Worst Week-end of My Life

PPou
If you have never had the privilege of attending an English public school, you might not be able to relate to this, but I attended a very exclusive public school in Hampshire during the 1960s. Things were quite different from now. Boy's schools were very strict. There were lots of rules, and the general form of discipline for most infractions was beating, generally with a cane or paddle (thank God, at my school, it was usually a paddle!).

Usually, the offending boy was dispatched to the Dean of Student's office, where, after a stern lecture on whatever infraction had been committed was delivered, he would receive either three or six strokes, depending upon the severity of the transgression (it was more often six than three). Most of the year, those of us who were younger (I was eleven at the time), wore lightweight shorts as part of our uniform, which didn't do much to mitigate the damage to our bottoms. I saw boys five or six years older than I emerge from the Dean's office weeping. I did, more than once.

On this particular Wednesday, which precipitated the Worst Week-end of My Life, we had just taken our seats in Science Class. My best mate, Georgie, sat on my left hand, and another good friend, Rickey, sat behind me. Our Science master, who was a young fellow (mid-twenties, but he was ancient from our perspective), had sat down and was organising his classroom materials. Since he had entered, we were supposed to remain silent unless called upon. For some reason, Rickey decided that there was something he just had to tell me, right at that moment, so he started kicking my chair and making hissing noises. I was afraid I would get in trouble over this, so I turned around and whispered, "Shut up!" to him. This had the opposite effect from the one which I desired.

"Mr. Thayer!" got my attention, immediately.

"Sir?"

"Come up here, please."

I got up from my desk and went up to the front of the classroom. Mr. Knowles, our Science teacher, looked up at me.

"You were talking in my classroom," It wasn't a question, it was a statement. I swallowed. My mouth was suddenly dry.

"Uh, yes sir," I managed.

"To whom were you talking?"

"Uh, to Rickey, behind me," I said, and then added. "But it wasn't his fault."

"Mr. Moore!"

"Sir?"

"Will you come up here too, please?"

I heard Rickey's chair squeak and then he was standing beside me, in front of Mr. Knowles' desk.

"You were talking, too?"

"Yes, sir," Rickey said. "It was all my fault, sir. I was trying to get Carl's attention, and he was telling me to be quiet."

"No matter. You were both disrupting my classroom. You both have detention, on Saturday."

Now, this was a new option, which had just been implemented at our school, and was regarded as somewhat alien by the older schoolmasters, something akin to Free Love, or Revolutionary Socialism. After all, wasn't the beating of boys the traditional approach to discipline? Of course, sometimes we were assigned extra work as punishment, but not usually. But, Mr. Knowles was a young schoolmaster, one of the "new wave" of modern educators, upon which some of the older, more experienced masters, looked upon with disdain. He did not believe in the corporal punishment of boys, and so, we had detention.

As he was writing out our detention slips, I was thinking of just what my Dad was going to think of this turn of events. I would have to be at school from 9 until 12 on Saturday, and it was a good 45 minute drive to and from school. My Dad loved his Saturday mornings: he loved to prepare an huge breakfast on Saturdays. He would fix pancakes, waffles, omelets, crepes, rashers of bacon, sausages, you name it. My Dad loved his Saturday mornings, and I knew he wasn't going to be happy to be informed that he would be spending the next one hauling his son to and from school because he couldn't behave himself in class.

"Uh, sir?" I said, sort of uneasily."Couldn't you just send me to the Dean? My Dad is gonna..."

"Mr. Thayer," he said, looking up at me from his writing."I believe that you will learn more from detention than you would from a whipping. I don't believe in beating boys."

He handed me the detention slip and I went back to my seat. I knew what I was going to get at home would be far worse than anything that might be done to me at school. I was in real trouble now, and I knew it.

I caught up with Rickey on the way to our next class.

"Thanks," I said."Now I have detention, and my Dad is going to skin me. What was so important that it couldn't wait 'till after class?"

"Oh," he said, looking just a bit guilty."I wanted to ask you if you wanted to sleep over this week-end."

"Well, I think we can forget about it this week-end," I said."'Cause I'm gonna be dead, thanks to you."


I got home around tea-time and sat and had tea and a roast beef sandwich. I chickened out completely. I must have been pretty quiet, because my Mum asked me what was wrong. I muttered something non-committal and went up to my room to do my studies. I came down to watch Dr. Who and eat supper, and then I went back to my room and stayed there.

Thursday came and went, and I chickened out again. Friday, I knew I had to say something, as I had to be at school the next day for 9. After Dr. Who was over, I gathered the little courage I could muster.

"Uh, Dad?" I said, rather weakly."I got something to tell you." My dad looked over the newspaper he was reading.

