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
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)