(Author's Note: This is the fifth story in a series. This series is based on characters and situations introduced in two novel-length series of stories: Camp Torowa Falls and Camp Torowa Falls 1964.
This is a continuation of Camp Torowa Falls 1965, which began with Chapter 1: Architects of Disaster. For best results you should read the preceeding chapters of CTF65 first.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, what are we gonna do about Becky?"

"My idea is to trade her for a Mustang convertible."

Jerry laughed, "Where are you gonna find someone stupid enough to make that trade?"

"Alright," said Corey with a shrug. "I didn't say it was a good idea, did I?"

After Jerry finished laughing he said, "What did your parents say?"

"That's the only good news," said Corey. "Normally they spoil her outrageously, but even they're getting tired of her bullshit this time. No way they're gonna buy her something that expensive."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Corey. I loved your performance last Sunday. But I really do wish that you hadn't been able to get Uncle Karl's guitar working."

"Well, I had a blast performing for a group for the first time," said Corey. "At least during the last song when everyone joined in. But I agree with you that it just wasn't worth it. No offense taken."

"It's not your fault, of course," said Jerry. "No way you could have anticipated that Becky would suddenly become obsessed with the idea of learning to play the guitar and sing, just like you."

"Yeah, I did get blind-sided by that one," said Corey.

"We all did, pal," said Jerry. "Is she still holding out for a Martin?"

"No," said Corey. "Even Becky realizes she's not gonna get a Martin guitar unless Grandma and Grandpa Lane buy it for her. Her birthday was in March, so she will have to wait at least until Christmas for that to happen."

Jerry nodded. "So that leaves us where?"

"Well, she won't accept one of those beginner guitars you can get at a discount store like Two Guys," said Corey. "I actually agree with her on that score. Those things are just cheap Japanese junk."

"What about Uncle Karl's Gibson?" said Jerry. "That thing is old and used. But you proved it still works well."

"No go," said Corey. "Mom called Uncle Karl last night. Apparently he was inspired by my performance, too. So now he's been fooling around with his old guitar himself and he refuses to sell."

Jerry switched to his best disc jockey voice, "And the hits just keep on coming."

"Tell me about it," said Corey in frustration.

----------------------------------------------

Dinner on Thursday night was not a quiet affair, but it was rather intense. Becky was still in a snit over the guitar situation. Corey could tell that he wasn't the only member of the family who was thoroughly sick of her nonsense.

"Rebecca, dear," said Mom, trying to be as supportive as possible, "you are going to have to accept the realities of this situation eventually. You can't keep brooding about it forever."

"I'm not brooding!" said Becky. "I do accept that I can't have a Martin guitar like Corey's until Grandma and Grandpa get me one for my birthday next year. The part I don't understand is why I can't get one like Corey has right now, but a less expensive brand. I don't want to wait a year until I can start learning to play. I'm far enough behind Corey as it is."

"Behind me?" said Corey, who was totally confused by that comment.

"It's not a competition, Princess," said Dad. There was kind of edge to the way he pronounced 'Princess' that should have been a warning.

"Music is an art form, dear," said Mom, a warning note in her voice. "It's not a race between you and other musicians, not even your brother."

"It feels like a race to me," said Becky, "especially with him." It almost sounded like she was challenging their parents.

Corey knew his sister was crazy, but Yikes! And yes, he had been wishing that she would finally get a good dose of the cane. But now that it seemed imminent it was almost too painful to watch. At the end of the day his love for his little sister seemed to override all his other feelings towards her. He actually began to try and work out a way to save Becky from herself...

Corey's thoughts were interrupted by a nudge from Jerry. He looked at his friend, who nodded sideways, clearly signalling that he should pay attention to the conversation at the table. When Corey looked up he was stunned to see that his parents and Becky were all looking at him expectantly. Oh, shit! Somebody had asked him a question and he missed it!

"Sorry," said Corey, opting to stick with the truth. "I was just thinking about our situation here. What did I miss?"

Dad had an impatient look on his face. "Your mother asked you to explain to Becky why she needs a smaller guitar than the one you have."

"I want an adult guitar like he has!" said Becky.

"Hush, dear," said Mom. "Let your brother answer my question."

Corey had not expected to have to deliver a lecture at dinner, but in the spirit of 'taking things in stride', here goes nothing, "There are lots of different sizes of adult guitars, Becky. When I asked Grandma and Grandpa for a dreadnought guitar last year it was because I thought it was the coolest looking style of guitar. It never even occurred to me how big it would be. When they gave me that guitar for my 14th birthday back in January my arms were barely long enough for me to be able to play it properly. Luckily I hit a growth spurt this year and my arms have gotten at least half an inch longer than they were in January."

"Half an inch of arm length makes a difference?" said Becky.

"It sure did in my case. When you're working so close to the edge like I was when I first got that guitar, every little bit of extra arm length helps. Frankly, I was worried about making my debut performance on Sunday with a guitar I'd never practiced on. But since Uncle Karl's Gibson has a smaller body than my dreadnought it was actually a lot easier to play."

