Chapter 4: Yarra on the K44

Yarra Corkle takes a public bus to school the next morning. Her uniform of green and blue blazer, white shirt with tie and blue flared tartan skirt is pretty standard for girls of her age. And the skirt is mid length, which is standard for her school. She wears white socks to just below her knees and green, buckled shoes with a slightly raised heel. She carries a satchel over one shoulder.

Yarra enjoys school, at least for most of the time. She doesn’t have close friends - she tends to dip into this group or that, though it’s not something that fazes her. They’d moved to Cudley Marsh in Kennigwort last year from Belchley in the south, where her dad was working setting up an Insurance Agency for his bosses. When they transferred him up to Kennigwort, the whole family had had to move, but it wasn’t something that had much surprised Yarra, since they’d moved several times in her lifetime already - her dad was a setter-upper and fixer for his firm, Casser and Simple.

The main reason she likes school is her teacher. He’s the best she’s ever had, and by quite a stretch. He teaches them! That’s more than Mr Chothum, her teacher back in Belchley, used to do. He was a surly man who preferred to set them some stupid quiz, then spend the rest of every lesson reading a book with his feet up on his desk.

“We used to have a bit of fun teaching the likes of you lot. Bloody boring job now though.”

Yarra hadn’t known what Mr Chotham had meant by that, until a much older girl, one who was way up in the top year, told her and a bunch of her friends in the playground what used to happen.

“Chotham? He used to cane us all the time! Yeah, I know! I’m not kidding making it up, he’d literally cane us at the front of the class. The most he was allowed to give us was six, but that bastard Chotham never gave any of us any less than six! And they really bloody stung!”

They’d all hung on to this girl’s words. They’d heard the rumours, but Yarra had never heard it spelled out like that before.

“Then they all had to stop, ha ha! Because it wasn’t just him. They got warned about it, then the head really cracked down on it. He was new, my mum said he’d been put in by the council, once the sleazy Lib-Cons lost out to the Dem Refs. It was brilliant! It all just got stopped, overnight! God, you younger girls have had it so easy! Chothum was the biggest bastard in the school back then!”

The long, articulated bus is nearly always half empty when it shows up,. But the earlier-scheduled bus had not arrived, and this one is full of commuters. She’s forced to stand when she can normally sit, and hangs onto a central strap with one hand, between the bus’s last set of doors. As Yarra is quite short - she’s still just five foot one - this forces her to stretch one arm up high, which in turn acts to lift her skirt on that side.

She likes her new school because of Donder Ullerade. He’s about twenty eight and he’s not like any teacher she’s ever had before. He actually teaches them! He almost never stops talking and he seems to know everything about everything! Or if he doesn’t, he tells you that he doesn’t know something, then you all open the books together and he learns along with you, and even tells you that’s what he’s doing! She runs to his classes when she’s back off from break, and she’s not the only one!

Yarra’s school still does corporal punishment, but she’s never been caned! Mr Ullerade doesn’t need to cane anyone because no-one plays silly buggers in his class, they’re all too busy listening! Other girls in her class have had the cane before, or they’ve had something else, but it’s nearly always class teachers who punish girls, so the girls in her class who have had it, had it last year or the year before. But this is Yarra’s first year in the school, and Mr Ullerade is the only class teacher she’s ever known here.

It’s tight where she is. There are so many people crushed in close up together that there’s barely any room for people waiting at new bus stops to get on. Then with a few stops still to go to her school, a group of five young men all force their way onto her bus together. They’re dressed for an office, Yarra can just about see, though the styling they use for this is loose, with ties at half mast, collars undone and light jackets left unbuttoned.

They’ve pushed in pretty close - she gets shuffled along and has to let go of one strap and reach up for another. Though they’re not exactly next to her, the first one catches Yarra’s eye and says, “Aye-aye!” Then he turns his head away and starts whispering to the other lads. They nod and laugh with him. A couple of the taller ones turn and, over their shoulders, eye Yarra up and down.

Two stops on and the space around her suddenly loosens, as several people, including two or three women dressed secretarially, squeeze past her off the bus. She starts to move away, but before she gets far, all five lads have shuffled quickly in and around her, jostling hard as they do it so one commuter exclaims, “Watch out, will you? Fuck’s sake...”

“Sorry - not much room in here, is there?” says the first lad, with sandy blonde hair, as he’s still squeezing through. Then he’s staring down at Yarra.

She lets go of the new strap. She tries to push out past the young man, but another one, with scruffy red hair, presses in right next to him and she can’t get through! She tries to turn another way, but there’s a wall of loose jackets around her now! Her breathing suddenly ups its speed - she knows they’ve trapped her deliberately!

The bus has pulled off. When it breaks, the impetus forces her against the blonde one. She sees one of them - a nervous-looking one - craning his head to look all around them, but she can’t see what they see - she’s blocked in by them completely now.

