Mrs Scott-Blythe burst angrily into the headmistress's office without knocking. Jean Taylor looked up in surprise and then compressed her lips at the sight of the chairman of the Board of Governors of Evershead Girls' Grammar School (Mrs Scott-Blythe refused to be known as a 'chairperson'). Since her election the elderly former pupil had become rather a thorn in her flesh.

"What is it now, Margaret?" she asked.

Still looking like thunder Mrs Scott-Blythe explained. She had been waiting at the bus stop for a 245 that morning and when the bus pulled up, rather late, a schoolgirl waiting behind her in the queue had pushed past her to be first aboard. Mrs Scott-Blythe noticed that the blue school uniform jacket which she was wearing bore the distinctive emblem of Evershead School.

Once aboard the bus Mrs Scott-Blythe had marched up to the girl and remonstrated with her.

"What difference does it make? You're on the bus, aren't you?" was the response. But the school governor had continued to admonish the girl, demanding that she give her her name. "I'm going to report you to your headmistress!" she had said.

The girl had remained silent however. Finally, having had quite enough of being stared at by half a bus load of passengers, she had got up intending to leave the bus at the next stop.

"What's your name, girl?" Mrs Scott-Blythe had demanded, grabbing hold of her by her arm.

"Shut up you stupid old cow and mind your own business!" was the indignant answer.

The outraged Mrs Scott-Blythe had refused to let go and was still holding onto the girl and demanding to be told her name when they reached the platform of the bus. Still trying to shake herself free the girl had jumped off the bus and Mrs Scott-Blythe had tumbled off after her. The girl had glanced round to check that her tormentor was not badly hurt and had then made good her escape.

Mrs Scott-Blythe was, in truth, only slightly grazed, but the injury to her self-esteem was worse. Breathing fury she tidied herself up and, pausing only to have a cup of tea in a local tea shop to steady her nerves, made her way to Evershead School. Now she demanded that Mrs Taylor expel the girl concerned immediately.

"Really, Margaret," said the headmistress, trying to calm the elder lady down, "I know you're upset, and the girl's behaviour was certainly inexcusable, but this isn't really a case for expulsion. And, in any case, I thought you said you didn't know the girl's name!"

"I know her face, though! I'll recognise her, you can depend on it! And if you won't expel her at least you can cane that young madam's behind until she won't sit down for a week! And you can get her parents to pay for my dry-cleaning, too. The impudent minx! Pushing me off a bus!" Margaret Scott-Blythe was quite unable to conceive that she herself could have been at all responsible for the incident. So far as she was concerned the girl had deliberately pushed her off the bus - the fact that she had run off proved it. She continued:

"Take me round the classrooms, Jean. I'll recognise that young lady soon enough".

Mrs Taylor grimaced. She was not attracted to the idea of the elderly school governor going around the school treating every class like an identification parade in a police station. "All right, Margaret," she conceded "I will cane the girl if we find her. From what you tell me it is clear that she deserves condign punishment. But perhaps we could narrow the field down a bit. Do you know roughly how old the girl was? Could you estimate the form she'd be in?"

Mrs Scott-Blythe thought for a second or two. "Not a little girl," she said "definitely not. At least fourth form or above. A tall girl. Shortish brown hair."

"All right," said Mrs Taylor. She pulled open a drawer. "I really don't want to disturb the girls' classes more than is absolutely necessary," she said. "I've got photographs here of every form in the school taken last term. This one's the fourth form."

Mrs Scott-Blythe inspected the proffered photograph carefully, looking closely at each girl's smiling face. Finally she handed it back to the headmistress. "She's not there, Jean," she said.

The photo of the fifth form was similarly scanned, again without success. As Mrs Taylor passed the photograph of the sixth formers over she hoped that Mrs Scott-Blythe's scrutiny would be fruitless once more. She disliked using the cane at all, although she had not felt able to deny Mrs Scott-Blythe's request in the circumstances, and she had only very rarely used it on sixth formers. Apart from a very small minority of girls who simply refused to be sensible she felt that her sixth formers were mature enough not to need the cane - she preferred to reason with them.