"So Karl's guitar is not a dreadnought," said Mom. "What is it, then?"

"They call it a Concert guitar, Mom, or a zero body. There are three different sizes: single-zero, double-zero, or triple-zero. The triple-zero Grand Concert guitars were the largest type of guitar they made before the dreadnoughts came out."

"Why do they use zeroes for the sizes?" said Becky.

"No idea," said Corey. "I didn't name them. I'm just reporting what I know."

"You don't know much, do you?" sneered Becky.

"Rebecca!" said Mom, in a dangerous tone.

"No, I don't care, Mom!" said Becky. "I'm sick to death of Mr. Know-It-All here!"

Corey shrugged slightly and said, "I'm just trying to help, Sis."

Becky leapt to her feet, "Yeah, well... help this!" She grabbed her half-empty glass of iced tea and threw the drink across the table right into Corey's face.

"Hey!" said Corey, who was suddenly in real pain. The tea itself wasn't a problem, but one of the partially melted ice cubes hit him directly in the left eye.

Corey was vaguely aware of Becky running up the back stairs with their mother in hot pursuit. His attention was focused on the fact that his vision was darkened and badly blurred in the wounded eye.

"Are you okay, Corey?" said Dad, who was about to join the chase up the back stairs when he realized that something might be wrong with his son.

"I think some ice might have hit him in his eye, Uncle Will," said Jerry, who was standing next to Corey with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah," said Corey holding a hand over his left eye. "That's what happened."

"Oh, Dear God!" said Dad as he rushed to Corey's aid. "Can you see okay? Does it hurt?"

"It hurts, and everything is dark and blurry in my left eye. At least the right eye is okay."

Dad had Jerry fetch a clean dish towel, which he held up to his son's eye. Dad got Corey on his feet and led him to the back stairs, with Jerry following along behind them. As they carefully climbed the stairs, Corey could not believe that this was the second Thursday night dinner in a row that was cut short by a medical emergency - with him as the victim. This was getting old really fast.

----------------------------------------------

Dad guided Corey into the upstairs bathroom and had him sit on top of the lowered toilet seat lid. He rinsed out a clean washcloth with warm water and told Corey to hold that against his eye for a while. He turned to Jerry, "I need you to watch over him again, Jerry. Please make sure he doesn't touch the eye directly. If there is any change for the worse come get us immediately. We'll be in the office next door. Penny and I have to put an end to this nonsense once and for all. Okay?"

"I'll watch him, Uncle Will," said Jerry. "If there are any problems I'll report them to you immediately."

"Thank you, Jerry," said Dad, placing a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Either Penny or I will be back in here shortly to take over."

"Yes, sir," said Jerry as Dad walked out the door, leaving the bathroom door about half-way open.

Corey was slightly miffed that his father and his best friend were discussing him as though he wasn't right there in the room. But since he was essentially blind in one eye at the moment he couldn't really blame his father for leaving Jerry in charge.

They heard the office door open and Dad step into the office, but they did not hear the door latch again. It seemed like Dad had left both doors part way open... probably on purpose.

Predictably, Mom went ballistic when she was informed of Corey's blindness in one eye. Dad promised her that if his vision hadn't returned by the time they were done in the office he would take Corey to the Emergency Room for professional treatment.

As her parents began berating Becky with a laundry list of her misbehavior over the past few days it was clearly heard by the boys in the bathroom next door. Corey and Jerry looked at each other and shrugged. Apparently Dad wanted them to hear what happened to Becky. As Corey sat there nursing his eye he realized that he was no longer feeling sorry for Becky and was quite happy that she would finally be getting the cane. At least that's what he hoped was about to happen.

Eventually the lecturing came to an end and it was time for action. Mom said, "You're going to have to do the honors, William. With the mood I'm in right now I might kill her."

Dad agreed and took command of the punishment phase. He ordered Becky to lower her jeans and panties and bend over the back of a chair. Corey looked at Jerry and saw a devilish sparkle in his friend's eyes. They grinned at each other and went back to listening. Corey had no trouble imagining his crazy little sister bent over the back of one of those chairs, presenting her bare ass for its first-ever dose of the rattan cane.

Yep, Corey could hear the distinctive sound of the cane swishing through the air as his father took a couple of practice swings. He wished that he could be a fly on the wall of the office just long enough to see the look on Becky's face when that first cane stroke bit into her bare backside.

"I'm going to give you six strokes, Rebecca," said Dad. "I want you to count the strokes out loud as you receive them. You should say 'one, sir,' then 'two, sir', and so forth. Do you understand?"

Corey couldn't hear Becky's response, but apparently it was not very cooperative because Dad said, "Well, I expect that the cane will change your attitude about that. Remember that I can give you more than six strokes if you continue with such backtalk."

sssssss.crrackk! A second later Becky screamed!

"Get back into position, young lady," said Dad. "You have five more of those coming."

Becky refused, and insisted that her father could not use his horrible cane on a girl. "Not this girl, anyway!"

