Chapter 15: Filling Out the Floor Plan

Shrimp can’t seem to work out her mood. Angry or triumphant? Ford’s attitude - dismissive, weary - has her railing at the system. But she won, she won! She’s given those two girls - that pretty-pretty Carrel Guelder and her sausage dodging friend Misty Lutyens - tickets for a game at the Saturday Humblers!

“Needan. Beg a little time out.”

It’s straight after the Friday lunch break, and she’s back in class with Chorlo Needan.

“Miz Shrimp?” he asks.

“Errand needs doing.”

“Care to elaborate?”

Shrimp shrugs. “If you fancy. Request. For a blue girl. For tomorrow.”

Needan’s eyebrows lift. “For the Humbler session? A blue?”

“Not this class. One below. I know the lesson is starting, but should just about have time.”

“Please,” says Needan. “I’m more than grateful already. Please do it, if it’s important to you.”

Shrimp presses her mouth tight, nods and exits, just as girls are starting to return. Shella Tanty is among them. The girl flinches when Shrimp pushes her own chunky frame past.

Shrimp turns down the corridor. Class nine plus is the second door along. Inside is the teacher she was recently assistant to. Eldon Studdles is busy at his desk with his new assistant, the now-ex supply teacher, Mr Leek the Vegetable. (She’s made sure that one has been doing the rounds.)

She has to clear her throat before Studdles will look up. The man frowns deeply when he sees her. “Yes?”

“May I have a private word, Mr Studdles?”

Studdles looks at Leek. “We’re busy. To us both, please.”

She hasn’t seen this coming. “Delicate matter I’m afraid,” she says.

The man tuts. “Surely you can just spit it out.”

“Fraid not,” she says.

Studdles shakes his head and reluctantly moves away from his desk.

Shrimp lowers her voice. “I request the award of a punishment.”

The man tuts, then says sharply, “Ask Needan. You were quick enough to run off to that schoolboy’s class.” He’s already turning away.

“Can’t,” Shrimp claps out at much higher volume. Then, more quietly as he turns his head back. “The girl is in this class, I’m afraid.”

“What, a yellow? An orange? You could surely still ask Studdles.”

Shrimp shakes her head. “Neither. Blue. Your remit only.”

The man is half pulling away again. “And what’s wrong with bringing Mr Leek in in this?”

“Doesn’t know the girls,” says Shrimp. “I do. More time with them. He’s barely through the door.”

Studdles makes an angry double sniff. “Which girl? Why?”

“Falla Bumber,” says Shrimp. “Egregious misconduct.”

Studdles stares between tensed eyelids. “Quiet girl,” he says. “In my opinion.”

“She wasn’t last year. Mr Fimber and Mr Cuckles had a lot of trouble. Always in trouble. That’s what they told me.”

Studdles’ face twitches oddly. “No trouble in my class. Will talk to Fimber. Can’t be that urgent, surely?”

“Fraid so,” says Shrimp. She hasn’t decided till this point what she’s going to accuse the girl of, but it comes to her as she opens her mouth. “Been corrupting a girl in the year below.”

“Corrupting?” He turns to look for Bumber, but she’s not yet back from break. Then the man’s head twitches to his classroom doorway. A figure is passing. He calls out, “Cuckles! Need you!”

Vido Cuckles has been headed two doors further on, to class eight plus, for which he is assistant. He stops at Studdles’ call, eyes flicking from Studdles to Shrimp and back. Then, rolling his shoulders, he turns, and enters.

“Mr Studdles?” asks Cuckles, glancing with one eyebrow raised at Shrimp.

“I believe I need confirmation. Of a rather unusual accusation. From Miz Shrimp, about one of my class.”

“I’ll help if I can,” the younger man shrugs.

“One of mine, just accused of corrupting one of yours.”

“Um...” says Cuckles frowning, not sure what the game is.

Shrimp jumps in. “Bumber. This class. Corrupting your girl.”