"Uh, well, uh, me and Rickey kind of got in trouble for talking in class. We, uh, kind of got detention." I handed him the detention slip. He read it and then looked up at me. I could tell he was angry before he even spoke.

"You got this on Wednesday, and you're just now giving it to me? Why, son, why?"

"I, uh, I don't know," I stammered. He shook his head.

"Well," he said."That corks it. That just about corks it." My Dad was from Chicago, where, apparently, things got corked. Whenever he used that expression, I knew he was really exasperated.

"I had things planned for Saturday. You really threw a monkey wrench into things," he said.

"I'm sorry," I said, meekly. I knew I was going to be a lot sorrier before it was all over.

"Well," he said."First, don't make any plans. You're grounded all week-end. You're not going anywhere. Go to your room. We're going to have a talk later about your behaviour."

So, I want up to my room."Grounded" didn't mean that I just couldn't leave the house, it meant that I would be spending most of the week-end in my room: no stereo, no radio and no phone. The "talk" would involve the repeated application of a belt to my bare bottom. I was in for it.

My dad came up to my room later that night, after supper. I had a good fifteen minute lecture on what an ungrateful, wicked little brat I was, after which I got a good toasting. I slept on my stomach that night. My butt was on fire.

We had to leave around 8 to get to the school on time. Dad didn't get his big breakfast, and I didn't feel like eating: I had a cup of tea.

Of course, for the entire 45 minute drive from our house to school, I was treated to the expanded version of the "Irresponsible, Ungrateful Brat" lecture that I had gotten the night before, just before the toasting that I was still feeling. I considered hurling myself from our green estate wagon on Winchester Rd., but I stuck it out, somehow.

Dad dropped me at school and told me he'd be back for noon. I caught up with Rickey and gave him Hell again:

"Thanks, mate," I said."I'm grounded all week-end, I got a spanking and I'm stuck here with you."

"I'm sorry, Carl," he looked sorry, too."Maybe you can stay over next week-end." I decided to forgive him, and he said he would ask his Mum about it. Rickey was pretty nice to me for the next week. He felt guilty. He should have.

I had never had detention before. At least, we didn't have to wear school uniforms. It was held in the library. There were about a dozen boys there, ranging from 12-16; Rickey and I were the youngest. None of them looked happy to be.there, nor did the junior master whose then it was to host: he was seated at the librarian's desk. The school paddle rested in front of him, like the mace in Commons.

There was one of those rolling chalkboards with the rules posted on it, a lot of "NOs": No Talking, No Passing Notes, No Moving About, No Unnecessary Noise, etc. We all sat down (Carl, rather gingerly), and our chaperon, who looked as displeased as any of is to be there, explained the rules to us:

"After I call time, there will be NO, I repeat, NO noise. If you need something, raise your hand. You will have two fifteen minute breaks, at the end of the first and second hours. Do not be late returning from break. Time will start ... now."

After that, for the next 45 minutes, the only sounds were the scratching of pens and pencils on paper, the sound of pages turning and the occasional cough. Considering a room full of adolescent boys, this was unnatural: positively sepulchral.

I was having a really bad time trying to get comfortable on the hard wooden chair. My bottom was still tender from the night before, and no matter how I squirmed around, I couldn't find a position that didn't hurt. I was trying to find the best position when our proctor suddenly shouted across the room at me:

"Thayer!"

"Sir?" I almost leapt out of my chair.

"Are you fidgeting?"

"No, sir. I'm not fidgeting."

"Well, whatever you're doing, stop it at once! I won't have it!"

"Yes, sir." I sat absolutely still. The last thing I wanted, at that point, was a paddling.

The next three hours, aside from two 15-minute breaks when we were allowed to use the vending machines in junior commons, were agonising. One boy fell asleep during the second hour and received a thwack on the head for it, prompting our erstwhile shepherd to add "No Sleeping" to the list of rules on the board. I was never so glad as when noon rolled around, and we could all leave.

Dad picked me up about 12:15, and we started home. He was in a decidedly better mood: he had gotten breakfast somewhere and had spent the rest of the morning shopping and puttering about. I started to think maybe things might improve a bit, especially after we stopped for lunch and ice cream on the way home.

When we got home, I started up to my room to start serving my sentence, and Dad stopped me.

"Wait," he said."I've got something for you." Somehow, this didn't make me feel any better. He fished a scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. It had an half- dozen chores listed on it: chores my Mum had been after him to do for months.

"Dad ...," I started to protest. "Look: I just did detention, I'm grounded all week-end, and I got a spanking over this. Do I really have to do all of these chores, too?"

"Well," he said. "We could discuss that, later ..."

"Uh, well," I replied, rather hurriedly. "I guess I'll go down in the basement and start cleaning." And I did.

And that was the absolute worst week-end I had ever had. I was eleven.