So she hoped that it was all an egregious mistake of Mrs Scott-Blythe's and that she would not recognise anyone from the photo. After all sixth formers wore a different uniform to that of the rest of the school and Margaret had not said anything about that. But, after another systematic inspection, the school governor pointed at one of the girls in the photograph. "That's the girl," she said. "Let's get her in here right away!"

The headmistress looked at the picture where Mrs Scott-Blythe was pointing. "Are you sure, Margaret?" she asked. "That's Helen Warwick. She's one of the best-behaved girls at the school. She's a prefect! She couldn't have done it!"

"Oh, yes, Jean. I'm absolutely sure! I told you I'd remember her face. A fine sort of a prefect she is! Calls the chairman of the board of governors an old cow and pushes me off the bus! You should expel her! But if you won't then I insist that you give that young madam a sore bottom that she'll remember for the rest of her days. I'm quite sure, Jean. Just get here and you'll see her reaction when she spots me."

"All right, Margaret. I think you're mistaken, but I'll call her in and we'll see. If it is she I think that four strokes of the cane will teach her a salutary lesson." But Mrs Scott-Blythe was not satisfied with this. She knew that under the school rules the headmistress was empowered to administer up to eight strokes to sixth formers and insisted that this was a case for the maximum penalty. Mrs Taylor did not really agree but did not want an argument with the chairman of the governors. And Helen Warwick was probably completely innocent in this matter anyway. The headmistress dialled an internal code on her 'phone and spoke to her secretary:

"Amanda, could you find Helen Warwick of the Upper Sixth for me, please, and ask her to come here. She should be in room 54 for an English Literature class."

Helen was very surprised at the unexpected summons, but was not displeased at escaping from a very boring lesson dealing with the possible influences of Boccaccio on Chaucer's House of Fame.

"Do you know what this is about, Mandy?" she asked as they walked along the corridor together. Mandy Collins, the headmistress's secretary, was only a couple of years older than the sixth form girls and was on first name terms with most of them.

"No, I've got no idea at all," Mandy replied, concealing the fact that she had a very strong suspicion. "It's very unusual for Mrs Taylor to send for someone in the middle of class like this." She paused and then said, with a nervous little half laugh "You haven't got any sins on your conscience, I suppose, Helen?"

Helen smiled back. "No it can't be anything like that. Maybe it's the theatre trip." As President of the girls' drama club Helen was involved with the organisation of this event. It never occurred to her to think about the morning's episode. So far as she was concerned she had been pestered by a silly old woman and had got away from her. And as it had all taken place out of school and as the woman didn't know her name nor, so far as she was aware, that of her school she could not imagine that this was connected to her summons.

Mandy still had her doubts, though. It was not like Mrs Taylor to call a girl out of class just to discuss a school trip. She could have asked to see her during break or when she had a free study period. During her time at the school Mandy had only twice had to call a girl to Mrs Taylor's office during lesson time and both incidents had ended the same way - with the girl concerned stumbling tearfully out of the office with her hands clasped to an obviously very painful bottom. Mrs Taylor hadn't sounded in a good mood at all, either.

And there was another factor which suggested to Mandy that, surprising as it seemed, the eighteen year old prefect might be on her way to a caning. The secretary had seen the chairman of the board of governors burst through her office and into Mrs Taylor's, clearly in the vilest of tempers. It had evidently been she who had induced the headmistress to send for the sixth former. She mentioned this to Helen.

"Do you know Mrs Scott-Blythe, Helen?" she asked.

Helen shook her head. The name meant nothing to her.

"She's the chairman of the governors," Mandy informed her. But Helen could still not imagine what it could all mean and remained unworried.

Mandy was almost, but not quite, sure that it could all only mean one thing. She wondered whether she should alert Helen to the real likelihood that, for whatever reason, she was going to have her bottom caned. She felt that it would be an even worse shock if the girl was totally unprepared for it.