Lifting his eyebrows, Vido Cuckles gets the ruse. He’s put a request out at the union meeting for Bumber to be targeted. But Shrimp hadn’t even been invited to that meeting. A woman? A potential spy for the enemy, surely? “Bumber,” he says, “yes.”

Shrimp says, “Mr Studdles has got her wearing blue, Mr Cuckles.”

“Oh. Yes.” Cuckles’ eyebrows lift. I was actually surprised by that, Mr Studdles. She was always on the red list in our class last year.”

“Red list?” asks Studdles.

“Just a - well, a code between me and Mr Fimber. Problem girls.”

Studdles flares his nostrils. “I find her rather quiet.”

“Seen corrupting one of your girls,” prompts Shrimp. “A report from an informant.”

This is the second time Shrimp has failed to name a girl that Bumber is supposed to have corrupted. Cuckles, glancing at Shrimp’s expectant face, suddenly gets it. He snaps a finger. “Karp!” he says. “I’ll bet you mean Karp!”

“Yees,” says Shrimp, nodding strongly, “that’s the one!” Though she’d been expecting Farthing Pelling, from that rumble with the janitors. But on second thoughts, perhaps best not - a bit too bleeding obvious.

“Don’t know what happened to her this week,” says Cuckles. “Behaviour just fell off a cliff all at once.”

Studdles, squashing his face tight, clears his throat. “Oh,” he says darkly. “Oh dear. Well well.”

Cuckles adds, “First, learned a rather unpleasant new trick.”

Studdles is now shaking his head. “Don’t! Don’t need the details!” he insists.

Shrimp knows this quirk of Studdles. She’d found it out last year. Present him with the odd squidgy detail and he shuts up tight as an irritated clam. “Are you sure, sir?” she asks. “My informant was - really quite specific.” She makes a stroking move with her middle finger.

“Don’t!” says Studdles. “And you’ve seen the results on your new girl? Karp?” He’s asked this of Cuckles.

“Definite change for the worse,” he confirms. “Mercy Karp just - well, she got a lot worse.”

Studdles throws a frown across his right shoulder. “Mr Leek has been saying I should drop at least two orange skirts. Your advice, Miz Shrimp, to make four of em not two.”

Leek is looking concerned, behind, but knows he’s not been asked to join this little group. The look on his face says it clearly, though - he thinks the subject of their conference is him.

“Leek doesn’t like the idea of it. Says he thinks it’s corrupting.”

“No. Opposite,” says Shrimp.

“Recall your argument. Couldn’t decide though. Which to release - Lods, Mardale, Quimper or Smiddles?”

“Smiddles worst,” says Shrimp.

Eldon Studdles stares at the woman.

“Drop the others if you want. Keep Smiddles in orange, she’s easily worst of that bunch. Or any.

“I suppose she does squeak rather oddly,” says Studdles.

While they’ve talked, more girls have been coming back from the break. Cuckles has followed one with his eyes. He knows her from last year. Eleria Smiddles is a pretty, round-faced girl, who squeaks when you spank her lovely big bum.

“Got six in our class now,” Cuckles observes. Two absent today, though. Mr Fimber’s just left it.”

“Well, I should think so,” says Studdles. “Six seems more than enough.”

Shrimp shakes her head slowly. “Difficult girls need controlling, Mr Studdles. If you want my advice, I’d keep all four. Just add Bumber on top.”

“Yes,” says Studdles. “Difficult. Not something I like to involve myself in. Rather leave it to assistants.”

“Yah. Sure,” Shrimp nods. “The thing is with the orange girls, though, they get extra controlling. Out on the playground.” She directs a tell-tale glance towards Leek. “Just in case it’s not kept tight enough in class, Mr Studdles. Extra pairs of eyes keeping tabs on the worst ones. Mr Cuckles knows Bumber.”

Cuckles says, trying to suppress a sly grin, “I have put out warnings. Keep an eye on that one, don’t be fooled by the blue skirt.”

Shrimp says, “Wasn’t aware myself till I heard that. Passed it on to others, too. Paid dividends!”

