Jennifer Has a Plan

Jennifer has a Plan

They were to be spanked, all of them. Tomorrow, after breakfast, in the changing room, on the bare bottom, with a gym shoe, by the head prefect. Such was the message delivered to the girls of 6A, on that wet and miserable afternoon in February, by Miranda herself. With her chestnut hair tied with red ribbons, and already in her games tunic — for this was the day of the match — she stood among their desks and told them their future.

'Let's see if this helps you remember,' she said. 'Nothing else has, has it? I've given you lines. That didn't work. We gated you. That didn't work. I don't see what you find so difficult about keeping your room tidy ... No, Marie. Don't even think about arguing with me. I'm sure it wasn't your fault but that's too bad. I'm sick of this, and I will see you all — without exception — in the changing-room tomorrow. Straight after breakfast, please. Thank you.'

She turned to go, but Marie clung to her arm and began pleading.

'Stop being an idiot, Marie!' said Miranda, detaching herself. 'Act your age, for heaven's sake!'

She left, and the door closed softly behind her, leaving the room plunged in deepest gloom.

For this was no small matter.

Most of them had been spanked before, usually with a hairbrush through a dressing-gown, for talking after lights out. But a spanking on the bare bottom with a gym-shoe, by none other than Miranda — that was a different thing altogether. And all because they had left the form room in a mess!

The soft sound of weeping soon filled the room. Some hugged their knees and wept. Some lay their heads on their desks and wept. Some stood at the window, stared out into the drizzle, and wept. A few indulged in useless recriminations, and some bitter things were said about Miranda too, even by those who, in school parlance, were 'cracked' on her. And one girl merely sat at her desk, thumped the lid of it repeatedly with a fist, and saying, 'It's not fair! It's just not fair!'

Then, from the furthest and darkest corner of the room, came a low, amused voice.

'Lord love us!' it said. 'Nine of us, all in one go! Anyone know if that's a record?'

Nobody was much inclined to answer this.

'How do you think she'll do it?' continued the voice. 'Line us up in a row like so many peaches, or call us up one by one?'

'Shut up, Jennifer!'

'Baggsie go last, then, when she's run out of steam.'

' Shut up , Jennifer!'

'What — interrupting your little blub, am I?'

She sat, in defiance of house rules, on the lid of her desk. At the age of sixteen Jennifer had mischievous sparkling eyes, a nose that turned up at the end, and a mop of unruly hair that she was always being told to 'do something with'. She regarded her room mates with a grin.

'Seriously,' she said. 'What is the point of blubbing?'

'Oh, of course you're not going to!'

'Course I will ... tomorrow. Everyone does. Doesn't mean I have to start now, does it? Anyway, it's only a spanking, for crying out loud! You go to the changing room, it hurts like blazes, you cry, and then it's over. The real punishment's in the waiting, isn't it?'

She jumped off the desk and went over to the door. With a flick of the light-switch she banished the February gloom and turned the room yellow and warm.

'I'll tell you what's painful!' she said. 'Breaking your arm. That's painful. Being hit on the cheekbone with a hockey ball. That's painful too. A gym shoe on the bum, on the other hand ...!'

' Bare bum,' squeaked a voice. And the room shuddered anew. Jennifer saw a single fat tear appear in the girl's eye, slide the length of her cheek and drop to the floor, all in the space of a second.

'I've had it on the bare bum before,' she said. 'Charlie Fairstead, for swearing. Remember Charlie? Now that was a spanking. That was something to blub about. They don't do it like that any more!'

'You're think you're so jolly brave, don't you?'

'Well, you can froust about in here all afternoon if you like. But why do you think Miranda — who I love and revere —' (Jennifer was not being sarcastic) '— Why do you think she came and told us today , what she's going to do to us tomorrow? To make us fret it out, that's why, and ... an' think about our sins while we do so, and all that rot. Well, I'm blowed if I will. Who's coming to watch the match?'

She put on her blazer and hat. Rowan, her best friend, at once put on hers. But there were no other takers.

So Jennifer and Rowan went by themselves to the changing-room. Rowan sat on the bench and began unbuckling her sandals. Jennifer meanwhile was inspecting the place of execution.

'Suppose we'll be here ,' she said, bending over and touching her toes. And then she straightened. 'And Miranda'll be here . And the rest of us will be lined up there , with a nice view of proceedings.'

'There's no need pretending to me, you know,' said Rowan. 'I know you're funking it as much as anyone.'

'Codswallop.'

'Oh yes you are. Because it's jolly ... well ... going ... to hurt, and you know it. Now for Pete's sake let's get out of here.'

They put on their outdoor boots, and their macintoshes, and wound long scarves around their necks — red and blue, the school colours. Then they left the school block by the back door, and strolled over the damp playing-fields with heads held high.

