In Trouble
"Bonehead? Get inside at once," Mr. Petersen growled from the bright, cosy-looking doorway. Rimmer had been caught completely off-guard creeping towards the school keeping a lookout before bringing Lister indoors, and despite wanting to obey, he instead began to feverishly babble on about Lister and bets and Parker instead and eventually Mr. Petersen allowed himself to be dragged outside by the anxious boy, and hoped that what he would see would explain everything. But instead, he found David Lister propped against the bike shed in obvious pain. Mr. Petersen fell to him and held his hand against his head. Rimmer waited, impatiently twiddling his thumbs and with his leg jiggling like mad. "Rimmer, stay with him. I'll just fetch the nurse."
"Sir, what is it? You've gone really white."
""I'm sure it's nothing but..." Mr. Petersen smiled reassuringly, "just stay here." Rimmer felt far from reassured as he watched Mr. Petersen pelting down the schoolyard. He had never called him Rimmer before.
The cold blue lights of the ambulance faded into the distance and the gossiping youths crowding the hall and stairs were marched back to their dormitories. Rimmer was led inside to the teacher's lounge and presented with a mug of cocoa. "What happened, boy?" Rimmer stared at Mr. Petersen with frightened Bambi eyes, too tired to answer. "I settle down with a copy of Basic Instinct, and five seconds before that scene, I get Roebuck banging away at my door telling me that you were about to be, and I quote, "electronified". I go to your dormitory and find Parker beaten to a pulp, and bunks 13 A and 13 B empty."
"They were fighting about me, sir."
"Ah. Young love."
"Sir! That's not funny!"
Mr. Petersen smiled thoughtfully and murmured, "No, it isn't. Parker won't take long to recover but Lister's injuries are quite severe. It seems he won the fight, but one of his injuries took a little time to reveal its seriousness." Rimmer let his drink go cold and listened carefully to Mr. Petersen's gentle explanation of acute appendicitis.
Rimmer felt detached from the world as he seemingly floated into the dormitory and alighted onto his bed. He wasn't aware of Porky bombarding him with questions about Lister, nor Spotty apologising vehemently over and over. All he could see was a slimy grin from across the room. A pair of unfeeling lips with nothing but self-righteous arrogance to display. Lister had obviously missed a spot during his fight with the owner of those lips. Rimmer, not even thinking to pick up his boxing gloves, finished the job with one fell swoop.