“So, ah, Bumber?” Studdles says. “Well. I suppose we live and learn. I have always deferred to you, Mrs Shrimp. I know I questioned, but Cuckles confirms.” He turns. Falla Bumber is just coming into class. Studdles signals her to stop with an up-raised finger. He says to Shrimp and Cuckles, “It might cause a bit of a fuss to do this in here. Should we take it outside?”

Shrimp nods. The new man, Leek, is frowning strongly, staring suspiciously. When Studdles turns towards him, though, Leek drops his own face down to the table. Studdles, Shrimp and Cuckles step outside into the corridor. Shrimp gathers Bumber and shepherds her out too.

Turning back, Studdles catches Leek’s wary eye. “Do keep control of the class while I’m out, Leek,” he tells the man darkly. Then clicks the door behind him shut.

Bumber’s eyes have been darting since Studdles stopped her progress. She is terrified of Cuckles. “Please - what is it? What have I done wrong, I haven’t done anything wrong?!” she gabbles in the corridor.

It’s her new teacher who answers. “Looks like you’ve been rumbled,” Studdles mutters. “Miz Shrimp has seen!”

“My informant,” says Shrimp.

“Informant, yes,” Studdles pointlessly repeats. “Seems you’re for it, Bumber, and I’m not going to stop it! Revolting behaviour.”

The girl’s face looks distraught. She turns it from Studdles to Shrimp and back, but she can’t make her eyes look at the hated Cuckles.

“Disgusting,” says Shrimp.

“No, sort of thing really can’t be tolerated,” Studdles says. “Yep, rumbled. Confirmed by Mr Cuckles, too. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself, you nasty girl!”

“She will be,” says Shrimp. “I guarantee that, Mr Studdles.”

Shrimp is fiddling with her chest cam now. Turning it on. Tapping in a code.

She says, “Ulberta Shrimp, outside class nine plus. Request to award currently blue-skirted girl Falla Bumber a full HP for tomorrow, Saturday. Confirmed by Mr Studdles.”

Studdles looks confused now. “HP?” he says. “That new, ah...”

“Necessary for the style of the offence!” says Shrimp. “If you’d like to hear the details...”

“No!” says Studdles, “No ... very well. Very well. Yes, confirmed.”

Shrimp now has her camera tilted towards him. “Confirmed,” he says again, eyes glancing warily down at the lens. “Miz Shrimp and Mr Cuckles have come to me with evidence of some particularly gross misconduct.”

“Egregious. Of a sexual nature,” says Shrimp.

“Yes, she was ... actually corrupting others,” says a grinning Cuckles, with a bounce in his voice.

Falla Bumber is falling apart as Cuckles gloats. She starts to cry, to snivel, to shake her head. “I didn’t,” she’s saying. “Please I didn’t! I didn’t!”

“I presume I may attend the punishment,” says Shrimp.

“Yes. Yes of course, I suppose so,” Studdles confirms. “If that sort of confirmation is needed.”

“Good. Shall I take her to get fitted for orange, Mr Studdles?”

The man blinks his eyes like he’d forgotten that detail, clears his throat, primps his face back, blinks his eyes. “Mm. Orange. S’pose so. Nature of the offence.”

“Course, that would make five. In your class now. Right?”

“I see that. Leek says...”

“He’s just so new though.”

“Hmm.”

Shrimp winks at the man. “Extra eyes, Mr Studdles. Appearances deceive. Easy to pull wool over a new boy’s eyes. Or, you never know...”

“Never know?” asks Studdles.

“Little favours. At the back. After class.”

“You mean... Leek?”

Shrimp simply shrugs.

“My god...”

She taps her nose. “Girls in orange might try anything to get out of those skirts.”

Studdles looks shocked. “So you think I should leave them? Mardale, Lods, Quimper? I mean, Smiddles is a given I suppose...”

Falla Bumber has taken very little of this in. She’s staring at her feet, tear drops dripping from her nose tip and kicking the innocent floor with her heel. Vido Cuckles is staring at the top of her head, anticipating taking last year’s pet back tomorrow.

