It was the last week of term and, in the main hall, after morn­ing assem­bly, the mem­bers of Class IVB were wait­ing with more or less appre­hen­sion for their turn in Miss Svenson’s study for an indi­vid­ual pupil review. This was a rou­tine estab­lished by the Head­mistress when she first came to the school some five years before and the I.P.R. had now become a reg­u­lar tra­di­tion. Each child had to have a short inter­view with the Head in the pres­ence of their form teacher to assess their progress dur­ing the pre­vi­ous term in aca­d­e­m­ic and oth­er school activ­i­ties and gen­er­al behav­iour. Some of the four­teen and fif­teen year old young­sters had come to call it “Judg­ment Day” and oth­ers, more irrev­er­ent­ly, “The Confessional”. Rebecca opened her mouth to speak and Mercedes looked at her and shook her head. Mercedes knew the Headmaster might give Rebecca 18 with the cane if she said anything.

I’m still wait­ing for an answer to my ques­tion,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son, ‘Where did you go this afternoon?’ Fine I think,’ the lit­tle girl replied a lit­tle ner­vous­ly as she took her place on the chair and glanced at the Class teacher.No, noth­ing thank you Miss,’ the girl replied again shift­ing her eyes towards Miss Pren­der­gast, who gave the slight­est nod of assent. You are not going to deny it was you with that boy from Till­wood, or that you were unaware such unchap­er­oned encoun­ters were entire­ly against the rules?’ Still no response from the girl: this was typ­i­cal, thought Miss Svenson.

The school girl looked a lit­tle per­plexed by this ques­tion, then replied ‘I went with the hare and hounds.’What I am going to do is ring up Dr Rudd and tell him about our lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion. And, on this occa­sion, as I find you so exceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, I am going to ask him to decide what to do withyou.’ Mercedes fidgeted as she stood in the corner and heard the next eleven strokes of the cane come down. They got a bit harder as Miss Gregory progressed and Rebecca started to cry by the 3rd stroke and was blubbering by the 9th. I hope you under­stand what you are ask­ing Thomas but I will explain to be on the safe side. You would have us believe that you have done some­thing very naughty dur­ing the term which has not been found out yet. As a result you have request­ed six with the cane which will, as the rules state, be deliv­ered on your bare bot­tom. Now tell me, have I beat­en you before?’ Well, it does allow her to be prepared for the spanking. It depends of course on the type of punishment that needs to be administered. Also, in this case, you need practice so it was easy to have you warm up with the paddle before we move to the cane."

Spank? Miran­da was hor­ri­fied: she had nev­er been spanked before; nev­er had to lie across the lap of the head mis­tress – this was toomuch. Now she was in the office of the head­mistress, a grey-head­ed Scotswoman called Miss Firth. ‘Bend over, girl’; ‘Bend over; Bend over; Bend over.’ Three times she had been in Miss Firth’s office that term, and on the fourth, she was suspended. Of course, this doesn’t exempt you from pun­ish­ment for your dis­grace­ful behav­iour on the fox and hounds. Cheat­ing in the race is, I believe, essen­tial­ly a House mat­ter, and I will leave it up to Tara Watts, head of house, to deal with you on that. How­ev­er, going out-of-bounds also requires pun­ish­ment: six strokes on the bare with the senior cane.’ Look­ing sur­prised, the Head­mistress swung round and glanced at Miss Pren­der­gast who also seemed confused. Miranda’s feet obeyed, despite her mind reel­ing in con­fu­sion: this was not how she took the cane, or the strap for that matter.No Miran­da,’ assert­ed Miss Sven­son, ‘that’s enough ques­tion­ing for now. I am sure you will Dr Rudd will have all the answers youneed.’

Pen­i­tent or arro­gant won­dered Miss Sven­son as she sur­veyed the tall blonde fig­ure of Miran­da Spears stand­ing before her study desk. Well, maybe not quite the usu­al arro­gance, she not­ed; but cer­tain­ly not penitent. Miss Sven­son put down the tele­phone and called in the girl. She had no doubt Miran­da Spears would resent her more than ever, but it was a nec­es­sary pun­ish­ment and, she knew in her heart, a justone. Mercedes didn't even have to look to know what was going on behind her. Clearly Miss Gregory had been disciplined by the Headmaster before, in just this same position. Mercedes could almost hear the lust and desire in their voices as they spoke. When Mar­tin Kel­ly came in, Miss Pren­der­gast gave the Head­mistress a mean­ing­ful frown. Mar­tin was a big and boy, already taller than Miss Sven­son and looked a lit­tle clum­sy when perched on the class­roomchair. Well let me tell you, six of the best is a very seri­ous pun­ish­ment for which you real­ly have no com­pre­hen­sion. Now, are you sure you wish to continue?’One of the things of which Miss Sven­son, head­mistress of Cams­ford House, was most proud was not the school’s rep­u­ta­tion for aca­d­e­m­ic excel­lence or high dis­ci­pli­nary stan­dards – both cher­ished as they were – but for some­thing more intan­gi­ble; what she liked to call esprit de corps: a spir­it of team work and fair play amongst the girls, a spir­it which, for Miss Sven­son, was exem­pli­fied by the annu­al com­pe­ti­tion for the HouseCup. Miss Sven­son went round the room con­grat­u­lat­ing Greville’s head of house, and her hound, on win­ning the Cup, before seek­ing out Drake. Strange­ly, she couldn’t seem to find Miran­da Spears, but she would catch up with her lat­er nodoubt. By your own admis­sion, you have engaged in a cer­tain amount of minor mis­chief dur­ing the term which has gone unno­ticed or unpun­ished. As a result you have vol­un­teered to receive two strokes of the cane after which the school will con­sid­er the mat­ter over and done with. That is, of course, unless we sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­er some­thing more seri­ous in which case you know the pun­ish­ment could be rather severe. Do youagree?’ She replaced the receiv­er and let her head rest momen­tar­i­ly in her hands: there was only one pupil enti­tled to wear orange that day, and that was the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Drake house – it’s hound, Miran­da Spears. I see,’ said Miss Sven­son. ‘Can you think of one good rea­son why I should not expel you on thespot?’