A Baaad Day for James

 Original Fiction – for adult eyes only

 The headmaster sighed deeply and put down his fountain pen. His study was hot and he had opened the window fully to let some air in, but now he was disturbed by a commotion in the quadrangle below. With an ill temper he hauled himself to his feet and shuffled across the room. He looked out the window and his jaw dropped as if he were a character in a cheap novel. Below him were six or seven sheep angrily bleating as schoolboys whooped with delight.

It didn’t need the brain of a genius to conclude that the sheep had come from the neighbouring farm, but they were always securely paddocked and it was impossible for them to escape. Someone had set them free. That genius would also conclude that a pupil or pupils plural had something to do with it.

On the other side of the school building James Hanley and Terrence Mason were enjoying a joke. The two sixth-formers were like chalk and cheese in their personalities. Hanley was an athlete for the highest order, he ran and he jumped and he excelled at anything involving balls. But make him sit in a classroom and put a book in his hand and he was desolate. It was probably only his prowess in the rugby and cricket teams that had allowed him to enter the sixth-form; his examination results leaved much to be desired. Mason in contrast hated games, and although the playing of such and the watching of school teams was compulsory, he would sneak off at every opportunity. While others might hide behind the cricket pavilion for a crafty smoke, Mason would invariably have his nose in a book.

They might be polar opposites in these regards but they were the best-est of friends in the way that only schoolboys could be and they had been since the day they had met in the first form. They shared a love of mischief and together could never resist the opportunity to play a prank. Like many jesters they could be somewhat tiring at times but once in a while they pulled off a corker.

Today, James Hanley had been working solo. He hadn’t planned the caper; the idea simply came to him as a flash of inspiration. There was no time to think about the details and equally no time to contemplate the consequences. James had been on a cross-country run; it was unorganised in the sense that no master was around to supervise. He and his fellows were after all senior boys, eighteen years old, no less, and the school believed they were fully capable of looking after themselves.

So when Jame ran up towards Fellingham’s Farm and noticed (not for the first time) a flock of sheep gently grazing he had plenty of time to hatch a plan. It doesn’t need that genius’s brain to work out what he did. It took but moments for him to unlatch the gate and shoo the sheep from the field. Once he had one of them on the road, the others, as sheep are wont to do, quickly followed. The school was but fifty yards down the country road and before you could say ‘Bob’s Your Uncle’ the sheep were bleating around the quadrangle.

James was delighted and he had to tell his great pal Terrance about his achievement. How they roared with laughter. What a hoot! It was a triumph; people would talk about this escapade for years – no decades to come. This might be 1969 but, Terrance reckoned, because he knew about Time and such like, they’d still be talking about it in 2024.

But there were more immediate concerns than James Hanley’s place in history. Unbeknown to him at the very moment he shared his triumph with his great pal there was steam coming from the ears of the headmaster. He stormed from his study and at a speed befitting an overweight and aging headmaster (which is to say not a great pace) he descended the stone steps and pushed through the heavy wooden doors into the quadrangle.

The mere presence of Dr Humpington-Bradley was enough to quell the exactment of the boys. As the sheep looked on quizzically, the headmaster demanded to know who was responsible. His face reddened and his heart thumped and his beady eye bore into each boy present. Each boy in turn averted his gaze; such was the schoolboy code of honour. Dr Humpington-Bradley would not get a name from him.

At about the time that the headmaster’s temper was about to fell him, a young master appeared on the scene. He was Mr Slipperem (an apt name perhaps for a sports’ master). ‘Sir,’ he beamed at the headmaster, for he was, all the boys agreed a bit of a creep, ‘I know the name of the culprit.’

‘Good man,’ the headmaster brightened considerably, ‘Tell me all.’

The tale Mr Slipperem told was simple. Several of James’ fellow runners had witnessed his prank and were delighted to share the story with the rest of the Sixth. All schools have their bush telegraphs and within minutes the sports master was in full procession of the facts.

