Victoria Sponge was one of those pupils who divided opinion. Some would see the pale face and even paler hair, a silvery white shade highlighted by pastel pinks and blues, as a kind of graceful beauty. Others thought she looked like a ghost and tried to exorcise her at every opportunity by throwing things.

At present she was alone, performing an assigned task as punishment for failing to pass through solid objects. Namely, a book had been bounced off her head by an alarmed classmate and her reaction, to angrily throw the book back, was the only part of the incident spotted by a mistress and therefore duly registered as a misdemeanour. Thus she found herself with a very hairy broom in an unfrequented part of the school, one of the smaller cellars, performing a humbling task. She was giving the stone floor a sweep. Occasionally.

Mainly she was sighing and leaning upon the broom handle in thoughtful reflection, something which can be done without a mirror. It would be a good idea if more people might try such an exercise.

The lonely cellar was a quiet gloomy place to be reflective in. Occasional echoed shouts drifted down from the busy and merry floors above and Victoria was slowly sinking into self pity. She scuffed the broom along a crack in the stone floor a moment to steady her spirits and noted the place looked remarkable clean already. This brought on the speculation that perhaps many girls were punished thus, so many that the place was positively spotless. How many other victims had been immured down here to waste away the best years of their lives chasing after imaginary dust?

A shuffling sound caught her ear just then. The cellar contained boxes and wooden crates, some stacked so high they reached the arched ceiling. Unnerved by the scraping noise, Victoria clutched the broom handle in a more defensive posture and sought the gaps and corners in the dim space.

"Who's there?" her voice feebly challenged. The scuffling got louder of a sudden and she whirled round to be confronted by a moving shadow near the open door. Her shriek was stifled by the appearance of another girl.

"Ah, there you are. Wasn't sure which punishment cell you were in," came a friendly but somewhat hesitant greeting.

"You!"

"Me," and the other girl just stood there, holding a broom as well, though hers appeared less hairy. This exchange could be explained by the simple fact the intruder was none other than the very girl who had thrown a book at Victoria's head but an hour before, resulting in banishment to the cellars.

"Have you come here to gloat?"

"No, to help. I saw what had happened to you and felt as it had been my fault entirely I confessed to the mistress my part in the exchange. She refused to release you, saying you had reacted badly, but that I could jolly well join you."

"How could anyone expect me to react when a dirty great volume entitled Ethics Among Migratory Squid clunked against my skull? I have a bruise. Why ever did you do it?"

"Well, this girl from Arbornica, you know the mischievous one with long dark hair and a wicked braid, kept saying you looked like, er, a phantom or something, and could probably pass through walls and that sort of thing. I just panicked."

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Now you know," came a withering answer to this explanation.

"Sorry," came the belated apology.

"Which one are you, by the way?"

This question pleased the blonde pigtailed girl immensely and her spirits soared. If there was one thing which really annoyed the Massking twins it was being identified.

"Fizzy," she said.

"How long can you survive separated from your sister?"

"Twelve minutes at a stretch, so we had better get a move on sweeping this cellar completely clean," and this announcement galvanised the girl into action as she scraped her sparse broom across the rough stonework eagerly.

"There's no point. It's already clean."

This made Fizzy Massking pause and look around her.

"You're right, we've finished already. It's amazing what a little dedication to hard work can achieve. Let's call the teacher for an inspection."

With a whoop of laughter the two girls scurried up the stone steps, raced happily around a corner and up some more steps where they were confronted by a whole new world of light and sound and colour. It was as if they had escaped from the underworld and were greeted as long lost wanderers by others whom they passed in various corridors, still clutching their brooms as they went.

"Make way for the house maids," someone shouted as they sought out the mistress who had sent them to the depths. They found her holding forth in a class on what might have been a second floor though they were sure they had been on the first but moments before.

"I do not recall ordering room service," the teacher sarcastically said, pausing in her lesson and allowing her pupils to snigger musically at the figures standing breathless in the doorway.

"Miss, we've scoured the cellar and removed every particle of dirt to be found there, down to subatomic level," Fizzy Massking declared impressively, holding her broom in a sort of present arms pose.

"We wish you to check our work and release us from durance vile," came a more picturesque request from Victoria Sponge. "Besides, I have a bruise."

"Very well," came a promising reply. Having assigned one of the third year girls to take the class a moment, a delegation of authority which thrilled the two first years, imagining themselves allowed such power in their classes that tempted a veritable massacre of detentions, the teacher led the way back down the stone steps towards the dark and gloomy lower levels.

"You understand," she said, trying to point her actions most usefully as they walked briskly along a corridor, "I was obliged to order such a punishment to give wayward girls a chance to reflect upon their behaviour. Have you learnt anything from this day?"

"Victoria is not a ghost," Fizzy said after a moment of cogitation.

"I have a bruise," was all that the other offered just then. She did some further soul searching before making additional observations. "And a headache. Also, it is unethical for squid to be so migratory."

"Well, a lesson learned is, um, a learned lesson I suppose."

This slightly confused rejoinder had been elicited by the teacher approaching the cellar where the girls had been told to perform their task. She stood there in the doorway surveying its contents critically.

"It appears not," she said sternly, completing half a thought, the other half being perhaps better left unspoken.

The girls pushed past the woman as she stood there on the threshold, tapping her foot with mounting ire. They did not like what was presented to them any more than she did, though they had greater reason to be annoyed.

The floor had indeed been left spotless when they sought the mistress. Now not a single flagstone was visible as a thick layer of grey dust lay like the softest of carpets across the entire area, washing up in waves against walls and crates. Such an accumulation could not have been disturbed since the building had been raised hundreds of years ago.

"We could roll it up in a trice," Fizzy suggested with a whimper.

"You do that," the teacher said. "I don't want to see you for another hour. If by then this cellar is not as clean as it was when I last inspected it, there will be serious consequences." She left then in a huff, a species of vehicle that always departed rapidly, leaving a cloud of apprehension behind it.