THE   HOT  SEAT

           “So you see that as the Snake River passes through the gorge it briefly divides into . . .”
          The teacher spun around from the blackboard.  There was Bobby, who had just seen Billy grab the sailing paper airplane, in the midst of giving him a thumbs-up.  Both were smiling broadly.  Several others in the class of some twenty-odd boy students of the fifth grade had had their eyes looking up as the little paper plane made its death dive, but nevertheless it was clear who was the culprit and who was his accomplice.  “You:  To the Hot Seat, if you please.  And you:  You will follow.”  So it was true:  Teachers did have eyes in the backs of their heads.
           With a ‘no-big-deal’ forced smirk on his face Bobby stood from his desk and made his way to the center aisle.  Down he walked towards the back wall of the classroom with its large windows through which the athletic field could be seen below.  At the end of the aisle stood the electric chair in wait for the condemned. 
          Understand that it was not an Olde Sparkey like that had been the mainstay for executions in the past.  No, its only electrified feature was a hot pad which served as a cushion atop a three-legged stool. 
           Well acquainted with the routine, upon his arrival Bobby took off his genes and underpants and hung them on the rack standing there beside the stool.  He took the jockstrap hanging from it and squirted its inside with antiseptic spray that sat in readiness in a spray bottle upon the window seal.  He put it on, tapped the preprogrammed timer and mounted the stool.  The timer sounded and turned on a small flashing red penlight.
          Seeing that properly done Mr. Harris extracted a leather strap, a rattan cane and a wooden paddle from the bottom drawer of his large desk and laid them down, side by side.  He turned back to the blackboard in so casual a manner that one would have thought nothing had happened.
          “As I was saying, here the Snake River splits into . . .”
          Bobby felt the pad starting to warm against his bare butt.  It had but one timer setting - - -   five minutes - - - and one temperature setting - - - HOT. 

          Nervously he starting rocking his calves and feet forward and back.  You see the crossbars of the stool were too low for a boy’s feet to reach them while seated which insured that his body weight was applied to the hot pad at all times.  By the time the five minute dinger would sound the pad would be as hot as it would get; and that was hot.  Thus it was with relief that the timer pinging Bobby jumped down and walked down the center aisle with his exposed ass cheeks thoroughly heated.  His classmates soaked in the view.
          Well knowing the routine he walked around the big desk and bent over it facing the class.  He gave a knowing smirk:  No big deal, right guys?  
          “Up,” ordered the teacher as he took hold of the first punishment implement – the leather strap.  
          Up on his tiptoes went Bobby.  Harris looked at the raised ass with its reddened color from the hot pad standing out in contrast from the lily-white legs.  He unleashed a firm blow of the strap onto the center of the reddened target.
          Bobby concentrated on maintaining his better-than-thou smirk.  Big mistake.
          “Well?” 
          Bobby had forgotten.  “Oh; sorry.  Thank you Mr. Harris.”
          “That calls for a repeat.”  
          “SPLAT!”  The repeat was a true repeat – right atop the prior one.
           Bobby maintained his smart-ass smirk as absorbed the penalty swat.
          “Thank you Mister Harris.  Thank you very much.”  
          “Another repeat for the insolent remark, you smart-ass.”
          “But.”  
          “No but about it save your own butt:  SPLAT!”  This one he really had laid on.
          With little hesitation the teacher walked to the boy’s other side and delivered a backhander.  Bobby was in the middle of his thank you when “SPLAT!”  That one, together with the prior penalty stroke, took the spunk out of him as he realized that he just wasn’t going to win this battle.
           “Thank you . . . you . . . Mr. Harris.”
           The Hot Seat routine regularly called for three of the strap followed by three of the cane followed still yet by three of the paddle, all with five minute interludes for time to recoup sitting upon the Hot Seat.   The penalty strokes had made for five of the leather strap for Round One in Bobby’s case.  After the fifth one he got down off his tiptoes and returned down the center aisle with his head held high and his eyes uplifted searching the ceiling for something or other.  Perhaps it was time for its repainting?  Now it was some of the boys in the room who were doing the smirking which he definitely did not want to see.
          Arriving back at The Hot Seat Bobby touched the seat pad.  With no heat having been conducted away in his absence, it was hot-hot-hot to his touch.  And now he was going to sit his just-strapped butt back down on it?  Oh God.  He hit the timer which pinged and most gingerly retook his seat upon the dreaded throne. 
