The Cane

The stubby red light-bulb above the door had been glowing for what seemed like an age, but in truth it was probably only ten minutes or so. It cast a slightly ghoulish glow over the poorly lit corridor outside the headmaster’s office. But like every other pupil, Tom knew what it meant. You could only go in when the red light went out and the green bulb next to it was switched on. So he sat trembling on the tubular-metal stacking chair with a canvas seat, fingers fiddling with the hexagonal nuts between chair frame and seat stretcher.

Tom had been sent there by Mr McMaster, his teacher, for making Alice Spencer cry. Usually, Mr McMaster dealt with discipline his own way, with the fast slap of a well-worn plimsol on the upturned hand of the miscreant. It hurt quite a lot and the recipient’s hand would be hot and red for a while after. But today, for some reason, the teacher had decided that this troublemaker needed more severe treatment and was taken to the school secretary, to be dealt with by the head when he had time, that was.

And Mr Carpenter had something much more terrifying than an old gym shoe with which to dispense justice. He had a cane. Every pupil knew that. Boys, never girls, were caned by Mr Carpenter regularly, that was for sure. In truth, it was likely that none of the pupils had actually met a boy who had been caned… but that made no difference. Its reputation was legendary and every one of the children at St Cuthberts Primary knew how much it would hurt and how long the welts of red across one’s buttock or calves would last, a shameful sign of wrongdoing. Quite how girls were made to behave remained a mystery to Tom, for they didn’t experience Mr McMaster’s ‘slipper’ either. Strangely, they seemed to comply with instruction without the threat of violence.

Alice Spencer was a pretty girl with pigtails and light freckles; pretty but sly and spiteful. She’d arrived a bit late that morning so had been told to sit in the only remaining free seat, next to Tom Frost, whom she disliked for no better reason than because he was a boy. They had clashed before, so it was a combination destined to go badly. Behind Mr McMaster’s back, she pulled a face at Tom so he pulled one back. She pinched his bare leg at the back behind the knee – boys at St Cuthberts wore short trousers summer and winter. He tugged at a pigtail. True to form, she made a meal of the tug to her hair and cried out, forcing fake tears to her blue eyes.

McMaster wheeled round from the blackboard on which he had been writing the day’s spellings. “What’s going on? Alice, why are you crying?”

“Sir, he pulled my hair, Sir.”

Tom looked down.

“Just behave – you won’t be told again,” and the teacher returned to the list of words, all ending in ‘a-t-i-o-n’ – information, explanation, automation, rotation…

“See,” gloated Alice, quietly enough for the teacher not to hear.

Alice was undoubtedly guilty of initiation but Tom now fell into the trap of retaliation and even escalation.

So it was not long before one of Alice’s piercing squeals got McMaster’s attention again. “What’s wrong now?” and Alice held up her right hand index finger which clearly showed the mark of a tooth. Indentation.

“He bit me, Sir,” she said.

Tom’s eye was red from where she’d poked it moments earlier but he said nothing. The teacher had heard enough and Tom was pulled from the class by one ear.

Now Tom was sitting outside the headmaster office, certain that he would be caned. Almost as bad, the mothers of boys who were caned were called to the school to collect their villains. Pain and shame.

The red light shone on but offered Tom no comfort, even though while it was lit he was being spared what would happen once it went out.

Then the bell rang. Elevenses. Milk monitors left their classrooms to hand out third-of-a-pint glass milk bottles with silver foil tops and a drinking straw. Tom sat paralysed in the narrow corridor, listening to the bustle in the school hall. Then it died away and all was quiet. He strained to hear what he expected to be the imminent arrival of his mother, angry at being called to the school, disgraced by her only son.

Anticipation. That was the worst and now he could even spell it.

Eventually the red light went out and Tom shifted in the chair. But the green light did not come on. What was he to do? Mrs Dolman came out of her office, glanced across at Tom and went into the headmaster’s office. The fear grew in Tom. After a few minutes, she came out again. Then green bulb lit. The boy was terrified. He got up and knocked quietly on the oak door.

“Come,” he heard from inside.

Mr Carpenter was a tall, thin, spindly man in his late 50s or early 60s who barely filled his clothes. His authority was underpinned not by fear but by experience, good humour and kindness.

“So why are you here?” he asked Tom, a genuine inquiry.

“I was sent by Mr McMaster.”

“And why was that, Tom?”

“I bit Alice Spencer’s finger – but she started it.”

“Well, we can’t have boys biting girls, can we now?”

Tom looked down, scuffed black school shoes, one of the laces untied, grey wool socks, loose round his ankles.

Mr Carpenter got up from his chair and came around to the front of his desk.

“Here goes,” thought Tom, clenching his buttocks in expectation...

Mr Carpenter put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and spoke quietly and clearly to him. “I want you to go back to the classroom and tell Mr McMaster that the matter has been dealt with. Please tell him that Mr Carpenter would like him to move you in the classroom today so that you are not sitting next to Alice Spencer any more. Perhaps it would be best if you sat next to a boy for the rest of today… Oh! And Tom, no more biting from now on, is that clear?”

Tom’s eyes reddened and filled with tears of relief.

“Yes,” he all but whispered.