Rain poured down out of a leaden sky, dull light through the window falling across damp black hair and onto the shadowed face of a girl who had almost certainly been recently crying.

She sprawled in a dark armchair, feet lying carelessly on the table, and shifting her weight occasionally from side to side. Periodic sniffles and the soft sound of turning pages punctuated the monotonous tattoo of the rain on the glass, as she pretended to read Canterbury Tales but in reality brooded over the dreadful injustice visited upon those who are fifteen years old.

On the face of it, Cassie admitted, it was understandable that her uncle should be angry; she had, after all, disappeared for the whole morning, and with the storm springing up out of nowhere it was natural that he should be concerned. But she had only been out walking - well, mostly walking - with Jeremiah Morris, and surely no girl could be expected to remember something silly like telling people where she was going when a boy as handsome as that asked her to go walking.

Uncle Marcus didn't understand this at all; almost before the door had swung shut he had whisked her into the sitting-room, where she soon found herself arse up and pants down with his hand smacking away at her cold wet bottom.

Now she was warm and dry, and the sting had begun to fade, but what disturbed Cassie most was the slow, lazy heat between her legs that had begun while she was kissing Jeremiah in the trees, disappearing briefly while she was howling over Uncle Marcus's knee, only to return with greater intensity as she afterward stood sobbing out her contrition into his shoulder and having her tears kissed away.

Cassie felt that it was indignity enough to be spanked over her uncle's knee at fifteen years old, but having smouldering lust heaped on top of it like coals only made it worse; and it was spoiling a really good sulk, too.

She heard footsteps in the hallway and hastily took her feet off the table as light flooded the room and Uncle Marcus said, "You're going to go blind reading in the dark like that."

"It's not that dark," she said, closing the book. "Anyway, I was just watching the rain."

"Still sulking, are you?" He sat down on the sofa opposite her, his face a contrasting mirror to her own; same deep blue eyes, same smooth pale skin, same finely etched features; but where her hair fell straight down, his danced in waves around his shoulders, and his eyes were as merry as hers were fretful, his lips curving into a smile as he spoke.

"I've had a letter from Julian," he said, taking a folded piece of paper from another pocket and opening it up. "Looks like there's been a shakeup in staff down at school. Old Arcturus Stone has retired, and they've made Faustus Greenwood the new headmaster."

Cassie tried to look only politely interested, but this news was enough to pull her nearly out of her funk. If Professor Greenwood was headmaster, he'd no longer be teaching English literature, and she wouldn't have to finish reading the horrible Canterbury Tales after all.

Marcus said, "They've hired young Wilinus Perks to take over for Faustus."

"Willy Perks?" said Cassie, indignantly. "They can't let him be a teacher. He hasn't even been out of school that long."

"Long enough to go to university," said Marcus with a shrug. "The board doesn't ask me for recommendations. But here, I've saved the best for last: now that old Faustus is headmaster, they've made Julian head of Wolf House."

"Really?" said Cassie, dropping Canterbury Tales on the floor and crossing over to look at the letter. "Well, we'll have a bit of fun this year... I mean," she continued after Marcus gave her a look, "he'll be very good." But she was secretly delighted by this news. Julian Alton and Marcus Black had been best friends since they were at school together, and she'd always been a pet of his. This had been rather a bonus when she only had him for history and Latin; with him as house master she was sure to get away with murder.

"I wouldn't start planning a lot of foolishness if I were you." Marcus dropped the letter on the table. "Faustus plans to tighten things up, and I think Julian approves. So do I, if it comes to that. Old Stone's been sleeping on the job for years; it's about time for someone to stop you youngsters from running wild."

Cassie thought privately that this was outrageous, but said nothing. Attempts to point out any youthful misbehaviour on the part of her uncle always ended in a pointed lecture about who was raising whom, and an offer to fetch granddad's old strap and let her find out personally if justice had been done back in those days.

Instead she teased her uncle into telling her stories about his schooldays until teatime, thus neatly avoiding both Chaucer and the disturbing thoughts that had occupied her earlier; but she dreamed all that night of being spanked by a medieval priest who shouted at her in gibberish, and all the while Jeremiah Harking, looking very solemn, had his fingers between her legs, bringing her to one orgasm after another.

Cassie went back to school with the best of intentions, promising her uncle as she kissed him goodbye to stay out of trouble. This was an entirely sincere promise, and she even remembered it for a couple of weeks, especially as Perks on only the second day of school had bent Andromeda Starling over his desk and given her half a dozen very hard smacks with a ruler, for arriving late to class.

The stricken girl ran straight to Alton's office after class and sobbed out the tale of this heinous treatment, but Alton only said, "And were you late to class, Andromeda?"

"Well, yes, sir, but..."

"Well, then, I'm afraid Professor Perks was well within his rights to give you a good smacking. See that you're on time from now on, why don't you?"

