by James Stephenson

Michelle was middle of the road. Middle ability academically, mid ability in sports, and middle in terms of behaviour. She was no goody- goody at school by any means. She had been in detention several times during the past three years, had been sent out of classes to stand in the corridor, and was quite proficient at writing lines. She spent many a lunch time picking up litter and had twice been put on report (which meant getting each teacher to confirm her work performance every day for a fortnight on penalty of being sent to the head if she got two bad reports in that time). However, there were those who, while they were perhaps not in trouble so often, nevertheless were regarded as more serious troublemakers, and who had been dealt with more severely.

More severely usually meant being sent to the headmistress and that often meant getting a strapping across the hands. The usual pattern was that the first time you were sent to the head, unless it was something extremely serious, you got a real telling off, recorded as a formal reprimand, and the next time you got the strap. Formal reprimands ands strappings were, as an additional deterrent, recorded on end of term reports, but in most cases it was the actual strapping that they feared more than the parents reaction. It was most effective. The most rebellious and hot-headed young girl would come back from a visit to the head's office very subdued and with her hands clutched under her arms and eyes looking distinctly red. There was also always a marked improvement in their behaviour for some while afterwards. It was also effective in other ways. It was almost entirely the reason why Michelle never got into really serious trouble, because, although she would have admitted it to nobody, she was scared stiff of being strapped.

Her fear had, at one stage early on in her time at the school, led Michelle to experiment with a strap for herself. One Saturday her parents had gone shopping and her brother was playing football for the school and she borrowed a leather belt belonging to her father. They had on one occasion all seen the tawse used by the headmistress - it was made of broad brown leather, fairly heavy looking, and split into two for about half of its length. Her father's belt was about the same width and looked about as thick, although of course it didn't have the split, so she judged it was the nearest thing she could use. She had, rather timidly at first, swung it down across the palm of her left hand. It made a fairly healthy smacking noise, but only tingled a bit and she knew full well that Mrs Sharp must wield her strap a lot harder than that. Gritting her teeth she had tried again. This was a fair bit harder and did cause quite a sharp burning sensation in the palm of her hand, but nothing that she couldn't cope with. She'd decided then that she'd give herself another two - four strokes was quite a common number except for first timers. However, the next stroke had gone a bit wayward and the edge of the strap came across the ends of her fingers and really hurt - she had dropped the belt and clutched her hand.

That was the end of the experimenting on that occasion, but it wasn't the only time she'd played around like it - on one occasion she heard that a girl had been given eight with the strap for telling the art teacher to "Fuck off" - this was a particularly severe punishment which had the whole school buzzing. At the next available opportunity, Michelle had decided to try and see what "eight" felt like, and again had been surprised by her ability to cope, but a little sceptical that maybe the real thing must hurt rather more.

Michelle's attitude to rebellion was typified by her version of the school uniform. She didn't ignore it altogether because that would invite confrontation. She wore a grey skirt as stipulated but the phrase "on or just above the knee" she had interpreted to her own standards with a good eight or nine inches of thigh on show. The rules also allowed girls to wear natural coloured tights whereas Michelle preferred opaque black, as to be fair, did almost half the girls in her class. Michelle's class were still supposed to wear school ties but Michelle hadn't been seen with a tie for a year at least, and nobody ever said anything. The rules also referred to plain white cotton knickers and a white bra - the bra she usually went along with, although last summer she had teased some of the local lads by not wearing a bra at all - but she was openly mocking of the rule on knickers and never wore white, and tended to wear rather briefer designs than were probably envisaged when the rules were produced. "What the hell" she would argue "Who's ever going to see them?" However, of course, her classmates did see them whenever they had to get changed for PE, and they secretly if not openly admired her grown-up undergarments.

As Spring turned to Summer, so Michelle's mind was more prone to wandering and she was more regularly in trouble with her teachers. As an incidental, the headmistress was quite ill and in hospital for much of the summer term and an actin headmaster was brought in, but nobody really saw very much of him.

"Michelle Summers, come and see me at the end of class to collect two hundred lines." Michelle had been too busy whispering to her neighbour to notice that she had attracted the attention of Mrs Johnston once again. She sighed and tried to look interested in Elizabethan history. Within ten minutes she had mentally switched off again. She began doodling and her mind was on the weekend, wondering if the weather would hold up, and if it did....

