Chapter 7: The Gym

She backs against the wall, near the other year elevens, feeling angry and impotent. Her high from defeating the janitors has gone - that groping teacher, Tund the Turd, has seen to that. Even more than the slaps to her breasts from that ugly woman. She quietly bangs the back of her head against the wall behind her, then shuts her eyes tight.

The fight. Her brain conjures up a vision of Sutter, the janitor, being kicked in his backside by Keet. The man’s big crash into the bins and down, with his chin catching on its projecting metal handle. In her mind, she tries to swap Tund the Turd for Sutter. Then pictures kicking him straight in his balls, like she did with the other janitor, Simkiss. In her mind, she’s got heavy shoes on. With steel toe caps.

“Any girls not arranged by year, get into your year groups!”

That’s the grating, gravel voice of the gym teacher, Mr Eccar, with his too-small head on his too-big body. Yarra opens her eyes.

The gym hall looks different. It’s the first time she’s had a chance to take it in. She hardly got a look on her way into the changing room. The assembly hall - which doubles as the gym hall - has been closed off since the start of the school year. Building work, the sign said. There had been no assembly yet this term, just roll calls in the class rooms - the most recent this morning. From next week they’d probably be in here again. Mr Ullerade had said that, just today.

It’s the first time Yarra has stood in the room - first time any of them have. So far as she had any idea, this was the first class to be held in the place since the building work sign disappeared. Nothing really seems different except for the floor. It seems to be new - it looks shiny enough - and it’s covered in new markings, from the back of the room to the front, near the stage.

“Stand in your years against the side wall! Get on with it! Oldest at the back, youngest by the stage! Move!”

The girls are shuffling. Yarra ends up standing next to miserable Misra Spinks from her own class, in between her and Mendelle Clitstrop, the girl from year twelve who’s just been caned by Tund the Turd.

Eccar the gym teacher is still making the younger girls shift left and right. While she waits for him to finish being bossy, Yarra stares at the markings. There are white-painted circles and lines all across the floor, like they’re meant for a new sports game she hasn’t heard of yet. Parallel rows of wide white circles are touching each other - three rows of circles running front to back, and each four deep. They cover almost all of the floor space. Where they touch side to side, straight lines run up and down the length of the hall floor. Where they touch top and bottom, straight lines run the floor’s full width. Both sets of white lines intersect exactly where the big circles touch, both front to back and side to side. These straight lines are sub-divided by pairs of grey lines, which are dissecting the circles into thirds.

In the middle of each circle - between the intersecting straight grey lines - is a round plate of glass, which is flat with the floor. For lights? She’s not sure. But, she realises, if it is lights, then to wire them in, they must have taken the floor up and replaced it with a new one. She can’t yet work out what the point of that is.

Eccar has now got the girls lined up roughly by age, against the side wall. There are four year twelves towards the back of the hall, to Yarra’s right. The nearest one to her is Mendelle Clitstrop, who Tund just now caned. Yarra is the first of six year eleven girls - her and miserable Misra from 11 minus, and four from Pieter Dickle’s class 11 plus. Past them are four year tens, two from each class - Imenna Scutta, and - Shella Tanty? Then the striking Carrel Guelder and the blushing, clutzy Misty Lutyens.

Yarra has seen it in the changing room, sort of - but now, when she stares to her left along the line, she gets the numbers better. The top three years - years twelve to ten - have fewer girls here than just the year nines and year eights. She tries to count the younger girls. Maybe there are more girls in their classes altogether? Or are their class teachers just meaner than older girls’ teachers?

The gravel-voiced Burris Eccar starts to shout out a roll call out. Alphabetic. Last names then first names. Clitstrop (Mendelle) - who Tund the Turd has just caned in the changing room. Clouder (Ceres), from down in year eight. Corkle (Yarra).

“Here!” she shouts.

Guelder (Carrel). Gulbel (Ryce), Hitch (Ellara). Yarra’s trying to count all the younger ones, the year nines and tens. She’s up to three now with Gulbel and Hitch.

Karp (Yella), Lendersby (Keet), Lods (Ermine). Those three are from down the far end near the stage. All younger - she’s up to six now.

Lomp (Nidia) - seven. Lutyens (Misty) - older, year ten. Magrilem (Talia) - younger, so eight younger ones now.

Mardale (Della) - nine. Martyn (Wenda) - ten. But Mordam (Jizelle) is in her own year, from the plus class.

Pelling (Farthing). Farthing’s a year eight, the youngest of the girls who was at the fight with the janitors. Ploom (Minty) is another one who the Turd just caned, and she’s a year nine, Yarra’s fairly sure - so now she’s counted twelve from years eight or year nine.

Potapkiss (Shirelle). Primpt (Gwenna) - year twelve, year eleven. Ryce (Gulkbel), Rychem (Amita) - both of whom answer from right down at the young end - that’s fourteen.