The red-haired one looks down at her. He says, “Bet you watched Billy Hall last night, right?”

The sandy-haired lad says, “Everybody watches Billy Hall, Skids.”

“Well I didn’t,” Yarra squeaks out breathily. Adrenaline is sluicing into her veins.

“Ooh, she didn’t,” says the redhead.

“Thing I always liked about Billy Hall,” says the sandy-blonde, head up and trying to sound casual, “is all them lovely women with their great big knockers!”

“Oh yeah, massive, aren’t they, Pinno?” says the scruffy red haired lad. Then he sniffs before he says, “You don’t get many tits that big in real life, do you Pins? Like this nice young lady. Hers aren’t that big.”

Yarra tries to push out a different way, but this big lad uses his beefy hips to push her back in to the middle. Yarra pulls her arms in tight around her chest. Her panic is rising.

The red-head pushes one knee against her thigh and asks, “D’you mind your tits being smaller? You know, than that fat-titted one off of Billy Hall, darling?”

“Ah, don’t be mean, Skids,” says the blonde with a head-flick. “Poor thing’s tits are big enough, surely? Can’t you see em down her shirt?”

“Just leave me alone!” Yarra’s voice has come out shrill - she hardly recognises it as her own. “Just let me out!”

“Oh she’s shy, look,” says the redhead. “Told you, she’s embarrassed! Her tits just aren’t big enough, are they, Pinno?”

“Bet they are though, Skidmark, honest,” Pinno says, twitch-flicking his head and flicking up his eyebrows.

Yarra is aware of the heat of their bodies, like they’re all trying to press in as tight as they can. They’ve been shuffling around her, rotating as a group. The bus rocks to a halt - her feet clunk unsteadily, she thinks she might fall, but the biggest one takes her weight then shoves her back in with his hips.

“How we gonna settle that, Pinns?” asks the redhead.

“Well. She might have to get em out, Skids. What think?”

“Don’t look like she wants to, I don’t think, Pinno.”

Pinno shrugs and says, conspiratorially, “If she’s a bit too embarrassed, we give her a bit of help or something. Cause we’ve got to settle the argument, right Skids?”

Yarra, by now, is terrified. She can’t see out past them, she feels hot, they’re all just so much bigger than she is! She’s been craftily groped from time to time, but never crushed in by a group like this. She thinks she ought to scream, but she swallows instead, and can’t remember how to do it. It’s like her brain won’t work.

“We’ll have to measure,” says the red head. “What d’you think, Pinns? See how much of a Billy Hall tweaking we can get from em, eh?”

“Oh you mean like, if we can’t do it proper, then they’re not all that big?” The blonde pats Yarra on her shoulder. “Mind if we have a quick fiddle with your tits, love?” he asks. “To settle an argument?”

Yarra pictures the scenes from that horrible show. What seemed gross and ridiculous now feels terrifying. She tries pushing again, but the moment she does it, the others push back. She’s straining her head to try to see between their bodies, but all she can see is the blur of their jackets.

“She saw it, look!” You can see in her eyes, she saw it,” says the shortest lad.

He has lank brown hair. Yarra doesn’t need to tip her head right back to see his face, like she does with the others.

“That means she lied, dunnit? And schoolgirls aren’t allowed to lie, Pinno!”

“Yeah, you did see it, din’t yer?” the blonde lad insists.

“I didn’t!” she squeals. Her voice sounds weak and alien to her.

“Oh, she did fucking see it!”

Red-haired Skidmark is crowing.

The other two city-boy lads have stayed silent, though the big one is the one who’s squeezed her with his hips most. His face looks dopy, but he’s right in with the others. The last one is a tall, skinny blonde. He keeps furtively glancing down at her chest, then he darts his eyes around the bus. Then back down at her, like he wants to keep on staring. Of all of them, he’s the one who looks most uncomfortable. She tries to squeeze out one more time, panic-pushing hard into the tall lad’s skinny frame. But the dumber-looking lad pulls her back to the centre with his big, meaty hands. Then he’s leeing in over her, never once taking his eyes off her chest.

Yarra flinches with a jerk - she knows her skirt is being tugged up from behind. There’s pulling at her belt as well, like maybe her skirt pleats are being shoved inside it.

“Just keep your mouth shut, alright?” growls the ash-blonde leader, bending to her ear, “or we’ll shuffle you off and into an alley!”

The stupid one grunts, but the taller, skinny blonde seems spooked by Pinno’s words. His eyes dart all around the bus again.

Yarra whines, high and scared. She’s so out of her depth, she just wants to curl into a ball for protection, clamp her legs tight together, leave nothing exposed. She’s in sensory overwhelm. Her pheromones must be broadcasting her fear.

