I mashed a couple snowballs together, took one on the back, rose and threw. Nick dodged. Neither of us noticed the younger girl coming up behind us. Anyway, Nick dodged. It was a near miss for him. Just not for the girl. She caught the ball on the forehead. And that was the end of the fun.
She began crying. We dropped everything. We rushed towards her. Inspected her. There was no blood. There wasn’t likely to be; I didn’t have much of a throwing arm. Her right brow was red, though. We were consoling her. We were also worried. And rightly so; this was still the age of iron fist discipline and the strap. We knew kids who’d had the strap, no one in our class as yet, but we’d heard talk, none of it good.
Rumour had it that some kid had pulled his hand away at the last moment and Dick Litchfield had strapped his own hand. Dick was furious. Dick doled out two strokes for the kid having flinched. That was likely untrue. But urban myths prevail. And everyone loves a good horror story.
She would have none of our consoling. She went into the school, still crying, that damning red mark on her forehead witness to our impending doom. Before we know it, Mr. Reade was out the door, descending on us. The look on his face informed us that he was none too pleased with us. He took us by the collar and hauled us into the school, down the hall, and into the Principal's office. Mr. Litchfield was none too pleased with us, either. But Mr. Litchfield was also a wise gentleman.
He gave Nick and me a choice: the strap or two weeks detention during recess, doing long-hand division. Neither Nick nor I hesitated. Terrified of the strap, we spend the next two weeks at a table in the picture window across from Litchfield’s office brushing up on our math, and our marks went up with it.
That cagy Mr. Litchfield, forever a teacher. He knew how to dole out discipline.
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