Andromeda had told them all about it at supper that night, still sniffling dramatically, and refused to return Alton's friendly wave as he walked by the table. Cassie privately thought that the only thing hurting by that time was Andromeda's pride, but in any case she took special care to be on time for literature lessons.

All this, however, flew straight out of her head when, during the second week of school, her best friend and roommate Rowan Murphy stuck her head in the dormitory door and said, "Up for a bit of fun?"

A bit of fun turned out to be a purloined bottle of Scotch whisky and a previously undiscovered door with a rusted old padlock on it. Behind it was a stairwell that went straight up to the roof. Rowan had spent five industrious minutes with a stolen hacksaw, catching falling bits of rust on a sheet of paper. When these were mixed with water and carefully brushed onto the sawed-through hasp, the padlock looked completely undisturbed, and, as Rowan pointed out virtuously, she had returned the saw to the groundskeeper's shed, so no one would be the wiser.

They went to bed early that night, stifling giggles in their pillows as they waited for lights-out and then lay under their blankets watching for the prefects going from room to room with lamps, checking that each girl was snug in her bed. When at last the muted light shone into their door, Rowan called out with great irritation, "All right, all right, we're here, now get that damned light out of my face."

"Watch your mouth, Murphy," said the prefect, but moved on. The girls forced themselves to wait for another hour, until they were sure the prefects were in bed, and then tiptoed out of the dormitory, through the common room, and up to the old forgotten door. Rowan slipped the padlock off and put it on the landing just inside, and in a few minutes they were up in the cool air on the roof.

They spent an hour drinking, giggling over school gossip, and exchanging the sorts of confidences girls do, before they began to feel sleepy, and made their way back down the stairs, fixing the padlock back in place and creeping back to the dormitory. They were just inside the door, and in fact Cassie was already in bed, when Rowan said, "Blast, I've lost a contact lens."

"So what," said Cassie sleepily. "You've got boxes of them."

"No," said Rowan with intoxicated firmness. "I've got to go and look. I must have dropped it in the common room. I'll be right back."

A few minutes later Cassie heard a crash and muffled cursing, followed to her horror by Alton's weary voice saying, "Rowan, what are you doing?" She jumped out of bed, hurried quietly down the stairs, opened the door a crack, and peeked through.

Rowan was not-quite-swaying on her feet - only the barest movement of her long red hair betrayed a hint of unsteadiness. She looked Alton square in the eye and said, "Lost my contact lens, sir."

Cassie almost groaned out loud at the look on Alton's face. He said, "And may I ask why you felt it necessary to come and look for it at two o'clock in the morning?" His nose twitched. "And why it smells of liquor in here?"

Rowan ignored the first question. "It's this herbal tonic my auntie gave me," she said. Cassie put her hands over her face. Rowan lived with her dotty old great-aunt in the next village over from Cassie and her uncle, and while it was not too farfetched an idea that the old lady might have given Rowan something she called a tonic, it was entirely ludicrous for anyone to think Rowan would actually drink it, since it might contain anything from catnip to drain cleaner.

"Well, I expect Dr. Harking would like to have a look at it, then," said Alton. "Why don't you go and fetch it, and I'll take it along to him in the morning."

"Oh, I threw it away, sir," said Rowan, with what she obviously thought was a look of earnest sincerity. "It tasted funny."

"Just bring the bottle, then."

"Can't do that, sir. It broke when I threw it in the bin."

Alton sighed, his expression somewhere between amusement and exasperation. "Do you know, Rowan, that I don't believe you? And that in fact I don't believe there can possibly be any legitimate reason for you to be crashing around this common room at two o'clock in the morning smelling like a distillery?"

"Well!" Rowan puffed up with the special brand of righteous indignation possessed only by those who are drunk and guilty, but seemed temporarily at a loss for words. "Well!"

"Well?" Alton repeated. When there was no response from Rowan, he said, "All right, come here. Watch my hand." He passed his finger quickly from one side of her face to the other, then back again, and watched her eyes jitter as they tried to keep up. "Yes, you're quite drunk. I'd be wasting my time to punish you now, not to mention waking up half the dormitory."

Rowan, who had deflated somewhat, looked relieved.

"So I think I'll see you in my office, directly after breakfast tomorrow," Alton continued. "Bright and early. Eight-thirty, I think, and don't be late. Now go and find your bed, Rowan." He took her arm and began to walk her toward the door, and Cassie dashed up the steps to bed.

The following morning Cassie went with Rowan to Alton's office, slipping unseen into the classroom just before Rowan knocked on the door. It was a little-known fact about Alton's classroom that behind a wall hanging bearing the school crest was a wide crack that gave one a clear view of most of the office, and Cassie intended to watch Rowan's punishment. Rowan had made a great show of protesting this idea and extracting a promise for the favour to be returned in kind, but Cassie knew she didn't really care; Rowan was the biggest exhibitionist in the world. Cassie settled in behind the hanging and pressed her face to the crack. She could see Alton shuffling papers at his desk, still wearing his cloak, his black academic gown hanging neatly in the corner.