"Miss Summers come out here, and bring that paper with you!" With a fairly contemptuous pout, Michelle swung out of her seat and sassed her way to the front of the class to hand over the offending doodle. Fortunately for Michelle, although perhaps to the disappointment of Mrs Johnston, there was nothing offensive about the drawing which she rumpled and dropped in the bin.

"If you can't concentrate now, we'll see if your concentration is any better after school. You can stay behind tomorrow night for an hour and a half and write out pages from the textbook - now go and stand outside so you're not distracting anyone else." Michelle turned for the door, a look of weary indifference on her face, and muttered "Bastard." under her breath. It was intended that the front row heard her, but not Mrs Johnston, but she misjudged it.

"Summers -stop there and turn around! What did you just say?"

"Nothing miss."

"Oh yes you did, and I heard you clearly enough." Michelle wisely refrained from asking why she should repeat it in that case, and stood watching as Mrs Johnston wrote vigorously on a piece of paper, folded it in half and held it out to her. "Take this to Mr Charlton's office now." There was an excited buzz around the room as Michelle took the paper and left - to the best of anyone's knowledge, Michelle was the first girl to be sent to see the acting headmaster on a disciplinary matter.

Michelle felt a bit annoyed with herself - it had been a stupid thing to say, and she should have known that she was getting herself into a deeper and deeper hole, but as she rationalised it, she decided that it wasn't so bad after all. At the end of the day, it was her first ever visit to the head's office, and the offence was not serious enough to warrant more than a telling off - in some ways it might be better than the detention which she assumed would now be cancelled. The worst of it was having it appear on her end of term report. Her parents thought she was an angel, and they wouldn't be pleased to have their perceptions so rudely challenged.

She went to the cloakroom first to make sure she looked neat and tidy and had her long blonde hair neatly tied back; after all there was no need to rush. She also took the opportunity to read the note, which wasn't sealed. It simply reported that Michelle had not being paying attention in class, that this had been common lately, and that when given a detention and told to leave the room, she had muttered an offensive word. On arrival she handed the note to the secretary who glanced at it and then took it through to the head's office. There was a short delay and then the secretary returned.

"You're to stand at the front of the hall until he's ready for you - he may be some while because he has the Chair of Governors with him."

Michelle didn't mind waiting - it might be boring but it was better than going back to classes. It was as she was waiting that she got to thinking. Suppose he did take a stricter line than the regular head, and decided to strap her? In some ways, the thought that this just might happen now, unlikely though it seemed, and she could do nothing to make it more or less likely, excited her -after all, she had spent long enough wondering what it would be like, although she was still scared by the idea, especially with it being a man rather than a woman.

In fact, in some ways, the worst thing now was the thought of her parents reaction to seeing on her end of term report that she'd been in trouble, regardless of the outcome now. What would they say? How would they react? She didn't relish the thought, and wondered how the parents of other girls had reacted at seeing their daughters had been in trouble. Several girls she knew had been sent to the head, and a fair number had been strapped. There had always been a lot of discussion afterwards about the strappings and reprimands, but Michelle couldn't remember anyone ever talking about the reaction of their parents. Would it best to tell them first? She wondered whether she should ask one of the others for advice - perhaps she could ask Michelle Clarke, because she'd had the strap three times now and was in trouble more often than any girl in her class. The fact that they shared a common first name made Michelle Summers smile, and then the smile became more thoughtful as an idea occurred to her. The note from Mrs Johnston had given her had simply referred to her as Michelle and he wouldn't know her at all. Suppose she told him that her name was Michelle Clarke?

He would obviously need to get her file to enter a note about the reprimand, but, so far as she knew, there was no photograph on the school file, so there was no reason for him the realise the deception. He would see the long history of trouble for Michelle Clarke and would be almost certain to give her the strap, but it wouldn't be recorded to appear on her own end of term report. Okay, so Michelle Clarke might notice that there was an extra entry on her report that wasn't correct, but the chances of anyone working out how it had arisen were just about nil. She had, for years, wondered what it would be like to be strapped for real and this was her chance to find out without incurring the anger of her parents, or even letting her classmates know. It was almost the end of the afternoon already and she could easily avoid seeing anyone until she'd got herself straightened up. Her heart was racing as she wondered if she dared....

He was taller than she expected and she felt intimidated the moment she walked in. He was also quite severe in his way of talking and made her stand in front of his desk and to stand up straight with her arms straight down by her sides. After some initial lecturing about her lack of attentiveness in class he came to the issue of her bad language and gave her a very severe ticking off. He would have been seriously displeased if he had known how little was going in and how her mind was completely on a different dilemma.

