(Author Note: This story is based on characters and situations introduced in the CP novels, Camp Torowa Falls and Camp Torowa Falls 1964.
It may be read independently of those stories.)

The principal's voice droned on and on - crackling through the old speaker on the wall. The students of Mrs. Thomas's seventh grade home room class were sitting through the morning announcements, waiting for another school day to start. The 28 boys and girls, all 12 or 13-years-old, were in varying states of consciousness at the early hour of 7:48 AM. Eventually the final announcement of the morning was made... The following students will report to the vice principal's office immediately after home room: Phillip Almond, Beverly Dietz, Walter Eckert, Corey Lane, and Dwayne Trembley.

Huh? Corey Lane looked up from the homework he was double checking before his first class started. Was his name just called? And his cousin Walt's name? Corey looked around his home room class. From the number of people whose heads had turned towards him, looking at him in surprise, Corey was forced to conclude that his name had just been announced on the "Doomed List".

Crap! He was in for it! What had he done? Well, okay, Corey knew what he had done, and who he had done it with. The fact that Dwayne Trembley and his cousin Walt Eckert had also been called to the office made it clear that the authorities had found out about it, too. But how?

Walt would never snitch on them, Corey knew that. In addition to being second cousins, they had been friends all their lives. He'd only known Dwayne for a few months. Would he squeal? Not that it mattered much at that moment - Corey didn't even know how much the authorities knew. Maybe they weren't dead yet.

The bell rang to signal the end of home room, and 27 students rose to head off for their first classes of the day. Corey suddenly wasn't in any particular hurry, since Mrs. Thomas's home room was practically across the hall from the vice-principal's office. Corey merely shrugged in response to the urgent, whispered questions along the lines of "What did you do?" from his home room mates as they brushed past him on their way out of the room. Corey glanced at Mrs. Thomas, who gave him a disappointed look as he went out the door himself. As he slowly walked towards the vice principal's office, he was embarrassed that Mrs. Thomas thought he had done something wrong, particularly since he had.

Corey was the first student to arrive in the waiting room of the vice principal's office that morning. He sat at the end of one of two long wooden benches provided. As he waited for his condemned fellows to arrive, Corey thought back on his first year of junior high school, which only had another few weeks to go before summer vacation started. Seventh grade - what a long, wacky, tragic school year it had been.

Moving from elementary school to junior high school was a big transition. Throughout most of his elementary school career, Corey had one teacher who taught all the subjects to a particular class of students. Sixth grade had introduced the concept of the "home room", with one of the three sixth grade teachers acting as "home room teacher" for his class. Home room was where your class reported for the beginning and ending of the school day. Your home room teacher also handed out official communications - like report cards - to the students as required. But each class had subjects taught by all three of the sixth grade teachers: Mrs. Miller taught English and Spelling, Mr. Braunley taught math and science, and Miss Egloff taught social studies, as well as being Corey's sixth grade home room teacher.

In seventh grade many new concepts were introduced. Every subject had a different teacher now, and several new subjects were added to the curriculum. There were dedicated art and music rooms, and teachers to teach those special subjects. Foreign language study was also introduced, with the choices being German or Spanish. Even though he had significant German ancestry, Corey chose Spanish since he figured it would allow him to communicate with more people around the world during his planned career as a United States naval officer.

Two of the most significant practical changes involved the gender defined classes that were now offered. Boys took "Shop Class" (officially known as Industrial Arts), which largely involved woodworking - at least in seventh grade. Girls took "Home Economics", which was mostly concerned with cooking and sewing. Physical Education (aka "Gym Class") was much different in junior high school than it had been in elementary school.

Back in elementary school Gym Class mainly involved what amounted to an extended recess period with semi-organized activities such as kickball, softball, dodgeball or even dancing lessons (with girls - Ewwww!). These activities took place outside on school grounds, or in a large open-space basement room when the weather outside was bad. These sessions were mostly co-ed and students wore their regular school clothes.

