November 15th,

I am so sorry that I have not written in such a while, but I have been grounded, and as a result, I didn't want to get caught writing. Let me go back a little while so you can understand what has happened.

On October 30th, Louisa came up with this great idea to prank Fräulein Mildrid. The plan was that on our first day of school, we were going to ditch school so that Fräulein would have to come out and try to find us around town. During that time, we would go home and get into our beds and pretend that we never were really sick and that she never woke us up. Then, when Fräulein would go and wash her hands, there would be a frog in the sink.

This was so complicated, and all of us truly didn't want to miss school so we decided to do it on November 1st. All of us kids didn't set our alarms, so as a result, we slept passed breakfast. When Fräulein came into our rooms, she started yelling. When this happened, Friedrich got up from his bed, and snuck out of his room and put the frog in the sink.

By the time that Fräulein had made her way into the boys room, he was back in bed "sleeping." When Fräulein woke up Kurt and Friedrich, Fredrick purposefully sneezed on Fräulein's hands. She went into her bathroom to wash her hands, and screamed so loud.

She walked back into our rooms, and told us to get dressed and report downstairs. Then, from what we know, she went into her room and called father to tell him what happened. When we got downstairs, Fräulein was waiting for us with her bags packed telling us that father would be home tomorrow and that she was leaving. With that, she was out the door.

That day we kind of did what we wanted, which was nice. We did our summer work, but then we went outside and got to play. We were so excited because Fräulein would always yell at us for doing something wrong, so it was nice to be able to have this freedom. When lunch was served, we ate by ourselves and talked our hearts out instead of being quite.

And for dinner, we didn't even get changed into our nice clothes, we just went to dinner in our uniforms. The little girls were put to sleep at there normal time, but Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt and I stayed up until 10:00 and played games in the boys room.

At about 10:00, we headed to our beds, and made sure that we set our alarms for exactly 7:30 because we knew that if we were one second late to breakfast tomorrow and father was there, we would be in even more trouble.

We woke up that morning and we were all ready to go to breakfast when we heard fathers whistle. Quickly, we lined up on the second floor balcony and I grabbed Gretl as I ran to get in line. We all marched down to the beat of his whistle, with me in the front and Marta in the back. Marta looked so scared, and when we lined up, she held Brigitta's hand.

As we stood in line, father just walked up and back and up and back our line, looking at us once in a while. No one said anything, and no one moved. Then Gretl started crying and I didn't know what to do. Father looked at me sharply and whistled for the housekeeper. When she arrived, she took the baby from me, then quickly left. Father continued to march back and forth until he stopped right in front of Louisa and said:

"Who came up with this." No one answered. Then he said "Do not make me ask this question one more time." Again, no one answered. Then father barked, "Who came up with this idea. Tell me right now or you all will be punished." Marta ran over to Friedrich as she was crying and Brigitta ran over to Louisa and hugged her tightly. Kurt just stood there shaking. I didn't know what to do, so I raised my hand and said I came up with it, even though I didn't. Father started walking towards his office, and I followed.

As we entered, it looked a lot different from when mom was still alive. Then, it was filled with art and drawings and colors, but now, it was all grey with a many books. Father sat down on his big chair behind his desk, and I stood in front of it.

"Come here" father said sternly. He pushed away from his chair and summoned me to bend over his knees. He grabbed the book 'wizards of oz' from his pile of books on the floor. He lifted my skirt and pulled down my tights, so just my underwear was showing and started to spank me. I got 7 hard spanks and then he dropped the book down on the floor but kept me leaned over. He said in a soft, but strict tone that if I am ever responsible for anything like this again, then he would make my life miserable. (Although it already was!)

He pushed me up straight and told me that I was grounded, meaning I would attend breakfast by myself, a half hour earlier then everybody else, do my summer work alone, eat lunch by myself, go for a march by myself, change for dinner, and eat dinner alone, then report to bed. For everybody else, they would get punished once again with no desert, would be banned from any free time, and have all of our toys taken away. Also, Friedrich and Louisa would have to be spanked as well, as he told me that he knew that they were part of it.

He opened the door to his office and walked out. All of my siblings stared at me. I followed him as he led me upstairs to my room and shut the door behind me as I entered. I could hear through my door father sending everyone to breakfast beside Friedrich and Louisa.

Since then, all I have been was grounded. Today, father called me into his office and told me that I was not grounded anymore because he was going to go away to France and wouldn't trust a governess to control me.

When he sent me away, I ran up to my room to tell the other about a new governess that was coming