"Have you ever been sent here before girl?" he demanded suddenly. She hesitated - perhaps he was a bit too angry to risk what she had thought of. However, he took the hesitation as admission that she had been in trouble before and didn't want him to know. "What's your second name girl? Michelle what?"

"Clarke, Sir" she heard herself say, at the same time wondering whether she had actually made the decision, or some mysterious force had made it for her. What the hell had she done? What consequences had she unleashed?

She was left to ponder on such things for a few moments as e briskly went and collected her file from the main office. Fortunately, or perhaps otherwise, for Michelle's deception, he was a very independent person and found the file himself without asking a secretary who might have queried why he wanted the file for Michelle Clarke - they probably wouldn't know Michelle Summers, but they would almost certainly know Michelle Clarke and would know that she wasn't the girl standing apprehensively waiting for the acting headmaster to return.

When he did, he sat and read through the file quickly, his brow furrowing more and more as he read on. Michelle felt she was going to wet herself, but she managed to keep her composure enough for him not to suspect anything.

"Well, I suppose you imagined that I wouldn't look at your discipline record and you could get away with a telling off, eh? Is that it girl?"

"No sir."

"Well, you're certainly no stranger to being sent here are you girl?"

The term 'girl' used in that way was very intimidating - she had ceased to be a person in her own right so far as he was concerned and was relegated to being a problem. Wondering how she would cope if he began to interrogate her about past misdemeanours, she kept silent. He seemed to view this as further truculence and the expression on his face indicated that this would be all the worse for her.

"Most of my experience had been in boys' schools and I have to say that I have always imagined that the discipline problems in a school such as this would always be much easier. I suppose there has to be an exception to every rule and you seem determined to prove that girls can be every bit as troublesome and disruptive as the worst boys. I can honestly recall very few boys in my many years of experience who have been given strappings as often as you have and have still shown no moderation in their behaviour, perhaps because those who did show such leanings would by now have been introduced to a cane instead. Well, this is my last week at this school and I think I owe it to the school and to your regular headteacher to try to bring about some degree of reformation that has not previously been evident. Is there anything you want to say before I announce your punishment Clarke?"

She shook her head, too scared to speak, and now faced with the inevitability of a severe strapping. She was wondering if her hands would be so red and sore that she wouldn't be able to hide the evidence from her parents and friends after all.

"Right, well in that case I will be giving you a very traditional remedy for unruly and naughty schoolchildren and I think it's one you will remember for a long time - hopefully long enough to give you cause to modify your future actions accordingly. Six of the best." An electric silence as she wondered exactly what he meant. "You will bend over and receive six strokes of the cane across your backside." The plan had all gone horribly wrong. She wanted to scream that he was making a mistake, but something at the back of her mind kept reminding her that it was she who had made the mistake by pretending to be someone else, and there was no way she could correct the error and be certain that he wouldn't still punish her like this for lying on top of everything else. She had to try something.

"But sir, that's not fair!"

"It's eminently fair, Clarke, and what's more it's long overdue. I think the implication of your past disregarding of punishment is that you have not been shamed to be punished. Well let me assure you that you feel very shamed and very sore after this. And before, you want to try and argue that I'm not allowed to cane a girl on her bottom, you're very wrong. The rules do permit such punishments in a serious case such as this - the only proviso is that, if you wish, a female member of staff may be present to observe that nothing improper is carried out." Michelle's world was crashing around her. She was starting to think about the shame he was talking about - if she had to bend over in her short skirt, she had a pretty good idea that she would be showing her knickers which was very humiliating but right now, it was also the fact that she would have minimal protection from a vicious cane wielded by someone who seemed to see himself as a one-man avenging angel. Her desperate fears were not, however, so absorbing that she failed to notice the new risk that she faced of having a female member of staff brought in who would probably know that she was not who she claimed.

"I'm just going to go and fetch a cane; I'll be about ten or fifteen minutes. While I'm gone, you will stand facing that wall with your hands on your head and don't move. If I catch you out of position, it's two extra strokes. Now move!" Michelle almost ran to where he had indicated and took up the required stance. "While I'm gone you can think back on your behaviour and what's going to happen as a result. You might also like to think about whether you want someone else to be present."