The junior high school actually had a proper gymnasium with wood flooring, bleachers and separate locker rooms/showers for boys and girls. Corey would never forget his first time in the boys locker room. He and nearly 30 other 11 or 12-year-old boys were stripped to their underpants to be weighed and measured (for height). The gym coach showed them the very short uniform shorts that each would be required to purchase. Boys were required to wear an athletic supporter under the navy blue uniform shorts, and also wear a white t-shirt, white socks and sneakers. Boys were required to bring their own clean towel for gym class, and to keep the rest of the outfit relatively clean and laundered. Any boy who "forgot" his gym outfit would be awarded swats of the coach's paddle.

There were actually quite a few rules attached to the junior high school gym class experience. No running in the locker room or showers. No fighting, swearing, or "fooling around" (e.g. flicking wet towels). Violation of any of these rules usually ended up with the offending boys bending over a bench in the locker room having several very firm swats of the coach's paddle applied to the seats of their gym shorts - if they were lucky. If they were unlucky enough, or stupid enough, to break the rules while in the shower, the swats would fall on their totally bare (and possibly dripping wet) backsides. The coach made no allowance for lack of clothing - he applied the paddle just as firmly to bare, wet bottoms as he did to fully clothed bottoms. It made no difference to the coach, although in Corey's personal experience it made quite a difference to the boys receiving the swats.

Despite being paddled a few times throughout the year, gym class hadn't really been that stressful for Corey in seventh grade. He was accustomed to showering with and being naked in front of other boys, courtesy of doing so the past three years at summer bible camp. The same could not be said for all the boys in Corey's gym class, several of whom had never been nude in front of anyone (except possibly immediate family members) before. Those poor guys were quite shy about being seen naked, and it took a while for some of them to get comfortable with it.

The oddest new thing about seventh grade boy's gym class - something that even Corey took a while to get used to - was "the gauntlet". Mr. Jeffries, the junior high school boy's gym coach, believed in motivation. With that in mind, he would often penalize the boys on the team that came last in various team competitions. After the final team results had been determined for a particular class, the coach would order all the other teams to line up in two parallel columns across the gym floor. Then the boys on the losing team had to take turns running the gauntlet. They ran as fast as they could between the two columns of boys, who swatted the seat of each runner's gym shorts as hard as they could with their open hands as the losers ran past.

There were about 30 boys in Corey's gym class, and they were typically broken up into five teams for these impromptu in-gym competitions. This meant that the six boys on the losing team were swatted by 24 boys on the other teams as they ran the gauntlet. Corey really didn't think this was entirely fair, since the teams were picked for each class session at random. This meant that even a fairly good athlete like Corey could end up on a team with some real clumsy slowpokes and find himself running the gauntlet. In any event those particular gym class sessions always ended up with at least six boys displaying technicolor asses in the showers at the end of class. On the few occasions where Corey did have to run the gauntlet he was careful to behave in the locker room afterwards. The last thing he needed was a few swats of the coach's paddle on his already sore backside.

Unlike elementary school, where nearly every teacher had some form of paddle in their classroom as their ultimate means of maintaining order, junior high school teachers rarely bothered keeping a board around. Since every junior high school classroom was already equipped with at least one blackboard pointer (a wooden stick about 3 feet long with a black plastic pointer tip at the "business end"), most junior high teachers just used them to whack the trouser seats of misbehaving boys. Unruly girls in junior high school seemed to get their butts whacked in class even less often than they did back in elementary school, no matter how much they deserved the punishment. It really didn't seem fair to Corey!

Mr. Strauss, who taught algebra, was by far the most avid user of the pointer among Corey's seventh grade teachers. Corey had found himself on the "business end" of Mr. Strauss's pointer a few times that year. He made unruly boys march to the front of the classroom, turn and face their fellow students, then bend over - hands on knees. There followed a basic lesson in incremental integer arithmetic, punctuated by the big man's slashing pointer connecting violently with the stretched trouser seat of the bending boy. The school dress code specifically forbade wearing jeans in school, so the boys had to wear regular (thinner) dress trousers, typically made of some poly/cotton blend material. Some boys, including Corey, had corduroy trousers that they wore during the coldest part of the winter months. But even corduroy did not provide as much protection as denim.