‘Find that boy. Bring him to my study. Do not delay,’ Dr Humpington-Bradley intoned and he swept his gown around his body and paraded off the quadrangle. Mr Slipperem with gladness in his heart that he had ingratiated himself with the headmaster began his search. It didn’t take him long. James was only now returning to the changing room and preparing to shower. ‘Don’t bother to change,’ Mr Slipperem snapped, ‘You’re coming with me …’

As was revealed previously, James Hanley had a history of mischief and it would be of no surprise to anybody that he had been a frequent visitor to the studies of headmaster and housemaster and from time to time had also been required to present his bottom for punishment across a desk in the classroom. So, it was a sanguine sixth-former who trotted along behind the sports master. Mr Slipperem knocked on the study door and upon hearing the command, ‘Enter!’ he pushed open the door and ushered James inside. The sports master failed to hide his disappointment when the headmaster bade him Thank You and Farewell and Close the Door Behind You.

With the two now alone together the headmaster flopped his weighty body in a wooden chair and with a snap of his fingers ordered the boy to stand before his desk. It was not an unfamiliar position for James, but only now did he realise that he was dressed, not in formal school uniform of blazer, pale grey trousers, white shirt and stripy tie, but he wore only thin cotton running shorts and an athlete’s singlet. He stood contritely, his hands behind his back and let the headmaster get on with it.

Each headmaster probably has his own little ritual for times like this. With Dr Humpington-Bradley, he read out the charge sheet and allowed the miscreant before him to speak in his own mitigation. So the conversation went something like: Did you let the sheep out of the field and bring them to the school? Yes Sir. Did you do it deliberately? Yes Sir. Why in heaven’s name did you do it?

James Hadley was unable to answer the final question. Why had he done it? Perhaps we need the assistance of the genius we met earlier. Why did he do it? He did it for the thrill, the excitement, the danger, the adrenaline rush. He had a compulsion to play pranks. The reason could have been any or all of these; the reason might have been something else entirely, James Hadley didn’t know. So, he merely mumbled, ‘Don’t know, Sir.’

‘Don’t know!’ The headmaster’s anger was genuine enough although he had been known to lay on the dramatics a little thick at times like these. How many headmasters one wonders were the mainstay of their local amateur dramatic societies.

‘Don’t know, you damn fool!’ The headmaster’s face reddened and his heart once again raced. ‘You are a senior boy and you behave like a little boy …’ He let the words float in the air. He stared at the boy standing before him. The shorts were tight-fitting and hid little. It was clear to anyone who cared to look that James Hadley was no longer a little boy. ‘You are a disgrace. I should expel you. The school wouldn’t miss you for one moment.’

The headmaster knew this was not true. James Hadley was a star of the athletics track, a nippy winger in rugby and a mainstay in both bowling and batting in the cricket team. If the school had any hope of sporting success this year it very much needed James Hadley. The headmaster knew this and so, of course, did James Hadley himself. There would be no expulsion. But he would not escape punishment.

‘But,’ the headmaster continued in a tone that he hoped sounded like one of reconciliation, ‘there are exams ahead and it would be wrong not to let you sit them. No ..’ he broke off and with some effort pulled himself up to a standing position. James Hadley watched him struggle to his feet and his eyes followed the portly headmaster as he waddled across the study towards a tall thin cupboard. There was no secret about what was contained within: the headmaster’s vast collection of whippy punishment canes. James Hadley feigned indifference as he watched the headmaster take one cane, test its suppleness, and then take another and then a third until he was able to select a cane that would punish the sixth-former to the headmaster’s satisfaction. He turned and faced the boy.

‘You know the form,’ he spoke sternly, ‘Pull out a chair and stand behind it.’ There were two wooden chairs with straight backs that were placed close to the headmaster’s desk. They were, at least formally, there for visitors to sit on, but mostly the visitors the headmaster had in his study were misbehaving boys so the chairs rarely fulfilled their primary purpose.

