Ginger

German short story about the pleasure of aching buttocks. Author: Apfelrot

Lena is sitting in the director's anteroom, for the third time this month. She didn't really care about such things, but today the waiting made her nervous. Especially when she thought about the director and how she could literally pierce you with a stern look from her clever eyes. Lena began to tilt her chair, whereupon she caught a reprimanding look from the secretary, who was sorting through a few last documents before she left for her end of the day. What she must have thought of her, Lena muses, that she could only get herself into trouble all the time. The secretary picks up her bag and says goodbye with a nod of her head.

As she walks out the door, Lena sticks her tongue out behind her back. At the same moment, Lena is ashamed of her childish behavior; she begins nervously fiddling with the hem of her school uniform skirt. Finally, the door opens, and the principal calls Lena into her office. She points to a chair across from her desk, and Lena reluctantly takes a seat. “Well?” the director asks quietly. Lena decides not to respond. Instead, she fixes a corner of the desk so as not to accidentally meet the director's gaze. She would just wait until it was all over. She would probably get to listen to a sermon first, and then get a few swats on the backside with a ruler.

She already knew that. Defiantly, she pushes her lower lip forward a little. The principal looks thoughtfully at the stubborn girl across her desk. Lena seemed to literally invite trouble; hardly a school day went by without her hearing a complaint about her from one of the teachers. Lena was constantly disrupting classes, not completing her assignments, and behaving rudely and meanly, especially toward the younger classmates. Moreover, no punishment seemed to impress her. The principal suppresses a sigh, pulls the note with the science teacher's message toward her, and begins to speak in her calm, clear voice:

“Apparently you threw your book at a classmate in class today. Poor Kathrin was so unfortunately hit in the arm that the wound had to be stitched. Is there anything you'd like to tell me about that?” Lena doesn't let on if she heard a word of what the principal said to her. She just continues to fix rigidly on the corner of the desk. The principal continues, “It's one thing if you don't do your assignments or refuse to follow the class. In the end, you're only hurting yourself, even if you don't seem to want to see that. But it's a completely different matter if you harm your fellow human beings in the process. Be it by keeping them from learning because you disrupt the lessons. I cannot tolerate that. And even more so, I can't tolerate it if it goes so far as to seriously hurt someone, like little Kathrin. Do you understand?”