Little did he know, that one was one question Michelle had already made a very clear decision on! She heard his receding footsteps, and then it all went very quiet - eerily silent. After a couple of minutes she reasoned that this was the safest time to make a move - he must have gone and wasn't going to just pop back in for a quick check, and if she left it any later, he might be back earlier than she was expecting.

It was very brave, and more than a little out of character, for Michelle to disobey his very strongly stated insistence that she was not to move until he returned. Her curiosity had already got her into trouble this far, and it was her strong urge to be nosy that drove her now. She had to get to see Michelle Clarke's file!

It was still lying open on his desk and she skimmed through it quickly - of course, it was common knowledge that Clarke had been in trouble quite often, and had been strapped on three occasions. However, what Michelle now discovered took her breath away - for a start, Michelle Clarke had been strapped five times, rather than the three that she had admitted to. Additionally, there was an incident recorded when she had been given the ruler across the backs of her legs, for being rude to a teacher. That was quite a revelation, because it was not generally known that such punishments were permitted - only the strap was ever referred to. What was equally earth shattering was the detail concerning the last time Michelle Clarke had been up before the headmistress. Michelle Summers could remember it well; Clarke had been caught selling cigarettes to younger girls, and had admitted to everyone in her class the next day that she'd been given the strap six times on her hands. Everyone knew about her being caught, and they wouldn't have believed her if she had claimed to get off with anything less, but the note on her file told a different story. According to the notes there, she had been made to bend over the back of a chair and the six strokes of the strap had been across her backside!

That amazing discovery also reminded Michelle that her own backside was about to pay a heavy price for her lying about her name. An awful and embarrassing thought had come back to her - she knew her skirt was a bit on the short side, but she wasn't completely sure about how much she'd be exposing if he made her bend over as he'd said. There was a long mirror on the wall opposite to his desk and she decided that she had to know.

She crossed the room, turned her back to the mirror, and gracefully leaned forward to touch her toes. Looking back thorough her legs to the mirror, her worst fears were confirmed - if he made her bend over as much as that, her knickers were visible through her supposedly opaque tights.

Her reverie was broken by a sound outside the office, and fearing that he might come back in and find her out of place she scampered back to face the wall. It was a false alarm, but she didn't risk moving again.

It seemed like a long time - standing facing a wall was a pretty boring occupation, but Michelle had plenty to think about. When she did hear his clear footsteps approaching the door, suddenly the time seemed to have flown and she was beside herself with anxiety.

"Right Miss Clarke, turn around and come over here." Michelle was still finding the use of another's name confusing but she did as she was told before freezing half way across the room as she saw the cane for the first time. She had imagined something rather like a garden cane - thin and yellow. She had even recalled images from somewhere of schoolteachers using canes with a curved handle at one end. This looked like neither image. It was clearly yellow and looked to be of cane-type material, but it was about two and a half feet long and while the one end was very thin and whippy, the other end was quite bulbous and made for a very comfortable hand grip. If he noticed her look of horror at this implement, he chose to ignore it.

"Let me just explain to you what's going to happen - pay careful attention. When I give you the word you will bend over and touch your toes. I expect you to remain in that position throughout and until I tell you that you may stand up again. I expect you to keep your legs perfectly straight - bend your knees and I'll give you a smack across the back of your legs as a reminder. I also expect you to take your punishment with a degree of dignity. Any excessive noise, or movement, such as taking your fingers away from your toes or wriggling about and two things will happen. Firstly I'll get another member of staff in here to assist me by holding you across the back of a chair, and secondly I'll start your punishment all over again. If you want to get this over with fairly quickly, then you'll take what's coming to you with as little fuss as possible. Any questions?"

"No sir." she looked down at the floor.

"Right, now I mentioned before that you are entitled to have a witness present - do you want that?"

"No sir." Very definitely she didn't want that!

"Good, well in that case stand here, face that way, and touch your toes!" Red faced and very badly scared, Michelle found herself obeying the instructions without really thinking. The place he indicated had a strange familiarity to her - it was closely situated to where she had tried bending over in front of the mirror earlier except that she was now side on to it. As for Mr Charlton, he had never had to cane a girl like this before and was faced with something of a dilemma.