The other two girls whom she had escorted in similar circumstances had known only too well what they had to expect. They had both been very much younger than Helen, too, one in the second form and one in the third form. She remembered how little Karen Charlton, the second former, had walked along desperately slowly, obviously feeling very sorry for herself and looking dismally as though she was ready to start crying at any moment. Tracy Sharp had also known why she'd been sent for. She had put up more of a show of bravado than had Karen, even making a joke to Mandy on the way to the office. But the self-confident Tracy had not been able to hide her tears when she stumbled out of the headmistress's office into Mandy's after the infliction. Sympathetically the secretary had handed the sobbing fourteen year old a handful of tissues from the box she kept ready for such events.

Mrs Taylor used her cane only rarely, perhaps five or six times a term. But Mandy was well aware that the headmistress was a real expert in the infliction of corporal punishment and that when she thought a caning was justified she laid it on good and hard and used all her skill. Tracy was by no means the only pupil whom Mandy had seen confident in her ability to take a caning before a visit to the headmistress's sanctum and crying and whimpering afterwards.

Mandy herself was no stranger to the cane. She had attended a local secondary modern where all the teachers were allowed to use the cane and most, especially the deputy headmaster, did - on girls as well as boys. Most of Mandy's punishments had been on the hands but she had known the humiliation and the pain of a well-caned bottom on two occasions, the last time only four years previously. However she was sure that Mrs Taylor caned a good deal harder than any teacher she had known before. She caned infrequently, but she caned to hurt and few girls came back for a second dose.

The pensive Mandy glanced at the prefect walking happily beside her, serenely unaware of anything untoward. She couldn't warn her. Really, she could hardly believe herself that the tall eighteen year old could be due for a caning. It was just that she couldn't think what else it could be!

Mandy and Helen entered the secretary's office and walked through it to the door to the headmistress's room. Mandy knocked on the door and opened it, ushering Helen in. Then she went back to her desk to await developments.

Inside the office Helen's surprised reaction at the sight of Mrs Scott- Blythe clearly showed that the school governor had got the right girl. Mrs Taylor breathed deeply. She really didn't want to have to cane a nice, clever and usually well-behaved and good mannered girl like Helen Warwick, but it seemed she had no choice.

Mrs Taylor put the school governor's account of the morning's events to the shocked sixth former, and asked her what she had to say for herself. Poor Helen was absolutely dismayed at the sight of her antagonist and the revelation that she was a governor of the school and could scarcely mumble a reply. It was practically all true, anyway, except that Mrs Scott-Blythe made the accident that had resulted in her tumble from the bus seem more deliberate on Helen's part than had really been the case.

The headmistress was angry now at the stupidity of a trusted sixth former which had put her in this embarrassing position. She began to pronounce sentence.

She said that no girl who behaved as Helen had that morning could remain a prefect and made her unpin her prefect's badge from her blazer and hand it over to her. She told her that from then on she would lose all the privileges of a prefect which she had previously enjoyed, saying that her actions clearly showed her to be unfit for a position of responsibility and privilege. Helen's fingers trembled as she removed the badge. She had been so proud of being a prefect! The thought of what her parents, her friends and the other girls would think about her degradation from that status was awful. She knew that junior girls to whom she had given lines or whom she had reported for misbehaviour would seize their opportunity to get their own back. The loss of that badge was a an awful punishment for her. But she soon realised that there was worse to come.

"Girls of this school are expected to uphold the good name of this school at all times," the headmistress continued. "Rudely pushing in in front of somebody at a bus queue as you did this morning is inexcusable. You were wearing school uniform and everyone who saw the incident must have received a very bad impression of the behaviour of this school's girls. Especially if they noticed that you were supposed to be a prefect. What a terrible example! I would be more than justified in inflicting severe punishment for this alone.

"But then your behaviour grew even more outrageous. When Mrs Scott- Blythe, quite rightly, upbraided you, you refused to give her your name and actually insulted a school governor in front of an entire bus load of passengers. Finally it seems you went to the unheard of extreme of actually physically assaulting her!

