Chapter 5: Fight, to Changing Room

“Let’s please go,” says Misty Lutyens. “They haven’t seen us, have they?”

There are loud sounds of smacking, with laughter from the men and squealing from the girl. Carrel Guelder asks in a hushed whisper, “Who’s got her?”

“Janitors!” Yarra hisses back.

Misty makes a little squeal. Yarra brings a finger to her lips and hisses, “Shush!”

“They can’t, can they?” Keet asks. “It’s supposed to be only teachers, isn’t it?”

“No,” hisses Yarra. “That’s what’s so bad about these stupid orange skirts! All the men can just spank us, any time!”

“For what?” asks Carrel, voice betraying her own fright.

“That’s the worst thing!” Yarra says. “They don’t even need a reason!”

Misty hasn’t been able to control herself. She’s lifted her head up just high enough to look over the crest of the hill. Then, seeing one of the two men see her, she’d ducked her head back down. She’s gone bright, bright red while Yarra is speaking.

“Aye aye, who’s this?”

Dab Sutter, Janitor, is standing above them, looking down now with a sneering, lopsided grin. And behind him comes Darden Simkiss, Ludo’s younger brother, prompting a stressed, shocked Farthing Pelling from year eight to climb the hillock just in front of him, with one big hand holding her wrists above her head, while the other hand holds the girl on tiptoes by the back of her knickers.

“Was they spying on us, Dab?” asks Darden.

“You were, weren’t you?” Sutter says, and points at Misty. “She was, anyway, for definite. Spying on us spanking. Did you like what you saw then, little girl? Did it give you a thrill?”

“No!” says Yarra, suddenly angry, suddenly standing. It’s the way the laughing Darden is holding onto Farthing, it’s triggered all her frustration about how she was trapped on the K44 bus by Pinno, Skidmark, Norgel and the rest.

“She wasn’t spying and she didn’t like what she saw! And,” she points at Farthing, “let her go!”

“Oh my god Dab,” says Darden, “a feisty one! What’s your name, girlie?”

“It’s none of your business,” says Keet, “because you’re not even a teacher!”

“What’s her name, Short Change?” the younger man, Simkiss, asks Farthing. The girl squeals because he’s pulled her knickers higher as he says this.

“Keet,” squeals Farthing. Then she starts to cry and chokes out, “I’m sorry, Keet!”

“Who’s your teacher, Keet?”

Keet is lowering her head down now, glaring up at the men from under her eyebrows. “Mr Beelar,” she says, like his name is disgusting.

“Chack Beelar,” says Dab, and gives a look to the other. “New in last year, him.”

“Yeah he was there, too,” says Darden with a laugh.

Yarra hears that, ‘He was there,’ and knows it’s bad news.

“And what’s her name,” Darden asks as he jerks on Farthing’s pants again.

Carrel Guelder has said nothing at all. But she suddenly turns and runs. Dab Sutter, in a blink, is pelting down the slope after her. With a gravity assist and a fast, fit body, he’s caught her in just a dozen strides. He suddenly has her by one arm and, after scrambling, her knickers as well, and he’s dragging her back towards the others. Carrel is still trying to pull away, but he turns and tips her half over and he’s suddenly dragging down her pants - the tiny orange skirt gives him such easy access - and spanking down at her bum in a flurry. “And who’s your teacher?”

“Mr Cotillier,” Carrel wails.

“Hey, that’s the pouff,” observes Darden from the top of the hill.

“Oh yeah,” says Dab. “Oh you’re really for it now, you silly little bint. Cause you tried to run away, didn’t you?” And he starts to smack Carrel on the backs of her legs. Then he points her head towards the others. “And who are your friends then?” he asks. “Who’s that one? Go on, answer!”

The girl squeals as he smacks her right up between her legs. “Misty,” she coughs out, “Misty Lutyens, she’s in my class.”

“Two for the price of one, Dab,” says Darden. He jerks on Farthing’s pants again. “And who’s the last one, Sixpence?” he demands. But Farthing stays silent.

“What’s the last one’s name?” Dab Sutter demands, smacking Carrel on her thighs again.

Carrel Guelder squeals, “I don’t know! I can’t remember!”

Yarra says, “Leave her alone! My name is Yarra Corkle, year eleven - Mr Ullerade. Good luck getting permission from him!”

“Oh yeah,” says Simkiss from uphill, “we know all about Ullerade! Nice Mr Ullerade. Do-gooder Mr Ullerade. Still stuck you in an orange skirt though, din’t he?”