Scutta (Imenna) - year ten. Smiddles (Eleria) - younger - makes fifteen. Spinks (Misra) - Yarra’s her own class. Smoot (Clarissa) makes sixteen from the young end. Tanty (Shella). Year ten. Vermees (Rofa) - Yarra’s year. Vurgos (Winella) - year eight? That’s seventeen now.

Wenstay (Arkadia). Year twelve. Willa (Rasia) - year nine, so eighteen. Wilmutt (Rossa) and Woller (Erma) are both older girls. And that’s that - roll call finished.

So it’s fourteen girls from years twelve down to ten. And eighteen girls from just ears nine and eight.

Tund the Turd and Shrimp the Blimp have been busy setting up a fold-out table in the middle of the room, just forward of one of the new-painted circles. They’ve set up piles of clothes on top, which look mostly white but with flashes of orange. The gravel-voiced Eccar calls out Mendelle Clitstrop. Clitstrop - first in the roll call. Class twelve plus.

“To the table!” shouts Eccar. Then he shouts to the table, “And what do you judge Clitstrop’s size to be, Miz Shrimp?”

“Average, most likely. Medium and medium. Normal socks,” says Shrimp, the chunky-bodied woman with the oddly narrow legs.

She and Tund have set out nine piles of clothing on the table - three piles of socks, three piles of tops, three piles of shorts. Dunnel Tund picks out socks, top and pants from each of the three middle piles.

“Stand just there,” he tells the girl, pointing to the centre of the painted circle, which is just behind the fold-out desk. She stands, still naked, above the dark-tinted glass plate dead in the centre of the circle.

Tund hands her the socks first. “Put them on,” he says.

Clitstrop pulls the long white socks, one at a time, over her feet, then draws them over her calves. They each have a single orange band at the top.

“Top half next!” says Tund, handing her the next piece of clothing.

It seems an odd order to have to dress, to Yarra - socks first, then top, then pants. Clitstrop has to pull the top on over her head. It has two shoulder straps, a thin back like a bra strap minus clips, and a narrow curved strip to cover her breasts, with a flash of orange printed on the elasticated band underneath. This seems to more or less fit Clitstrop, who isn’t all that big up top.

“And pants,” says Tund as he hands the girl a pair of slim white shorts.

Clitstrop frowns as she looks at the pants.

“On!” orders Tund. “Feet in leg holes!”

The girl looks like she wants to protest, but before she does so, she reactively bunches up her bum cheeks. The cane marks Tund put there have now emerged as bright red tram lines. Clitstrop, still frowning and shaking her hear, manoeuvres one foot into the pants leg, then the other. She shakes her head again, and starts pulling them up. It takes a bit of effort, especially as Clitstrop draws them higher up her thighs.

“Problem?” asks the woman, Shrimp.

“They’re a bit tight,” says Clitstrop.

She isn’t all that big in her hips. Yarra can see she has a runner’s legs and bum. She thinks, if those are medium and they don’t fit her, then they’re not really medium.

“They’ll stretch,” says Shrimp.

“But - there are others? Bigger?”

The Blimp shouts, “They’ll stretch! Back in line! Or would you like another caning?” She turns her eye to the Turd. “Mr Tund?”

Clitstrop turns, pants not yet quite fitting, and hurries back to her spot next to Yarra. Then starts trying to adjust the shorts to make them fit, while Eccar the gym teacher growls out Ceres Clouder’s name. The year eight girl looks totally embarrassed as she shuffles across the assembly hall, naked feet making sucking sounds as lifts them each time off the polished floor. She is awkwardly covering crotch and breasts as she walks.

Yarra is looking to her immediate right, where Clitstrop is still busy adjusting the shorts. The things have square-cut bases with an orange flash at the narrow waist band. From what Yarra can make out, the material seems to be very thin - and don’t appear to have any doubling of material at the gusset. Clitstrop twists as she tries to wriggle them to a comfortable fit. And Yarra is shocked to see that she can make out red cane marks through the stretched-out material.

When the older girl stops wriggling and settles back against the wall, Yarra can’t help but glance down at how the pants cling to her at the front. She can see the shape of Clitstrop’s crotch! In order to get the pants to fit, Clitstrop has had to pull them so tight, they’ve turned cling-fit!

Eccar, Tund and the chunky Miz Shrimp are continuing to process the girls alphabetically. The year eight Clouder is sent back towards her former spot, then Eccar calls out, “Corkle, Yarra!”

She decides to brass it out. She just walks towards them like she’s normally dressed, not stark naked.

Shrimp, staring at Yarra, announces, “Normal, medium, medium!”

Yarra knows she’s bigger than Clitstrop in both bra size and hips. But she doesn’t want any of these sadists going after her, so she starts pulling on the socks without comment.

