Chapter 8: Permission to Pinch

Once Cuckles, the assistant teacher, has left again, Eccar the gym teacher quickly wraps up the session with a characteristically gravelly shout. “Right! Gym class over! Back in the changing room! Now!”

There’s a rush to get back through the changing room door. Yarra, wary of being called out by Eccar, abandons the slower-off-the-mark Imenna Scutta and Rossa Wilmutt, who she’s exercising in her circle with, and is quickly back to the changing room. She grabs up her bag, which she’d had to leave just inside the door, and grabs a spot as far away from the door as she can get - a place partly protected from view by a steel block of lockers.

When Keet Lendersby makes it inside the changing room, Yarra waves her over. Keet grabs her own bag up on the way. Next in is Farthing, in with a rush of other girls. She’s looking slightly dazed, by Yarra and Keet both hiss her name. She sees them and heads for them gratefully.

“You got caned,” says Farthing, staring at Yarra’s bum.

Not as much as the girl behind me,” she says. “That girl from year twelve? Who got camed in here too? Clitstrop?”

“God, they caned her again?” Keet asks.

“It was the Turd again,” says Yarra. “He was strapping her between her legs!”

“That’s ridiculous!” says Keet.

Farthing seems quiet. “Are you feeling alright?” Yarra asks her.

The girl shrugs. Shakes her head. “They’re not supposed to take out knickers down,” she says. “I’m year eight. But they gave me these stupid shorts!”

“They didn’t take them down then,” Keet says. “They’ll argue they just fell down.”

“But they haven’t given us HP’s yet,” says Farthing. She’s whispering, high-pitched. “For what we did to the janitors!”

“They will,” says Yarra, feeling glum and heavy. “Did you see that assistant talking to Eccar?”

“Cuckles,” says Keet. “From your class, Farthing.”

“They looked at us,” says Yarra. “Just us three. They were staring, Eccar and Cuckles!”

“I saw them look at me,” Keet says. “I didn’t know they were looking at you as well.”

“They know,” says Yarra. “They have to know by now! Cuckles said something about a meeting Tonight!”

Girls all around them are stripping off their gim clothes and looking at each others’ marks - most of them have had a few pops from Tund the Turd’s cane or Shrimp the Blimp’s nasty, extra-long wooden spoon. A couple are trying to see their own hips in a mirror.

“What are we going to do?” asks Farthing.

Keet says, “See if we can avoid them? Good spot this, Yarra - hidden.”

But Yarra sees Eccar, the gym teacher, talking to Tund the floating turd near the door. They seem to be staring around the room. Yarra puklls back her head, putting the row of lockers in between them and the two male teachers.

“Let’s just get dressed,” says Keet. “No showers. That was out last lesson, Friday! Let’s see if we can get out of school before they catch us.”

Farthing is stripping off her gym socks and top - her too-big shorts removed themselves on their own. She just drops them on the floor like she never wants to see them again. Now all three girls have their kit bags open and are quickly getting dressed.

Some girls are in the showers. Yarra can see this, framed between lockers. A sorry-looking Mendelle Clitstrop, the year twelve girl, is inspecting marks on her bottom, twisting around as water pours across her body to try and see them. Imenna Scutta and Rossa Wilmutt shuffle up to the showers too, stripped of their stupidly ill-fitting gym kit.

They hear Miz Shrimp busy haranguing someone else. “You! Strip off! Into the shower, you lazy, sweaty girl!” Shrimp sounds like she’s over on the far side of the changing room.

Keet has dressed already - her good co-ordination helps her. Yarra’s energy is coming back back after the lead-weight feeling of imminent doom. She feels hope that they might make it out - they haven’t been immediately collared by Eccar.

“Get your pants on quick, Farthing,” Keet’s saying to the youngest girl.

“I can’t,” hisses Farthing. “You know why!”

“Oh,” says Keet. Then breaks out in a giggle. “You stuffed them into that janitor’s mouth!”

“I had to do the whole next class trying to keep my skirt pulled down! Coming here, too! Once I got here, it didn’t matter.”

Yarra pulls her own school shoes on. She takes her too-tight gym clothes, balls them up, and trows them up on top of the lockers.

Keet sees this. “I’m keeping mine,” she says. “They fit!” She drops them in her gym bag.

A couple of other girls, just just in view around the lockers, have dressed quickly too. Shrimp spots them - her arm is visible, pointing. She says, “You two! Get those things back off! Don’t be dirty! Shower! Now!”