James Hadley stood, his hands behind his back and his thumbs gently caressing the seat of his cotton shorts. Only then did it dawn on him that he was in his thin cotton running shorts and beneath them he wore no underpants. He had been caned countless times before, but never like this, it was the equivalent of being ordered to lower his trousers and bend over for a swishing across his underpants. A ‘normal’ caning hurt like buggery, but this time it would be excruciating.

He had no more time to think. ‘Bend over,’ the headmaster swiped the cane through the air and watched intently as the eighteen-year-old took a deep breath, rubbed his hands together and then folded himself over the back of the wooden chair. The headmaster flexed the cane between his hands. This was the moment that he too realised that the boy was perhaps not adequately dressed for a caning. It was too late now; he couldn’t send the boy away to change back into his uniform. It was the silly boy’s own fault.

James Hadley rested his elbows on the hard wooden seat and spread his legs a little. He felt the tight cotton shorts ride up into the crack between his cheeks and he felt very vulnerable. He did not know, but the headmaster saw clearly that the lower halves of his buttocks were exposed inviting him to lash his cane across inches of bare flesh.

James Hadley was an athlete and he had an athlete’s body; muscles in his legs were taut, his back and arms rippled as he stretched over the chair. His buttocks were round and firm and nowhere on his body was there enough fat to sizzle a sausage. Unwittingly, the headmaster licked his dry lips as he positioned himself to James Hadley’s left side and gently tapped the cane across the highest part of the eighteen-year-old’s buttocks. James Hadley tensed, His bottom was a firm as a rubber ball, he held his breath as the cane was lifted away. The headmaster held it in mid-air for a moment or so before returning it with tremendous force to strike across the centre of the proffered buttocks. The sound of whippy rattan biting into firm flesh resounded around the room. The headmaster, a frequent caner, was momentarily unnerved by the noise, which because of the thin cotton and the muscular bottom sounded like a pistol shot. Usually, the cloth of the boy’s heavy school trousers deadened the sound. The distinct hissing that came from between James Hadley’s added to the cacophony.

The headmaster’s heart was racing faster, the room seemed abnormally hot, but he would not be deterred. He took aim once more. It was his ritual to land the first stroke across the dead centre of the target and then with one welt throbbing he would lay the second stroke an inch below the first and the next stroke would go an inch above. In this way he would deliver six strokes perfectly in parallel to the others and leave the boy with a band of hot, sizzling flesh that would be hard to ignore for some considerable time. But, now the headmaster had a problem. The shorts were so short that they failed to cover adequately the entirety of the buttocks. In short, James Hadley presented him with a band of bare flesh. What should the headmaster do?

Dr Humpington-Bradley was not a cruel man; he would say that, but the boys offering their bottoms to his cane might view the matter differently. He was not a cruel man, but he had a duty to perform and the boy before him had been particularly stupid. He had played a prank and he had in effect stolen the sheep. In days of yore a fellow might be hanged for sheep stealing. With that historical fact in mind James Hadley was getting off rather lightly. The headmaster took aim, wobbled the cane in mid-air once more and brought it crashing down; this time across the bare flesh. The headmaster admired the thick red line that was visibly throbbing.

James Hadley yelped and he yelped so loud that the boys in the quadrangle stopped their sheep petting to listen and wonder. James Hadley’s feet stomped and he twisted his left leg around his right ankle and it took every ounce of his resolve to stop him jumping from the chair and rushing from the study to howl at the moon. Meanwhile, the headmaster lined up stroke number three.

It was only three minutes later, the caning over, the punishment book filled in and the ritual manly handshake completed that James Hadley and his great pal Terrence Mason met in the sixth-formers lavatory. Terrence had already filled a washbasin with water. ‘Steady on old chap,’ Terrence grinned as he lent a shoulder so James Hadley could climb up and soak his throbbing bottom in the cooling water.

Picture credit: Generated by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)

 

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