Arriving at Home Pitch, however, they found to their annoyance that the news had preceded them. At once they were the objects of sympathy and curiosity, and more than a little amusement. Spankings were often meted out to the junior girls. But seniors who strayed from virtue were usually dealt with in more civilised ways. When the word had spread that 6A were to be spanked, en masse, with their knickers down, it was the finest piece of gossip since Miss Millicent was seen in Larborough in Mr Hall's car.

A little crowd instantly formed around the doomed pair. But Jennifer was in no mood to indulge them.

'What's it for?' asked Tracy White — a pale, stringy girl in the year above Jennifer. 'What have you done?'

'Litter,' said Jennifer shortly, gazing out over the playing-field, where the teams were just coming on.

' Litter?'

'You know, bits of paper on the floor.'

'You're getting spanked for litter? '

'What, are you deaf?'

'On the bare bum?'

'Maybe, maybe not.'

'How many? The lot?'

'I really don't see,' said Jennifer loftily, 'what the blazes this has to do with you .'

'I was only asking ,' said Tracy, and turned red.

'Don't, then.'

'You don't have to ... you think you're so beastly clever, don't you?'

'Yes,' said Jennifer. 'Now would you excuse us? Believe it or not, Rowan and I came to watch the match, not to answer foolish questions about what I imagined would be a private affair.'

It was a frightful day. It had rained hard at lunch, and the playing-fields were covered with puddles. All regular games had been cancelled, and the match should have been cancelled too, but the visitors had come thirty miles by coach, and it would hardly do to give them tea and biscuits and send them off again. So after a lot of consultation between staff, the fixture went ahead as planned.

Not even weather this filthy could dampen the enthusiasm of the teams, however. From the first whistle they played in earnest. No matter that the ball, however hard they hit it, would come to rest in the mire a few yards away, and have to be hit again. No matter that the players, despite their studs, slipped and slithered into every tackle. No matter that their hair clung to their cheeks like water weeds, and they were half-blinded by rain and mud. They went at it hard, and consequently more shins and ankles and knees were hacked than usual.

Miranda was playing at centre-half, and always seemed to be in the thick of action. Soon she was unrecognisable from the shining figure who had appeared in the 6A form room to hand out justice. One leg, from the hem of her tunic to her shoe, was smeared black with mud from a fall; the other glistened white with rainwater. There was mud on her arms too, and mud on her neck and chin. Sometimes the spectators could distinguish her only by the red ribbons in her hair.

The ball went wide, and the winger was nowhere in sight. Miranda came out from the centre, racing an opponent. She caught the ball just before it went into touch, not ten feet from where Jennifer and Rowan stood. They could almost smell her, feel the heat of her. She hooked the ball, turned deftly, raised her stick, and brought it down hard.

THACKKKK! said the stick on the ball. It was as loud as a branch snapping. Rowan and Jennifer flinched.

'Hmmmm,' said Jennifer.

'Gosh,' said Rowan.

The ball sped up the touchline, sending an arc of water into the air behind it. Miranda raced after it.

'That's the idea,' said Jennifer quietly. 'You tire yourself out today, my dear.'

But she had gone rather white.

The ball came to rest in a puddle. Miranda reached it first. She raised her stick high.

THACCKKKK!

The ball went speeding off again.

'Phew!' said one girl, a friend of Rowan's, who had come to stand with them. 'I've got to say it, Rowan. If Miranda was going to give me the you-know-what tomorrow, with my knickers down, I don't think I'd come and watch her play hockey. I'd be crying in the toilets.'

'That's what I wanted to do,' said Rowan. 'But Jennifer wouldn't let me.'

'You must be nervous...'

'Of course she's not nervous,' said Jennifer. 'Tough as a boot, is our Rowan. Take more than a spanking to....'

THACKKKK! said Miranda's hockey-stick once again, and Jennifer sighed.

'Rather you than me,' said the tactless friend.

Miranda brought the ball up the wing. The winger, meanwhile, had positioned herself in the centre, waiting for Miranda's cross. Miranda turned. Two opponents came rushing at her. At the last moment she raised her stick and swung.

THACKKK!

It was a perfect shot. The winger had only to stop the ball as it came, turn, and shoot. The bemired goalkeeper didn't have a chance. The back of the net billowed, the whistle blew. The noise of the crowd was deafening. Jennifer and Rowan at last forgot their woes, as they jumped up and down in delight.

But then a hush fell. Miranda was down and had stayed down. One of the defenders who had tackled her had failed to stop, or had tripped, or slid, or something. Nobody was quite sure. But there had been a collision. Miranda was motionless in the mud. The match was halted. The referee went over to her, followed by the games mistress, and then one of the school nurses, who had come to watch the match. The other players stood in little groups nearby. The spectators waited, and anxiety sat in every breast. Once they saw her sit up, and there was excited whispering. But she was made to lie down again. At last a stretcher arrived. Miranda was lifted onto it, and carried away in the direction of the Sanatorium, which stood by itself at the edge of playing-fields. The word went about that she was concussed.

