From the Top Shelf - The Electrician's Tale

I recently had the pleasure of exchanging emails with GeorgieC, whose stories I have published in the past. Besides encouraging me to post whatever stories of his I might have, this delightful writer also gave me a few more that I hadn't seen before.

"The Electrician's Tale" is an amusing story of school life and punishment. For those of us not located in the U.K., 'tannoy' is a word used for any public address system, derived from Tannoy, a prominent Scottish manufacturer of speakers and sound systems.

As an electrician you can sometimes get yourself in some sticky situations. I've had a few close calls, usually involving 240 volts finding an easier way to earth than the one planned. But my stickiest moment came a few years ago when I had a simple wiring job to do.

It seemed easy enough. St Ethelred's School for Girls needed a new tannoy system installing. Myself, and Bob and Tony, had worked fairly hard all week, getting the cabling in place, siting speakers all around the school, connecting everything up.

I say that we worked "fairly" hard, because the job was slowed down a bit by Bob and Tony's lack of concentration at times. It was those little minxes in the school of course. They used to wait till one or other of us was scrabbling round the floor, trying to thread some cable under the floorboards, and well, they'd walk past...slowly.

The thing was, you see, that their skirts were rather on the shortish side. And if you were lying on the floor you could see up them. Right up them....  And the girls knew this. And did it on purpose. There were even a few who would walk past you, and having caught your eye, they'd pretend they'd dropped something on the floor, and bend over right in front of you. Their skirts would go right up, and there would be a pair of white panties. As clear as day.

Well, this slowed Bob and Tony down no end. It was terrible.... Tony reckons there was even one of the teachers who dropped some books near him at an opportune moment, but he does tend to exaggerate. Personally, I'm sure a teacher in a school like that would always wear underwear! She was probably wearing a thong. Miss Dawson, the History teacher, was wearing pale blue panties one day I noticed accidentally. But they were ordinary briefs under her tights. Not that I was looking, you understand.

Anyway, I digress. The final day arrived, and we were ready to connect up the system to go live. I was in the Headmistress's office (a real dragon called Miss Tewkesbury) putting the final wires together at the master console on her desk, and Bob and Tony were ensuring everything was OK at the speakers' ends.

We'd had a bit of trouble actually getting any sounds out of the speakers which we thought might be a bit of a problem, especially when you're supposed to be installing a tannoy system. I was checking the wiring to the console. The thing was this meant I had to scrabble around under the Headmistress's desk, and I was just about sure that it was ready to test again when Miss Tewkesbury came into her office.

Now, the thing was that she couldn't see me from where I was, although I could see her through a gap in the modesty panel, I think they're called, on her desk. I was just about to reappear, or cough, or somehow make my presence known in a way that wouldn't startle her when, for some reason, I stopped. One of the girls came in behind her, and shut the door. Miss Tewkesbury did not seem to be in a good mood.

"I am sick to death of this sort of behaviour, Harrison," she snapped.

The girl shuffled her feet, and looked rather downcast. I could see she was one of the Sixth Form, because they all had blue ties, whereas the rest of the school had a rather revolting shade of maroon.

She was a pretty thing, blonde hair, ponytail, crisp white blouse, and the short blue skirt that was de rigueur - and the cause of Tony and Bob's distraction.

"Yes, Miss," the girl said, rather pointlessly.

"I am not going to tolerate this any longer. I am going to teach you a lesson you won't forget. Bring that chair to the middle of the room!" She pointed to a chair on the far side of the room, and the girl walked miserably across the room, picked up the chair, and brought it to the centre of the room, about four feet away from where I was still concealed beneath the desk. I wondered whether I should now make my presence known, but in view of the Headmistress's foul mood I felt that discretion was the better part of valour and decided to stay put. Not that I wanted to see what was going to happen, of course, but just to avoid any mutual embarrassment.

The Headmistress walked over to the cupboard on the far side of the study, and opening it, took out something I recall greatly from my days at school so many years ago. The cane!

