Six of the Best

It was January, the beginning of the school year at Tauranga Primary School, and I was starting out in Mr. Brookes Standard 3 class. Thankfully many of my friends were in the same class, but this was not to be a great year. Mr. Brookes was a mean "pommy"....a slang term we used for someone from England.
He was skinny, had thin lips, and never smiled. His hair was thin and mousy brown, and he wore light brown horn-rimmed glasses. The worst thing about Mr. Brookes was that he had a long brown leather strap, about 2 inches wide that he was not afraid to use on the boys who got out of line.
Typically he would make the culprit stand in front of the class, with his arm stretched out to the side, then with all the force he could muster, - WHOOSH - down would come that strap, right on the open hand of that poor soul. It happened time and time again, each time Mr. Brookes being bright red in the face with anger. Sometimes the veins in his neck would stick out so far, I wondered if they’s burst.
At interval, or recess we’d all be talking about how so and so got the "cuts" to-day. We called it the cuts because sometimes he’d whack so hard, the person’s hand would bleed. Then we’d say something like "well, they got six of the best or eight of the best" the number of course depending on the severity of the infraction.
Mr. Brookes had it out for Trevor Coker. Poor kid - he was always getting the cuts. I’ve often wondered about him and if it made him stronger, or if it just beat him down more. It was obvious he had low self esteem just by the way he carried himself. Most often he was slouched over with his head down, and it didn’t help that he had buck teeth and big ears either.
One day Mr. Brookes was administering a very important test and he told us we had to be quiet as we worked through it. In fact, he stood at the front of the class shaking his index finger and said "I’m going to make you this promise, that the next person I hear talking is going to get the strap." Being terrified not a one of us made a peep , and each student got busy with the task at hand.
A while passed and the girl sitting just in front of me turned around and whispered "Could I borrow your ruler?" Unwittingly, I looked up and whispered "yes" just as Mr Brookes caught my eye. He bristled, stood up and in a loud voice said "I made a promise. You two come up to the front."
I didn’t think he’d go through with it because we were girls, but sure enough we each got "six of the best", to the horror of the class. It hurt so much, but something inside me would not let me cry. I suppose I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, so I kept it all inside.
That night when my Dad got home, he gave me a big hug and jokingly said "Did you get the cuts to-day?" I nonchalantly replied with "No I didn’t actually." He said "Are you sure?’ I continued to deny it, until my emotions betrayed me, and tears trickled down my face. Dad said "Dear, I know you got the cuts to-day, because one of the girls in your class told her Mother, who happens to be a school board member. She phoned me to-day, and now Mr. Brookes is in serious trouble. In fact I’m hoping to have him fired."
I was mortified. Here I was only eight years old and causing all this trouble.
There were hearings and meetings and more meetings, and in the end Mr. Brookes was allowed to keep his job minus the strap. I’m sure he was on some kind of probation but I was never privy to that information.
Things didn’t get much better that year, as Mr. Brookes meanness took on a whole new dimension, but at the very least there was no more leather strap, and one thing’s for sure - the class never had to worry about the cuts again.


(Just for the record, my closest girlfriends that year were Sally Lund, Elizabeth Parnell, Collette Stewart and Prudence Major. My main crushes were Gavin Cockroft, Colin Giffney, Robin Moon and Russell Burns)

Written by Hilda
(January 21, 2007)