The match was abandoned for fear of further accidents. The spectators sent up dismal cheers for the visiting team, and then began drifting away over the sodden playing fields.

'Poor old Miranda,' said Jennifer, deep in thought, as they walked under the dripping lime trees. 'Wonder what that feels like, concussion.'

'My cousin had it,' said Rowan. 'From falling off a roof. He was in bed for days.'

'Was he?'

'Mm. But he was fine afterwards. It always clears up, I think.'

They walked in silence. Both were thinking exactly the same thing, but neither knew how to raise the subject.

'So ... ' said Jennifer, at last. 'Tomorrow morning's a bit unlikely now, I suppose.'

'It is rather. Poor old Miranda.'

'Poor old Miranda. Lucky us, I suppose.'

'Do you think we'll be let off, then?'

'No. It's in the book, isn't it? We'll get it, one way or another. I just meant it probably won't be Miranda.'

'Then who will it be?'

Jennifer thought about this. And her face brightened. 'You remember when Miranda went up last term for her Cambridge exams...'

'Yes.'

'Well ... who took over from her?'

'Mary, of course' said Rowan. 'She's the Deputy Head Girl, isn't she?'

She abruptly stopped walking, joy dawning in her face. She stared at Jennifer. And Jennifer stared back at her.

'Oh my gosh!' said Rowan. 'Do you really think? I mean, you wouldn't even feel it, would you, if Mary did it? You'd have to remember to cry.'

'Hmm,' said Jennifer. She straightened her back, pressed her chin into the heel of one hand, and nibbled her little finger. She squinted, and looked hard at Rowan. Rowan waited. She had been Jennifer's co-conspirator for many years, and she knew the signs.

Heavy raindrops fell silently around them. The 'Tea bell' sounded, and still Rowan waited patiently. At last Jennifer seemed to come out of her trance. She smiled broadly.

'Well, come on!' she said. 'Let's go and get some tea.'

'What? Oh tell me!' said Rowan. 'Have you got a plan?'

'I'll tell you over a hot bun,' said Jennifer. 'Don't say a word to the others. They only muck everything up. Come on then!'

The two friends took off in their macintoshes across the squelching grass, not minding how many muddy puddles they ran through, otherwise what was the point of wearing outside boots?

*

But it was two very different-looking girls — fresh stockings, washed faces, and brushed hair — who went upstairs after tea, up into the realms of quiet and privilege where the prefects had their studies. Long experience had taught them that neatness goes a long way, even with girls barely a year older than them.

Mary was in her study, deep in revision. She smiled when she saw them.

'Hello, you two,' she said. 'Are you coming in?'

'We don't want to disturb you,' said Jennifer, speaking with unusual deference, and hoping she wasn't overdoing it. 'We just came to ask after Miranda.'

'That's nice of you. She's not at all bad, they say, but she'll be in bed a few days.'

'Have you seen her?'

'No, they wouldn't let me. I'll try again in a while...'

'Poor old Miranda!' said Jennifer, with wide eyes. 'She won't like that much — being in bed for a few days. Is it concussion?'

'Hopefully not.'

'Well, that's something.'

Jennifer took a couple of deep breaths, nibbled her lip, looked down at the floor, and then back at Mary.

'Listen, Mary. I know I shouldn't be bringing this up now. But ... tomorrow morning, Miranda was going to, ah, see to us , in the changing-rooms. You know, for leaving the form-room in a mess.'

'Yes, I know,' said Mary, with a note of warning in her voice.

'Oh, we're not trying to wriggle out of it, or anything! Of course not! It's just that ...' Here Jennifer glanced at Rowan, as if to confirm that what she was about to say really was true. 'I don't mind so much myself, but the other girls ... well, they've been crying their eyes out all afternoon, none of them ate a bite at tea, and they're still at it now,' (some of this was true) 'And I'll bet they cry all the night too. You know how it is when you're up for a spanking. You can't concentrate on your lessons, your knees are shaking the whole time, you can't think about anything but the, er ... what's going to happen...'

'Oh dear!' said Mary, aghast, who had never been spanked in her life.

'I know it's not at all up to us,' said Jennifer, hanging her head. 'I know this awfully impertinent, and everything, but if Miranda's going to be in bed for a few days, that's an awfully long time to sweat it out. So I wondered ... if you thought ... whether someone else might...'

'...Put us out of our misery,' said Rowan, speaking for the first time. And — a miracle! — a single tear trembled in her eye.

'It's really on behalf of the others,' said Jennifer. 'They are in such a state.'