"Mrs Scott-Blythe has requested that, in view of the seriousness of your behaviour, I should cane you. I am sorry about this. I never enjoy having to use the cane and I am always reluctant to cane senior girls. I am especially unhappy when it is necessary to cane a sixth former like yourself who has never before been sent to me for punishment. But your outrageous behaviour has left me with no alternative. You will receive eight strokes of the senior cane on your backside over one layer of clothing."

Mrs Scott-Blythe intervened. She made her opinion clear to the headmistress that Helen's punishment should be on her bare flesh. But Mrs Taylor reminded her that the school rules made it clear that a girl had to be punished over one layer of clothing the first time she received the cane, although subsequent times could be on the bare at the discretion of the headmistress. Helen Warwick had never been caned before. She turned back to face the teenager who was standing unsteadily, all colour drained from her face, in a state of shock. Helen's consternation at hearing her sentence pronounced by the headmistress had been such that she had not even noticed Mrs Scott-Blythe's attempt to have it increased.

"This will not be a light punishment, Helen. As you know I do not use the cane except in cases of very serious misbehaviour which can be dealt with in no other way. So when I do use it I make sure that the girl concerned really feels the effect. I can assure you that after eight strokes of the senior cane you will be profoundly repenting your behaviour earlier this morning. It will be a long time before you sit down, on a bus or anywhere else, without feeling a shameful, and painful, reminder of your punishment!

"You are a senior girl and I shall administer an appropriately severe punishment. It is no more than you deserve and I shall expect you to remain in position throughout, until I tell you that you may stand."

Mrs Taylor stopped talking. She moved over to a small cupboard, took a key from her pocket and unlocked it. Then she reached in and withdrew a long rattan cane eight millimetres in diameter. It had a crook handle bound in red tape. This was Mrs Taylor's 'special' cane. Helen's eyes followed the headmistress's every move and widened in horror at the sight of the punishment implement - the first time she had ever seen a cane.

"Now, remove your blazer and bend over my desk!" ordered the headmistress, swishing the cane viciously through the air. Mrs Taylor was merely re-acquainting herself with this particular cane as it was a long time since she had last used it, but Helen flinched as she saw just how wickedly supple it was. Mrs Scott-Blythe smiled as she saw Helen's reaction - whatever Mrs Taylor gave that little madam it wouldn't be enough for her.

The teenager seemed to have lost the power to protest. The completely unexpected shock of these recent events made her react like an automaton. Tears pricked at her eyes as she removed her blazer, put it over the back of a chair and slowly turned back towards the headmistress's large desk.

Over the desk, girl!" instructed the headmistress brusquely.

Bending over the desk did not present the same problem for the tall Helen that it did for most of the girls at Evershead School in similar circumstances. She stretched herself easily over the large desk and took a grip on the opposite edge. When she was in position Mrs Taylor took hold of the hem of the sixth former's navy blue skirt and carefully rolled it up, together with her slip, revealing a pair of white panties with a pink motif. The teenager's rounded and fully-mature buttocks stretched out the thin material, which disappeared into the deep bottom cleft. Helen's long legs trembled and moved from side to side, causing her bottom cheeks to change shape intriguingly. Mrs Taylor picked up a safety pin from her desk and pinned the girl's skirt and slip in place.

The headmistress placed the cane across the girl's trembling behind. Helen drew a hurried deep breath and her muscles tensed. Suddenly, in one practised movement, the headmistress raised the cane high in the air and then lashed it down with full force across the sixth former's panties and across the exposed pink flesh of her bottom.

WHACK!!

Helen's response was instantaneous. As the cane landed a shudder seemed to pass through her entire body. With a high-pitched yelp the girl leapt up and twisted round in mid-air, her hands flying to her injured buttocks. Quivering on unsteady legs she stood facing the headmistress, her pretty face contorted in pain, eyes wide with shock, nostrils distended and her lips moving strangely. As Mandy had feared Helen had not had time to brace herself for the prospect of getting the cane. And never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that even the whole punishment could hurt as much as that single stroke had done. Her hands instinctively massaged her bottom where she could feel a weal swelling painfully beneath the thin material of her panties.