I though now that I'd better just stay put. I didn't want the poor girl to know that I knew she was going to get the cane. How embarrassing that would be for her! So I just stayed quietly in my place, watching.

"Right, girl, get your skirt up!"

The girl, who was stood with her back to me, facing the back of the chair, slowly lifted the hem of her skirt higher and higher, until the skirt was bunched up around her waist. There, just a few feet in front of me, were a pair of bright white pants inadequately covering two very round bottom cheeks. I never knew for sure that girls had to do that for the cane. I know that in my school they had had to bend over the desk for the Headmaster to cane them, and it was rumoured that he made them show their knicks, but it was never confirmed.... I could well understand why he had made all the girls get their skirts up. Especially Maureen Lewis, who always seemed to be getting sent to his study for a caning, even when she hadn't seemed to have done anything wrong. After all these years I was suddenly envious of him.

"You've been here before. You know what to do. Take your knickers down!"

I watched, suddenly agog, as the Sixth-former slipped her fingers into the waistband of her knickers, and slowly peeled them down to just above her knees. My line of sight was pretty well filled with two rounded globes, quivering slightly I think - or maybe that was just me!

"Bend over the chair and brace yourself. I'm going to give you six of the very best. Your behaviour today fully deserves everything that's coming to you. Bend over, I said!!"

She bent forward, reaching over for the far side of the chair. I was cramped under the desk, but I dare not move. This was very difficult though, because as she bent over I saw sights that caused at least one part of me to move, and move significantly at that.

The cane was laid across both cheeks, and as I held my breath it rose into the air and came down with a Whoosh! to land with a resounding Crack!

"Ow, Miss. One, Miss"

The cane again rose into the air and once more fell in a sweeping arc, hitting its target just fractionally below the previous impact.

"Yeeow! Two, Miss"

Two neat red lines started to develop across the pale cheeks. The girl's legs started to move noticeably, displaying even more than before. I could hardly breathe.

Swish! Crack!

"Ouch!! Three, Miss!"

The Headmistress spoke again. "I trust you will learn your lesson from this. I doesn't give me any pleasure to have to cane a girl with her knickers down. But your behaviour is totally disgraceful. If you repeat this then next time you will be taking your pants down in front of the whole school!!"

My mind started racing with the possibilities, wondering what old Mr Thompson, one of the teachers in the school, who appeared to be about ninety, would make of it. The thought suddenly occurred to me that maybe a public caning of a pupil's bare bottom wouldn't be a new sight to him anyway. But before I got too far down that route the fourth stroke of the cane landed.

"Yeeeoww!!! Four, Miss".

Each stroke was just slightly below the previous one, neatly parallel. Obviously the Headmistress was an expert in the use of the cane.

Swish! Whack!!

"Yeeow, owww, owww!" The girl was now in obvious distress. "Five, Miss, oh please Miss, pleeease no more!"

"One more, Harrison. This I trust will make you think in future about your behaviour".

She laid the cane purposefully across the rounded buttocks, now glowing red, and slowly raised it high into the air. Suddenly the door burst open, and there framed in the doorway was the Senior Mistress, and peering in over her shoulder were Bob and Tony. Their mouths opened wide at the sight in front of them. I was so surprised to see them that I gave a start, and loudly bumped my head on the desk.

"What? What, what the..." The Headmistress was lost for words.

* * *

We drove back, silent for most of the journey.

"Well, at least the tannoy works!" said Bob.

I was puzzled. "How do you know? We got hurled out of there pretty sharpish," I said.

"Very simple," Tony said. "That's why we came rushing along. Everyone in the school could hear what was going on. You'd managed to connect up the tannoy OK - it's just that you left the channel open. Everyone in the school heard everything! The Senior Mistress was in a right state, and all the girls were giggling at someone else getting whacked on the bare bum over the speakers. What a pity I didn't have my tape recorder."

He started to chuckle, and within minutes we were all laughing our heads off. Not quite a normal day for an electrician.

So Harrison only got five of the best that day. I hope she learned her lesson.