Mr-Beal *

Mr-Beal.

"I would like to see Moss in my office after Assembly." "Oh God now what!" I thought.

It was the first day back at school after a long summer holiday and I had that dreaded feeling in my stomach that something untoward was about to happen. I'd forgotten about my escapades in those six weeks of blissfully long days and lazy afternoons, but someone was about to remind me of them and it was imminent.

Standing outside the headmasters office waiting for the call was in itself a punishment. It was situated where everybody had to pass to get to their allotted classrooms, and as peers past by they would either offer encouragement or derision, mostly the latter in my case.
I seemed to make a habit of visiting Mr-Beal and it was never for a commendation, a cup of tea or to say how well I'd done at football, it was always the same......................trouble.

"Enter" said the voice in a soft but menacing tone .
The smell of that room was always the same and I could never put a name to it.

Mr-Beal handed me a photograph and said "Is this your handiwork Moss?" I was suddenly looking at a goalpost that resembled a log having been enthusiastically chewed by a famished beaver. It was at that moment the whole incident flashed before me in slow motion, like a Viking raid on a small village.
I'd hated football and was always punished by the sports teacher, a Miss Tindink she would not tolerate anyone turning up without a football kit, me and a few others were made to run around the pitch until the game was over. No big deal, but on the last day of term her punishment for us was a humiliating one and we had to run on the spot in our underwear, embarrassing to say the least, underpants in those days weren't exactly 'Calvin Klein' they were more like a loin cloth cast off from 'Gandhi' . I was determined to get even for that excruciating moment.

The first few hacks on that white post were for the teacher herself, I cursed her as I slowly began to cut it down with an axe I'd borrowed from our wood shed.
I had visions of becoming a lumber jack when someone shouted out. I looked around and I could see the groundsman running towards me waving his arms like a demented octopus, he looked very determined to catch me and was in full flight with a distinct air of Roger Bannister about him. With all that running around the field in the last few weeks there was no way I was going to get caught and I didn't, well actually I did, unfortunately I was recognized by someone else who happened to know the groundsman.

"Yes Sir" it was me I admitted, I looked at the carpet, it was green with white flecks, you couldn't help notice it when assuming the position bent over the desk, and I prepared myself for two strokes of the cane.
Three strokes later I was feeling very flushed and was close to tears but was determined not to blub and I didn't.

Later that same day I was showing my mates the weals on my bum, they seemed to think it was more funny than I did. Only they could see, the marks that had been left on my posterior; including the crack, it resembled an asterisk almost perfectly.
Looking back I think Mr-Beal had a sense of humour. He always took his time whilst carrying out the punishment and would position himself very precisely before delivering each stroke, as if to make his mark to warn others, who he knew would see the outcome in the toilets after the event.

It wasn't until many years after this event I eventually figured out what that smell was in Mr-Beals office..............It was Fear. Even to this day the sight of a Mortarboard has the same effect on me.