while our respective olive and white bottoms still throbbed.

I would like to say that it was me, Tony, future negotiator and arbitrator, who eventually reasoned who the scribbling culprit was. I would like to say that I eventually realised that only four people actually knew where the bible had been hidden. And one of those people had a very good motive for fingering George with a cryptic message. I would like to say that the awful possibility dawned on me that it must have been Jonny. That my friend Jonny Napier, the boy whose mother gave me morning sweets, saw where the bible was hidden and scrawled in it in revenge for the two beatings he took from the nine year old olive skinned pugilist. I would like to say all that. But no it wasn’t me, it was Mrs Perkins and until she revealed his crime I had no idea. She had clearly discussed the matter quite a lot with her mother-in-law. And in their discussions they must have agreed that it made no sense for Georgio Ramonti to draw attention to his crime. Mrs Pecking clearly never thought so while she was strapping our behinds. George and me dropped our pants and got whacked on the bare bum, six times, with the eleven year old’s strap for the joint act of planning and stealing the school’s bible not for defacing it. I know that for a fact because as I bent down and held onto the rungs of the stool she told me so. And as she had just said the same thing to George prior to strapping his bum then she must have believed it. But so far the third culprit, the opportunistic defacer, had escaped scot-free. So they laid their plans and a couple of weeks later they put them into action.

I have surmised most of the above because, obviously, I wasn’t involved in the teacher’s discussions. But it must have been like that because when they gave all the nine year old classes coloured crayons and asked them to write a story in pretty colours not one, boy or girl, had the slightest suspicions. Two weeks is a long time when you are nine and if you don’t see adult anger and disapproval you are not afraid. All that the nine year olds saw, in all the nine year olds’ classes, was happy smiling teacher faces and a box full of coloured crayons. Many of them of the red variety. If Jonny Napier had any suspicions they never showed on his face and he was as surprised as the rest of us when later in the day, long after our scribbles had been collected, he was quietly informed that Mrs Pecking wanted a word with him in her study. Half an hour later Jonny came back, red-eyed and tearful, and as he sat down Mrs Perkins called for order. One of the girls asked if Jonny had been punished for something and another one asked if he had been slippered and if so why. And a nervous new boy asked, somewhat tearfully, if they were all going to be slippered. And that was when Mrs Perkins decided to explain the drama. I am still, to this day, not sure if it was the right decision but she clearly felt so at the time. So, to a hushed silence, we were quietly told that Jonny had been punished for defacing the school bible and providing none of us ever did such a foolish thing we would have nothing to fear. She may have been looking at me or George when she said it but I would not know as I, along with Ray and Mickie and the others, was staring at the red faced and solemn Jonny Napier.

Friendships change very quickly when you are young and mine with Jonny Napier ended that day and never resumed. I should have fought him, convinced as I was that my strapping would have been pants up without his scrawls. But I am not a fighter and I would have lost. As would Ray and Mickie and Doug. But George could have done it and I half expected that he would. But finding out from Jonny that Mrs Pecking  had given him eight with his strap, on his bare behind, seemed enough for the olive skinned number one. In the strange world of nine year olds he and Jonny Napier became firm friends and remain so to this day. I suppose it was because of the words Jonny had written rather than the motive. All tiny worlds have their Pecking order and in ours at the top was George, Georgio Ramonti. Number One. It said so in the bible.

Alfred Roy © 2009 (revised 2012)