Skipping the maths test

 Original Fiction – for adult eyes only

(A St. Francis Independent Grammar School story)

Freddie thinks he has the perfect ruse to get out of taking a maths test, but things quickly begin to unravel.

 

Freddie was in bed wondering how he could get out of the maths test he knew he was going to fail. He hated the subject so much he hardly ever opened his maths book.

He knew a dodge he had learned in one of the comics he was always reading; it was how to deceive your parents that you were sick so they would let you stay off school. He decided to try it out, that’s why when his new step-dad Chris came to find out why he was still in bed, he was wringing wet with sweat.

“I’m sick Chris, I’m sick,” Freddie moaned so well he thought he deserved an Oscar.

Chris rushed downstairs to fetch the boy’s mother and together they decided he should stay in bed and not go to school.

A result. Freddie stayed in bed most of the morning, but it was so boring he dragged himself up and ambled downstairs to watch schools programmes television. It was only by chance that at lunchtime he heard the latch click on the front gate and he saw Chris and another man walking up the path. He just managed to rush upstairs to jump back into bed before they got through the front door.

Freddie’s heart was racing with the exertion of the run and fear when his bedroom door opened and Chris walked in.

“How are you Freddie?” The boy gave a whimper, “Still pretty bad, cough, cough.”

“This is Dr Nesbit, I’ve brought him here to examine you; to find out what’s wrong with you.”

Dr Nesbit opened his bag and took out a stethoscope. He examined Freddie’s chest, his back, his tongue, his throat, his eyes, his pulse and even his nose and ears.

Chris was very impressed by the doctor’s thoroughness. “So what do you prescribe doctor?”

His reply was unexpected.

“I prescribe the wooden side of a hairbrush, applied with some force several times across the buttocks,” he paused. “Preferably with the pyjama bottoms at his ankles. The boy is a malingerer.”

Freddie’s face went deathly pale.

“This boy has wasted my time. I have real sick patients who need my attention. What was it boy, not done your homework?”

Chris ushered the doctor from the room. “I’m so sorry doctor,” he began, but Freddie could not hear the rest of the conversation.

About five minutes later, Chris returned to the bedroom, carrying a big heavy hairbrush topped with black ebony wood. It was bad enough that he had been embarrassed by the doctor, but he was angrier with his step-son for deceiving him so wickedly. He had been anxious all morning that Freddie had been really sick, so had arranged to collect the doctor in his own lunch hour and get him to examine the boy.

Now, he found it was all a hoax. The doctor was right Freddie deserved a damn good spanking and that’s what he was going to get.

Freddie was remorseful; of course, naughty boys who got found out and are about to be spanked always were. But, his remorse was also genuine. He liked Chris and he saw that he acted in Freddie’s own best interest, and he also knew his mother would be mortified when she learned of his deceit.

Chris smacked the hairbrush against his thigh menacingly. “Get out of bed, now!”

Freddie had never seen his step-dad like this before; he was so masterful the boy immediately obeyed.

Chris sat on the bed and commanded, “Come and lay across my lap.”

Without hesitation, Freddie kneeled on the bed and falling forward draped himself over his step-dad’s legs so that his chest rested on the bed on one side and his legs stretched out behind him on the other. His bottom was the most prominent part of his body, raised over Chris’s lap.

Looking back, Freddie expected he would have been more distressed than he was; he had never been spanked in his life, what would this be like?

Chris lifted the boy forward so he had a better aim at his backside and grabbed hold of the waistband of the pyjamas before pulling them down as far as Freddie’s knees. The rate of the boy’s breathing increased as he felt a cool breeze from the open window brush across his bared buttocks.

His step-dad rested the brush on Freddie’s left cheek and for the first time the boy could feel its weight. It surprised him that he didn’t mind being face down with his bare bottom on display; but what would it feel like when the spanking started?

He didn’t have long to wait. Smack one! “Haaa!” Freddie gasped, that stung a little.

Smack two! hit the opposite cheek. “Mmmmm!” Freddie sucked on his lip as the wood come down into his bare buttock. That hurt, but not too much.

Smack three! The boy chewed on the bed’s eiderdown and he could feel his bottom tingling.

Smack four! He let out a little “Ouch!” and wriggled his body, but Chris held on to him tightly. He was sore now, the first three smacks had left him smarting and the pain was beginning to grow.

Smack five! Harder. Freddie kicked his legs and squirmed as the brush caught him on the fleshy part of the bottom where it meets the thigh. Dust from the eiderdown clogged his throat a little and he coughed.

Smack six! Was the hardest of the lot. Freddie was breathing hard, but he was in no great distress, his bottom was aching, but he knew his step-dad could spank him much harder if he had a mind to.

He felt Chris’s body move to put the hairbrush on the bed. “It’s over,” Freddie thought, a little relieved and proud of himself that he had taken his first spanking rather well.

But, he was premature. He felt Chris’s hand press down into his back to pin him down as he delivered twelve hard smacks with his hand all the way across Freddie’s buttocks from the base of the spine, across the centre of the globes to the thighs.

The boy was breathless from the onslaught; now he really was sore. Chris held the boy face down for a moment or so while he regained his own breath. Freddie wasn’t sure if this really was the end and waited for the blitz on his bottom to start all over.

“I have to get back to work,” Chris released the boy, “Your mother will probably want to speak to you later.”