Outside the door Mandy Collins had heard the loud impact of the cane across Helen's tightly stretched panties and also the teenager's vociferous reaction. She had been right! She could still not guess at the reason but nice, quiet, well-mannered Helen Warwick, sixth form prefect was certainly getting whacked! To her credit Mandy's first thoughts were of sympathy with the eighteen year old. She knew what Helen must be going through. She'd been there herself!

Inside the headmistress's office Mrs Taylor was rather less sympathetic. "How dare you, Warwick!" she shouted, with real anger in her voice. "I told you that you were to receive eight strokes and that you were to remain in position until I told you to get up." Helen started to say something, but the headmistress interrupted. "I know it hurts. It's meant to hurt! And it's going to hurt a lot more before I've finished with you! There's nothing special about your bottom, girl. It's there to be caned when you're naughty just the same as any other girl at this school!

"Now, get it back over that desk right away. I'll give you a chance this time as you've never been sent here for the cane before. But if you jump up again, or put your hands in the way or do anything to try to avoid punishment again I will ask Mrs Scott-Blythe to hold you securely in position. And you will then receive not just the eight strokes of your original penalty but an additional two strokes for trying to avoid punishment!"

Large tears started to fall down Helen's ashen cheeks. For a moment it looked as though she was about to say something, but her eyes dropped in shame before the stern gaze of the headmistress. Taking deep breaths she withdrew her hands from the back of her panties, turned round and reluctantly lowered herself across the desk. This time she gripped the opposite edge more tightly, as hard as she could. Helen had not guessed that just one stroke of the cane could possibly impart so much stinging pain but she was not a coward. She knew that other girls in her class had taken eight strokes from Mrs Taylor and, although events had moved so fast that she hardly understood how she had come to be in this situation, she was now determined not to make a fuss and to give Mrs Taylor no excuse to award the two extra penalty strokes.

When she was back in place the headmistress waited a few seconds looking at the girl's quivering bottom already showing the effect of its first ever cane stroke. Then she raised the cane up above her shoulders and cracked it down to land about an inch below the emerging marks.

WHACK!!

"Aarrrgh!" Helen was unable to restrain a loud cry and her body jerked violently across the desk as the pain bit home. But this time Helen had known better what to expect and she managed to hold on to the other side of the desk and to stay in place despite the blazing sensations pouring out her bottom.

Mrs Taylor allowed a lengthy interval before the next stroke. This was not designed for Helen's benefit, however, but rather the reverse. The headmistress always intended naughty girls to understand that in order to pay the penalty for their misdeeds they had to submit passively to their deserved punishment, remaining in their humiliating position until they were told to rise and never knowing when to expect the next searing instalment of the cane.

WHACKK!!

"Owwww! Aaah! Aaah! Aaah!"

Finally the cane whipped down for the third time for the hardest stroke yet. Helen yelled loudly and continued to gasp in anguish as she squirmed wildly over the desk, kicking out her long shapely legs. Her movements caused the elastic in her panties to rub over the rising welts, making the awful pain even worse.

"Stay still, Warwick!" ordered Mrs Taylor.

Poor Helen tried her best to obey but could not quite succeed and her intensely painful bottom continued to bounce up and down.

Mrs Taylor, as an experienced caner, was unsurprised at this and calmly timed her next stroke to collide with the shaking buttocks just as they rose to their highest point causing them to wobble like a jelly in a wind.

WHACKK!!

"Aaaaowww! Aaaaowww! Ooowwwh!" she shrieked, whipping her head back in sheer agony, her brown hair flying.

Helen's loud shrieks filled the room and she twisted her head round towards the headmistress, her left hand losing its grip on the desk to come back towards her bottom. "Please, ma'am," the girl begged tearfully, "please! No more!"

But Mrs Taylor was implacable. Left to herself she might well have agreed that the four strokes Helen had received, together with the loss of her prefectship, was adequate punishment. But there was no doubt that this was a case where the full eight strokes had been fully warranted and the girl had been told that this was what she would get.

"Hand out of the way, Warwick," she said impassively, "there are four strokes to come."

