The last day in the month was a very special day at St Jude’s Preparatory School For Girls. St Jude’s was an exclusive school for the daughters of very wealthy people. The parents were anxious that their daughters should be brought up in a strict, sheltered environment so that they would grow up to be model citizens. The school was in an isolated location in the moors of Scotland, somewhere to the north of the Solway Firth. On a clear day it was just possible to look south from the upper floor windows and see the fells of Cumbria in the far distance. The population is sparse with no temptations to attract young girls. St Jude’s was chosen by parents for its strict regime. It was made clear to parents when they applied for a place that punishments for even the slightest transgression would be severe. The school undertook to ensure that there would be no permanent damage as a result of the punishment, but parents should expect that from time to time it was likely that the girls would sustain severe marks on their buttocks.

It was the disciplinary regime that made the last Friday in every month special, because that was when the punishments were carried out. This particular Friday was even more special than usual because it was also the first Friday in a new term. There had been a new intake of students in the lower form. These students had not yet experienced a punishment day. It would be an experience that would be etched in their memories for ever.

The tense atmosphere on the last Friday in the month began first thing in the morning. The girls sat at long refectory tables for their breakfast. Usually a relatively noisy affair, the meal would be consumed in almost dead silence. At the tables, some of the places were unoccupied. The girls who would normally be seated there were at a separate table on a raised dais at the end of the room. Instead of the usual tartan skirts these girls wore a simple white cotton skirt to match their white tee shirts. These were the transgressors, the girls awaiting punishment. They wore the punishment uniform and sat at a table to mark them out from the other girls. The girls in the main part of the dining hall kept glancing at the girls at the raised tables. They were looking for something in the girls’ expression. How did it feel to be waiting there knowing that soon they would receive a thrashing from Miss Trunchman, the deputy headmistress? It must be like a prisoner in the condemned cell. How thankful the other girls were that they were not seated at the punishment table. The girls awaiting punishment toyed with their food. None of them ate much.

After breakfast was finished the main group of girls would walk smartly through to the assembly hall. The new intake of girls, those who had not yet witnessed punishment felt the tension. They had heard stories from the older girls, stories of bare bottom canings. Please don’t let it happen to me they thought. Yet one of their number was missing. Already one girl from the new intake had broken a school rule – a trifling matter, but the school had zero tolerance. The girls would learn to obey. The poor girl had been caught eating sweets after lights out just a week into the new term. She had suffered the agony of waiting three whole weeks to discover how severe her punishment would be. She tried to convince herself that the school would be merciful for a first offence.

After the girls were seated in the assembly hall the head mistress, Miss Sutherland informed the girls that today they would witness the punishment of three girls.

‘Bring them in please, Miss Trunchman, ‘ she said in a raised voice. Miss Trunchman duly led the girls into the hall and marched them down the central aisle, turned them to the left and halted them at a short flight of stairs that led up to the stage where the head mistress was standing.

Punishment day followed a careful ritual. The girls for punishment stood on the stairs in the order they were to be punished. The lesser offences would be dealt with first, leaving the most serious offence until last. When it was their turn, the girl to be punished was to stand smartly at the top of the stairs, then when called forward was to walk smartly in a dignified manner, befitting a girl from St Jude’s, to the centre of the stage where punishment would be administered in front of the entire school. This was, of course, to serve as a deterrent to the other students.

The first girl in the line at the foot of the stairs was a small, blonde haired girl with her hair tied in two bunches. Like the other girls for punishment she wore a simple white tee shirt and a short white skirt. She was desperately trying to hold back tears that were already beginning to form in her beautiful blue eyes. Her legs were trembling as Miss Trunchman ordered the first girl for punishment to march forward to the centre of the stage. With little shudder, the little blonde girl moved forward to the appointed place.

Miss Sutherland, towering over the little girl, read out the crime and the sentence.

‘Susan was caught eating in the dormitory after lights out. The punishment, as this is a first offence, will be reduced to three strokes of the cane to be delivered on the bare bottom. Miss Trunchman please continue.’

Miss Trunchman stepped forward and lifted the girl’s skirt. Susan looked at her pleadingly with her wide blue eyes. Surely she was not going to have her knickers taken down in front of the entire school. Without hesitation, Miss Trunchman hooked her fingers in the waist of the girl’s knickers and in a well practised move drew them down her thighs.

Miss Jones, the first form tutor licked her lips as she watched from her seat on the front row of the assembly. Like most of the teachers at St Jude’s she was a confirmed lesbian, drawn to the school for its reputation. Her heart leapt in her chest as the girl’s bald pubes came into sight briefly, before Miss Trunchman turned her round to display her pert little bum. Miss Jones clamped her thighs together, looking forward to some pleasurable times ahead with this little blonde girl.

Susan watched Miss Trunchman as she walked across to where a container like an umbrella stand contained a selection of canes and other implements. Miss Trunchman selected a swishy cane and made it hiss through the air with a couple of practise swipes. Susan gulped and tried to maintain her composure. As Susan was so tiny, Miss Trunchman ordered her to step up onto a box, so that she would be at a more convenient height for the caning she was about to receive. Trembling, the little girl stood on the box.

‘Now girl, bend over and grab your ankles.’

Susan bent over as requested, displaying her pale, bare bum to the assembled school. A hush descended on the assembly as Miss Trunchman chose her position behind and to one side of the young girl. With her legs slightly apart for balance, she swung the cane up behind her shoulder and then, keeping her eye on Susan’s bare bottom, brought the cane down with a whoosh, connecting with the bare flesh with a resounding Thwaack. Susan expelled the air in her lungs with a gasp, straightening up and grasping her bottom with both hands.’

‘I do not recall asking you to move, ‘ said Miss Trunchman. ‘Back into position girl.’

Trembling and sobbing, Susan bent over once more and the girls in the assembly could see a pink line running across the centre of the young girl’s bum.

Miss Trunchman swung the cane once more and with unerring accuracy, born of years of experience, produced a second line one inch above the first. This time, poor Susan lost any remnants of dignity, doing a frenzied dance on the little box, sobbing and desperately rubbing her ravaged bum.

‘One more to go, young lady. Down you go.’

‘Oh no pleeese, Miss, ‘ sobbed Susan. ‘Please no more Miss.’

Susan’s class mates on the front row of the hall looked on in appalled silence. Susan was a popular girl and her friends were all very aware that it could have been any one of them occupying Susan’s unenviable position on the stage.