Shrimp answers Studdles. “Yep. That’s my advice. Keep the four, just add Bumber. Let others keep eyes on em. More eyes, more control. We’ll keep em in check.”

The man nods, brow frowning. “S’pose I’ll have to tell Leek. He was all for releasing. Thanks. Sorry. Dear oh dear,” he says. Studdles nods his confused, disturbed thanks. “Yes, take ... take that one for a fitting. Out of my sight.” Then he opens the door to his room, steps inside a clicks it shut with a cold, metallic clunk.

It’s as if she’s never left, in Ulberta Shrimp’s view. Back to normal in a trice. Once more, Studdles defers to her on punishment matters. There was a glitch there - a blip. But she’s now thinking - noted. I can still get what I want from this one! Vegetables be damned.

“Mr Cuckles,” says Shrimp. “Understand this chit here was one of your requests.”

Cuckles stares back. Nods. Lifts an eyebrow.

“Request hereby delivered,” she says.

He mumbles, “Not who I expected to deliver.”

“Appearances, Mr Cuckles. Don’t be fooled like all the rest. Secret meetings? Keep the girls out? If I’m not invited, I can’t forward the cause.”

“No, er...”

“Quid pro quo?” she asks. “Not invited. Still delivered. Should I need your support, might I presume I can rely on it?”

He’s nodding. “For sure. Very nicely done as well. If anything comes up, ah, Mis Shrimp, who should I say the informant was?”

“Informants need protecting. I’d rather not say.” She folds fingers together, then winks slowly at the man.

Cuckles shakes his head in a new-found admiration. He’d seen her in the gym class last week and had wondered why Eccar and Tund let her be there. Now he gets it.

He leers down at the girl and says, “Tomorrow, eh, Bumber? Doesn’t that sound like fun...” Then he retreats to his own classroom.

Shrimp follows on behind with the gutted Falla Bumber. They climbs the back stairs. She makes Bumber go up in front of her, watching the defeated girl’s backside all the way.

At the seamstress’s office, the door is open. The woman is inside, but she’s reading a book.

“One for the orange,” says Ulberta Shrimp.

Mrs Skelter frowns. “I’ll have to call the duty fitting adviser,” she says. “I don’t know if he’ll be available, this late in the day.”

She telephones the common room. Tund is in there. He turns up in moments. Smiles broadly when he sees Ulberta Shrimp.

“New girl for the orange,” she says.

“Well well,” says Tund the Turd.

“And for tomorrow.” Shrimp winks.

“Ha! So you’ll be there then?”

She says, “Yup.” and points to the miserable girl. Shrimp whispers, “My catch. Request from Cuckles. Have fun with the fitting.”

“Top stuff,” says Tund.

In the changing room for gym class, later in the day, Yarra, with newly orange-skirted Remi Breech in tow, heads directly for Keet. Farthing is there too, with Mercy Karp, who’s starting to look haunted: Cuckles getting Fimber to confirm her for an H the day before is really weighing on her now. Farthing wants to be sympathetic, but Mercy has clammed up again. A sixth girl, Minty Ploom from Keet’s class, joins up with them where they’re changing.

The cross-year orange-skirt gym class looks a little bit smaller than last week’s. A couple of new faces are dotted about - Keet spies a girl from her opposite class, Falla Bumber, looking lost, stressed - but whoever might be missing, their names are not jumping out to her.

“There’s not as many,” Yarra says, like she’s had the same thought.

Farthing tells her, “Two of our orange girls didn’t come in.”

“Didn’t your teacher replace them?” Keet asks.

Farthing just shrugs. “There’s six of us already. Two less still leaves four.”

“Remi’s new,” Yarra says, “aren’t you, Remi? Donder had to pick someone because Misra Spinks didn’t come in this morning.”

“It’s this gym class,” says Keet. “She probably pulled a sicky to avoid it.”