          “Now here where the Snake River makes its way through . . .”
          Bobby tried to listen – anything to get his mind off his hot strapped ass to which more heat was continually be conducted.  The message however was unclear.  There was interference and static within his brain as he tried to decipher the lesion.  Snake . . . making . . . hot . . . biting . . . Hells’ Canyon . . .  God Help Me . . . Lowlands . . . inferno . . . west-southwest.  He looked at the timer.  Four more minutes?  Can’t be right; it must be broken.  Eventually though the timer pinged.  Time heals all wounds?  Not in this case.  Time tortured the wounds.
          As soon as his feet made contact with the floor Bobby grabbed his burning butt and made his way slowly down the center aisle.  He looked straight ahead – ahead at the waiting Hot Seat reserved for him.  He do so as not to make eye contact with any of his classmates.  Two however he couldn’t miss as they had their heads down on their desk looking backwards and up at him at his approach.  One had a big smile and gave him a wink while the other had his mouth spread wide open with his fingers.  Mr. Harris didn’t break his stride as he worked his chalk on the blackboard.
          Without being told Bobby retook his position leaning over the desk facing the classroom up on his tiptoes.  He waited and waited.  “But the color of the Snake River here, you see . . .” continued on the teacher who now had taken up the rattan cane “is rather murky as . . . THWICK!” . . . the cane slammed into Bobby hot strapped raised ass.
          “Thank . . . thank . . . . thank you . . . thank you sir.”
          “It seems the river silt forms here from runoff . . THWICK”  a vicious backhander right onto a welt from the strap that had been rising more than usual from the heat of the electrically heated stool pad.
          “Aaaaahh   .  .  .  .  .  God  .  .  .  .  .  thank you . . . . Thank you sir.”
          “The local agriculture calls for . . .   THWICK!”  This time Harris delivered a rising fore hander across the lower part of the boy’s ass.
          “SHIT”  Bobby hands let go of the front of the desk and flew to his ass as his torso rose up off the desk.
          “Please; I trying to teach here,” he said as he nudged the boy’s hands away.  As soon as Bobby was back down and gripping the desk edge, a repeater struck home.  “Doesn’t count, you know; no jumping the gun.  Two penalty strokes.”
          “Two?”
          “One for jumping the gun and one for cursing.”
          “They use pesticides of course to get rid of pests; pests like the one you see here now before you.   THWICK!    THWACK!   Now you may return.”
          This time the boy could care less what his classmates thought as he made his way down the center aisle with his abdomen leading the way with his hands clasped on his tortured ass.   With tears streaming uncontrollably down his cheeks he could hardly make out their facial expressions.
          Again Bobby punched the timer.  He mounted the Hot Seat which went immediately to work on the ridges of the fresh cane welts that overlaid the earlier strap marks.  Being almost unbearable he squeezed his hands in between his burning bun and the burner.  Better for the hands to get heated than his well strapped and caned ass.  Relief lasted but mere seconds.  “Hands atop your head, boy.  Now eradication of these pests is made with the use of . . .”
          After what seemed like another eternity, if double eternities are possible, the timer eventually dinged.  Bobby catapulted off the Hot Seat and grabbed his flaming buns.  It felt like he had put his hands on a hot stove top.  Instinctively he jerked them back off.
          He stood there looking down the aisle at the back of the teacher who was working again on the blackboard drawing a snake-like line that depicted the Snake River.  Not knowing whether to replace his hands to give his burning bun some relief or not, he arrived at a solution:  Fanning.  He started fanning his burning bun. 
          When Mr. Harris glanced back over his shoulder Bobby moved on, looking at the paddle lying in wait upon the desk. How could he possible now take that?  The closer he got the bigger grew the paddle is size and evil texture.  It had a rough surface and three holes.  Others lay inside the desk drawers in reserve for they did crack and splinter on occasion.  Usually such an occasion was when Harris lost his temper.
          Mr. Harris always saved the paddle for last.  He had used it before the cane but then found that the paddle produced better results as it slammed onto fresh cane tramlines and onto their parallel ridges that were still rising as they matured.   Bobby had heard about this.  Harris the triple play teacher with his home run endings ending with the paddle slamming onto the heated cane welts that had been created upon a strapped underlying foundation.  Harris the triple threat; the triple whammer.