She says, “Every class is forced to name two for the orange! And no, he didn’t pick me, the class worked it out. Random lots. That’s all you need to know, so you can let them go now!”

“Oh my God, Dards,” says Sutter as he shakes a struggling Carrel, “you hear that? She give us an order! That’s that Ullerade filling these girls’ heads with shit!” He lets Carrel drop to her knees and strides towards Yarra. Yarra shakes her head. Carrel, behind, is climbing to her feet and dragging up her pants. She starts edging downhill, still facing her friends.

Darden Simkiss lets go of Farthing and lunges for Misty Lutyens, who’s closest. Adrenaline takes over and Misty starts to run. When Carrel Guelder sees her running, she starts to run too.

Simkiss thumps downhill, heading after Misty. But Keet, from pure instinct, flicks out a foot and Simkiss goes flying, scuffing a hand and his knees as he falls. Misty is neither the fastest, nor the most efficient runner, but she need not be now, as Simkiss no longer cares about her. He stumbles to his feet, shakes his sore hands out, cricks his neck - then he’s going after Keet, just as Sutter reaches Yarra.

Yarra knows before she does it that she’s going to regret it. But her blood is just boiling. As Sutter leers up close to grab her, she jabs him in one eye, then the man is stumbling about and howling. Tears fill his other eye, and the last thing on his mind now is trying to spank the girl.

Keet has had been caught though. Simkiss, ignoring the swearing of his injured friend and the pain in his hands, flips Keet over, rips down her knickers and starts spanking down hard on her thighs and her bum. With his left hand, since his right is more grazed from the fall.

Farthing has dropped to her bottom, up the hill. She’s just gazing, mouth open, at the melée below.

Sutter shouts, “Fucking get me to a hospital, Darden!” but Simkiss ignores him. As he reaches for better grip of Keet, who’s trying to thump back with her one free elbow, Keet catches Yarra’s eye. Yarra is behind him, and his legs are apart as he struggles for the hold with his grazed-up hand. Yarra is measuring up for a kick, her shiny black school shoes catching the light.

“Do it!” screams Keet. And Yarra lets her foot fly at Darden Simkiss’s gonads. Her aim is true.

Simkiss collapses in agony on Keet. Both of his hands reach down to grab his balls. His face is turning purple. Keet tries to push him off her, and Yarra tries to help. Farthing Pelling gets up and joins in the pushing, then he’s off Keet, on his back. He rolls over once more and throws up on the tarmac.

Keet gets up, looks at Simkiss, glares at the stumbling, whining Sutter who’s now close to the head-height, massive, wheeled school bins. She looks around at Yarra and Farthing. Face red and bright, she holds her hands up in a shrug, then says, “In for a penny...” Then she turns and flat-foot boots the half-blinded Sutter in his arse. The man crashes, face first, into a bin. His covering hand protects his injured eye, but not his nose, which takes a solid metal hit, or his chin, which catches the bin’s nearside handle as he drops.

Keet stares - then giggles.

Farthing is standing close to Simkiss. She looks at the others.

“Don’t,” says Yarra.

But Farthing says, “I want to. He deserves it,” and jabs with her foot at Simkiss’s ear. It isn’t all that hard, but now he’s trying to cover both his balls and his ear at once. Unlike Sutter, he can see, and he looks up at the youngest girl and tries to shuffle away. Farthing - smallest and youngest - holds up a fist and Simkiss whimpers. Then Farthing, giggling, strips off her stretched pants, and with Keet and Yarra’s help, she stuffs them into Simkiss’s mouth. Eyes flickering from one girl to the next, he’s now literally squealing.

Yarra pulls the small body-camera off his chest (all the male school staff have been rigged with them) and points it down at him, catching his squeals for posterity. She turns the camera to the nose-bleeding Sutter, who has also been thoroughly topped by two schoolgirls, then back down to Simkiss, mouth now fully gagged by Farthing’s knickers.

“Selfie?” asks Keet.

They pose themselves below the detached body camera, with Simkiss still whimpering below them on the ground.

Keet says to the camera, “We all know we’ll get it. Do your worst.”

Then Yarra says, “Yeah, we’ll get it. You cowards will come after us. But all the time we’re getting it, remember, one day - we may get you worse than this.” And she points down at the squirming men.

