In 1984, I was 12 years old and attending secondary school. I was seldom in trouble, and fully expected to get through my five years without experiencing corporal punishment at school. In fact, if the incident I’m relating to you now had occurred just a year later, I would have done so; the cane was banned in Spain in 1985.
I played field hockey, and we occasionally competed with other schools. One day, we had a match with girls from another school, and the referee did not do a good job keeping control of the match. There were fouls, and the game was growing ever more bad-tempered.
Late in the game, my teammate Laia fouled another girl, who promptly shoved her back. Laia hit her, and a fight ensued. My friends piled in and, not thinking, so did I. It was a chaotic melee. There were slaps, punches, and hair pulling as the referee frantically blew the whistle and tried to restore order.
Eventually, things calmed down, and we were marched off the field. Adrenaline was still coursing through me; I was furious at what had happened. That there would be consequences for joining in with the fight had not yet sunk in.
The next day, the headmaster addressed the school at assembly. He praised the boy’s soccer team, who had apparently won their match. Then he said: “The girl’s hockey team will report to my office at 3pm.” Oh dear! My heart began to beat a little faster.
All five of us met outside the head’s office at the appointed time. I knocked.
“Enter.”
We all filed in silently, and the headmaster told us to line up.
“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in all of you. Playing for the school is an honour and…” On and on he went until, at last, sentence was passed.
“You will either be suspended for two days or receive six strokes of the cane. Your parents will decide which punishment you receive. Bring these letters, signed by a parent, to school tomorrow.” Whereupon he distributed an envelope to each of us.
When I got home and handed Dad my note, he wasn’t mad – at least not like he had been when I’d been caught in an arcade and tried to steal. Instead, he calmly asked me what had happened. I tried to explain, but deep down I knew I’d screwed up. Dad looked at the letter, and ticked and signed the box next to the scary words: “I consent to corporal punishment being administered to my child.”
He looked at me again and said: “I hope it’s a lesson to you to exercise more self-control, Mireia.”
That night, I went to my twin brother’s room for comfort. Felipe had been caned at least once that I knew of – did he have any advice?
“Try to think of something else as it’s happening,” he told me. “Think about something nice, like doing something fun or eating something delicious. If you can tune out a bit, you’ll beat the pain.”
Of the five girls involved, three families had agreed to the cane being used. There was Laia, who had basically got us into this mess, myself and a third girl called Carlota. The other two sets of parents had opted for the suspension.
We were to report to the headmaster at three, wearing our PE kit. Canings were always delivered in PE kit at my school. Opinion was divided on why this was. Some said that a girl’s skirt provided more protection than a boy’s trousers, so it was a gender equality thing. This sounded unlikely to me.
Others believed that changing was part of the ritual of the punishment, providing a solemn moment to reflect on what we had done before facing the music. Some said it was just a tradition. Some believed that the material for our gym shorts was specially chosen to be light and thin, making it easily cut through. Whatever the case, that was the rule.
We all changed out of our uniform in grim silence in the changing room, then walked together down the hall to the dreaded office. Laia knocked.
“Enter.”
The headmaster stood behind his desk. Sitting in the corner, to my surprise, was the school secretary, Mrs Rodriguez. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I now know that for a male teacher to cane girls, a female witness was required.
In the headmaster’s hands was a long, thin rattan cane. Once we were all lined up, he swished it theatrically downwards through the air. The cane moved with terrifying rapidity and made a terrific whistling sound. The thought that it was soon to be applied to my body was unnerving. Even aged 12, I recognised that air whip as a power move.
The headmaster told us all to turn around, face the wall, and put our hands on our heads. We obeyed, wondering who would be thrashed first.
“Carlota,” he said, “Come here.”
Next to me, I saw Carlota turn and heard her shuffle forward nervously.
“Touch your toes.”
I wanted to turn around, to see what was happening. By twisting my neck very slightly, I could just see the headmaster out of the corner of my eye. Carlota, however, was beyond my field of vision.
The head raised his arm. There was a terrible swish and then a thud as it struck Carlota’s rear end. I heard Carlota gasp. The head’s arm went up again. The same ‘whizz-crack’ was heard. Being in the room and hearing but not seeing was very effective as part of the punishment. It raised your expectations to a height.