Burris Eccar, the big-bodied, thick-necked, small-headed gym teacher, calls out from the door between the changing room and hall, “All you girls! Keep your orange skirts on this week! Everything else - everything - off! You will be assigned shorts and top and socks in the main gym. Same as last week! So do not exit the changing room wearing top or pants, shoes or socks! All ages! Year eights too!”

Yarra doesn’t see Carrel till they’re spilling out under Shrimp the Blimp’s prowling gaze and whipped-out orders. Their cover-little orange skirts flounce around their hips as they pour towards the assembly / gym hall. But Yarra sees it instantly - Carrel looks upset. She stalls her exit to grab a quick word.

“What’s the matter?”

It’s Misty who answers. “She gave us an HP. Both of us - Blimp!”

“We were in a toilet cubicle together,” Carrel whispers just before they shuffle past Dunnel Tund’s gaze. He’s tapping his leg with a long, thick cane. Outside, in the gym hall, Carrel finishes, “Misty fell off the toilet seat!”

“What?” Yarra frowns. “How?”

“She was standing on it. Listening. This girl was really getting it! Next door in that smelly men’s block, I think it was janitors or groundsmen or something.”

“It was Fairlaw as well,” says Misty, “Snorty Beelar’s assistant.”

Carrel hisses, “And Blimp heard her fall off and she gave us both an H! For doing dirty things together or something. But we weren’t, were we Misty?”

“God I’m really sorry,” says Yarra. “So it’s started then? They’re really giving humblers out? Mercy Karp got given one in class by Cuckles.”

“No you yet though?” asks Carrel.

“No. Not Keet or Farthing either.”

She gets solemn, worried nods from the other two girls. Then they get called to order. Told where to stand. And separated.

Burris Eccar, Dunnel Tund and Shrimp the Blimp are all there as before. This week, joined by Meckle Koffa, the year eight minus teacher. Koffa is a man with a past. His teacher training, just a few years before, got its practical completion at Lixmouth Traditional: a school committed to practices all too much like the ones now sweeping Kennigwort Senior.

The three teachers and one assistant (Shrimp) are standing in front of two trestle tables. These are covered in piles of socks, tops and shorts. Eccar is with Koffa at the one on the left, Tund stands by Shrimp at the right hand trestle. Eccar barks out orders.

“Stand in two lines! Younger girls, years eight and nine in this one! Years ten to twelve in a line over that side! Younger girls front and older girls behind!”

Farthing and Keet, Mercy and Minty have to move to the left. Yarra is split out to the right with Misty, Carrel and Remi Breech. Shrimp on their side, and Koffa on the other, buzz up and down their respective lines, shifting some girls forward, others back.

Yarra can see that all of the pack - her group of girls who stick together in the playground - have been split apart. At first she thinks it’s deliberate, but then gets that lining them up by age is doing it anyway - they’re such an unusual, multi-age group. Keet ends up way behind Farthing and Mercy - though those last two have also been split apart as well. As have she and Remi Breech - though Remi has only just got picked for the orange. Yarra ends up shuffled near the middle of her line. There’s no way now for them to coordinate.

Now they’re lined up behind the two trestle tables, Koffa, who teaches the year eight minus class, makes sure the younger girls in his line end up dressed to Eccar’s liking. Eccar picks their gym clothes - their skimpy tops, white socks and square-cut, up-the-bum cheek-separating shorts, all with simple orange flashes near their tops or bases. In Yarra’s line, Shrimp picks the clothes while Tund - who had last week caned and literally groped Yarra - makes sure their girls are dressed to Shrimp’s satisfaction. One girl at a time has to go up to be fitted. The girls still in line are told to stay back, at a distance, and no talking will be tolerated.

Koffa wasn’t here last week. Yarra sees him going easier on the younger girls. At Eccar’s prompting, he makes the odd adjustment to the ill-fitting shorts and tops, but not nearly as meanly as Tund, Shrimp and Eccar had done in last week’s gym class. But ahead, in her own line, Dunnel Tund, true to form, is not holding back.

