Willow Academy (Spanking Story)

Chapter 14, Part 2: Penny's POV

Thank goodness it was finally last period. This day had been going by painfully slow. Did I say day? I meant week! Ever since Cooper made Zach and I run those extra laps after gym class, it's like time decided that it was going to move extra slowly just so that my three-week grounding would drag on and on. Usually I would say that I'd take being grounded over getting spanked any day, but this punishment felt like it was never ending—kind of like how I felt when I ran those five or six laps (or maybe even seven ... I lost count after the first mile) before Cooper finally "dismissed" Zach and me. Neither of us ever finished a lap under one minute by the way (though I think Zach came close once or twice), but I think Cooper finally grew a brain and realized from Zach's heavy breathing and my gasping for air that we'd both seriously had enough. With that nearly two-mile run plus soccer practice, I was pretty rundown—although I didn't really feel the repercussions of running that much until I actually had to get out of the bed the next day. Maybe that was why this week was going so painfully slow—I was too tired to really do anything but go to school, somehow make it through soccer practice, eat every once in a while, and sleep—life was becoming repetitive and boring. Man, I really needed this grounding to be over with, like ASAP.

"Penny!"

"Huh?" I said as I quickly picked my head up from the desk and looked around to see Caroline, Emmett, and Marcus staring at me. "What happened?"

"You fell asleep," Caroline said. "Again."

"Oh, I did?" I said as I picked up my copy of Lord of the Flies. "Sorry. What page are we on?"

"We already finished the chapter," Marcus said. "We're doing the questions now."

"Oh right," I said as I pull out my question sheet.

"You okay, Penny?" Emmet asked.

"Of course," I said as I clicked my ballpoint pen. "Why?"

"Well for one, you just fell asleep in your brother's class for the second time," Caroline said.

"It's fine," I said, brushing it off. "He didn't even notice." I was super lucky that Ben didn't notice, otherwise I would have been dead. Either I must not have dozed off for long, or my friends were really good at shielding Ben from seeing me since we were sitting in the back of the room.

"You've been looking kind of tired all week," Emmett said. That made me perk up a little—no girl ever wants to hear that she looks tired.

"Yeah, you have," Marcus agreed.

"I'm just worried about you," Emmett continued.

"I'm fine, really. I've just been going to bed a little bit later than usual." I then slowly stood up from the rhombus-like shape our four desks made after we'd pushed them together. "I'll be right back."

I shuffled to the front of the room, weaving in and out of the groups of desks that were clumped together since Ben had let us do our busywork in groups today.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" I asked as I approached Ben's desk. He looked up from the paper he was grading with a stern look on his face. Judging by all the red marks he'd made on the paper, and on the paper at the top of his finished stack, he wasn't impressed with what he was reading (thank goodness neither of them were mine). His face softened a little after he looked at me for a few seconds. "What?" I asked, just standing there awkwardly as I waited for his answer.

"Are you okay?" Ben asked me.

"Yeah, I just need to go to the bathroom," I said. I needed to go check myself out in the mirror, to see if I really did look tired (aka, like a hot mess). "Why wouldn't I be?"