by John Booth
My new status as hero was also recognized in college where it generated some strange results. Sheila Armitage came up to Kylie while I was away and told her how brave I was, and how she hoped I would be coming back to college soon. My doctor said I could can go back on Monday. I was looking forward to it, as doing school work at home was much less desirable to me since Kylie became my friend.
My inability to do my paper round was also causing problems. Because I’d been told to avoid straining my wounded arm I couldn’t carry the newspaper sack. Len Barrowclough had been doing the round himself while his wife minded the store. He made a few mistakes that didn’t go down well with his customers, and he resorted to sending me messages begging me to return to work as soon as I could.
Kylie’s remaining brother, Dick, has lost his right leg since I last wrote and was sent to a hospital in the south where they have better facilities. My father, acting as my solicitor, received a letter from the Crown Prosecution Service saying I wouldn’t be prosecuted for his injuries as I acted in self-defense. If Dick recovered, he would be charged with attempted murder.
The press had a field day with the idea of killer snakes and their unusual desire to bite the genitals of the two men. One of those pundit scientist types developed the theory that because the snakes were mating they had picked up the smell of male pheromones from the two’s genital regions and saw them as potential rivals. My theory was that it was something the snakes had picked up from my desire to castrate the bastards, but that wasn’t a theory I was ready to share with the press.
The local council decided that for the safety of the villagers all the snakes must be removed from area around the sawmill, and sent in a team of people dressed in what looked like spacesuits to remove them. During the two days they spent they found two snakes and one of those was a grass snake.
It has been a bad time for Jane and Sally. A series of nasty incidents of vandalism were traced back to the two of them. Stones had been thrown and windows broken, the word ‘Jane’ was scrawled in paint over two cars. Len reported to the police that a number of items had been stolen from his shop and they were found by Sally’s parents, hidden in Sally’s room.
Despite the fact that both fourteen years olds were well and truly grounded, every incident occurred during the periods when they were out of their parent’s sight. Everybody in the village, with the exception of Kylie and me, believed the girls to be guilty. By and large, we deal with things like that among ourselves, as nobody likes to bring in the police, but anger against Sally and Jane was rising like a flood.
According to Kylie, both children were showing signs of being physically punished. Such things are supposed to be illegal in England, but in places such as Felorton, which is remote from London and the police, laws like that tend to be ignored. I suppose that if the two girls decided to report it to the social services their parents might be prosecuted. If that happened they would end up in a Care, a thing I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
Jane and Sally was the subject uppermost on Kylie’s mind when she came to visit me this morning.
“You have to do something to help them, Andrew. I’m sure Jane and Sally aren’t doing any of these things.” She helped herself to the toast and marmalade on my plate. I wouldn’t mind, but she’d just eaten her own toast while I was brewing a pot of tea, and eating mine as well seemed a little greedy.
“Perhaps they’ve been stealing their parents toast as well,” I pointed out, “That’s a good enough reason for anybody to get a spanking.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Kylie replied, clearly missing my point, and in fact reaching over as she spoke to take my last slice of toast. “These kids are being punished for things they didn’t do.”
“Well, considering how many things they have done in the past that they weren’t punished for, this is just natural justice coming into play.” I slapped her hand as she reached for the half eaten slice of toast I foolishly put down on my plate while sipping tea. Kylie wasn’t a thin girl as she had one of those broader figures, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her. This was difficult to comprehend, when I considered how much food she ate whenever she came to visit.
“You should use all that respect you have in the village to persuade their parents to stop hitting them.”
“Firstly, I would lose all that respect if I tried. Secondly, while ever they are tied to these incidents nobody will believe me, and last, but by no means least, I quite enjoy the idea of them being punished. It pays them back for all the misery they’ve inflicted on me.”
“But Andrew, they want to be the first girl’s to take your virginity.” Kylie said in an angelic voice.
“And that’s an even better reason for me to stay well away from them, especially Jane.” I went to the toaster and put in another couple of slices of toast for Kylie. ‘She’s getting you trained’ a voice at the back of my mind said, but I chose to ignore it.
“What do you think their motive is?” Kylie said, almost, but not quite, changing the subject.
“You mean the motive of those setting up Jane and Sally? I don’t know. You’d think that evil spirits freed after God knows how long would be grateful to the people who freed them, rather than framing them for things.” I poured another cup of tea for Kylie, as she was waving her empty cup in my direction and I was getting better at this reading a girl’s mind stuff.
“Unless they didn’t do it right,” Kylie said thoughtfully. “That could be the reason. Maybe those spirits aren’t all the way back. You said that in your dream they were only half there and you couldn’t see them all the time.”
“Kylie, that was only a dream,” There might have been a little exasperation in my voice.
“Well, have you got any better ideas?” Kylie asked. I buttered her slices of toast and she waved her hand towards me in a ‘give me them’ sort of way.
“No I don’t. But where does that leave us.”
“We have to go visit the girls and ask them about it right away.”