Tund has pointed at the six-inch-wide glass circle, saying, “Stand right there!” just as he did for Clitstrop and Clouder. It’s as she’s awkwardly pulling on the socks that she thinks she sees a tiny movement below the circular inlay of cloud-tint glass. The glass is dark, but not quite opaque. And suddenly she guesses what she’s looking at - a lens. She hops to one side, trying to keep her balance as she pulls the second sock on - and, with a slight delay, she sees corresponding movement below the glass - a swivel as the object catches up with her position. Then she spies an effect she’s seen before - a lens changing focal length - narrower to wider.

And, with a feeling like a lead weight hitting the bottom of her stomach, she suddenly gets why the gym has been closed. They have had the floor up - to wire in cameras underneath the bloody thing!

Tund hands her a top, which she knows, before she pulls it on, is going to pinch - too small, too tight. As she pulls it on, she stares around the rest of the hall. Twelve circles. A glass plate in the middle of each. Which means, a camera under every one. Twelve cameras in the floor of a Senior Girls School - which is used for school assemblies and exercise classes! Twelve cameras to peer up schoolgirls’ skirts, to stare directly at their under-sides. To leer up at their hips and between their legs, as they run on the spot, do squats, do jumping jacks! Twelve zoomable, tiltable under-floor cameras. They’re not just going to film us when they spank us, she thinks. They’re going to film us in assembly. Any time we’re doing gym. Not just every now and then, but every chance they get!”

“Shorts!” shouts Tund the Turd.

And Yarra thinks, They’re scaling up. Industrialising. Turning it into a commercial product.

Yarra’s c-cup breasts have just about squeezed into the too-tight top, but at least she’s been able to get into it, just about. The shorts are just ridiculous though - they won’t stretch around her hips at all. And Shrimp can see it.

“Too tight?” the woman asks.

Reluctantly, knowing it’s a trap, Yarra nods.

Miz Shrimp sniffs, then speaks loudly. “Mr Tund? Mr Eccar? This girl seems to need some additional help!”

Both men step in, one at Yarra’s front, one at her back.

“I can do it!” she insists.

“Too slow!” says Shrimp the Blimp. “Arms up, girl!”

When Yarra isn’t quite quick enough, she finds her arms being hoisted up by Tund the Turd. Again! Twice in twenty minutes!

But it’s Burris Eccar, the massive-shouldered, small-headed gym instructor, who grabs Yarra’s shorts by their sides, and tugs upwards. Then starts digging his fingers in, under the holes for her legs at the back, making little extra jerking moves. Pulling from the front next next, with one arm wrapping in around her hips. Yarra hears herself is grunting, but all she can see is Tund the Turd’s chest.

There’s another intrusive yank from the back. Then Eccar’s hand pushes underneath, gripping the cloth where it’s failing to quite reach her crotch. Then from both sides, front and back, at once. And she feels the cloth touch her lips, down below. An feels the cloth so tight around her thigh tops, that it’s making flesh-trenches in the top of her legs - squeezing so hard it’s actually painful!

“Right. That’ll do.” Eccar smacks Yarra on one bum cheek, then the other. And she finds herself, humiliated, stared at from up and down the line of naked girls, hobbling back towards the wall.

It takes Eccar, Tund and Shrimp the Blimp close to half an hour to get all the orange girls kitted up. Miz Shrimp seems to delight in picking wrong-sized clothes for most of the girls. Some of the small ones end up dressed in shorts too large to stay up. Just a few find their clothes - by accident, maybe - more or less fitting. A couple of the bigger girls get stuffed into tops which don’t even hold their breasts in. Imenna Scutta is one - her top is so tight, it leaves bulges of flesh bulging out, both top and bottom. Rossa Wilmutt’s is so tight, Eccar drags it down, paying no regard to the girl’s red face, and pulls her breasts through manually, so Wilmutt’s assets end up pushed tight together, lifted up in an odd, dragged shape over the top of the body of the bra, and crushed between the shoulder straps. When he’s let her go, and she starts to adjust the things herself, he screams at her, “Leave it! If we dress you in a particular way, you stay dressed how we dress you! Don’t not dare touch that top!”

Yarra’s fairly sure by the end of the ‘dressing’ that the piles of clothes have not themselves contained anything close to consistent sizes. All the piles piles seem to have yielded big, small and medium sizes. Even the sock piles have thrown up a few wobblers up. Yarra has watched while Minty Ploom and Misty Lutyens - neither of whom seem to be able to balance on just one leg - hop, stumble, even tumble on their arses as they try to pull on socks meant for girls with smaller feet. The socks themselves don’t help, since the floor is so polished. Minty Ploom goes over once as her foot slips out from under her. Then the blushing Misty Lutyens ends so red, by the time she’s allowed back to the wall - after thumping on her arse as she tries to get the socks on - frustrated that she can’t get her nice sticky-out breasts into the too-small top - then pushed, pulled and harassed so badly by the three grown-ups, as they stuff her, jostling, tugging and harrying, into ridiculously under-sized shorts - that her blushing seems to come right down to her breasts.