A detention is designed to be an inconvenience. Rude, disorganised, lazy pupils certainly aren’t permitted to negotiate the terms of their own punishment – but Headmaster Blake does so want his Girls’ School to win their hockey match, and Nicky Montford really is their strongest player… The girl herself, of course, is adamant that she can take anything he dishes out to the boys who visit his office. It doesn’t seem fair at all that she must forfeit her Saturday afternoon match for something any one of them would have over and done with in minutes. And so, after a little persuasion, she becomes the first girl in the school’s history to sign her name in Headmaster Blake’s infamous Punishment Book. She is not a wriggler, a screamer or a crier. She’s determined to take this caning better than any boy, and she fights to maintain her dignity and composure through every one of her twelve agonising strokes. By the end she has a reddened face, a beautiful set of stripes, and a clear sense of pride in her own resolve.