He rather liked the view he now had of Michelle's long thighs clad in black pantyhose, but it was her bottom that was his target, and therein lay a problem. He could, from where he stood behind her, make out a glimpse of the pale material of her knickers showing through the tightly stretched pantyhose across her seat, but the hem of her short skirt was directly in his line of fire. He was more used to caning boys wearing trousers where such handicaps would not exist. He certainly didn't want to do anything that could lead to allegations of sexual impropriety, but he wasn't sure he could cane her safely and effectively like this. Aiming for the centre of her bottom would be very difficult with the skirt waving around like that, and the material of the skirt might absorb so much of the cane stroke that it would hardly be felt when it landed. Aiming higher or lower might cause her rather more pain than he intended, so there really was no option - the skirt had to go. Glad that she couldn't see his own discomfiture with this turn of events, he reached forward and, with as much confidence as eh could muster, seized the hem of her skirt and pulled it up and over on to her back. There was a slight whimpering sound from Michelle, and she tensed her muscles as she realised what indignity was now being bestowed on her, but, to his considerable relief, she made no protest. Perhaps, he speculated, this had happened to her before when she'd been strapped on her bottom.

Of course, Michelle never had been strapped on her bottom - in fact she'd never been smacked, strapped, slippered or caned anywhere except by her own experimentation, but she believed this might be normal, and she wasn't about to risk any extra strokes or people being brought in to hold her down by complaining. Awful though the situation was, she was resolute that she had made her bed and had to lie in it. However, she couldn't resist the temptation to glance at her reflection in the mirror.

She could see herself clearly in profile, and embarrassing it was too. She could see her skirt turned back and could very clearly see the colour of her knickers showing through her tights. She was wearing lemon coloured cotton briefs today and to Mr Charlton's pleasure, they were very clearly visible now from where he was standing. They were, as was Michelle's wont, very high cut and actually covered rather less of her bottom than she might have preferred right now - the black material of her tights was, across her bottom at any rate, now stretched to an extent where he could see not only the lemon colour of her knickers, but some of the flesh colour of her actual bottom where the knickers failed to cover. Having such a clearly defined and tempting target as this was an unexpected bonus for Mr Charlton. He was going to enjoy this once in a lifetime opportunity to make an unruly and recalcitrant young girl really sorry for her behaviour!

She felt the cane being lined up across her bottom cheeks - there was no feeling of sympathy or mercy, and if anything just the opposite. He was determined that there was no way this girl would feel like bragging to her friends about this encounter - he would make very certain she remembered this day ruefully for a very long time. The cane came back and then swished down with a loud crack across her bottom, just below the line of her knickers. The pain exploded an instant later, and she felt as if her bottom had been cut in two. He waited a full twenty seconds - she could feel tears beginning to form in her eyes and her bottom was smarting appallingly.

The second stroke was a shade higher and landed across the full meat of her bottom. The knickers were too thin to really offer any protection and Michelle yelped involuntarily. She couldn't believe how much her bottom was hurting - she couldn't , simply couldn't, take any more! He waited again so that she had endured the full agonies of the stroke before renewing her pain. However, he also noticed this time that her knees were sagging - it would give her no advantage but it was a direct challenge to his instructions. He gave her twenty seconds or so to absorb the pain and ready herself for the next one, but she was oblivious to the fact that her legs weren't as straight as he demanded and that she was in further peril.

Had she been looking towards the mirror, she might have seen him transfer the cane to his left hand and move closer behind her, but she had her eyes screwed up shut. As a result, the first she knew about the fact that she had displeased him was when she heard a loud pistol crack and felt herself being propelled forwards as his hand smacked her heavily across the back of her left thigh. She just kept her balance and as she sensed the sudden vicious smarting in the back of her leg, she heard him saying something about a reminder to keep her legs straight.

Blinking back the tears and with her left thigh now burning from the cruel smacking, she made an effort to straighten her legs and bit her lip to try to reduce the discomfort elsewhere. He passed the cane back to his right hand one more and lined up the third stroke. Again, it was hard across the crest of her bottom, very close to the previous stroke and it seemed to hurt all the more as a result. She made the mental effort to make sure she wasn't bending her knees -she wasn't going to give him another excuse to smack her legs. He waited again until she was completely still and he knew that she had suffered most of what she would from the previous stroke before lining up the fourth. Slightly lower so it came across the very bottom edge of the meagre panties and with the most force yet. Michelle had given up any pretence to dignity and hot salty tears were running down her face. She glanced sideways at the mirror and watched with a kind of dreadful fascination as he raised the cane high over his shoulder and then brought it down swiftly on her vulnerable rump. The pain was dreadful, and this landed below her panties altogether so it might just have well have been on bare flesh for all the protection the tights gave her - she felt sure that her skin must be broken with that one.