“Not, Jane. I’m not going anywhere near her or her mother whatever you say.” I’d been having flashbacks of Mrs. Bradshaw hugging me in the middle of the night, and waking up dripping with sweat. For some reason, I didn’t dream about Kylie’s brothers attacking us. I guess there are more frightening things to my subconscious than thugs with knives trying to kill me.
“Sally Heatley it is then,” Kylie stood up and grabbed her last piece of toast, “Come on then, what are you waiting for?”
We hurried down to the Heatley’s house, which was close to where Kylie lived. Kylie set off at a fast pace and I had trouble keeping up, as I couldn’t get my injured left arm into the sleeve of my jacket. Kylie took pity on me eventually and stopped to help me put the damned thing on. She gave me her toast to hold while she did it, with strict instructions for me not to even take a bite.
When we arrived at the Heatley’s house Kylie pressed the doorbell and stepped back, leaving me once again to deal with the adults of the house.
Jenny Heatley came to the door. She’s twenty-five and the oldest daughter of the family and I had a severe crush on her when I was seven. I was surprised to see her as she left home a few years ago and was living in Darcester with her boyfriend.
“Hi Andrew, do you know how famous you are? I’ve had several free drinks by telling people I knew you when you were a boy.” Jenny looked at me expectantly, obviously wondering why I had come.
“Err... Can we speak to Sally please? There are some things we’d like to ask her if it’s not too much of a bother.”
“She hasn’t done anything to you or your friend has she?” Jenny looked towards Kylie, “I know you’re Kylie, because you’ve been in all the papers. That’s why I’m here instead of Darcester, guarding the little witch while Mum and Dad are out shopping. They can’t trust her to be on her own these days.”
“It’s important we talk to her. We think these things are being done by someone else, not her or Jane.”
“
Then you’re the only ones in the village who does. I think she’s been doing it and I haven’t even been here. The sooner the usual suspects are broken up the better, in my opinion.” Jenny waved us into the house, “Come in and welcome. She’s up in her room and believe me, you’re more than welcome to her.”
I led Kylie up to Sally’s room. Over the years, you get to know the layout of everybody’s homes, though I couldn’t remember when I’d last been in this house.
I knocked on Sally’s door, and when there was no answer, walked in. Sally wore a flower patterned thin summer dress that made her look older. She was lying on her tummy on her bed, but jumped up when we came in and gave me a beaming smile. I gave her room a quick visual once over, noting the new bars on her window and the large padlock securing them. Her parents were certainly doing their best to keep her in.
Kylie plopped herself down on Sally’s bed and I sat down in the one chair in the room, this left Sally standing and looking expectantly at me.
“Come to visit the prisoner, have you? This is the only room I’m allowed in except for the toilet, without an escort. They’ve even put a bar on the toilet window so I can’t escape through it.”
“We don’t think you’ve been doing these things,” Kylie said from a horizontal position on the bed.
“That’s what I keep telling everybody, but they don’t believe me. Do you know what my Dad did when he found Len Barmy-Clough’s stuff in my room?” she waited indignantly for us to respond, but neither of us said a word. “He cut a branch from the tree in the back garden and he did this to me!”
Sally spun so she had her back to me and lifted her dress above her waist. She wasn’t wearing any underwear, probably because it was too painful, and her bottom was crisscrossed with red stripes and a certain amount of blue bruising. Rather than drop her dress she twisted her body to try and look at it herself. “It hurts like hell.”
“Put it away,” Kylie said dryly, “Or I shall tell Andrew to put you over his knee and you can find out what it feels like when he spanks you on it.”
Sally looked as though she was seriously considering the option. I averted my eyes and looked out through the window.
“Cow,” Sally muttered under her breath before dropping her dress reluctantly back into its proper position.
“I should report them to Childline or something.”
“Then the authorities would put you into Care.” I said, stating the obvious.
“It isn’t fair,” Sally wailed.
“What did you do wrong with your spell in the oak tree?” Kylie said, sitting up on the bed.
“Nothing, we went to a lot of trouble to get it right... cow.”
Kylie leaned forward and smacked Sally hard on her bottom. Sally yelped in anguish.
“We’re trying to help you and you will be honest with us,” Kylie said angrily.
“We did it right, we did it absolutely perfect,” Sally turned so she was facing Kylie and far enough away from her so Kylie couldn’t hit her again. This put her in an ideal position for me, so I smacked her bottom too and put a little bit of all those years she had annoyed me into the force of it.
“Tell the truth, Sally,” I ordered her as she gave out an intense sob.
“Okay, we did one small thing different. But what does it matter?” Sally had her back against the window, rubbing her bottom with both hands.
“If it doesn’t matter, why lie to us about it?” I asked.
Sally grinned at us, “Force of habit, I suppose. You two make a wicked team, did you know?”
“Andrew will spank you properly if you don’t stop messing us about,” Kylie threatened.
“Might be worth it,” Sally said, as she gave me a leer that positively frightened me. “We were supposed to kill a cat in the ceremony, but even we aren’t that bad and besides have you ever tried carrying a live cat in a bag? They fight back. Brian found a dead one, so we used that. We were supposed to cut its throat too, but that was gross so we only pretended. What does it matter anyway?”