All three of them smile and wave to the camera. Then Yarra moves the camera close up to Simkiss. He hasn’t yet spat out the knickers from his mouth, and Farthing pushes them full back in place, then pats him on his cheek, blocks his nose and starts to pull it left and right. Simkiss, who now can’t breathe, squeals out one last terrified squeal.

Farthing lets his nose loose and gets back up. Yarra clicks his body camera back into place. The three look on down and laugh. Keet wipes her hands and says, “Stick that on BaseGirlies, you cowards, we dare you!” And the three stroll away. Then they break into a giggling run.

Before they split up, Keet grabs Farthing’s hand, and Yarra stops too. They’ll get us,” she says.

“I know,” says Yarra.

And Farthing is nodding. “What shall we do?”

“It’s Friday,” says Yarra. “Let’s just see if we can get to the weekend.”

“You mean - not tell?” Keet asks.

Yarra blinks. “What d’you think? Maybe, yes?”

“I won’t if you won’t.”

“Not say anything?” asks Farthing.

“There’s only this afternoon left,” Yarra says. “They can give us HPs! For tonight. For Saturday.”

“Those two might not,” says Keet, “they’ll be crawling off to mummy.”

Farthing asks, high pitched, “Do you think we might get away with it?”

Yarra shrugs. “It’s worth a try. Just to make it till we get to go home!”

They agree. They all nod. And head off to their classrooms.

There are classes in Yarra’s school where girls are not with their normal teacher. Her brother Taudren has lost of different teachers, all in specialised subjects. That hardly ever happens in her school, which is why it’s so amazing they’ve had Donder all last year - because he knows lots of things! But Friday sports afternoon is one, where the classes fission as girls all go to different sports. Some head to athletics, some to various team sports. The youngest classes do PE (physical education) on a Friday.

It’s Miss Maplum who tells her that’s where she’s going next.

“I’m not sure why but I’ve been told you need to head to the gym for the last double lesson.”

Yarra’s first thought is, I’m for it. They’ve told, those two janitors, and I’m going to get it. Her next though is, the gym is closed off. She asks, “Where though? Why?”

Miss Maplum says, “I understand that the work there is finished. It was signed off lats night, but too late to announce a morning assembly. Sorry, Yarra. First that, then this.” She means Yarra’s orange skirt. Miss Maplum makes a sympathetic face. “I know you picked the team sports option. I just hope that whatever’s going on with this change now, it’s not too bad.”

Yarra likes Miss Maplum - they all do. She’s clever, like Mr Ullerade their teacher. Yarra thinks Miss Maplum is actually so clever, she should be a teacher too. She’s better than Dickle from 11+. Yarra’s had him once or twice, last year, in that quiet point when he was keeping his hands to himself, with that brand new chest camera hanging round his neck. On a couple of days when Mr Ullerade was ill.

Miss Maplum is better than Dickle, she’s sure. If Maplum doesn’t know something, she says she doesn’t know it, but she always asks Donder or looks it up herself. Mr Dickle wouldn’t admit it when he didn’t know something. She’d asked questions, like Donder encouraged them to do, only Dickle got all flustered and told her she was being disrespectful. How? Why? All she’d done was ask a simple, basic question. She’d thought his blustering loss of temper had been stupid, pathetic. Some of the girls called him Dickle the Diddler.

But Dickle, at least, did seemed to know some things. And seemed half way competent at teaching them. As for some of the others ... Miss Maplum could wipe the floor with creeps like Mr Beelar, year nine’s snorting, know-nothing tit. Poor Keet’s class teacher. Yarra had been thinking, it’s criminal someone that useless is a teacher, while clever Miss Maplum is kept down as an assistant. Yarra really admires her - tall and elegant and always thinking.

“I think I might know what it’s about,” says Yarra.

“Do you? Oh dear. I hope it isn’t bad. Look, whatever it is, you know me and Mr Ullerade will always try to back you up. If you think you need our help.”

“That’s nice,” Yarra tells her. “Thanks for saying. If it’s what I think, though, I knew it was coming.”

Miss Maplum watches Yarra go, and sighs. She’s seen how bright, how lit up the girl was was at the start of this last lesson. Now she’s dragging her heels, downcast.

Yarra goes the long way. She scuffs her way down the back stairs and along the lower corridor, weaving as girls head this way and that, laughing and noisy. She steps inside the assembly hall / gym for the first time this year. There are new lines on the floor, but she doesn’t get much chance to look at them. Miz Shrimp is straight on her, pointing over to the changing room door.