Mom was employed to hold Becky down while she received the rest of her caning. Becky refused to count the strokes until she was informed that the strokes wouldn't count towards the six she was sentenced to get until she began counting them out loud. Finally she said, "One, sir."

sssssss.crrackk! She screamed again. It sounded to Corey like Becky was arguing with their mother in low tones, but finally she said, "Two, sir."

sssssss.crrackk! Becky screamed yet again. Then it became apparent that she had started crying. "Three, sir."

sssssss.crrackk! Cracknng! Becky shrieked and began protesting.

What the hell? Corey had clearly heard a second 'crack' on the fourth stroke, and it had an almost metallic ring to it.

From the conversation between his parents, it became clear that the cane had broken on the fourth stroke and the loose part of it had bounced off the metal leg of Dad's desk. Mom and Dad discussed how to proceed while Becky furiously protested that she already had far more punishment than she deserved.

Corey and Jerry shared knowing looks and grins. Nice try, Sis. But it's not gonna work.

Sure enough Mom retrieved her large wooden hairbrush from the master bedroom and turned it over to Dad, who apparently had already draped Becky over his lap for a more traditional spanking. A very different sounding Crackk! was heard as the first swat of the hairbrush landed on Becky's already striped backside. She started bawling and protesting immediately.

Corey rememberd the last hairbrush spanking his mother had given him last year, where she used the cane stripes on his backside for targets. And those cane stripes had been several days old. Becky's stripes were extremely fresh, although there were only four of them.

As the swats of the hairbrush continued to Crackk! into her backside, Becky's tune changed quite a bit. Although she was bawling the whole time, her initial protests eventually turned into pleading for the spanking to stop and promises to be good from now on. Eventually the spanking came to a stop and Becky was made to stand with her nose to the wall of the office and her hands behind her head.

Corey knew from bitter experience how desperate she was to rub her aching hind cheeks. Of course since Dad remained in the office watching her as he sat at his desk, she was unable to satisfy that need.

Meanwhile Mom rushed over to the bathroom and checked on Corey. It turned out that the vision in his left eye was improving slightly. It was somewhat lighter than before although it was still fairly blurry.

----------------------------------------------

Mom was not satisfied with "improving slightly" when it came to her son's eyesight. Dad agreed to take Corey to the emergency room of Northampton Hospital, and Jerry tagged along with them. There was hardly anyone in the waiting room, so the wait was short before Corey and his father were escorted into a treatment room.

Corey was examined by the emergency room physician, who told Dad that there was slight irritation of the left cornea. There didn't appear to be any structural damage to the eye. The doctor's prognosis was that there was a really good chance that Corey's vision would return and be as good as new within 12 to 24 hours. He put a patch on the eye so it could rest. Corey was given a black elastic band and patch to help keep the contact patch in place. The band was worn around his head and yes, it looked pretty much like a cliche pirate eyepatch.

When Jerry greeted them in the waiting room afterwards, he was clearly alarmed to see Corey wearing an eye patch. He listened intently to the explanation of the good prognosis and visibly calmed down. In fact once he knew that Corey was almost certain to be okay, Jerry didn't last 30 seconds before he began with the pirate jokes.

Corey rolled his eye and decided he'd just have to get used to hearing those stupid jokes for the next day or two. He confined his response to Jerry's jokes to occasionally saying, "Arrrrr."

When they got home Becky was finishing up drying the dishes. She took one look at the eyepatch and immediately rushed to Corey and hugged him tight while apologizing profusely for throwing the ice at him.

Mom walked into the kitchen at that point and became quite upset when she saw the eyepatch. Dad quickly explained that Corey was very likely to get his eyesight back within 12 to 24 hours. He just needed to rest the eye.

Both Mom and Becky calmed down quickly upon hearing the good news. Corey still had to put up with a lot of hugs, but at least they were non-panicked hugs, and less likely to keep him from being able to breathe.

For some reason Mom switched into a sort of "mother hen mode" because of the all the chaos. She didn't want any members of her family - including Jerry - out of her sight for a while. So the family spent a couple of hours watching summer reruns on television while Mom served the dessert that everyone had missed. Becky was allowed to sit on a pillow on the couch while she ate her apple fritter.

They watched episodes of The Flintstones, Rawhide and The Addams Family. Corey thought that Rawhide was okay, but The Flintstones and The Addams Family were two of his favorite shows. After a lifetime of having binocular vision, Corey found that suddenly not having it was a strange experience. The weirdest part was not having any peripheral vision on the left side. He prayed fervently that the doctor was right and that his vision would be back to normal within 24 hours.

Before Corey and Jerry headed up to their bedroom, Becky hugged Corey and begged him to forgive her. He hugged her close and said, "It's okay Becky. I know you'd never deliberately hurt me like that. Just don't ever throw anything into someone's face again. It's too dangerous."

"I won't!" said Becky. "Promise."

"Good," said Corey. "I forgive you, Sis. You're a good person who just made a mistake."

"Thanks, Bro," said Becky. "I don't deserve a big brother like you."

Jerry laughed. "I think God gave you each the sibling you deserve."

"Thanks, Jerry!" they said in unison, then they laughed.