‘The Quiet Garden’

[Robert Brooks]

“They’re taking his trousers off!” I can still hear those words clear as crystal like it was yesterday, though in fact almost 30 years have past. They were excitedly said to me by my best friend, Chloe as we were playing near to ‘The Quiet Garden’ in our fifth year of primary school (in England, near London), when we were around 9 or 10 years old.

What caught my attention instantly was the word: “they’re.” It wasn’t: “he’s taking his trousers off,” which could mean a boy was taking his own trousers off—something that would still have been unusual and worth seeing in the unexpected setting of the school playground—no, it was: “they’re taking his trousers off,” which could mean only one thing: that at that very moment, inside The Quiet Garden, a boy was having his trousers removed against his will by at least two other children. This I just had to see!

I’d seen such things on TV and read about it in books and found the idea strangely thrilling but I’d never witnessed it happen in real life. It was to be the most exciting and naughty thing I had ever experienced.

Chloe had seen it first. Noticing a commotion coming from behind the low wall and tall trellis fence, she peeked in through a gap between the plants and let out a gasp of astonishment. She clearly worked out in a second what was about to happen and exclaimed those infamous words before grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the entrance to the garden.

Upon our arrival into the small, secluded space intended for children to sit and read and escape the hurly burly of the main playground, my eyes lit up and my heart began to race. There, wrestling on the earthy ground were three boys, all in the year above me and Chloe. One was lying flat on his back, holding onto the waistband of his trousers for dear life, while another had them gripped tightly by the hems, pulling with all his might in the opposite direction. The third boy was pinning their victim down by the shoulders to stop him wriggling around so much.
Being the year above me, they would have been about 10 or 11 years old. The shrieking boy whose trousers were just beginning to inch their way down, revealing so far only the very top of his underpants, had bright ginger hair and his shoes were already removed, chucked haphazardly about the garden. I knew straight away these boys meant business and I secretly prayed they would succeed in depriving this ginger kid of his school trousers before a teacher came running. I almost stopped breathing the whole time we were there.

After me and Chloe, a few more boys and girls arrived to see what the fuss was all about but it would be about two minutes before a teacher arrived; two minutes too late.
We all watched, some laughing some cheering, mesmerised as the boy’s trousers crept lower and lower. Sometimes he would have a spurt of energy and wrestle them back up but each time they got tugged they came down a little further than before. He was wearing white underwear, that much was clear but were they briefs or boxers? Most boys, including myself wore briefs at that age but there were some who had begun to wear more grown up boxers and as this boy was in the year above, going on to senior school next year so who knows?

Second by second we watched with bated breath as this exciting and naughty tug-of-war unfolded. By now the ginger boy was screaming bloody murder as more and more of his underpants became exposed. First the waistband, then about an inch of the main part of his pants, then two inches. Finally after about 30 seconds the bullies had managed to get his trousers down so far that everyone could see he was wearing white briefs with a little picture of Buzz Lightyear on the front. Girls shrieked; boys laughed and teased; and as for me, I was silent and routed to the spot, transfixed by what I was seeing and for the first time in my young life, suddenly aware of a peculiar tingling sensation happing in my own underpants. I wondered if anyone else was feeling that strange tingling as as well as we took in this amazing sight.

Then it finally happened, the battle was lost (or won). With one last almighty wrench, the bullies succeed in whipping this unfortunate kid’s precious school trousers right down and off. There was a resounding cheer and screams of excitement as we witnessed this year-6 boy rendered completely trouser-less. Now lying in front of us in the once ‘quiet garden’ in nothing but his blue uniform polo shirt, grey socks and his white Buzz Lightyear pants—an image that has stayed with me for almost 30 years—he burst into tears.

Now of course I felt incredibly sorry and embarrassed for him and didn’t find any pleasure at all in seeing him cry. I would have absolutely hated it if that had ben me lying there with my pants on show, (in fact I did hate it as something very similar happened to me the following year!) but all the same I had loved every second of what I had witnessed and it very firmly cemented my interest in forced stripping from that pivotal moment on.

Having gleefully taunted their victim by waving his trousers around in the air and whooping like chimpanzees, the two bullies scarpered, leaving him to miserably retrieve his trousers from the top of the trellis fence and hastily dress himself. Only once his trousers were securely back on and we had all dispersed, some girls still giggling over what we had seen, did one of the playground monitors arrive. Evidently a fight had broken out at the other end of the playground so she had been attending to that, unaware that another desperate fight over one particular boy’s trousers was taking place in the quiet garden.

After the fun of the show Chloe and I hung around where we had originally been playing, just outside the garden so we could hear what was being said. It was quite funny and rather stimulating to hear him wail, half crying, “They pulled my trousers off!”

I don’t know what the repercussions were for the two fiendish perpetrators but I would imagine they were punished severely for their naughty crime!

As it turned out I ended up going to the same secondary school as the ginger boy. It always amused me whenever I passed him in the corridor or saw him on the playground, remembering the time I saw him with no trousers on and I often wondered if he still wore briefs or even, heaven forbid, cartoon briefs!

[Jeepman89]

LOve it. Well done.

[TeenFan]

Too bad this scene did not appear in the famous story, made many times into a move, called "The Secret Garden"
The kids are cute in all the versions of this story, too bad they weren't so naughty.