The head raised his cane again, and it whipped down for the fourth time. I risked a proper glance and turned to look. I could see Carlota’s white shorts, but there was no indication that she had lately been struck. Her long, brown ponytail hung loose across her neck. Carlota’s upturned bottom was swaying gently, perhaps trembling a little.
The fifth stroke looked terribly hard. It landed right on the soft part of her bottom, just above her thighs. Carlota wailed. At that point, Mrs Rodriguez saw me looking and gestured for me to face the wall. I did so, and the awful swish and the thud resounded throughout the room for the last time.
“Stand up. Face the wall with your hands on your head.”
It was Laia or me. I prayed that it would be me next. I just wanted this awful saga over with.
Next to me, Carlota was crying softly.
“Hands on head, Carlota. No rubbing. Mireia, here.”
I turned, my heart in my mouth. Remember, it was my first real beating and I was only 12. I took three steps, then heard the time-honoured words of doom: “Bend over!”
I complied, grasping my ankles, feeling my muscles tighten. I was glad the other girls were not watching! I decided to try to follow my brother’s advice. I began to think of happy memories. At first, I thought of playing with our puppy. But the blood was rushing to my head, and the images didn’t stay for long. I was rudely jerked back to reality by the first stroke of the cane landing on my bottom.
It was so hard, I almost overbalanced. It took a second for the nerve endings to awaken but when they did, a burning line of pain sprang up across my lower backside from left to right. I’d only been struck with a slipper or a hand before, and that first stroke of the cane caused a level of pain I’d not prepared for.
The head paused, then I heard the swish again. He landed it on almost exactly the same spot. It was then that I came to an awful realisation. As the pain flared up again, worse than before, I realised he was not hitting my bottom randomly – he was aiming the cane to cause maximum discomfort, and he was doing it by both attacking the softer, less muscular lower part of my buttocks and striking the same region each time, to layer pain upon pain.
I tried the happy thoughts trick. I thought of eating ice cream in the sun on holiday, and playing volleyball with my friends – including my crush – on the beach. But when the fourth stroke cut into my flesh, a lump sprang up in my throat. After the fifth, there were tears in my eyes. I’d hoped to keep silent. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of crying or squealing.
The sixth stroke broke me. Tears started rolling down my cheeks.
“Stand up and face the wall. Hands on your head. No rubbing.”
I limped back and stood next to Carlota, who was, by then, a bit calmer,
“Laia. Come here and touch your toes.”
I closed my eyes as Laia was thrashed. I wish I could have closed my ears too. My sore bottom was still throbbing angrily, but the ferocious, burning sting that had immediately followed each stroke eased quite quickly.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Laia did a better job of keeping silent than Carlota or me. After what seemed like a much shorter time than my thrashing had taken, Laia was back at our side. She wasn’t sobbing, but there was tell-tale glistening in her eyes.
“Turn around,” said the head. We all did so, our lips still trembling. “I have it on good authority that your opponents in hockey and combat have been punished as well. Try to make this your first and last caning. Now, get out and go home.”
Back in the changing room, we were uncharacteristically quiet, each wrestling with our own pain. I looked at my bottom in the mirror, and I could see the red lines and swelling where the cane had struck. The pain was easing – until I put my skirt back on, when it briefly flared again.
As we slung our bags over our backs to leave, Laia broke the silence. “I’m sorry. That was my fault. Thank you for standing up for me at the game.” We all hugged. In some way, sharing the experience in the headmaster’s office had brought us closer together.
Felipe came to my room that night.
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah. It hurt a lot at the time, but it’s OK now.”
“I got you these. To cheer you up.”
He handed me a small packet of sweets. I hugged him.
That night, exhausted but deeply relieved it was all over, I had the best night’s sleep I’d had in a week. The next morning, the pain was gone.
In my view, corporal punishment should be restored, but used sparingly and seldomly, for serious misconduct only. For example, I would never advocate the cane for low test scores or petty misdemeanours like cheeky backchat.
Some kids are natural rebels and will never be upstanding citizens. But most – and I was definitely one of this group – can be made to think about the consequences of wrongdoing with a painful correction, or even the threat of one. One thing is for sure – six of the best were enough for one lifetime for me.
Contributor: Mireia