Mr. Dietrich, who taught history, had Corey come to the front of the classroom and bend over his desk for a few sharp whacks with his pointer, though at least that only happened once. Of course Corey found it embarrassing to be bending over in front of his classmates having his rear end whacked, but the actual pain from the pointer was unimpressive, at least compared to the birch switches his father used on him at home. Of course whippings at home were on the bare bottom, although mercifully they occurred in the semi-privacy of the Lane family garage.

One teacher who did still use a paddle on students was Mr. Lindner, the industrial arts teacher. Of course he made his own paddle in the woodshop. It was a very large paddle made from fancy hardwood with holes drilled through it. The joke among the boys was that Mr. Lindner's paddle had a gun rack on it - thus combining the first two projects he attempted to get every seventh grade boy to complete in shop class. Gun rack or not, Corey had actually managed to avoid Mr. Lindner's paddle in seventh grade, at least so far. He was quite happy about it, too.

Two boys had gotten paddled in Corey's shop class that year, and it was no joke. Each of them had been reduced to tears with only six whacks of that huge paddle. But of course when working with power tools safety was paramount, so Mr. Lindner really burned that paddle into the trouser seat of any boy who screwed around in shop class. It was obviously something to be feared, and Corey would go far out his way to avoid swats from that horrific board. Not to mention the fact that if his parents found out that Corey had been fooling around in a dangerous manner in shop class, it was a near certainty that they would have added another strong dose of punishment, via birch switch or hairbrush - or maybe both - at home.

Not all of the pain experienced by the students at Corey's school that year was caused by corporal punishment, or even students picking on each other. On one Friday in November 1963 the whole world changed, for Corey Lane and for everyone alive at that time. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas was a tremendous shock to Corey and his classmates. The announcements over the school intercom system that the president had been shot, and then that he had died, stunned everyone. A lot of kids, and even a few of the teachers, were crying as classes ended that day. Corey felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. How could something like that have happened?

The Lanes were not the kind of family who normally watched television while eating dinner. Dinner was consumed in the eat in kitchen, with the family members discussing their day's activities. After dinner those who wanted to - and didn't have homework to do - could watch television if they wanted. But on Friday night, November 22, 1963 the Lanes were glued to the television watching coverage of the national tragedy. None of them were much in the mood to eat dinner that night anyway, with those who wanted to grazing on leftovers from the fridge.

Corey's parents had both voted for Kennedy in 1960, and his mother had intended to serve as a volunteer for his re-election campaign in 1964. The haunted look in her eyes took days to disappear. The rest of the family was subdued as well, though eventually life got back to something resembling normalcy.

Unfortunately some people took out their anger and dismay on others. Less than two weeks after the assassination - just after the Thanksgiving holiday - Corey had a run in with an angry teacher. He was in a study hall in the school auditorium presided over by Mr. Fielding, who had always been cranky under the best of circumstances. After the bell rang to dismiss the class, Mr. Fielding said, "You! Pick up that paper from the floor!" Corey didn't even realize at first that the teacher was addressing him. Once he became aware of it, Corey thought that the teacher thought the paper was his.

Corey made the mistake of pointing out that he hadn't dropped the piece of paper on the floor. Fielding pounced on the boy, grabbed his left ear and physically forced Corey down to the floor until his face was almost on top of the piece of paper. Through clenched teeth he again ordered the boy to pick up the paper, which he did.

After dragging Corey back to his feet, making him think that his ear might actually come off in the man's hand, Mr. Fielding said, "When I tell you to do something, you do it! Understand?"

"Yes sir," said Corey, desperate to avoid any further damage to his ear.

Fortunately Mr. Fielding released Corey's ear at that point and ordered him to get to his next class. Corey immediately left, trying to get as far away from this nutcase as he could. He was relieved to find that his ear, although hurting, had not actually been damaged in the altercation.

Corey's attention was returned to his current problems when he was joined on the bench outside the assistant prinicpal's office by his 13-year-old cousin, Walt Eckert and their 12-year-old friend Dwayne Trembley. The three boys whispered among themselves, but could not have a proper conversation - to get their story straight - because of the receptionist who sat there listening as she pretended to work. She would obviously report any incriminating conversations she heard to the vice principal.

The other bench was soon occupied by Beverly Dietz and Phillip Almond, two ninth-graders. Although they looked mildly concerned when they arrived, they soon amused themselves by whispering to each other and laughing at the three somber seventh-graders who had quieted down as soon as the two older students arrived.