“We’re going to get caught,” says Farthing.

With the two girls she’s just ordered stripping off again, Shrimp seems to have moved off. Yarra sneaks a look around the edge of the lockers. “I can’t see Eccar or Tund now,” she says.

“Could we run for it?” asks Keet.

They share a look. They nod. Farthing’s shoes are now on as well.

“You three! What are you doing dressed!”

Shrimp has rounded the lockers from the shower end. She’s stomping her thick body, on its narrow legs, towards them.

It’s instinct. Keet moves first, then Yarra and Farthing are in action as well.

“STOP!” Shrimp yells.

They don’t stop.

“Stop! Filthy girls! To the Showers!”

Keet slows at the changing room door and darts her head around to look. “They’re by the stage,” she says.

Yarra bundles into her.

“She’s coming!” says Farthing, behind - meaning Shrimp.

“Run!” says Yarra. And they’re off, all three, pelting towards the gym hall double doors, at the back of the hall and away the stage, with their tiny skirts lifting up as they go - for Keet and Yarra, revealing white pants, for Farthing, showing nothing.

“STOP!” Shrimp screeches, now at the changing room door. “Mr Eccar! Mr Tund!”

They hear male voices shouting. Yarra makes out, “It’s them!” Then heavy, running footsteps are thumping after them across the gym hall.

Keet, in the lead, pulls the double gym hall main doors wide. Farthing and Yarra cram through them, straight after.

Now they’re out in the corridor. Coming towards them are Yarra’s class teacher and assistant both, Mr Ullerade and Miss Maplum. Ullerade says, “No running, please!”

“They’re after us!” squeals Yarra. “Please!”

“Who is - slow down...”

The assistant teacher Maplum seems to get it first - sees the two burly teachers thundering across the gym hall to the still in-swinging, glass-panelled doors. Maplum breaks into a trot, reaching the doors just as Eccar, in the lead, thumps into the things. They slam open, knocking Maplum off her feet.

“What the hell?” shouts Ullerade - the first time Yarra has ever heard him swear. Eccar is stepping over Maplum, angry eyes on the girls, but Ullerade literally tackles him as the man sprints forward, by grabbing his midriff. Both men go down too.

Yarra sees Ullerade and Maplum both, turning their heads. Maplum is waving away with her hands - just go! is the message. Ullerade’s head twitches as well, towards the main school doors - its the same essential message.

And the girls are, all three, sprinting for the doors to Kennigwort Senior Girls School’s street entrance.

“Explain yourself, Eccar!” Ullerade is saying to the man he’s holding down. And, with a final glance, Yarra sees Miss Maplum blocking the out-swinging doors with her feet, as Tund the Turd tries to force his way through.

They’re out in fresh air, running hell for leather for the road outside, kit bags swinging wildly. The bus stops are off towards the boys school - they don’t get out until half an hour later - so the only people waiting already are a few girls in blue skirts. They stare at the three orange-skirt girls with crinkled-up noses.

“Which way do you live?” Yarra asks the others, out of breath.

“This way - towards town,” says Keet, and Farthing nods.

“I go that way,” says Yarra, pointing out towards the suburbs.

But Farthing and Keet’s bus is already coming. It’s the same route as Yarra’s - the K44. As it pulls up, they’re, all three, nervously looking back at the school gates. The long bendy bus pulls to a stop. Its middle doors hiss open, right in front of Yarra. And all three girls pile on.

There’s no sign of Tund or Eccar at the gates yet. The bus doors slide shut. And the girls are safely away.

Two stops further on, Yarra gets off. They hug - wish each other luck - and look worried as they each say, “See you next week!”

“At least we made it to the weekend!” says Keet.

Yarra, once the bus pulls off, crosses the road. There’s another stop heading back towards her home - past the school, towards Cudley Marsh. The next K44 heading back is along in just two minutes. She gets on board. Sits near the back. And as the bus passes by her school again, she distinctly sees Eccar, the gym teacher, and Tund the floating teacher, looking up and down the street, standing just outside the school gates. They even stare at the bus as it stops across the road. Yarra ducks down below the window. Some blue-skirted girls get on - one stares down at the crouching Yarra.

“What you hiding from?” she asks - it’s a younger girl who Yarra doesn’t know. She finds herself jealous of the girl’s safe blue skirt.

