gap: 2s) Once, in the golden days of my childhood, when the world seemed as bright and new as a freshly scrubbed kitchen floor, I found myself in a bit of a pickle. It was a warm afternoon, the kind where the sun danced on the linoleum and the air was filled with the laughter of children at play. I had been skipping rope outside, my cheeks rosy and my hair tied back with a ribbon, when I wandered in for a cool glass of water.
There, on the dining room table, sat a bowl of peaches—round, blushing, and as inviting as a summer sunrise. Mother had just returned from the grocer’s, and the fruit looked so plump and sweet, I could almost taste the sunshine in their skin.
“Mother, may I have a peach?” I called, my voice hopeful. From the kitchen, her answer came, gentle but firm: “No, darling, not now. Those are for dessert tonight, after supper.”
I fetched my water, but as I passed the table again, temptation tugged at my heart. There were so many peaches—surely one would not be missed! With a quick glance over my shoulder, I slipped the smallest peach into the pocket of my pinafore and tiptoed back outside, my heart thumping like the ticking of the big clock in the hallway.
I found a quiet spot behind the hydrangeas, away from my brother and sister, and ate the peach in secret. The juice ran down my chin, and it was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted. When I finished, I buried the pit beneath the flowers and hurried back to play, thinking no one would ever know.
But mothers, as every child soon learns, have eyes in the back of their heads and a mind as sharp as a tack. That evening, as we gathered for supper, Mother’s gaze swept the table. “Diane,” she said, “did you take a peach after I told you not to?” My heart fluttered like a trapped bird. “No, Mother,” I replied, my voice barely above a whisper.
Mother said nothing, but she took my hands in hers. The sticky sweetness on my palms told the tale I could not hide. Her eyes were sad.
The stickiness of the sweet juice on my palms told its own story.
“Diane! How could you be so dishonest and disobedient? Didn’t I tell you you’d get a peach at dinner? Yet you thought it was all right to steal and then to lie about it? You are in for a spanking, young lady. I think it had better be the paddle.”
I had started crying at the mention of a spanking, but when Momma said it would be the paddle, I was really frightened. Up until that point, I had only felt the palm of her hand on my bottom when I misbehaved, but I had seen my brother and sister taken upstairs for the paddle, heard the screaming and crying from upstairs, and seen the marks and soreness it left on their bottoms. I was terrified.
I tried begging Momma but by now she wasn’t listening to me. “Sarah,” she said, turning to my sister, “will you fetch me the paddle, please?” “Yes, Momma,” Sarah replied with undisguised glee, returning with it a few seconds later.
I should explain that the paddle my Momma kept for spankings was no small little bit of wood. It was the kind sold as a novelty in tourist shops, over a foot long and a quarter inch thick. That she was even considering using it on a five-year-old’s bottom was a sign of how seriously I had transgressed in her eyes.
Momma took my sticky little hand in hers. “Come on!” she said, “It’s time for that lil’ peach of yours to be ripened, young lady.”
I was led upstairs, crying my eyes out already. We were about to head into the bedroom my sister and I shared when Momma obviously had a thought. Instead, I was marched into the bathroom. “I think you can wash those guilty hands.”
I hobbled over to the sink and complied. “Right – come along!” I was led awkwardly to my room, where Momma sat on the bed and looked me straight in the eye.
She then delivered an almighty lecture about stealing and lying, most of the contents of which you can guess. Then I was put across her lap and I felt the hard wood laid against my bottom. It felt huge, and easily covered both cheeks simultaneously. Then without another word, Momma lifted the paddle and brought it down smartly. I had never felt burning like it and I screamed at the top of my voice.
Considering it was my first time for the paddle, I don’t believe Momma went easy on me at all – in her eyes, my crimes were too serious for that.
Back in the bedroom, Momma put me into pyjamas and then ordered me into bed. There was to be no dinner for me that night – just a sore bottom to think about.
That was by no means the last time the paddle and I had a meeting, but it was more than a year before I was naughty enough to deserve wood across my bottom again, although I had several ‘words’ from Momma’s hand.