They were waiting only a few minutes when the receptionist's phone buzzed. She answered it, acknowledged the instructions from her boss, then hung up the phone. She turned towards the waiting students and said, "Eckert, Lane and Trembley - Mr. Krummel will see you now."

The three boys filed into the assistant principal's office and were stunned to find that Mr. Krummel was not alone. The vice principal was seated behind his desk and Mr. Chapman, the school principal, was standing next to his desk. Both men had very stern looks on their faces, which forced Corey to choke down a gasp of fear. This was looking much more serious than he had expected.

"Good morning, gentlemen," said Mr. Krummel, in an obviously irritated voice.

"Good morning, sir," said the three boys in chorus, all sounding appropriately nervous.

"I won't drag this out," said Mr. Krummel. "I wonder if you'd like to explain to us why you posted this on the cafeteria wall?" He unfolded a large sheet of paper and spead it out on his desk.

It turned out to be a movie poster for the 1963 hit comedy film The Nutty Professor. At first glance the poster appeared genuine, featuring pictures of the film's leads, Jerry Lewis and Stella Stevens. A closer look at the poster revealed that their names had been replaced with names of faculty members of the junior high school, as had the names of all the people actually involved with the film. The poster now said "Mr. Fielding as 'The Nutty Professor'" Other names now on the poster included Mrs. Howell, Mr. Lindner, and Mr. Jeffries. The director credit for the film was now given to Mr. Chapman himself. The prinicipal wasn't laughing.

"Mr. Krummel," said Walt, "I've never seen that poster before. It is funny, though." He added, chuckling nervously. Corey and Dwayne both began to agree with Walt that they'd never seen the poster before, when they were cut off.

"Listen, boys," said Mr. Krummel. "Let's dispense with the usual accusation and denial sequence. We aleady know you did it. Things will go easier for you if you confess now and save a lot people - mostly yourselves - the embarrassment of all this coming out in public."

"But we didn't do it!" insisted all three boys. Again they were cut off, this time by Mr. Chapman himself.

"Knock it off, boys," said Mr. Chapman. "Let me explain your options here. If you fail to confess and make us do this the hard way, your parents will be notified, and you will be paddled in public on stage in the auditorium, in front of the entire student body and faculty, with your pants down!"

"Pants down?" protested Walt, "you can't do that!"

"Shut up!" said Mr. Krummel.

"You will find that we can do it if we have to," said Mr. Chapman. "But we hope that it doesn't come to that. If you confess to creating and posting this poster in the cafeteria you will get paddled over your trousers, here in private in Mr. Krummel's office, with only myself as a witness."

The boys stood there, mouths hanging open, stunned at the situation. Corey couldn't imagine how the authorities had found out that the three of them had doctored the poster and hung it on the wall of the school cafeteria. Clearly they had, and now the three conspirators were faced with a horrible choice. Could they really be paddled in public, pants down?

The real question was if Mr. Chapman was bluffing. If he was and they called his bluff, they might get off scot-free. Of course if they call and he's not bluffing, they would be humiliated in front of the entire school. Needless to say they weren't being given a chance to discuss their options...

"Well gentlemen," said Mr. Chapman, "time to make your decision. What say you, Mr. Trembley?"

Every eye in the room was suddenly on 12-year-old Dwayne Trembley. The boy shifted nervously, gulped in fear, looked at his friends... "Sorry guys." He turned to Mr. Chapman, "Yes, sir, we did it." He stared at the floor, unable to look anyone in the eye.

Corey closed his eyes and sighed. And so it ends... he was actually conflicted about Dwayne's confession. Emotionally, he was kinda pissed off that Dwayne ratted on them all. Intellectually, he thought that Dwayne had probably made the right decision. If they called Chapman's bluff and lost, the results would have been disastrous for their school careers and reputations. Corey suddenly realized that Mr. Chapman was addressing him and opened his eyes.

"Are you awake, Lane?" said Mr. Chapman sarcastically.

"Sorry sir," said Corey. "What was the question again?"

"Do you admit to helping modify and hang this poster in the cafeteria?"

Corey sighed, "Yes, sir, we did it."