He looked up at the knock on the door and called, "Come in, Rowan," rising from his seat and coming around to lean against the front of his desk, throwing the cloak off his shoulders, his normally mild countenance replaced with a dreadful look of practiced disapproval.

Rowan entered the room, her school uniform still very neat here at the beginning of the day: Shoes well shined and charcoal-gray socks pulled up snugly over long legs, skirt smooth across her narrow waist with dark pleats falling tidily even around her bare knees, school tie with an immaculate Windsor knot lying tamely across the curve of her breasts under the crisp white shirt. Even her incorrigible red hair was still tightly braided, and all five feet seven inches of her radiated youthful contrition, green eyes downcast, toes turned slightly in, and hands twisting behind her back.

Cassie was impressed; she herself didn't look that innocent even when she was innocent.

"I'm sorry to say," Alton began, "that you are the very first student I've had to punish this term; and so soon, too. No," he held up his hand, "I don't want to hear explanations, Rowan. You cannot possibly have an excuse for stumbling around the school after lights-out and three sheets to the wind, so let's not waste our time on that."

"Yes, sir," mumbled Rowan, still staring at the floor.

Alton rose and walked around behind her. "I might have overlooked your being out of bed and in the common room," he said, "if you hadn't so obviously been plastered, and if I thought that was the only place you had been." He paused, directly behind her, and said, "But I think we both know that's not the case, don't we?"

Rowan raised her head, but it was apparent that she didn't dare look round. She waited a moment before saying, "Yes, sir."

"Yes," said Alton, resuming his circuit. "And so here we are." He stopped in front of her and Rowan held his eyes only for an instant before dropping hers again. "I should be well within my rights to use the cane," he went on, "and don't think I didn't consider it. If you'd been caught by anyone else you'd have gone straight to the headmaster, and it would have reflected very poorly on my house."

"Yes, sir."

"However..." Alton leaned against his desk again and put his hands in his pockets. "It is very early in the term, and miraculously this is your first offence. No," he continued as Rowan looked up hopefully, "I will not let you off with a warning; we'd be here again in a fortnight doing it all again. And I know it will do no good to write to your great-aunt, so I won't bother with that. What I'm going to give you is just a reminder, Rowan." He went behind the desk, opened a drawer, and extracted a dark wooden paddle, eighteen inches long and smooth and shiny with wear. Rowan made a small indistinct noise of dismay, and Alton shook his head at her and said in a businesslike voice, "Over my desk, please."

Rowan said, "Yes, sir," and bent obediently over the desk, taking care not to disturb his papers.

Alton raised her pleated wool skirt and tucked it neatly up into its own waistband, exposing her sensible dark school knickers, tapping the seat of them with the paddle and saying, "Bottom well out, please. That's better." He tapped again. "A round dozen will do it, I think." And without further preamble he drew his arm back and landed a solid swat right in the middle of Rowan's backside.

The breath went out of her with a grunt, and she barely had time for a gasp before he aimed two more thudding blows at the same spot, causing her to squeak, "Ow!"

"Yes, that hurts, doesn't it," said Alton rhetorically, aiming three more blows at the tops of her thighs, where they made horrible smacking sounds on her bare skin.

Cassie heard Rowan take a long shuddering breath and let it out with a small sob. Alton nodded and, with the small smile of someone who feels progress has been made, said, "Having regrets, are you, Rowan?"

"Yes, sir," Rowan answered and now there was no mistaking the tears in her voice. Sure enough, the next thwack of the paddle on her bottom produced a moan that became a full-blown yelp as he followed it quickly with two more.

"I won't be seeing you in this position again, then?" inquired Alton, tapping her with the paddle again.

"No, sir!"

"Hmm." Alton looked sceptical. "Not anytime soon, anyway. Three more, then." He raised the paddle and brought it down first on one buttock, then the other, finishing with an almighty smack where he had started, right in the middle. Then he stood back, surveying his handiwork, as Rowan lay across the desk, breathing deeply, but not quite crying. The tops of her thighs and chubby little bulges of bottom that had worked their way out of the heavy cotton leg-bands were as bright a red as her thick braids, and Cassie's hands went to her own unblemished backside in sympathy. It had not been an extremely hard paddling, but certainly hard enough to make a morning spent sitting on unforgiving wooden chairs quite uncomfortable.

Finally Alton said, "All right, up you get, and into the corner until class starts, please." He glanced at the clock as Rowan made her way to the corner behind his desk, sniffling and smoothing her skirt down perhaps more than was necessary. "You have twenty minutes."

Cassie slipped out from behind the hanging and stole back to the classroom door, her heart pounding. She had never seen Alton give anyone anything more than a few whacks with a ruler; certainly he had never spanked her and she was glad of it.

Well, mostly glad, anyway; but the aching wet tingle between her legs had returned, and with it a hot and intemperate yearning to feel Alton's hand slapping her bare arse until it glowed.