All of this, Yarra has no doubt, is being done for the benefit of the under-floor cameras. This week’s gym class, like last week’s, is probably being broadcast as a live-stream on the SPD. From the looks she’s managed to sneak at Taudren’s viewing hits, Kennigwort Senior Girls School must be climbing up the lists: not just of his personal watches, but of everyone else’s. Scarleton Change School still easily tops the national rankings, with Lixmouth Traditional not that far behind. But Kennigwort Independent has been creeping towards them - though she has no idea where it ranked when the Database first came online. Taudren must have had access for months before she knew that him and her dad could see the thing. But since she’s known - finding out by accident that Taudren just leaves the thing loaded and open in his room - she’s noticed not just girls like Rossa WIlmutt and Imenna Scutta featuring - two girls currently standing right before her in line - but the ranking of the school - as a most-watched institution - clawing its way up by several places. National places. From hovering somewhere in the lower teens - and that had shocked her in itself - it now jostles for position just outside the top ten places.

She knows it, in her gut - the whole thing has to be deliberate. The new Governors’ rules on punishment. The Yellow, then the Orange skirts. New cameras installed all over through the summer - literally embedded in classroom floors, or mounted high up underneath the ceilings, pointing down, rotatable. And all across this gym, under central glass plates in the middle of each of the twelve painted circles, there are cameras lurking, aiming up between the girls’ legs. And not far in front now, left and right, girls are being fitted dead above a buried camera. Tall Turd Tund is keeping his girls twitching.

“These should fit the next in line.” Shrimp puts the shell in the breech of Tund’s hands and Tund fires the ordnance. Carrel Guelder struggles, one-footed, into long white socks. She struggles to pull down a too-tight top over well-developed boobs. When it doesn’t quite fit, instead cutting up into her under-breasts, Shrimp says, “Yup, good enough for a filthy little carpet muncher. Shorts, Mr Tund.”

The shorts, as Yarra knows they will be, are jam-tight small by at least two sizes. When Carrel struggles further, Tund’s grin turns nasty. He says, “Hands on top and keep them up there!” And Carrel - programmed for flight but never fight - for obedience not resistance - does just what he tells her. Carrel hooks her hands behind her head. Tund pushes her elbows wide apart and tells her, “Keep them right there, Guelder!” Then he goes to town, pulling the pants up, stretching cloth not designed to stretch till he’s puffing with the effort. Stiffened fingers inveigle their way under too-tight pant-sides, then pull up like a heaving builder. The action is neither delicate nor pretty. Once Carrel’s shorts’ leg holes are as high as they can get, Tund kicks her feet that bit further apart. Then with Shrimp, behind, saying, “Still not quite fitting,” over and over, he rough-pulls the too-tight things high into her under-parts. Carrel grunts and groans, flinching elbows and hips. The cut of the cloth is soon splitting her crotch and pushing her bum cheeks left and right.

“Tight enough, I suppose, Mr Tund,” Shrimp says. “If you’re ready, that is.”

“Permitted action,” Tund replies. “Governor’s rulebook.” He switches to a front-back grip on the shorts and gives them another mean little tug. “Heard you caught this one doing some disgusting thing or other.”

“Yep. Still, don’t finish her off all in one go eh, Tund? The rest of us might fancy a bite of that cherry. Girl needed in the morning.”

This last seems to satisfy Tund, more or less. He smacks Carrel’s bum cheeks three times each and tells her to get herself off forward to the stage.

When it’s Yarra’s turn - she’s fourth in line - she’s surprised when Tund goes easier on her. He’s been rough enough with Imenna Scutta and he’s filled his boots with Rossa Wilmutt - being overly handsy with her dirty-dangling breasts though Rossa’s too-tight top.

Once Yarra is fitted and facing the stage, she has no idea what’s happening behind her - till Burris Eccar loses his patience.

“Mr Tund! May we proceed? All of our girls are fitted up! Yet you still have two in line?”