And they waited.

'Well...' said Mary. 'It's not up to me either. But it doesn't seem fair, I must say, to make you all wait for days. So I'll see what I can do. Is that alright?'

'Oh, thank you, Mary!'

'Thank you, Mary!'

They bowed their heads humbly as they left her study. They kept silence on the landing, and all the way down the stairs. But when they reached the downstairs corridor, Jennifer flung an arm around Rowan's shoulders and squeezed her tight.

'Rowan!' she cried. 'That tear! Where did it come from?'

'How could I not,' replied Rowan, 'With that piteous little tale you spun. "It's really on behalf of the other girls." You were inspired!'

'You were not so bad yourself. Isn't she a softie?'

They continued in this fashion even as they entered their form room. Lavinia looked at them suspiciously.

'Where've you two been? What are laughing about?

'Hello Lavinia. Cheered up a bit, have you?'

'What are you up to?'

'Why don't you write these questions down, dear? We'll have a look at them over prep.'

'You think you're so jolly clever, don't you?'

Jennifer and Rowan turned to each other, with a look of surprise. Then they burst out laughing.

'Yes!' they cried. 'Yes we do!'

'What is it?' cried another girl. 'Is it something about Miranda?'

'I couldn't possibly say!' said Jennifer. 'You'll thank us, though, tomorrow. Come on, Rowan. Let's be elsewhere!'

They left the form-form to angry mutterings, and wiled away the time before supper playing ping-pong in the gym.

*

Mary went to the Sanitorium again, and this time the nurse let her visit the invalid, on the understanding that she was not to bother her with school stuff. But after fond enquiries, there was a piece of business that Mary had to raise. Miranda listened in silence, and saw all.

'Did they really?' she said. 'Jennifer and Rowan. Hmm. Jennifer and Rowan.'

'I thought it was rather noble of them, really,' said Mary. 'They were awfully worried about the others.'

'I'll bet,' murmured Miranda.

'I don't know, though. If you are going to be out in a day or two, perhaps it would be better to wait.'

'No,' said Miranda, with a grim smile. 'If they don't want to wait, we won't make them wait. I'll deal with it now. There's a pad of paper under the bed — could you reach for it? I have to keep it hidden from Nurse.'

Miranda raised her knees to make a writing-desk. Then she pondered, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning, and sometimes sucking her pencil. At last she began writing. There were two separate notes, neither very long. She had just finished the second, and folded both into quarters, and written who they were meant for on the back, when the nurse came in and began scolding. Mary hurriedly took the notes, and went.

*

The girls of 6A returned to their form room after supper to find a note pinned to the board:

To 6A. Your wish has been granted. You will all go to the changing-room after breakfast, as before. Miranda.

Some frowned, some sighed, and some wept anew. But Jennifer and Rowan, when they read it, whooped, linked arms and danced. Only after repeated requests did they stop and explain themselves to their bewildered classmates.

'You went and asked?' said Lavinia, flabbergasted.

'Ask, and you shall be given,' said Jennifer. 'You asses sat and wept all afternoon. Me and Rowan ... we kept our heads, when all around us...'

'There's no need to be so smug, anyway' cried Lavinia. 'We're thinking of sending you to Coventry. Aren't we?'

She looked around for support. But there was none. On nearly every other face, smiles were appearing. None of them felt like dancing yet — a spanking was still a spanking, after all — but even the most timid could grasp that being seen to by Mary was rather better than being seen to by Miranda.

'Rather better than?' cried Jennifer. 'Infinitely preferable to! Miranda would have flayed us! She'd have slaughtered us. We'd have blubbed for weeks!'

'That's not what you said this afternoon!'

'I was lying, wasn't I? Mary, on the other hand ... now seriously, you lot , you must remember to say ouch! when she hits you, or her feelings will be hurt.'

The prep bell went. They settled down to their homework. Jennifer had a passage of Shakespeare to decipher and explain, something she rather enjoyed. She set about the task happily. But when she had translated a dozen or so lines, her pen suddenly froze.

She put her chin in her hands and frowned. Then she shrugged and went on with her task. Again she stopped. She laid down her pen, and quietly got up. She padded over to the board where the note still hung, and read it again.

'What is it, Jennifer?' said Rowan

She was immediately shushed. They were on last warning about talking during prep, too.

Jennifer shook her head lightly, and returned to her seat. For ten minutes she tried to settle down to Shakespeare again, but it was no good. Not a single line could she understand. She got up again, quietly and nonchalantly, went to the board, unpinned the note, and took it back to her desk. There she read it, over and over.

Rowan, next door, was by now perturbed. She grunted to make Jennifer look up, and then shrugged her shoulders to say ' what?'

Jennifer looked at her and her face was tight and unhappy. Rowan had rarely seen her friend like this since their first year, when Jennifer had been bullied ceaselessly.