With an gasping sigh of despair Helen wriggled back flat across the desk and withdrew her hand. For once Mrs Taylor did not wait. She raised the cane above her head and brought it slicing down.

WHACKK!!

This time the cane, although landing very close to the previous stroke, did not fall across the whole of Helen's bottom. Instead the tip dug deep into the bare flesh of the girl's right buttock where her panties fell away.

Helen was yelling and sobbing continuously now but, paradoxically, that vicious stroke shocked her into silence for a moment. It was only for a moment, though, and then the eighteen year old howled at the top of her voice, her body writhing across the hard desk. Mrs Taylor looked on patiently as the teenager yelled herself out. She knew that that last stroke must have really hurt and that Helen would carry the bruise left by the cane's tip for a good time to come.

The sixth former screamed hysterically and squirmed in agony, but continued to grasp the desk's edge convulsively. Mrs Scott-Blythe was smiling broadly. She had many faults to find with Mrs Taylor but she could not deny that the headmistress knew how to cane a naughty girl's bottom! This was just what that young hooligan deserved.

Mrs Taylor now showed her expertise by waiting even longer before continuing the punishment. It was well over a minute and Helen's yells were finally beginning to die away before the headmistress raised her cane again.

This time as the cane lashed mercilessly down, landing across the wealed flesh of Helen's incredibly sore backside, it was just too much. With a heart-rending shriek that made the listening Mandy outside the office gasp with sympathy, the tall eighteen year old lost her grip on the desk and jumped bolt upright, her hands going again to the back of her panties.

"Get down, girl!" exclaimed Mrs Taylor exasperatedly. "There are still two strokes to come!"

Poor Helen tried to speak, but the words would not come. She wanted to plead for mercy but could only gasp and squeal unintelligibly as her delicate fingers tried vainly to relieve the unprecedented pain in her rear.

"This is your last chance, Warwick," said the headmistress. "I wasn't bluffing. If you don't get yourself back across that desk this instant you'll be held down. And you won't be getting just two extra strokes, but four!"

The caned girl made no move to obey. She stood there, moving from foot to foot, shaking in every part of her body. Tears poured down her pretty face and her large breasts bounced under her white blouse as she desperately struggled to come to terms with the pain. The headmistress turned towards Mrs Scott-Blythe for assistance.

"Would you mind helping, Margaret?" she enquired.

Mrs Scott-Blythe did not mind at all. She grasped the squirming girl firmly and, ignoring her struggling and cries, manhandled her down over the desk and held her securely in place.

"You now have four strokes to come, Warwick," announced the head-mistress, "and you have only your own stupidity to blame!"

The hard-hearted chairman of the governors was still not satisfied. She pointed out to Mrs Taylor that the two additional strokes were for refusing to take punishment, which was a separate offence from that for which the original eight had been allotted. Therefore she insisted that the final two strokes be applied to Helen's bare behind with her panties down. The headmistress, angry at having been so badly let down by one of her prefects and at the loss of so much of her morning, agreed.

Although securely held Helen continued to kick her long legs as the headmistress laid on the last two of her original eight strokes. Then Mrs Taylor pulled down the girl's panties, ignoring her frantic protests and pleas and her distress as the elastic grazed the raised weals on her swollen bottom.

When the girl's panties were down about her knees Mrs Taylor stood back and regarded the juddering cane-decorated bottom. Clearly it would be some time before young Helen Warwick would be able to sit down without getting a painful reminder of her disgraceful behaviour and its outcome. She raised the cane again.

WHACKK!!

Despite Helen's lack of protection the seventh cut was even more severe than its predecessors, biting deeply into the girl's scissoring thighs. Mrs Scott-Blythe felt the struggles of the ex-prefect become even more frenzied and frenetic but she held her securely, taking pleasure from the distorted expressions of agony on Helen's pretty face.

There was another long pause before the delivery of the last stroke of all. Mrs Taylor waited until her cries had subsided somewhat and her wild kickings and twistings in the arms of Mrs Scott-Blythe had died down a little. Then she took two paces back and lashed down the final stroke with a forward step. She aimed it diagonally across the expanse of the girl's devastated bottom to cross as many strokes as possible.

