Mischief in the snow

The girls of St Hild’s Academy listen wistfully to reports of snow-related school closures. The snow in the Quad is ankle-deep, but most teachers live in the school, or in walking distance in the village. There will be lessons today.

Two girls, dedicated joggers, attempt an early-morning run through the grounds, but it ends up being a somewhat laboured, soggy walk. Still, they feel warm and bouncy for the exercise, and, before returning for their breakfast, they decide to build a snowman in the Quad. Sticky snow packs readily into the shape of a fat little body with twig arms, pine-cone eyes and some pine boughs for head-wear.

Later, the girls will wish that they stopped there, but one of them notices a stray fire log that had been lost on the way to the school, and, a minute later, the snow-man is sporting a humongous erect penis.

The two friends look at each other and dissolve in giggles and high-fives. They dash inside, raising clouds of snow as they go. They join their classmates in the showers, and nobody is any the wiser – or so they think.

They can’t know that the school groundsman has not only seen them, but has also had a quick word with the Headmistress. The girls begin to worry when, peeking out of the window at their creation, they notice that the wooden woody had been amputated, but they soothe themselves with the thought that nobody knows they were to blame.

Their hopes don’t last long. As the school files into breakfast, the Headmistress calls the pair aside, and orders them to go straight to her office instead, and wait outside.

They sit on the wooden bench, too worried to talk. They’re also quite hungry now, after their exertions. They hope that the Headmistress will come and deal with them between breakfast and assembly, rather than make them wait for a full two hours.

Thankfully, she appears when breakfast must be drawing to the end. She coolly invites them to follow her into the office.

“Is there anything you would like to tell me, girls?” she asks them.

“No, Ms Gallagher,” one girl starts to say, but her friend discreetly nudges her, and steps up: “We’re really sorry, Ms Gallagher.”

“Are you,” the Headmistress says wryly. She proceeds to give them a stinging lecture on immature pranks and tasteless humour, leaving both of them squirming in shame, even if they still privately think their joke had been maybe a little bit funny.

“Half a dozen each,” the Headmistress finally announces. “Skirts up, and over the table side by side.”

The girls lean forward over her enormous desk with its soft leather top. The pair of bottoms snugly encased in bottle-green knickers is exposed to the room. The Headmistress swishes the cane through the air once, twice, and then, without further delay, cracks it down smartly onto each bottom in turn. Two sharp intakes of breath follow.

The caning is swift, painful and humiliating for the girls who, no matter how much they try, can’t keep from undignified yelps and finally tears. Both of them are sniffling after the sixth stroke.

“Straighten yourselves out,” says the Head, and hands each girl a paper tissue out of the handy box on the desk. “Off to assembly with you, and we needn’t talk about it again.”

The girls mutter their apologies again, and shuffle out of the office to face their peers, hoping that somebody had thought to save them some bread rolls from breakfast.