"Try to stay with us, Lane," said Mr. Chapman. "Mr. Krummel with be giving you a wake up call shortly."

"Yes, sir." Great, everybody has to try to be a comedian.

Chapman turned to Walt, "Mr. Eckert, do you admit to participating in this scheme?"

"Yes, sir," said Walt. "We did it."

"Alright, gentlemen," said Mr. Krummel. "Thank you for being honest... eventually. Please wait outside, we will call you in when we're ready for you."

The trio ended up back on their bench outside the office. Dwayne was unable to look either of his friends in the eye and kept staring at the floor. Corey and Walt looked at each other and shrugged. Corey could tell that Walt also felt that they had probably made the right decision. Some bluffs just aren't worth calling.

The two ninth-graders chuckled at the three crestfallen seventh-graders when the trio emerged from the office and sat back down. Eventually the two older students were called into Mr. Krummel's office, one at a time. They each left after a few minutes, and no paddle whacks could be heard while they were in there. Apparently the two ninth-graders hadn't been in trouble - or at least not the kind of trouble that the three youngsters were in that day.

Corey hadn't been called to Mr. Krummel's office before that day. The vice principal, who was known to students as "Krummy" - though obviously not to his face - had a fearsome reputation as a paddler. Stories circulated around the school about Krummy's paddle, and how much it hurt. Now Corey and his friends were gonna find out how accurate those stories were.

After a few minutes the door to the office opened. "Okay, Mr. Trembley," said Mr. Krummel, "time to face the music."

Dwayne got up and very slowly and reluctantly walked into the office. Mr. Krummel closed the door behind him. At least they would each be getting the paddle in private.

For a few minutes there were muted voices from inside the office, then silence, then... Craacckk!! The paddle whacks came regularly after that, with Dwayne's yelps following after the fourth whack.

After the sixth whack, Corey exchanged looks with Walt, "How many?" he whispered. Walt just shrugged and shook his head. No number had been mentioned by either Krummy or Mr. Chapman.

Poor Dwayne's yelps grew louder and more anguished as the paddle whacks piled up on his backside. The whacks mercifully stopped after the tenth whack hit home. Muted voices were heard from within the office, and Corey again exchanged looks with Walt. "Ten?" Corey whispered. Walt nodded, a disgusted look on his face.

A minute later the office door opened and Dwayne practically stumbled out of the office, tears streaming down his face as he rubbed the seat of his trousers. "Mr. Lane," said Mr. Krummel, "time for your wake up call."

Corey ignored the remark, stood and marched into the office. Mr. Chapman was standing behind the desk. Krummy closed the door behind Corey and pointed towards the desk with his paddle. Whoa! It looked like a real beast of a paddle! Some kind of hardwood with holes drilled in it. Corey's sphincter tightened and his bottom tingled at the very thought of that thing crashing into his backside. He walked over to the desk and stood in the indicated spot in front of it.

Mr. Chapman delivered a lecture on showing respect for members of the faculty and seriously questioning the sense of humor of today's youth. Finally he asked Mr. Krummel to proceed with the punishment.

"Alright Lane," said Mr. Krummel, "Take everything out of your back pockets."

Corey removed his wallet from his back pocket and set it on the desk. It was mid-May so the weather was already getting quite warm. Corey was reminded of this when he checked his back pockets and realized how thin the material was in his summer weight trousers. At least the corduroy trousers he wore in the winter might have provided a bit more protection back there.

"Over the desk," said Mr. Krummel.

Corey stepped up to the front of the desk and bent over, stretching his arms out before him. He was stunned when Mr. Chapman grasped both of his wrists, obviously with the intent to hold him down. Corey glanced up at Mr. Chapman and was stunned again. The pitying, but determined look on the man's face made Corey shiver in fear. Obviously the principal expected Corey to not be able to stay still for his punishment. Exactly how bad was Krummy's paddle? He was about to find out. Corey clenched his teeth, looked down and closed his eyes.

Craaaccckk!! Whoa! That really will wake you up in the morning!

By the second whack, Corey realized why Mr. Chapman was holding him down. There was no way he could have withstood ten full-blooed whacks like these without trying to get up.