          Harris looked down at the ass before him raised up on high in front of his desk.  He leaned down for a closer inspection.  Bobby jumped as the teacher’s fingers touched the outstanding rising welt that had been created from the triple cane strokes atop a strap bruise.  He slid his finger slowly back and forth along its ridges.  It brought to mine the banks of the Snake River as it flowed through a gorge.  What the target now would be was without question.  Without looking at the blackboard Harris continued on with the lesion.
          “In this gorge . . . SPLAT! . . . the river slams . . . thank you s . . . into a bed of rocks . . . SPLAT!   AAAAAHHHHHHH . . . To form rapids . . . SPLAT!   AA - - AA - - gasp - - AA - - -  THANK YO - - - -  Now get back to your seat.”
          With tears running down his cheeks Bobby, the Defeated, the Ex-Smirker- left the desk.  Just as he was approaching his regular seat in the classroom Harris called out:  “Not that seat!  Come back up here.  NOW.”
          Again Bobby found himself bent over the desk up on tiptoes with his shaking hands gripping its front edge.  He recalled having started down the aisle towards the Hot Seat but when he saw that the teacher was now back to work with his chalk with his back turned, he had seized the opportunity and had made a right turn.  He was guilty.
          “The snake river rapids have tons of water slamming  . . . SPLAT! . . . onto buns . . . I mean rocks . . . SPLAT! . . . rapidly . . .   SPLAT!  SPLAT!  SPLAT!”  All heard the paddle splinter.
          With the unexpected and unfair extension of the paddling Bobby had slid forward on the desktop and released his grip on its front edge.  Seaming with each splat both of his fisted hands had slammed into the front side of the desk as he screamed “NO  NO  NO!”
          Harris calmed himself and laid down the injured paddle.  “Now return to the seat . . . to the proper seat . . . to the Hot Seat, if you please.”  I must control my temper better, he thought to himself.
          Billy felt the eyes of his classmates on him.  He sensed that they were more sympathetic now.  He triggered the timer and remounted.  The seat seemed even hotter than before, as if that were possible.  He swayed back and forth and rocked back and forth as tears flowed like a tributary to the Snake River.  Nothing helped ease the sizzling but his movements did make for some mental distraction in his overloaded brain.
          He listened to the timer.  Tick . . . . . . . . . . tick . . . . . . . . . tick . . . . . . . . .  The prolonged ticks would number 300 before the dinger sounded.  It seemed that each quiet little tick was spaced five seconds apart rather than one. His pulse rate climbed as the time passed and the five-minute ticker came closer and closer.  Finally, “ping.”  Just as he started to leap off the teacher spoke.
          “Just a moment, Bobby.  I need to know how well you have been paying attention.”
          Bobby gasped.  Just at the moment that the punishment session was at an end, a pop quiz.
          “Through which gorge does the Snake River pass here?”
          Thank God, he thought.  The only thing that he had heard and retained.  “Hell’s canyon.”
          “Next boy,” said the teacher as he waved to Billy to rise and opened his desk drawer to extract a fresh paddle.  The splintered one would be destined to go in the open wire trash basket to join the others.  The basket was a permanent fixture of the classroom.  That thought would not be done until after the next boy had had time to soak in its splintered sight there on the desktop.
          “Billy, as you were not the instigator . . . the perpetrator . . . I shall give you only twos instead of threes.”
          “But sir . . .”
          “Yes?”
          “I . . . I was only trying to keep it from hitting someone.”
          Harris recalled the broad smile on the boy’s face as he had grabbed the paper airplane out of the air and had held it on high as he smiled triumphantly at Bobby. 
          “So you were acting on behalf of public safety.  Is that what you’re saying?”
          “Well . . . well I guess . . .”
          “Billy; I wasn’t born yesterday.”  Without thinking from his nervousness he whispered:  “day before, I guess.”
          “That would have been on last Monday.  We’ll make it threes after all.  You’ll be a full-fledged partner; a fully licensed co-pilot.  To the Hot Seat.  Git!”
          Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut, thought the boy?  Why; why?
          Not only do teachers have eyes in the backs of their heads, they have ears like a Nautilus class submarine; like a submarine navigating the Snake River through Hell’s Canyon.  
          And so it came to pass that the little airport in the fifth grade was closed for the day.  Inclement condition, we’re told:  A heat wave, and the landing pad was simmering.  Two fifth grade boys’ asses were also sizzling, having been toasted upon the Hot Seat.  All further flights were canceled for the day.