Willow Academy (Spanking Story)

Chapter 15, Part 1: Penny's POV

"Does my brother know that you came looking for me?" I asked Emmett as we approached Ben's classroom.

Emmett shook his head. "I just said I was going to the bathroom," he said.

"Then I should probably go in first." Emmett nodded in agreement as he stopped by the set of lockers next to Ben's classroom.

I took a deep breath before opening the classroom door. I'm not sure what I was expecting Ben to do, to say. I figured he wouldn't be happy with me though—ten plus minutes "going to the bathroom?" I guess it was possible that someone would take that long, but I knew Ben wasn't gonna buy it from me.

"Where were you?" Ben asked as he looked up from his stack of ungraded papers and watched me walk into the room. The stack was significantly smaller than it had been when I left.

"Bathroom," I said as I extended the bathroom pass towards him. "I asked permission."

"For thirteen minutes?" Ben asked, lowering his thick-framed glasses as he continued to stare at me. He didn't make any effort to take the pass out of my hands.

"...Yeah?" I tried. Even I knew that that didn't sound very convincing. Clearly being tired threw off my amazing fibbing abilities.

"Penny ..." Ben started, shaking his head. He was using his 'I'm about to lecture you' voice, and I was way too tired to suffer through one of his infamous lectures. Plus, I had soccer practice to get to.

"Okay, fine. I ended up talking to someone on my way to the bathroom," I admitted.

Ben sighed and finally took the bathroom pass out of my hand. "I gave you permission to go to the bathroom, not gossip with your friends in the hallway."

"I wasn't gossiping in the hallway," I snapped. The way Ben then dropped the pass into the drawer and slammed it shut made me think twice about the tone I'd just used with him. "I was just talking to one friend, and all he did was ask me if I was okay."

"He?" Ben said. "Who is this 'one friend' that you were talking to?"

Crap. Did I say "he?" Ugh, I should have said "they." I regretted my word choice because the only "he's" that my brothers knew that I spoke to at school were Emmett and Marcus, and even then I think that they thought of us more as classmates/acquaintances than as friends. I couldn't really give Ben Emmett or Marcus' name anyway because both of them were in English class with me, and Emmett only came looking for me ten minutes after I went MIA.

"Was it Zachery Oliver?" Ben finally asked before my rundown brain could conjure up a good answer. I think I'm learning that when I'm tired I'm just off my game, period, so I should just zip it. The sound of Douchezilla's name spilling out of my brother's mouth definitely made me wake up a little bit though. I guess the look on my face gave away the truth, because Ben didn't wait for me to confirm it. "Cooper told me about the situation he had with you and Zachery last week in gym."

"Oh," I said, looking down at the floor. I wasn't that surprised, since Cooper pretty much told Ben everything ... but since Ben hadn't brought it up (until now), I thought the he'd just let it slide. Guess I was wrong.

"And I can assure you that I wasn't very happy to hear about it," he said. "What on earth were you thinking, Penny—skipping class and then giving lip to Cooper about it."

Darn, I guess my initial honesty hadn't spared me a lecture from my oldest brother.

"I'm sorry," I said. "But like I told Cooper, we weren't skipping class, we were just taking a break."

"That kid is notorious for skipping class, Penny." That didn't exactly surprise me considering how often he hung out by the water fountain. "I know for a fact that his idea of hiding behind the bleachers is not 'taking a break,' it's skipping. If you wanted to take a break, you two would have sat on the bleachers, not hid behind them."