“Eccar and the Turd,” says Yarra.

The girl looks thrpugh the window. “Yeah, they’re staring at the bus,” she says. “No wait - no - no, still staring.”

The bus doors hiss shut. It starts to pull away.

“You can get up now,” the girl says. “You’re safe.”

Yarra lifts her head up. And sees Tund, receding, stare right back at her, then pat Mr Eccar his shoulder and point at the bus.

She knows they’ve seen her. So she waves back to them.

The younger girl is looking at her. “Is your brother Taudren Corkle?” she asks.

Yarra frowns. She nods her head.

The girl says, “Your brother comes to our house sometimes. I’m Miki Munnet.”

“Oh - yeah.” Yarra nods. “Yeah, I’m Yarra. Thing my brother might have mentioned. I’m Yarra, Taudren’s sister.”

It’s early evening. Molcum Corkle is watching a rerun of Political Roundup, the FIRST! channel’s late-night political digest. it’s Sardo Joinard, the Home Secretary, on the show for the first time since his interview just over a year ago. Jott Daltum, the bow-tied, pin-striped interviewer, begins in a respectful tone with, “Secretary Joinard, welcome. It has been, for some, a momentous year. Several striking changes have affected the country. Prompting protests - marches protesting what their organisers termed an explosion of smut and filth on TV. Others protesting ever-growing records on the Government-sponsored SPD - the Schoolgirl Punishment Database. Your critics say the SPD documents, in horrendous, often graphic detail, a systematic shaming and sexualisation of under-age girls - ostensibly in the cause of education, but in practice of indoctrinating, and accustomising to abuse, an entire upcoming generation of females.”

Joinard grunts, but does not interrupt.

“The first issue, say your critics, is reflective of the other. While not everyone - quite - has access to the SP Database, all have access to national TV. Both Channel 3 and FIRST! have, in certain slots, noticeably increased their adult-targeted content, while Popular seems now, in effect, to be wall-to-wall smut.”

Daltum dips his head to look over his glasses, though Joinard has still not made to interrupt.

“I am still paraphrasing your critics. But for the purposes of this interview, I did, on request, watch the so-called Completely Gratuitous Punishment Hour - an episode literally titled the Schoolgirl Edition. Maybe impression is that its producers are trying to rub everyone’s noses in just how ... and I moderate my words ... noticeably society has shifted. The program featured, amongst other shocking moments, one apparently literal schoolgirl being spanked and caned on her back - on a soft chair - stark naked, in what is know, I believe, as the diaper position. There was nothing left to the imagination, Mr Joinard. The girl twitched and spasmed and - literally opened. On camera. On TV. In the living rooms of the general public. At seven forty PM on a Sunday. A distinctly family-oriented slot. Your comments, Secretary?”

“Is it time for me to speak?” asks Joinard, one raised eyebrow. “I imagined I was listening to a lecture there.”

At this point, Yarra comes into the room. She’s changed into a track suit, which covers her hips. She’s been able to get in the house, up to her room, without Mocum or Lazabel seeing her bum.

“D’you want me to turn this over, love?”

“No,” she says. “That’s Joinard, right? I want to hear what his excuses are.”

“Oh.” Molcum blinks, but ignores her loaded comment. “Alright day at school?” he asks.

She stares at her dad. “Nice of you to ask,” she says, deadpan, though shadows of thoughts have just crossed her face. Then she adds, “Lovely, yes.”

“That, ah ... skirt not a problem, then?”

There’s little pause before she says, “No. Everyone just ignored it, Dad.”

“Oh. Right.” He turns his head to look at the TV. “Right.”

Joinard is now saying, “Yes well I’m not responsible for the content of some random show on a low-brow channel.”

Jott Daltum looks over his half-moon specs. “In a sense though, you are. Your government passed the Broadcast Reset Bill which states, and I quote - from section 5Civ, ‘The content of televisual productions as regards any display of female nudity is not to be controlled.’ 5Cxii... ‘The content of televisual productions as regards specifically the depiction of domination of females by males, or submission of females, is not to be controlled.’ And finally, 5Cxxiv...”

“Good.”

“This is your own document, Secretary. 5Cxxiv, ‘The content of televisual productions as regards corporal punishment is not to be controlled.’”