Shrimp is an old battle-axe assistant from year nine. Not Beelar’s year nine minus, Mr Studdles’ year nine plus. The woman is squat, heavy and broad, right across her barrel body, like she never had a waist from the minute she grew up. A chunky head with a pudding bowl haircut sits on top of blocky shoulders with no intervening neck. The only extrusion from her barrel shape are her fearsome shapeless breasts, bound in by a jacket so tight its buttons bulge. Her legs underneath, though, are weirdly thin - like she’s borrowed them from someone much lighter.

“Don’t just stand there!” shouts Miz Shrimp, “Changing room, you stupid girl!” The squat woman points across to an open door in the left side of the hall.

The minute Yarra steps inside, she knows it isn’t what she feared. The place is almost full. And there’s orange, everywhere she looks. They’re all there, all the orange girls - from every class, from oldest to youngest. Keet and Farthing both meet Yarra’s startled eyes. Yarra starts to walk towards them, but a hand grabs her elbow and holds her back.

She jerks her head - it’s Tund, the tall teacher who girls call Turd! “You stay here, by the door. Right there.”

“Why?” Then she thinks she shouldn’t have asked.

“Orders,” says Tund.

She clamps her mouth shut. They know, she thinks, of course they know.

Misty Lutyens and Carrel Guelder come through shortly. They look at her standing on her own by the wall. Neither of them know how bad it got, thinks Yarra, They must want to know. Misty looks uncertain - should they stand there as well? She asks with her eyes. Yarra shakes her head, quick and tight, and Carrel leads Misty away by her hand.

Misra Spinks comes in next, from her own year 11 minus class. When she sees Yarra, she starts to wait back too, but Mr Tund moves her on. Keet and Farthing are watching from their changing benches, looking nervous. Yarra thinks, They’ve singled me out. I’m the oldest. Ring-leader. I’m really, really for it.

Girls are standing everywhere in these stupidly short, for-the-lads orange skirts.

She sees Rossa Wilmutt and Gwanna Primpt from her parallel class, 11+. Two more from there, too, since Dickle has picked four girls for orange, not the minimum two like Mr Ullerade.

The noise is getting louder, as girls left and right try to guess what the deal is. Yarra, still sure she’s for it, stands waiting in place by the entrance door. She counts four year twelves who have gathered in a huddle. Six year elevens, including herself. The year tens are made up of Misty Lutyens, Carrel Guelder and a girl called Shella Tanty. Then Imenna Scutta - Taudren’s favourite girl, his first call when he logs into BaseGirlies every night, to see if she’s had any more nasties spankings from that quiet, creepy bloke Mr Needan, or Dickle the Diddler - comes in through the door. And Tund the Turd grabs her elbow too. And tells her to stand against the wall, next to Yarra. Yarra turns her head - she’s never been this close to Scutta before. And now she’s thinking, Maybe I’m wrong. Because Keet and Farthing haven’t been stopped. But Imenna Scutta has.

“Hello,” says the girl. “Do you know why we’re here?”

Yarra doesn’t want to answer. Everyone thinks Scutta is the biggest school slut. Needan and Dickle aren’t the only ones - they all know she’s got more records on BaseGirls than anyone else. Well - except maybe Rossa WIlmutt, from Dickle’s own class. But Rossa’s over there.

Most girls have kit bags - she has one herself, she’s dropped it by her feet. Filled with all the wrong kit now.

Then Burris Eccar, the big-bodied, small-headed gym teacher clumps inside the changing room. Hardly any girls have started to undress - they don’t know why they’re here - wrong kit too - plus Mr Tund has been standing by the doorway, watching on.

Two half-naked girls, from the younger years, are suddenly scrambling to cover their bits up, because Eccar has walked right into the middle. They’ve dressed in standard gym kit, since for the younger girls that was already meant to be today’s last class. So they’ve had the right kit, even though last week their PE had been held outside.

“Where’s Mrs Luckpine?” one girl asks. It’s one of those two young ones who have half changed already.

“What’s your name, girl?”

Eccar snaps his head around, and his back-cropped hair flops oddly.

The girl says, “Ploom, sir. Minty Ploom?”

“Class?”

“Nine minus?”

“Snorty Beelar, that’s your teacher?”

The girl blushes, then giggles. “Yes?”

“Come here, Minty Ploom.”

The girl has no top on yet, but she’s already got her white cloth gym shorts on. She’s covering her smallish breasts with her forearms. She shuffles towards him, blushing even harder.