The eighteen year old responded with another wild shriek of agony, her body writhing in Mrs Scott-Blythe's secure grasp. Mrs Taylor calmly regarded the punished backside, completely reddened and covered with weal marks and incipient bruises, for a few moments and then indicated to Mrs Scott-Blythe that she could release her hold on the girl.

When she did so Helen squirmed off the desk and twisted round to face the headmistress. She had to hold the desk with one hand to help her unsteady legs to support her weight while her other hand was tenderly trying to bring some comfort to her pain-gushing bottom. Her panties were down by her ankles now and the teenager looked a proper sight as she hopped from foot to foot, breathing in deep breast-shaking gasps, tears still streaming down her face, naked from the waist down.

"Stop that, you disgusting girl!" ordered Mrs Taylor. "Pull your panties up!"

Helen obeyed immediately - the headmistress was still holding that awful cane! Rather to Mrs Scott-Blythe's amusement she winced and squealed and gasped in anguish as she manipulated the panties upwards over her swollen and stinging behind. When she had finally succeeded Mrs Taylor made her turn round and unpinned her slip and skirt so that they fell down over the damaged area.

With both hands now pressed to the seat of her skirt the caned ex-prefect stood facing her headmistress on unsteady legs. Mrs Taylor made her apologise to Mrs Scott-Blythe, and Helen tearfully did so. The chairman of the governors accepted the apology serenely, shaking Helen's sweaty and trembling palm and saying, "I hope that this is a lesson to you, young lady - naughty schoolgirls get sore bottoms!"

Mrs Taylor told Helen to stand facing the wall with her hands behind her neck. The girl obeyed but was unable to stand still properly yet and continued to shift her weight from one leg to the other as the tears carried on falling from her reddened eyes.

The headmistress asked Mrs Scott-Blythe to sit down and called Mandy on the internal 'phone to ask for two cups of coffee. The secretary couldn't help glancing at Helen as she walked in. She bit her lip at the sight of the tall eighteen year old standing facing the wall wriggling in pain.

"Thank you, Amanda," said Mrs Taylor. "Would you please take Warwick out to your room now and complete the paperwork. The girl has received eight strokes of the cane over one layer of clothing for disgraceful behaviour in public and for assaulting a school governor and an additional two strokes, panties down, for refusal to accept punishment.

"Warwick has forfeited her position as a prefect and I would be obliged if you would move her belongings from the Prefects' Room to the Sixth Form Common Room when you have an opportunity.

"She may remain in your office until the bell for next period goes, to recover herself and then I will come out to take her to her next lesson and explain matters to her class teacher." Throughout this speech Mrs Taylor did not look towards Helen at all, as if the caned girl was beneath her contempt.

When they were back in her office Mandy passed her box of tissues to Helen without a word and made the entries in the Punishment Book. She was not quite sure what to put in the section for Form. Helen had been Upper 6 Prefect, but now it seemed she was just Upper 6. Mandy left it as "U6" and decided to check with Mrs Taylor later if that was correct.

Poor Helen continued to weep in shame and at the continuing smarting from her outraged bottom. The original intense overpowering stinging was beginning to fade but Helen was looking forward in horror to the bell when the headmistress would take her to the next lesson and her disgrace would be publicised. To make matters worse her teacher for that lesson was Mr Walker, a handsome young man on whom Helen had rather a crush!

Mandy watched her concernedly not knowing what to say. Finally she ventured: "I'm sorry Helen! I did try to warn you. I just wish I'd been wrong!"

Helen shook her head to show that she appreciated Mandy's words, but she did not feel ready to speak yet. After about five minutes she felt a bit better and asked Mandy how long the awful pain would last.

Mandy could not really help, however. She told Helen that the stinging should die down quite quickly but then it depended on how badly she'd been bruised. She advised Helen not to carry on holding her bottom, though, it didn't stop the pain and the other girls would only make fun. Finally it was time for the next lesson and Mrs Taylor marched Helen off, every step hurting, for the shameful details of what had happened to be related to her teacher and classmates.