Would Laurie's mother punish him? Why or why not?

From your question and the reference to Laurie as "him", I assume you are asking this with regard to the story "Charles" by Shirley Jackson. In this story, Laurie is a precocious kindergarten student with a classmate named Charles. As it turns out at the end of the story, the author leaves the reader to assume that  Charles is a character Laurie made up to take the blame for his misbehavior at school.

One would...

From your question and the reference to Laurie as "him", I assume you are asking this with regard to the story "Charles" by Shirley Jackson. In this story, Laurie is a precocious kindergarten student with a classmate named Charles. As it turns out at the end of the story, the author leaves the reader to assume that  Charles is a character Laurie made up to take the blame for his misbehavior at school.

One would assume then that Laurie's mother would punish him for the acts Charles supposedly committed, and which Laurie told his parents about, once she realizes that it was Laurie and not Charles that committed them. However, throughout the story the author paints Laurie's father and mother as weak characters who do not pay much attention to their son's behaviors. Though she states he is rude and admits he misbehaves, she takes no action to help him correct these behaviors. Therefore, either for these minor day to day infractions or for the more serious ones that Laurie accused Charles of committing at school, it does not seem likely that Laurie's mother would punish him.