“We think,” I said, “That you didn’t totally free the spirits trapped in the tree and they’re taking revenge on you.” As I said this, I realized it sounded utterly insane, but Sally seriously considered the idea.
“The ceremony tipped the tree over, like it said would happen in the book. But the tree was supposed to turn black and die immediately afterwards and that didn’t happen. So you might be right.”
When the import of this statement registered, I grabbed Sally, and pulled her struggling body over my knee. “Do you mean to tell me this spell was designed for that particular tree and you didn’t tell us?” I was furious with her. This wasn’t any kind of an accident. The kids had planned the whole thing.
At that moment, Jenny walked in carrying three cups of tea on a tray.
“Don’t mind me, Andrew, you just carry on,” she said putting the tray down on the bedside table and sitting down on the bed next to Kylie to watch, “Make sure you hit her really hard. She’s got it coming.”
To the watching girls’ disappointment, I let Sally slide to the floor and I stormed out of the house. I don’t hit girls, no matter how much they deserve it.
12. Spells and Associations
I was halfway back to my home when Kylie caught up with me. She was out of breath with running, so she dragged me to a stop and we ended up sitting on the low stone wall of the churchyard. Then she sat there laughing and gasping in equal measures while I slowly calmed down.
“I’m not the kind of creep who beats up girls,” I explained to her.
“Well you certainly disappointed a few back there,” Kylie said as she got her breathing under control. She was still laughing though.
“You and Jenny might have been disappointed…”
“It was Sally who you let down the most. If you’d seen the look of loss on her face when she found herself sprawled on the floor…” It was all too much for Kylie and she started laughing again.
“Kylie,” I said seriously and disapprovingly, “If I had done what I wanted to, Sally would have been screaming and bawling her head off. I had to stop myself because I really wanted to smack her long and hard.”
“You are so naïve, Andrew. Yes, she would’ve done all those things and it would truly have hurt while you were doing it, but later on, she would’ve had the memory of a moment of intimacy with you. Because she knows in her heart you’ll never be her boyfriend.”
“That’s insane, girls are all insane,” I spluttered. However, that’s simply a truism I think I’ll have to learn to live with.
“My brothers used to spank me. Dave did it because he enjoyed the power trip while Dick spanked me when he wanted me to do something and I said no.” Kylie said quietly.
“You don’t have to tell me any of this,” I said, which was code for ‘please shut up immediately because I don’t want to know.’ Naturally, she ignored me and carried on with her story. One big difference between boys and girls is that boys worry when they don’t understand girls and upset them, while girls just expect you to get over whatever they do to you.
“Sometimes I would say ‘no’ just so one of them would do it. It lessened the guilt and it was exciting. It gets your blood racing and you can forget who you are. They held me tight to stop me getting away, and that made it feel as if they cared. It’s an intimate thing to do, whether you like it or not.” Kylie paused and then smiled again. “Jenny said you can come back anytime and start right where you left off. She said she’d phone you at home when she was babysitting, if that would help.”
“I may have to leave this damned village if this stuff carries on. I’m only a teenager, not a saint.”
“Older than me, why I won’t even be…” Kylie stopped in mid-sentence and I knew exactly why.
“…be seventeen until your birthday next Wednesday,” I completed for her, “I know all about that.”
“How? Who?” Kylie was flustered. She’d not mentioned it recently, even when I cunningly a
sked her things like, ‘Are you doing anything special next week?’
“As I think you have remarked before, your Aunt Jen does have a way with words.”
“Now there’s someone who needs a good spanking for blabbing my secrets to every Tom, Dick and Andrew.”
I saw an opportunity to get my own back, but it required me to keep a straight face and put on an absolutely serious sounding voice.
“Now spanking an older woman? God! I can’t half see the attraction in that.”
The next few minutes involved blocking the rain of blows Kylie peppered me with. I noted she carefully avoided hitting me anywhere near my injured arm. I spent the time yelling, “I was only kidding”, in-between peals of laughter. In the end, she gave up, exhausted.
“You know, you keep acting like a wimp and I wonder what I see in you and then you say something like that,” Kylie said as she wiped tears of laughter from her eyes.
I looked at my watch and was surprised it was only one o’clock in the afternoon as it seemed to me the day had been going on forever. I was hungry and I suspected Kylie was too. With her it seemed to be built in response to an hour going by.
“Why don’t we buy some lunch from the Post Office and then go and dangle our toes in the Fell as we eat?”
Kylie face fell, “I don’t have any cash.”
I raised myself into a fully upright position and said in my most pompous voice, “Young lady, I am an old fashioned boy from an old fashioned part of the country and when a boy asks a girl out for a meal, he expects to have to pay for it. Come on, wench!”
I slipped off the wall and started walking. Kylie laughed and followed She was muttering things like, ‘Yes your worship’ and ‘You’re too good to a poor girl from the city’ and so on in a servile voice, but I chose to rise above it and ignore her.