“You’ll find rather a lot of ‘not to be controlleds’ in that bill, Mr Daltum. We took out everything the other lot had tried to restrict, wag their fingers at, tut-tut-tut over, and removed them. It was our mandate - what we’d campaigned on. So it was our duty, surely, to implement such changes.”

“The result is the content of Popular, Secretary?”

“Again, Mr Daltum, we were voted in on a deregulation mandate.”

“Deregulation,” says Yarra from her end of the sofa. “That’s a wormy way of saying, give the power to the bastards.”

Molcum grunts.

Jott Daltum says, “You, Secretary, stated directly that the Schoolgirl Punishment Database, as planned for by DR, should be, and I quote...” He pushes his glasses higher up his nose. “‘ ... made available to members of the public with a legitimate interest.’ Yet you seem to have made it available, in effect, to every member of the public.”

“The voting public paid for the system, Mr Daltum. The department considered, on review, that that seemed to be a reasonable working definition of someone with a legitimate interest.”

“Quite. But you then also published an advisory paper - I quoted from it earlier - which, some say, seems to tacitly pre-approve certain - dubious punishments. The Education Reform Bill, section four addendum, seemed to focus on pointing out punishment styles - until then conducted in a few notorious private schools only - which were also not to be regulated. By naming them, some argue, you have effectively legitimised them. Such practices had never been mentioned in any government-sponsored document until that bill was drafted.”

Daltum says, “The addendum you refer to is not codified law.”

“Indeed, They are mentioned in the context of not being restricted by codified law. Yet a number of schools - their heads and governors - as well as actual case law, by now - seem to have chosen to interpret those non-rules as tacit legitimisation. Some schools, our research suggests, are in the process of implemented them, specifically, as allowable practices.”

“Your point, Mr Daltum?”

“Practices listed, by your department, as not being legislated, now are being implemented!”

Yarra is sitting with her mouth hanging open.

The home secretary answers, folding the fingers of opposite hands,”There is provision in the bill for schools to opt out of Local Government oversight. A step by step process. Once they opted out, they are, by definition, able to implement rules of their own.”

“Such as implementing practices that some think abhorrent.”

“It is not we who are writing the rules for such schools.”

“But you have, say your critics, provided a foundation for them to write some abhorrent rules.”

Sardo Joinard lifts his hands up. “Again, we have not written any rules. We have deregualted, Mr Daltum. We have taken rules away!”

Daltum taps a pen on his notes. “Will you now, Secretary, on camera, condemn the writing of such opted-out schools’ rules?”?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Whether or not I may agree with these - unnamed, random school rules - to which I am not party - have not seen - have not read - the law of the land remains the law of the land. An opted-out school is an opted-out school. And, so far as the television programme that you mentioned, my understanding is that its producers, whatever my personal opinion, have in no sense broken any law of this land.”

“So an innocent young girl like that can now be displayed, punished and abused - as gratuitously as worst-case programme makers feel inclined? What if they decided to stick some ... object up her...”

“Now, now, Jott. Tut-tut, there are limits.”

“It was hard to find any on that programme I was forced into viewing. I am told the scene was based on certain practices used in so-called Traditional schools. Which may now be adopted by opted-out state schools.”

“I cannot comment. I’m not party to the details you claim to possess.”

Jott Daltum nods his bow-tied neck. “Your critics say, Secretary, that the Broadcast Reset Bill, the Education reform Bill, the soon-to-be-debated Public Display and Deportment Bill, and the up-coming Allowable Workplace Practices Advisory Bill - all published, or being written, by your own department - have, at their root, a desire to control and indoctrinate the female half of society. Particularly those who are younger. Who are, say your critics, in danger of being routinely sexualised, belittled, terrified and traumatised, exclusively by men in positions of trust with direct power over them. They argue that this goal has been the underlying agenda of your wing of your party - the CL 51 wing, if you will - ever since the Democratic Reform came to prominence and government.”

Sardo Joinard stares back, silent, as if daring Daltum to further casrry on. When Daltum does not, Joinard shifts a little in his seat, then settles back.

He says, “The voting population is two percent women, ninety eight percent men - those are just the simple facts. DR left office with those rules still in place. We have not made to change it, nor do we intend to.”

“So that’s it?” Joinard asks. “The whole drift of Home Law has been simple political expediency? The voters are men? And most men like to see naked females? Even, naked females punished and shamed?”

Joinard sighs and says, “I have no doubt that many, many voters do appreciate such things.”

“Many of the ninety eight percent.”