The situation was absurd, Milly kept telling herself. It was totally unfair that she
was sat in the corridor on a hard, wooden chair that was too small for her, waiting for
the headmaster to open his office door and summons her inside for the dressing down she
knew was coming. It had only been a silly prank that had gone wrong. Instead of Kate
Marshall getting the bucket of water tipped over her head as she had gone into the
classroom, the bucket had dumped its contents on Miss Prenderly, the Maths teacher.
Dripping with water, Miss Prenderly had demanded to know who had arranged the bucket of
water and that was when Fanny had pointed the finger at Milly. Never the best of friends,
Milly had snarled at Fanny in a way most threatening and unbecoming of a 6th form student.
Sensing trouble was brewing, and feeling cold from the water, Miss Prenderly had ordered
both pupils to go with her and sit outside the headmaster’s office. It had not been
Milly’s first prank of the year but Prenderly was determined it would be Milly’s last.
Colin Newton was a strict disciplinarian and Milly knew he would not see the funny
side to the prank. Newton didn’t like pranksters, or those who broke the school rules, or
those who grassed on other pupils. Rumour had it that he and Prenderly were an item, so
the situation couldn’t really get much worse. Prenderly had frog-marched Milly and Fanny
to the chairs outside the headmaster’s study and then gone in to explain what had
happened. When she came out she headed for the staff common room to dry herself as best
she could. As she had left the head’s study, and with the door closed, she had hissed at
Fanny and Milly, “You’re for it now, young ladies,” and then stomped off with her haughty
head held high. Five minutes later, and looking somewhat drier, Prenderly had returned to
the study, knocking on the door before entering.
After a minute, Fanny had been summoned into the room and the door had been closed.
That had been several minutes earlier. As the minutes ticked slowly by, it dawned on Milly
that Fanny had been in the study an awfully long time, far too long for a simple
dressing-down. Then, and quite unexpectedly she heard the sound of a thwack, followed
shortly by a howl of pain from the other side of the door. Milly crossed her legs, fear
suddenly etched across her face. There was a second sound of what Milly guessed to be cane
on flesh and a second howl, and then a third. When the howling died down, the room fell
eerily silent again. More minutes passed, making Milly more and more nervous about the
fate that awaited her. During those minutes she heard what sounded to be a muffled groan
coming from somewhere in the study and then, after another minute or so had passed, there
was another groaning sound. Then came muffled voices that Milly could not understand and
then silence.
After a couple of minutes of the silence, the door opened and the tear-streaked
face of Fanny appeared. Her face was flushed and she had both hands on her bottom,
clutching each cheek tenderly. As she walked past the waiting Milly, she hissed. “You’re
going to get yours, bitch, trust me.” Then louder she said, “You can go in now.” As she
walked away, still sobbing softly, Milly knocked politely on the study door and went
inside.
“Close the door, girl,” said Newton, “and then come and stand in front of my desk.”
Milly was aware of Miss Prenderly standing in the corner of the room. She had what looked
to be a mild smile of satisfaction on her face.
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