Make-up on the train

I’m sure the school rules don’t permit girls to wear quite as much make-up as the sixth-former opposite me is currently applying on the train.

She’s doing it expertly, mind: none of the teachers would notice unless they checked carefully. Or unless the gentleman who’d observed her happens to be on his way to a school governors’ meeting. Unless, at lunch afterwards, he happens to notice the student in question walking past and questions the headmaster about slipping standards.

Usually a girl might expect a detention for a first offence of this nature. But in the circumstances – bringing the school’s reputation into disrepute? Surely corporal punishment would be inevitable. Only three strokes of the cane, I suspect, but the shame would be as mortifying for a good girl as the not-inconsiderable pain as she sat gingerly on the train back home that evening…