'What is it?' whispered Rowan.

Jenny took her pen, drew a line under the words 'Your wish has been granted,' and slid the note along to Rowan. Rowan was bewildered. 'So?' she said. But Jennifer had returned to her homework, or was pretending to. She hid her face with her hand, and refused to look at Rowan again.

The End of Prep bell went, and the school exploded with noise as usual. 6A too were rowdy. They barely heard the discrete knock at the door, or the girl responsible for it. Her name was Tully and she was in the year below them, a timid and obliging girl. She entered uncertainly.

'Hello,' she said. She was very fidgety. 'I don't know if I should tell you this. It's about ... tomorrow.'

Up shot Jennifer's head. She stared at Tully with foreboding.

'I was just heading over for evening prayers,' said Tully. 'And I saw ... But I don't know if I ...'

She paused.

'You saw what?' said Rowan.

'Well ... you'd better come and see for yourselves.'

Swiftly, and refusing to answer further questions, Tully led them along the downstairs corridor and out the back door. They followed her along the path to the chapel — ('Is this an attempt to get us to prayers, Tulls?') — and then stopped and pointed to a particular window.

It was a prefect's study — of sorts. Unlike most prefect's studies, however, it was on the ground floor, and was also rather small. A girl called Rosie Harmer occupied it. It had been allocated to her because she had been made a prefect only at the beginning of spring term, rather than in September as was usual. The rumour was that she would never had been made a prefect at all, had her father not visited the headmistress specifically to demand it.

'She is, quite simply, the most remarkably unpleasant girl I've ever met,' Jennifer had once said, trying to explain to some outsider why Rosie was so deeply unpopular at the school. 'She bullied us all like anything when we were kids — me more than anyone — and now that she can't, she sort of smoulders inside. She sits and smoulders and glares, as if she hates absolutely everything in the world and wants to smash it to pieces. I can't begin to tell you how glad everyone was — everyone — when they didn't make her prefect...' ('But she is jolly good at games,' Rowan had added.)

In the evening drizzle, the girls of 6A watched Rosie Harmer, prefect and sportswoman, practice for the morning.

Her study was bare and brightly lit, and there were no curtains at the window. They could see in quite clearly. By the door, at the far end of the room, stood a wooden chair. Strapped to the back of it, with a belt, was a pillow.

Rosie come towards the window. They saw her tight, freckled face, with its small eyes and prissy mouth. Then she turned. In her hand was a gym shoe — just an ordinary school plimsoll, with a blue canvas top and a white rubber sole.

Two swift steps down the room. Her left shoulder went forward, her right shoulder came back. The gym shoe went high above her head. She jumped, and swung. She put the entire weight of her body behind it.

The chair shook, the pillow folded up on itself, like a man punched in the stomach. Even from a distance, and through the glass, they could hear the thud.

They stood in stunned silence.

Rosie straightened the pillow, and came back to the window. This time she gripped the shoe by its toe rather than by the heel. She repeated the manoeuvre, and then cocked her head, comparing the effect. She decided to try the heel once more. Evidently she had been working on her technique for some time.

It was sinking in very slowly. The horror was too great to be grasped all at once. In silence they watched Rosie attack her pillow once more.

Then little Alex Hardman said to Jennifer, 'But Mary's going to do it, isn't she?'

Her voice was simple, uninflected, without fear. She hadn't believed what she was seeing. There was an awful calm about her. In fact there was an awful calm about all of them — like the calm of a baby just before it screams.

Everyone looked at Jennifer.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry?' said a voice, not understanding the word in this context. Somebody else began choking on their breath. There were some preliminary sniffs.

Jennifer knew at once what had to happen now.

'Go inside,' she said. 'Please! Rowan, get them to go back inside! I'll sort this out. I promise. Just go inside!'

She ran away down the path, then beneath the lime trees and onto the playing-fields. All was dark. She hurried over the water-logged grass, stumbling and sliding, and sometimes plunging into deep unseen puddles. Her sandals and stockings were soaked within seconds. The rain had ended, and the sky was busy with heavy, mysterious clouds. It was like being inside a vast cathedral. Now and then the moon appeared, like a face appearing at a window, and smiled down at the world, and then withdrew. Goal posts loomed above, like the spars of a ghost ship, and corner flags were loud in the wind.

Two minutes later she slithered down the bank of grass and mud that surrounded the Sanitorium. Her breath was raggedy. She skirting the building, keeping to the shadows, and arrived at the front door. There didn't appear to be anybody around. The building looked as though it had already been put to sleep. But the door was unlocked. Jenny kicked off her mud-covered sandals, and silently opened it. Inside, all was quiet and dark. She crept along the corridors in her stockings, making for the ward. At the door she took a breath, and went in.