With those few words he left the room. Freddie jumped off the bed and went to the mirror to inspect the damage. The pain had already turned to a warm glow. His buttocks and thighs were a deep pink and he could see imprints where the brush had connected, but there was no serious damage. Gently, he caressed the skin and found it was still warm and rather tender. He dived back onto his bed and patted his bottom some more reigniting the pain, which he found rather pleasurable.

The next morning Freddie was up early and ready for school. The effects of yesterday’s spanking had cleared and only the memory remained.

“Mum, can I have a sick note to say why I was off school yesterday,” it was meant as a statement, not a question, so he was astonished when his mother said, “No.”

“Mum, I need a note; otherwise I’ll get into trouble at school.”

“Good. You weren’t sick, you were truanting,” his mum seemed to be relishing her son’s anxiety.

“But, mum, I’ll get the cane!” That was for certain St Francis Independent Grammar was probably the strictest school in the town. His bottom would be blistered for certain.

“Enough of this,” his mum smiled. “Hurry up, you’ll be late for school, you don’t want the cane twice over.”

With that she left the house for work. She was quite pleased with herself, he would appreciate her joke when he got to school.

He met his friend Alan in the playground and learned that Mr Speadbury, the maths master, had been sick yesterday and the test had been postponed until that afternoon. Sick? Freddie wondered aloud, probably just skiving; I wonder if Mr Speadbury would get spanked if his father found out.

Laughing at the absurdity of it, the two boys went to their form room. Alan got out his maths book for some last minute revision. Freddie knew he was doomed to fail and couldn’t see the point of copying his friend’s example. His book remained untouched in his bag.

When Mr Cooper the form master asked for Freddie’s sick note, it didn’t take him long to establish that the boy had been absent without good reason. “You will have to report to your housemaster at lunchtime, May,” was all he needed to say.

Freddie spent the morning apprehensive; he had never been caned in his life, but in the short time he had been at the school he learned from the boys who had that it was not something he wanted to experience.

At the appointed hour, he entered the dreaded study.

“Stand there,” Mr Durrant, the housemaster, pointed to a place on the carpet in front of his desk. “Now what’s this all about?” He was speaking to himself as he read a note from Freddie’s form master detailing the boy’s crime.

“Truancy,” he intoned, as if Freddie had committed a murder, rather than a minor schoolboy misdemeanour.

There followed a lecture on the importance of attending school, studying hard, passing exams, making your parents proud. Mr Durrant had delivered similar lectures to similar boys dozens of times during his career as a schoolmaster. But, he took his duties very seriously; he might have given the speech many times, but the boy on the receiving end was getting it for the first time.

After what seemed like an age to Freddie, the housemaster got to the point. “I am going to thrash you for truancy and I want the lesson to be severe to ensure that you never do it again, do you understand May?”

Freddie was too scared to reply.

“Well, May?”

“Yes Sir,” was all he could think to say. It satisfied Mr Durrant who stepped over to a corner cupboard, opened it and selected, from what appeared to Freddie to be an enormous collection, the cane he was going to use to beat him.

The housemaster knew the boy before him was a first-former, only eleven years old and this was probably the boy’s first caning, but he would not let up on him. The very point of corporal punishment was to ensure better behaviour in the boy on the receiving end and he wasn’t about to go soft on a first offender.

He swished the cane and pointed it at his large desk. “Bend over, May.”

Intimated by the whippy cane, Freddie’s heart rate sped.  His legs were turning to jelly, but he leaned forward and placed his palms on the top of the desk.

“Not like that boy, bend over the edge, put your stomach flat on the top and grab hold of the far end, if you can reach.”

Freddie got into position, but he was too small to reach the far end, so he folded his arms and buried his face in them. Mr Durrant was used to caning boys of all ages and shapes and sizes, it didn’t matter to him that his target today was so tiny.

“Legs apart, boy.” The headmaster lifted Freddie’s green blazer clear of his grey short trousers. Satisfied that his victim was perfectly situated, he raised the cane and bounced it off Freddie’s backside six times without let up.

The boy was whistling by cut number two and howling by the fourth. By the time number six hit home his legs were marching up and down on the carpet. Tears flooded down his cheeks and spilled onto the desk and his whole body heaved with convulsions.

Mr Durrant replaced his cane and admired his handiwork from afar. “Will you be truanting again May?”

“Oh no Sir, no Sir,” Freddie gasped out the words; he was still trying to recover his breathing.

“Up.”

Freddie stumbled as he lifted himself off the desk, unable to keep his balance. He held on to the desk as his knees buckled and the agony of his thrashing pulsated through his entire body. His poor bottom was on fire, he knew when he examined it later it would look nothing like after yesterday’s spanking. Thick welts had already formed across the middle of his buttocks and it felt as if his pants were stuck to his bum: did that mean he was bleeding?

Mr Durrant wrote details in the punishment book and with shaking hands, Freddie signed his name.

“You are dismissed May. Go back to class and don’t let me see you here again. Ask the next boy to come in.”

Outside the study, Freddie held onto the wall for support. He was in no fit state to go to class, he wanted to run all the way home and thrown himself face down on his bed and cry his eyes out. But he daren’t do it, that would be truancy and he didn’t want to be back in the housemaster’s study again tomorrow.

Besides, he still had to face that maths test. Regretfully, the boy hobbled back to his form room and wriggled at his desk. Reluctantly, he took out his maths book and opened it. He just managed to stop a folded sheet of writing paper falling to the floor. Puzzled as to what it could be, Freddie grabbed it and opened it up: a sick note from his mother.

Picture credit: Darrien.

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