Room 2D

By Johnny Chesham from Janus 34 You’d hardly have noticed it in the foggy winter night — a small brass name-plate reading  The Correction Club  in elegant italics. A tall man in a black cape and topper pulled energetically on the ornate Edwardian bell as a shaft of eerie gaslight fell across his features and the departing hansom cab rattled away, soon swallowed in the omnipresent silence. Slowly the door opened. ‘Good evening, Major,’ a solemn butler in black tails intoned. ‘Evening, Hodges!’ the man rapped and strode briskly into the hall. With a swirl he removed his cape which he thrust at the servant with his black silk hat. Curiously he retained a shiny black cane which had passed unnoticed in the voluminous folds. ‘The members are in the club-room, sir,’ Hodges announced and retired with a deep bow. The Major tapped his cane solidly into his left palm with a smart crack. Then with sudden vigour he mounted...

Story from Janus 27 by Johnny Chesham Penelope Forster sat in the railway carriage looking out at the Sussex Downs with a resentful expression on her pretty, freckled face. Tomorrow was first day of term at St Elia’s High School for Girls and any minute now she would be joined by all the other schoolgirls reminding her that her freedom was over. She had enjoyed the vac and met a super boy too, but now she was back to all the rules and discipline of a strict girls’ boarding school. As the train drew into the junction she saw hordes of girls in the blue and white striped blazers of St Elia’s swarming about in straw hats, navy blue gym-slips and white knee-length socks, waving hockey sticks and satchels, reminding her all too clearly of the school life she was so tired of. In a flash she saw the answer: ‘Of course,’ she thought, ‘I’ll get myself expelled!’ Why hadn’t she thought of it before? St Elia’s was full of rules and...