The ward was dark. But there was a pool of light at the far end, and there was Miranda. There was a bandage around her head. She was sitting up in bed, reading a book. Jennifer paused. And then she came down the row of beds, wondering if she should speak, or cough. But Miranda sensed her, and raised her eyes calmly from her bright page, squinting into the darkness.

But when she recognised Jennifer, her face darkened and her eyes filled with anger.

'Oh Miranda...!' said Jennifer at once, but Miranda scowled and put her finger to her lips. Then she pointed to the bed down the row. Jennifer looked, and saw that there was someone asleep in it.

She wasn't to be put off. Coming closer, and keeping her voice to the merest whisper, she said 'Please Miranda, I need to speak to you. Oh please let me speak to you!'

Miranda still looked furious. She glared at Jennifer, and seemed about to say something awful like 'What the devil do you think you're doing here?' But then she saw Jennifer's face, and after a brief pause she gave the tiniest of nods.

And Jennifer realised she didn't have a clue what to say.

She had coming rushing through the darkness with a single goal: to see Miranda. And now she was there, breathless and muddy, she found her thoughts were as tangled as her hair. It hardly helped, either, to be standing and looking down at Miranda, and to be obliged to speak in a whisper. But proceed she must.

'It was all me, Miranda,' she said. 'Please don't do it to the others! Rowan and me went to Mary. But I talked her into it. Rowan, I mean. I don't mind what you do to me, but please don't do it to them. They didn't even know about it.'

Miranda was very still. She didn't take her eyes off Jennifer's face.

'Rosie was practising in her study,' said Jennifer. 'Just now. With a gym shoe. She's going to half-kill us.'

Miranda nodded.

'But they don't deserve it! They haven't done anything wrong! Except to leave their books lying around. Some of them didn't even do that . You can't let Rosie do it!'

Miranda lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

'Not to them,' said Jennifer, going on stubbornly. 'I don't care about me.'

'And that, I believe,' said Miranda, and Jennifer was startled to hear her velvety, musical voice for the first time, 'Is also what you said to Mary this afternoon.'

Jennifer bit her lip and hung her head. There was a world of difference between what she had said to Mary that afternoon, with her neatly-brushed hair and her mouth full of lies, and what she was trying to say now. But she couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't just sound like more lies.

Miranda was watching her closely. She said, 'Then none of the others honestly knew about it, when you and Rowan went to see Mary?'

'No,' said Jennifer. 'And I talked Rowan into, too.'

'Rowan does what you tell her to do, does she?'

Jennifer waggled her head in a way that meant 'More or less.'

'More fool her.'

Miranda pondered the matter for a long time. Her face was grave. Jennifer could hear her breath, and the soft sighing of the sleeping girl, and the blood in her own ears. At last Miranda nodded. 'Very well. You tell them that I'll see to them myself, as soon as I am out.'

'Oh thank you,' whispered Jennifer. 'Oh thank you.'

Now came a brief sort of interlude. Jennifer stood and looked at Miranda, and Miranda, leaning back on her pillows, watched her in turn. She was wearing white cotton pyjamas, with a blue collar that nestled under her chin. Her face looked tired. Her hair, where it escaped from the bandage, shone coppery under the bedside light. The ribbons she had worn for the match were now tied to the bed frame above her head, like rosettes. They were splattered with mud. When Jennifer saw them, she knew at once what she had to say. No — what she wanted to say.

She knelt, so that her face was level with Miranda's, and laid her arm on the bed to steady herself. She found she couldn't bring herself to raise her eyes to Miranda's. So she looked at the red hospital rug on the bed.

'I don't know what to say,' she said. 'Except that I feel so terrible. You got hit on the head, and I used it to get out of a punishment.'

There was a great lump in her throat, and her eyes were damp. The full awfulness of what she had done was only now hitting her. She was trying hard not to cry.

Miranda watched her steadily.

'And?' she said.

'And I'll do anything to make it up to you.'

'Good. But that's not all you did, is it? You also took advantage of Mary's good nature. Mary likes to trust everyone. You knew that, and you made her trust you. That was unbelievably rotten behaviour.'

Jennifer hadn't thought of that aspect of it. Now she did so, and saw that Miranda was right. A tear slid down her cheek and she didn't bother to retrieve it. She looked at Miranda with brimming eyes, begging for judgement.

'So,' said Miranda, with the ghost of a smile. 'You want to make amends, do you?'

Jennifer shut her eyes and nodded.

'I know you're sorry. I forgive you. Now we must think of a suitable punishment. Mustn't we?'

Jennifer nodded.

'There is an obvious one, isn't there?'

'Yes.'

'After all, poor Rosie has spent a whole evening getting her eye in.'

'Yes,' said Jennifer. 'Yes.'