By the fourth whack, Corey was no longer able to contain his anguish. He yelped in pain, hoping that it wasn't loud enough to be heard outside the office.

By the fifth whack he was fighting back tears, and after the sixth whack the tears started flowing freely. Corey had never experienced a paddle with holes drilled in it before - apparently those holes made a huge difference.

Then it got a bit easier. By the time the eighth whack arrived Corey's backside started to feel strangely numb. He wondered vaguely if the nerves back there had died because of the all the pounding from Krummy's fearsome paddle. Something had changed - during the final few whacks Corey couldn't really feel anything below his waist. In any event he was able to keep from yelping after the last couple of whacks.

After the tenth whack Mr. Chapman released Corey's wrists and Mr. Krummel ordered him to stand up. Corey was actually surprised when his legs responded to his mental commands. He hadn't been certain they were still connected to his body.

In fact it turned out that the numbness was only temporary. Corey had begun feeling the blistering pain radiating from his roasted rump again by the time Mr. Chapman finished his final lecture. After promising to show proper respect for the faculty in future, Corey was released. Mr. Krummel told him to get to his first class as soon as possible after visiting the boy's bathroom to pull himself back together.

Corey staggered out of the office. Through his tears he saw Walt sitting there waiting his turn and nodded encouragement to his cousin. He grabbed his books and headed for the boy's bathroom to assess the damage.

Corey barely made it to a urinal in the boy's bathroom in time. He hadn't even realized how badly he needed to go. At least his plumbing held up during that pounding and his pants remained dry. Afterwards he washed his face, desperate to remove all evidence of having been crying before heading off to class. It was probably a waste of time since everyone had heard his name called that morning in home room.

The most popular questions Corey had to field the rest of the day were about what he had done and how many whacks of Krummy's paddle he got. About the only good news was that his little sister Becky was still back in elementary school and never heard about this punishment, so she wasn't able to tattle on him to their parents. This meant that Corey was able to avoid any supplemental punishment he might have been in for had his parents learned of the incident.

The three conspirators were never able to figure out how the authorities learned about their involvement in the poster incident. Corey's final analysis of the sitation was that Mr. Chapman had been bluffing, otherwise why would he have been so keen on getting confessions from them? The others disagreed with Corey, not that it mattered all that much. It would have been far too risky to call that bluff in any case, so Walt and Corey quickly forgave Dwayne for being the first one to cave in and confess.

Corey tried to make it through the final three weeks of seventh grade without having to bend over in class for punitive purposes. Unfortunately he failed on two occasions. He got one more dose of Mr. Strauss's pointer on his trouser seat in algebra class.

Corey was also involved - as an innocent victim - in a mass paddling that occurred in the boy's locker room during the second-last gym class of the school year. Several boys had been fooling around in the showers after class and Mr. Jeffries decided to make an example of all the boys in the shower at that time, even the innocent ones like Corey who had been behaving. Nine boys ended up bending over a bench in the locker room for six real stingers on their bare and dripping wet asses. Corey managed to not yelp too much, concentrating on his disgust at the injustice of it as Mr. Jeffries' paddle scorched his naked haunches. At least this travesty of justice didn't occur until after Corey's backside had healed up from the Krummy paddling. If it had occurred that day or the next, Corey would have jumped right out of his skin from the pain!

At long last the final day of seventh grade arrived. As Corey and Walt walked home from school they compared report cards. Walt had done nearly as well as Corey this time, and both sets of parents should be pleased with their son's grades.

The two cousins laughed about all the time they had spent bending over being corrected with various implements that year. Seventh grade had certainly been the most painful school year either of them had experienced so far. They hoped that eighth grade would be a lot less painful.

Corey was looking forward to an intesting summer of 1964. His best friend from summer camp, Jerry Farnham, was coming to stay with Corey and his family for a few weeks before they headed off to camp in the Adirondack Mountains of New York in mid-July. Well, that was the plan at any rate. With Corey's luck something still might go wrong and wreck the plans. Trying to be optimistic, Corey hoped that he and Jerry could spend a quiet and pain free summer together. Only time would tell.

(Chronology Note: This story takes place after the events described in the original Camp Torowa Falls series and before the events described in the Camp Torowa Falls 1964 series.)