Accident Prone Linda finds a friend

By the Bitchfinder General

After her parents’ visit to St Phillippa’s, Linda sank into misery. She tried desperately to keep a low profile but Mel and Kim continued to taunt and bully her mercilessly. Another girl in her class, Tiffany, took pity on the young Linda and invited her to a party in her room. Tiffany was a popular girl and she had many friends at the party. Choked with jealousy, Mel and Kim (who did not get on with Tiffany in any case) decided to punish both girls.

The party was going on without incident until, 10 minutes before its scheduled end, Mel and Kim, neither of whom had been invited, struck their first blow. The fire alarm, which was situated right next to the room in which Tiffany was having her party, suddenly went off. Mel, carefully wearing gloves, was the girl responsible for the sudden commotion. As the girls rushed out of the room, panicking, Kim crept in and planted some cans of beer and cigarettes. She also cornered Linda and had just enough time to force a lit cigarette into her mouth and then push a few drops of beer down her throat, before she heard the approaching footsteps of the headmistress and ran.

As Miss Taylor came upon the scene, she saw within a few seconds that there was no fire. Turning off the alarm switch, she rounded fiercely on the girls.

‘Who set that alarm off?’ she shouted. No one answered, of course. Striding into the room, she saw at once the evidence of smoking and drinking. ‘Girls!’ she shouted, even angrier now. ‘Who brought cigarettes and alcohol into this room?’

Again, nobody owned up. A furious Miss Taylor ordered all the girls to assemble at once in the school hall and wait for her arrival.

In the meantime, Mel had planted some packets of cigarettes and cans of beer in Linda’s locker. She rushed off to tell her mother, falsely as usual, that she had seen Tiffany setting off the alarm. The headmistress, in the meantime, was busily searching all the girls’ rooms, and then she began a locker search. It was then that the contraband was found, in Linda’s locker, of course. Sighing, Miss Taylor returned to the hall, being accosted along the way by Laura Hammond, bringing her the news that Tiffany had set off the fire alarm.

‘Very well, girls,’ said Miss Taylor, ‘I will give the culprits one last chance to own up. Who set off the fire alarm?’ Nobody answered, and the headmistress then turned to her next topic. ‘Who brought cigarettes and alcohol into the school?’ Again, no one owned up.

A grim-faced Miss Taylor then called out, ‘Linda, come over here. I want to smell your breath!’ A resigned Linda bowed to the inevitable. The tell-tale odour of cigarettes and beer still lingered on her breath. As Miss Taylor turned her attention to Tiffany, Linda was already preparing herself for yet another hiding from the headmistress.

‘Tiffany, I’m surprised, at you,’ Miss Taylor continued. ‘I’ve heard that you were the one who set off the fire alarm. And, of course, you’ve allowed your room to be used for the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. I can only assume that Linda is a bad influence upon you.’

It was then that Linda surprised everyone, even herself, by speaking up. She already knew that she was doomed to another caning. Even so, she had been touched by Tiffany’s kindness towards her, and determined to protect the girl if she could possibly do so.

‘Please, Miss Taylor, it’s all my fault,’ she said quietly. ‘I brought the cigarettes and beer, and I was the only one who drank and smoked them. Tiffany didn’t know and when she found out she told me off. You don’t want to punish her, honestly. Just punish me. And it wasn’t her who set off the fire alarm either. It was me.’ ‘Well, I am pleased to see that you finally had the decency to own up to your disgraceful behaviour,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘All the same, Tiffany allowed you to smoke and drink in her room. That is unacceptable behaviour on her part and she must be punished for it. Tiffany Morris, you will receive 6 strokes of the cane as a punishment for neglecting your duties. Linda Marshall, you will receive 6 strokes for setting off the fire alarm, 6 for the smoking and 6 for the drinking offences, a total of 18 strokes.’

Again Linda surprised everybody. ‘Please, Miss Taylor, it isn’t fair to punish Tiffany for what I did wrong. She didn’t know and as soon as she found out she stopped me. Please let me take her 6 strokes instead.’

There was a stunned silence when Linda said that. Tiffany stared at the young girl in a mixture of disbelief, admiration and affection. Even the other girls looked sympathetically at Linda, and Mel and Kim almost felt ashamed of what they had done.

‘I don’t think you understand what you’re asking,’ Miss Taylor told her. ‘As you are now going to receive a Level 3 punishment, all strokes will be doubled. At Level 2, you would have received 18 strokes; at Level 3, 36. If you take on Tiffany’s strokes as well we will have to double them. And, from Level 2 onwards, all strokes are rounded up. That means you will receive 50 strokes instead of 36, whereas Tiffany would only receive 6 strokes as this is her first ever punishment and she is only on Level 1.’

Linda swallowed hard and thought for a few seconds before saying, ‘I’ll take the 50 strokes, Miss Taylor.’ ‘Very well,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘You will take the extra strokes instead. All the same, Tiffany, you had better watch your behaviour in future. I don’t want you to forget the lesson you’ve learned today.’ ‘No, Miss Taylor,’ said Tiffany, though with a quite different meaning from what the headmistress thought she was implying. ‘I won’t forget today, don’t worry.’

As Linda received her 24 strokes in front of the school, naked as usual, counting and expressing her gratitude for each one, Tiffany scowled fiercely at Mel and Kim. She knew that Linda was as innocent as she was of any offence, but because of the clever way in which the two girls had framed her, she had been unable to avoid punishment. Even so, her decision to take Tiffany’s punishment as well as her own stunned everyone, especially Tiffany herself, who had never imagined that Linda had so much spirit. From that moment on she determined to protect the young girl with every means at her power. When the caning was finally over, and Linda was allowed to step down from the stage, Tiffany moved towards her. She hugged her quite openly, to the surprise of many. Then she said, in a quiet voice, ‘I won’t forget what you did for me today, Linda. Not ever. You’re not just my friend; you’re my very best friend. I’ll do anything for you now. Oh, and by the way, my friends call me Tiff. Only my friends, mind.’ ‘Mine call me Lin,’ said Linda, ‘although they were both at my last school.’ ‘OK, Lin, you and me are going to be the Two Musketeers from now on. One for all and all for one, right?’ ‘One for all and all for one,’ Linda answered. 

Then Tiffany moved across to where Mel and Kim were standing. She glared at them and said, with a snarl in her voice, ‘You fucking bitches have really gone and done it now. Till now, I quite liked Linda but I didn’t know what a nice girl she was. Now I’d die for her. More to the point, I’d kill for her. Don’t cross my path again or I swear I’ll kill you both. You make me sick, you lousy fucking cunts!’

And that was how Linda found her first and best friend at St Phillippa’s.