One to go - she made extra sure that her legs were straight and fingers on her shoes - she mustn't give him an excuse to prolong the agony now. It was nearly over. She reminded herself that she wasn't to stand until he told her. Somehow she suspected he would love an excuse to give her extra. For his part, he realised that this was his last opportunity to make an impression on this wicked girl, and he wanted to do everything to ensure that he would succeed in reforming her where the headmistress had singularly failed. There was more to it than that - he rather liked the view of this teenage girl bent over submissively before him with her bottom offered up the cane, and the too-scanty panties giving her tender young bottom so little protection. This last one was something they would both remember for a very long time. The force almost broke the cane. Michelle creamed with pain and despite her best intentions she couldn't keep her hands on her shoes and almost committed the unforgivable sin of clasping her hands to her backside - fortunately she realised in time and with a real struggle, she resumed the designated position. He watched her contortions for a moment with a wicked grin on his face. That had been a beauty and he could actually make out the mark on her flesh through the gauzy material of her tights. How he'd like to see all of the marks properly, and for one crazy moment he wondered if he could confiscate the tights and knickers as they were plainly non-regulation. He pulled himself together - that really would be the end of his career! He managed to wipe the smile from his face and crossed over to the desk where he dropped the cane before sitting down.

"Right Miss Clarke, you may stand up and put your hands on your head." It wasn't where she wanted to put her hands, but it was at least a shade more dignified than bending over, and she gratefully felt the skirt fall back over her bottom. "Stand still girl - you can just wait while I make a note of this punishment in the official school punishment register and on your own personal file." She stood there, sniffing, crying and her face crimson with shame as he slowly and deliberately wrote up the incident. Finally he finished writing and put the pen away before leaning back and looking Michelle straight in the eye.

"Well I hope you've learned a lesson you'll not forget in a hurry Clarke. If you don't mend your ways, then clearly this sort of level of punishment is something you'll experience again, but I hope you'll start to think a bit about the sort of situation you're getting yourself into and maybe next time you feel like being cheeky to a teacher you'll cast your mind back to how you're feeling now. It may make you feel big in front of your classmates but I don't suppose you'd feel so big if they could see you now. It's fortunate for you that it's now a quarter part four so everyone will probably have left and you can compose yourself a bit before facing anyone. However next time you may not be so lucky. And I'll warn you of this right now - if I hear any thing on the grapevine about you bragging to your friends about this, I'll make very sure that they get to hear what a big cry-baby you were and how a sore bottom reduced you to a snivelling little schoolgirl. Now get out of my sight!"

She almost ran from the room, his angry words burning in her ears. He was right - the school was just about deserted, and she fled to the sanctuary of the toilets. Shutting herself in a cubicle she just stood and let the tears flow for ten minutes or more. Then slowly, carefully, she reached under her skirt and began peeling down the tights and knickers to inspect the damage. It was almost as bad as she had feared. He hadn't drawn blood but she had thick raised purplish red welts traversing her bottom cheeks and she would have the marks for a very long time.

Back in his office Mr Charlton permitted himself to smile again. A very satisfactory afternoon he mused as he flexed the cane, picturing once again the naughty girl bent over in front of him. Sadly, this was probably the only chance he'd ever get to cane a schoolgirl on her bottom, but it had been a very pleasant experience. He had been very careful with what he wrote up on the punishment records to simply record the date, offence and number of strokes. He hadn't specified the fact that he'd used the cane, and he certainly hadn't mentioned making her bend over to get it across her bottom. He was fairly confident she wouldn't be rushing to tell anyone!

Michelle Summers was very subdued that evening - her mother asked her a couple of times what was the matter. She took a bath and went to bed early but refused to tell anyone anything about the reason for her mood. And that was the way it stayed. At school she told her friends that he'd made her stand facing the wall for an hour and then sent her home. They quickly lost interest. Nobody seemed to notice that her behaviour was much better from that day onwards. The marks on her bottom faded but very slowly -a fortnight later she could still make out traces from two of the cane strokes on her pale skin. As for Michelle Clarke, her behaviour didn't, surprisingly enough, change one little bit. Towards the end of term she was caught shoplifting at a time when she should have been in class, and the headmistress persuaded her parents to take her away from the school. If Mr Charlton ever got to hear of this, he may have felt disappointed, but perhaps he remained blissfully unaware.