The speed that Mendelle Clitstrop and Erma Woller end up on Yarra’s side of the trestles speaks to them being spared Tund’s prolonged wedgies and clinging fumbles. Then the trestle tables are removed and the girls are sent to stand in their circles. As with last week, it’s younger girls to the front row and the older girls progressively backwards. Yarra is placed in the third row, centre circle, standing next to Rossa Wilmutt. Farthing is front right with one more year eight. Mercy Karp is front row, centre circle with another two. Keet is far left in the second row with a girl tight either side, Minty Ploom is in the second row middle, with the just-in-orange Falla Bumber beside her. That puts Minty dead in front of Yarra for the second week running. Carrel, Yarra and Misty are all in the third row but in separate circles - Misty in the right hand third row with a girl from Shrimp’s new ten-plus class, Shella Tanty. Remi Breech is back left behind Yarra’s row, with one other girl. Clitstrop and Woller are together, far right. Eight circles have two girls each, just three have three girls. Yarra counts. Twenty eight girls in total, to last week’s thirty two - four fewer. And two or three of this week’s are new. So seven have ducked out, pulled a sicky or have maybe been replaced,

Then the gym class proper is up and running. It’s not just squats and weird movements now, there’s a second theme from the off this week. The three teachers and one assistant start picking on specific girls. In pairs at first - Eccar with Koffa, Tund with Shrimp. Standing behind them. Talking about them, loudly enough for others to hear. But it’s still not the girls at the heart of Yarra’s group. Farthing - nothing. Keet - not a hint. Herself, ignored. Meanwhile Minty Ploom from Keet’s class - dead in front - is made to stretch and squat for Eccar and Koffa, making vigorous movements, till she starts to sweat and her shorts slick up. Just like last week - same effect. As, again, being right behind, Yarra sees all too clearly.

“You see what I’m seeing, Mr Koffa?” asks the small-headed wannabe sergeant major Eccar.

“A pretty sight indeed,” says Koffa.

“Pretty? Disgusting.”

Just like last week, Minty’s shorts have gone quite transparent right across her crotch. These off-white shorts lack gussets. Plus, as they all discovered last week, their opacity dissipates the second any moisture slicks them up.

“Right,” says Eccar. “Arousal, would you say?”

“Could be. Maybe,” says Koffa.

Shrimp is close by. The bull-necked Eccar waves her over. “Opinion, Miz Shrimp?”

“Oh, obvious,” she says. She’s carrying a long wooden spoon, just like last week. She slaps Ploom’s crotch directly with the back of its head, which separates the girl’s lips further. “Misconduct of the wrong sort. Want a second check, maybe?” She tosses her spoon. It rotates half a turn till she catches it up by its spoon end. She tells Ploom to stretch her legs as wide as they’ll go, stick her bum in the air and go down on hands and elbows. When she’s slow to comply, the burly Burris Eccar lends a muscle-bloated torso. He picks up Ploom’s hips and pushes and pulls her body into shape.

“Jolly good,” says Shrimp, nodding with approval at Eccar’s efforts. Then she pokes Minty Ploom with the tip of the handle of her wooden spoon - directly in the centre of Ploom’s shorts’ transparent gusset. With Ploom’s breath sucking in in shock, the slick cloth of the shorts is pushed inwards by an inch. “See?” says Shrimp. “Did you see that, Eccar? She’s literally opened right up. Disgusting.”

“Are you sure?” asks Koffa, with his jaw dropping open.

“Oh yeah, sure,” says Shrimp, and pokes the girl twice, with a little more force. “See? Went right in, no resistance.”

“Surely that’s just...”

“No. Show you,” Shrimp says, and pokes the furiously blushing Minty Ploom right where her anus sits. “See? Resistance.” She pokes again, harder - a distinct, intrusive jab. “That one’s closed up. This one’s open for business. See?” For a third time, Shrimp pokes between Ploom’s legs with the long spoon handle. Its tip distorts the cloth, which gets stretched into the cavity. “Slips right inside, see? Clear arousal, not a shred of doubt about it. I’d say, this girl requires a full-on HP. Teach her a lesson she’ll never forget. Shame such shameful behaviour right out of the hussy!”