'Good. Tomorrow morning, then, in the changing-room, exactly as planned. But you'll also join the others, won't you, when I see to them? You'll be an old hand by then.'

'Yes,' said Jennifer.

'Good. I'm glad you came to see me. Now, I'm sick of writing notes. Can I rely on you to tell everyone where they are meant to be, and at what time?'

'I will,' said Jennifer.

'Well done. And now you'd better go. It's already past curfew.'

Jennifer nodded. Then she said, 'Are you alright, Miranda? Is your head alright?'

'Right as rain,' said Miranda.

She put a hand on Jennifer's shoulder, and kissed her on the top of her head.

'Off you go. Try and get some sleep, won't you?'

*

The next morning, Rowan, no matter how many times Rosie told her to push off , refused to do so. Jennifer, her face as white as a school plate, also told her friend there was no point to her being there, but still Rowan wouldn't budge. So Jennifer and Rosie gave it up, and went into the changing-room together, as if they were in league against Rowan. The door shut. Rowan leaned back against the wall of the corridor, her hands behind her back and one knee raised. She crossed her fingers, and waited.

She heard the murmur of voices from inside, mostly Rosie's. It sounded very friendly, as though Rosie was teaching Jennifer how to tie a certain knot, or grip a tennis racquet. In fact Rosie had been friendly that morning — almost the friendliest that Rowan had ever seen her. This fact alone made her quite nauseous.

The discussion seemed to go on for a long time. And then there was silence. Rowan waited, and waited, her heart in her mouth. Then she heart the sudden scrape of Rosie's sandal on the floor, a whirr of something moving through air, and then the impact. There was nothing of a smack or spank about it. It was more like a loud, hollow, echoing drumbeat. Perhaps that was the acoustics of the changing-room. She heard Jennifer say 'Yow' — rather dutifully, as though she had read one of those boy's comics where the pupils are forever being caned, and had remembered the correct response from it.

Then a sickeningly long silence. Ten seconds at least. And then exactly the same sequence of sounds.

The only thing that changed as the strokes progressed was Jennifer's response. She said 'Ah!', and 'Oh no!' and 'Oh please!' Soon she was gasping for breath. A little afterwards she began sobbing, dragging the breath in and out like a wounded animal. And after a while longer, she was pleading. 'No please no more! No please nor more!'

And then Rowan, who thought she couldn't feel any more nauseated than she was already feeling, heard Rosie snigger and say: 'Why, we've only just started. Get down again. Get down!'

A pause. And then another stroke, and Jennifer began sobbing again. And still Rosie talked:

'So Jenny — you think you're clever, eh?' she said. 'How clever do you feel now?'

'Oh no! Oh no! oh no!'

'Oh yes!' cried Rosie. 'Oh yes! Why, we're not even started, yet! Get down! Get down! '

If she heard any more she would rush in and attack Rosie herself. So Rowan stuck her fingertips into her ears, shut her eyes, and waited.

Time passed. Sometimes she would hear Jennifer again, and have to dig her fingers even deeper into her ears. It felt as though she was betraying her friend. She found herself praying, begging for it to come to an end. Minutes seemed to go past. And at last she felt the air shift as the changing-room door opened and Rosie came out.

Rowan removed her fingers from her ears. Rosie saw her.

'What are you crying for?' she said with a sneer. And then, 'You can go in.'

Rowan did so, and found Jennifer lying curled up on her side on the cold concrete floor, sobbing and gasping. Her gym slip was still around her waist, and her knickers around her knees. Rosie had simply left her like that. Rowan knelt down beside her, and stroked her arm, and started to say foolish things like 'There there!' But there was nothing she could really do, but be there, and wait. Out of decency she tried not to look at Jennifer's backside, but she was aware that it was very red indeed.

They stayed like that for minutes. Sometimes girls would come in, see them, stop dead, and say 'Is that what Rosie did?' And Rowan would say yes, and forbid any further questions with a shake of her head. So the girls would merely say that Rosie was a nasty piece of work who had it coming, and leave.

A bell rang. It was time for lessons. Jennifer lay a few seconds longer, and then rolled over, and knelt, and pulled her knickers up and stockings up. She didn't seem to be in too much pain. At least a gym shoe doesn't last like a cane does. But her face was still very white, and she didn't say a word.

They went to lessons, and took their break, and went to more lessons, and then to lunch. And Jennifer said not a word. It was as though Rosie had hit her so hard, that she had climbed deep into herself and was refusing to come out. Her eyes were vacant. Rowan was seriously worried. Nothing she could do would make Jennifer talk. She pleaded and cajoled, and Jennifer would look at her, and then her eyes would simply slip away. At lunch she ate nothing at all, but drank glass after glass of water. And as soon as grace was said, she hurried out of the dining-room and disappeared.

