The Whip by Karen Kondazian Read Free Book Online

together in bed. Some of the girls began to laugh, relieved that it was someone else that was in trouble.
    Parthenia arrived in her dirty shift and a moment later was followed by Mr. Meade, pulling the edges of a chenille robe over his nightshirt.
    Lee and Charlotte looked at each other in despair. All the girls were giggling, and some were whispering “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.” But the faces of Miss Haden, Parthenia, and Mr. Meade were white and grim with the direst of prediction.

    Miss Haden escorted Lee later that morning to the headmaster’s office. She waited in the corridor outside, a small smile of satisfaction on her face.
    Headmaster Meade looked up at Lee as he came into the office.
    “Please shut the door behind you Mr. Colton.”
    He pushed his two hands against the top of the large mahogany desk and rose from his chair. Lee watched as he walked the few steps to where a leather strap hung by a hook on the wall. He removed it and turned, flicking the strap against his palm. He seemed distant and detached.
    Lee shrugged and then turned around, holding onto the back of a chair.
    The headmaster looked at Lee’s slender, straight back. He raised the strap. Lee’s hands tightened around the back of the chair. The headmaster snapped the strap hard. At the very last moment however, he deflected the blow onto the desk. It was a resounding strike. Lee turned around, astonished.
    The headmaster spoke in an even voice.
    “Boy, why did you go into the girl’s dormitory? You know it’s not allowed.”
    Lee, his face flushed with feeling, looked up at him.
    “Charlotte needs me. She doesn’t know how to sleep alone. She’s scared of the dark.”
    The headmaster nodded. He didn’t say anything for a long minute. He examined Lee’s face.
    Lee, his heart still pounding, waited.
    “I see,” the headmaster said. He looked down at the strap and then back at Lee. “Don’t do it, Mr. Colton. Even once more. If it happens again, I’m going to look a fool and then you know who will be doling out the punishment. Do you understand boy?”
    Lee nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    The headmaster gave him a little half smile, then moved to the door and pushed it open, standing aside. Lee dashed out of the room.
    Through the open door the headmaster’s eyes met the dogged gaze of Miss Haden. “I shan’t think we’ll have any more problems with him,” he said.
    Believing the boy had received his strong discipline, Miss Haden’s eyes shone at the headmaster with the highest of regard.

Twelve
    Miss Haden…it was she who discovered them together again that very next night when Lee crept back into the girls’ dormitory, back into Charlotte’s bed.
    Charlotte had welcomed him, nervous but grateful. She’d tucked her head into the spot under his arm. He’d put his arm around her. He had meant to leave in a moment and she understood that, but it was too warm, too familiar, too safe. They fell asleep like that.
    Charlotte awoke with a start. A moving pool of flickering light was illuminating the walls of the corridor. She shook Lee.
    When Miss Haden arrived, pausing in the doorway, lantern in hand, all at first seemed to be in order. She turned to go. But then something caught her eye. The window was open. Miss Haden’s lips pursed. She swept towards Charlotte, who appeared to be sleeping, her face buried in her pillow.
    Miss Haden stopped at her bedside. In the silence, she could hear a soft fast breathing from beneath the bed. She knelt down with her lantern and peered under. A pair of bare feet and a huddled form could be seen in the space between bed and floor. Lee’s defiant face looked out at her. Her hand reached toward him and then all of a sudden she withdrew. She hurried out of the room, her shoes clicking expeditiously across the floor.
    It was the rope, Charlotte later thought when she could understand such things, that took whatever good there was in Lee Colton and killed it that very night. Where had Miss Haden gotten