Hands pull Yarra’s own hands down. She squeezes her eyes shut. She knows her blazer has just been unbutton it, then there’s fiddling at the buttons of her white school shirt. Her tie gets pulled up and twisted round her shoulder.

She’s wearing a bra. Now she’d conscious of its cloth and shape. She’s definitely not the smallest in her class - she’s inherited the genes for her chest from her mum. She jerks, tries to kick, as a hand reaches into her bra and grabs a breast. Her eyes stare open. It’s the red-haired bastard. He pulls the thing out quickly, like he’s handling an object, not a real part of a person. She tries stamping on his foot - or someone’s - tries grazing his leg, but a foot kicks her heel and the pain makes her want to sink to the floor.

Her second breast is pulled from its mooring as well, and suddenly she’s conscious of her heart beneath it, racing like she’s running. There’s a hand on her bottom too, squeezing one cheek, then a second hand joins it.

The nervous blond cranes his head around so far that his shoulders move as well. Yarra catches a glimpse of a middle-aged women sitting prim, stiff and guarded. Head forward, eyes sideways, she’s watching the scrum with her knees clamped tight together. A bag is pressed hard into her lap between her hands. Yarra knows now that there have to be people who can see, who know what’s happening, but nobody is trying to help!

Tight-grasping fingers pull one nipple straight up. It’s the red-haired one, Skidmark. Then a different hand clamps fingers on her other breast. That belongs to the brown-haired, shorter lad, who pulls that nipple sideways, snorting a can’t believe-I’m-doing-this giggle.

“Billy Hall’s my hero,” says the ash-blonde leader. He’s directly behind her now, so his head is almost on top of her own. She can feel his shape crouching. His hand is down low, groping right between her legs now. Her right arm jerks down to try and scratch at his arm, but his left hand grabs her by the wrist and pulls it painfully up behind her back. Then the fingers of his right hand force in, between her legs, and she feels her knickers pulled backwards by his his fingers. Then what feels like his knuckles push in tight against her anus.

“You ready then, girlie?” Pinno growls. “Ready for a Billy Hall special, are you darling?”

She’s shaking her head in a tight vibration as her voice box makes its latest high-pitched grunt. She tries thumping behind out with her one free elbow, but someone else - the big one - clamps on to that.

Her voice starts up in a high-pitched squeal. Then suddenly there’s pain, directly in her crotch, and her bum cheeks jerk as they’re mashed out of the way by Pinno’s fist. The red-hair snorts at the expression on her face, then he pulls her nipple in a different direction.

“Moller, do her from the front,” says the blonde-hair-flicking Pinno.

Moller is the stupid one who’s holding Yarra’s arm. “Do her what?” he asks, voice flat and inexpressive. “Norgel and Skidmark, it’s them who’s got her nip-nips.”

“Her knickers, you dummy.”

“What - grab em, you mean?”

“From the front, yeah, grab her knickers, Moll.”

“Can’t reach if I’m holding her arm,” says Moller.

“You then, Gacka.”

“Someone’ll see though,” the nervous lad pants.

“So what? They know what we’re up already, you prat! But we’re bigger than them and there’s more of us, in’t there?”

“The Police,” says Gacka.

“Fuck off, Gacks, the Grope Squad? They’ll probably join in! Grab her knickers, you twat.”

Yarra’s past pushing. She’s starting to tremble, to shiver, though she’s so hot she can hardly breathe with it. She should scream, but how would she pull in the breath? She tries saying, “Someone help!” but the blonde, behind, hisses, “You keep fucking quiet - I told you, shut your trap!”

She can’t help her grunts and squeals as her nipples are pulled, as her panties are manhandled and jerked from behind. Now her breasts are really starting to ache. Skidmark and Norgel have been pulling up and down, down and up, up and down. Now they’re really squeezing hard, really pinching and twisting.

There’s a cold, sweaty hand trying to slide inside the front of her panties. And blonde Pinno is back between her legs from behind, pressing roughly upwards where her opening is.

“Am I s’posed to pull up?” asks the red-faced, thin blonde one.

“Got her knickers? Yeah of course!”

“She’ll squeal again.”

“No she fucking won’t. And so what, Gacks? Try growing some bollocks!”

The boy starts to pull, but it’s tentative and nervous.

“Not like that you twat,” says the ash-blonde Pinno, “She’ll never feel that, Gacks! Do it proper! Like a proper Billy Halling! I know you saw it, you told us you did.”

“I didn’t,” he says.

“Oh, you dimbo! Why’d you lie then?”

The scarecrow-blonde boy doesn’t answer. His face just turns redder.

Pinno, tells him, “Billy Hall gave that bird with the great, enormous tits about two dozen nasty great wedgies, alright? Give this schoolgirl tart a fucking wedgie, you prat!”