They searched for her up and down the school — Rowan and others — without success. Before tea they congregated in their form-room again, and began to wonder if now was the time to bring staff into it. They knew how much Jennifer would hate this — but then, was Jennifer even Jennifer any more?

Just as they were debating whether it would be best to go to Miss de Havilland, or Miss Wells, or matron, there was a banging at the door. Somebody outside was apparently trying to kick it down. Rowan strode over, ready to yell at whoever it was who thought this was funny...

And there was Jennifer, smiling, and carrying in her arms an enormous white cardboard box.

'I thought we'd have a study tea,' she cried. 'Just us lot. Guess where I've been!'

She pushed past Rowan and came in, dropping the box onto the nearest desk. She opened the lid to reveal macaroons and cream puffs and shortbread and sponge-cakes and chocolate sandwich cake, all from the baker on the high street.

'That,' said Rowan, swallowing hard and trying not to cry, 'Would be a very good idea indeed.'

And everyone else thought it would be a good idea too. So a pot of tea was purloined from the dining-room, as well as teacups and milk, and they arranged their chairs in a circle and tucked in. All the enmities of yesterday had vanished. And nobody, by unspoken agreement, referred to spankings, past or future. But it was alluded once, when they asked Jennifer how Miranda had been.

'She looked tired,' said Jennifer. 'But I think it was just a knock, after all. She should be out soon.'

'Oh ... good!' sang a voice, and there was laughter. Then more tea was poured, and the box went the rounds again. Jennifer had spent most of her term's allowance on it. Even so, nine hungry girls made short shift of it. First to disappear were the macaroons, and then the fairy-cakes, and then the chocolate cake. And Jennifer was just persuading them that the shortbread needed finishing off too, when there was a knock at the door.

It opened. They gaped. For there stood Miranda.

She came in with all her old cheer and vitality. She was the picture of health. The bandage had gone.

She looked quickly around the room. When she spotted Jennifer she looked at her anxiously. But what she saw obviously reassured her — perhaps it was Jennifer's chocolatey grin — and she relaxed. She greeted them all, and said she was very glad to see them enjoying the good things of life, and what she had to say had better wait until their feast was done.

'We're more or less finished,' said Rowan, politely getting to her feet. 'Unless you'd like some shortbread?'

'Shortbread?' said Miranda, 'Hmm. Shortbread. Now you mention it, Rowan, I am meant to be keeping my strength up. Thank you.'

She took a piece. 'But you might want it back when I tell you what for. We've some unfinished business, haven't we? Now, I thought, we can either do it after breakfast tomorrow, as is traditional, or — if you have really finished your, er, banquet — we might get it over and done with now. I'll leave it up to you.'

'Now!' said Jennifer. 'Now!' said Rowan. 'Now!' said various others. Even the most timid glumly admitted that now was as good as tomorrow. So off they went in single file down the main corridor, past the roar of a hundred girls at tea, and through to the changing-room.

She made them stand in line. ('Don't worry about school order,' she said. 'I can't see that it makes any difference.') She brushed the sugar off her hands, found a gym shoe in one of the lockers, tested it once on her hand, and then called the first of them up. It happened to be Rowan.

'You know the drill,' said Miranda, with a twinkle in her eye. 'Stockings down, knickers down, touch your toes, and leave the rest to me.'

Rowan obliged her. Miranda lifted the skirt of her gym slip onto her back. They could see the muscles of Rowan's leg quiver beneath her white february skin.

'Fifteen each,' said Miranda. 'Off we go!'

She raised and swung. She did it with a certain detachment, as if practising a golf-stroke. But there was nothing sentimental in it. It was hard, very, very hard. She paused for two or three seconds between strokes, no more. Rowan was sobbing at five, pleading at ten, and yelling at fifteen. Whereupon Miranda said, 'That's your lot,' and waited as Rowan, gasping, slowly unfolded herself. And so on to the next. Nine girls and fifteen strokes, and her arm never began to tire. The girls ran up to their dormitories and sobbed for half an hour. Then they dried their eyes and adored Miranda as much as ever.

'Told you there was nothing to it,' said Jennifer, as she lay on her bed. 'If only you'd listened to me, eh?'

'If only,' said Rowan. 'If only.'

And that was more or less that. — Except that, shortly after tea, one of the prefects came to Miranda and said that she hated to say it, but 6A had left their form room in a deplorable state again, with dirty teacups, and cake-wrappers everywhere, and half-eaten bits of shortbread, and crumbs all over the floor. And they themselves were nowhere to be found.

'Hmm,' said Miranda, licking a stray piece of sugar from the side of her mouth. 'When you do see them, tell them they've got until bedtime to clean it up — or else . '

'Hadn't you better do it?' said the girl.

'Not this once,' said Miranda.