Chapter 2

Reigate spent much of the rest of her art lesson spamming her friends with messages complaining about her punishment, and plotting ways she could get out of it. This did mean that she had more Art homework to do, but she figured that she could do that in the evening, after her detention was finished.

As per usual, Reigate met her friends by the old tree at the edge of the playground once the school day was over. Chobham patted her on the shoulder, and tried to reassure her by talking about how nobody would judge her for hanging out with the weird kid if it was compulsory. Brockham went the other route, saying that she could probably just fake liking him for long enough to fool the teachers, and they would let her off. Reigate hugged all of them in turn, and then left to go face the music. Mrs Cranleigh hadn't specified a room, so Reigate opted to go directly to her office, severely regretting not having brought a coat to wear over the top of her blazer. The sun was going down quickly. Reigate entered through the main entrance, and rubbed her freezing hands together to try and warm them up. There was a very faint smell of coffee drifting down the corridor from the staffroom, and she could hear someone laughing in a classroom somewhere.

She didn't bother knocking as she went in, half expecting Redhill not to show up. Unfortunately, he was there, which meant that it couldn't have all been some kind of horrible dream. She was surprised to see that Mrs Cranleigh wasn't there – she wasn't usually the kind of teacher to be late to things. Redhill was sat in the same chair as he had been in before, so Reigate went back to hers. As expected, the room was still freezing. At least the window was closed now. Redhill didn't acknowledge her as she sat next to him, and continued reading his History book from earlier that day. She surreptitiously tried to read the title by bending over to rummage around in her school bag, which was currently a very popular grey and brown handbag. Having read it, she looked up to see Redhill's eyes looking directly at her, with one eyebrow raised. She calmly sat back up, trying desperately not to blush. He sighed deeply and continued reading.

Mrs Cranleigh finally bustled in, with a steaming mug of coffee and a large folder tucked under one arm. She had finally put a purple cardigan over the top of her t-shirt, and she had a thin scarf tied around her neck. "Well then. What are you two doing this evening?" Redhill cocked his head. Usually, the teachers would either set work, make him do homework, or get him to do lines. There had been one notable occasion where he had been made to scrape gum of the bottoms of tables, but that kind of thing was rare. Reigate swivelled to look at him, legs crossed and hands in lap. "Homework in the library?"

"Yeah ok" he shrugged. It wasn't like he would have been doing anything more interesting when he got home.

"Good!" Mrs Cranleigh beamed, leaving the room as quickly as she had entered it.

Redhill lethargically shoved his book back into his signature blue bag, and zipped it up slowly. Reigate was up and was holding the door open before Redhill had even left his seat. He sped up a little when he saw that she was waiting for him, and waited for her to shut the door behind her. Reigate walked a little faster than him, to put a meter or two between them. He jogged for a few seconds to catch up, She looked his way and rolled her eyes, but did slow down after that.

"So, what homework have you got to do?" She tried to strike up a conversation, because clearly neither of them wanted to be there and it would be nice if they didn't have to do this for more than a week.

"Uhhhhhhhhh….history?"

"We're in the same history class idiot, so I know we don't have any" she groaned. "Why can't you just do any other homework like literally every other student at school?"

They had reached the library and he came to a stop.

"You…don't get it, do you. There's no point. I'm going to get a couple of GCSEs, and then go get a job. Why would I want to waste time doing homework? Some of us just aren't cut out for A-levels and university or whatever it is that smart, arrogant people like you do. Mind your own damn business" he spoke more animatedly than she had thought he would, and she tried to shush him.

"Fine. FINE" she whispered now, even though they still hadn't entered the library yet. "If you're so determined to do badly, then go for it. Have fun ruining your life, see if I care."

She walked into the library before he could respond, gripping the handle of her bag tightly and slamming it down when she got to her desk. She could hear Redhill untucking his chair loudly somewhere behind her, and she could almost feel tears of anger threatening to fall. He was a stupid, lazy, ungrateful idiot and she refused to waste any more time with him. Why couldn't he see that he had the potential to do really well? She sat down heavily onto her chair, yanking her Art book and pencil case out of her bag and slamming them onto her desk. Well, she had better things to concentrate on for now. She blinked heavily, and put pen to paper.

He pulled his book out for the third time that day, perhaps a little more aggressively than was necessary. He noted with dismay that he had managed to rip the front cover a little, and got up to ask the librarian if she had any kind of tape to fix it with. He deliberately kept his head down as he walked past the desk that Reigate was as, and didn't see her sit up to look at him as he went past.

Having fixed his book as much as he was able to, he turned around and started the awkward journey back past Reigate, this time deciding to look out of the window on the opposite side of the library to her. Reigate watched as he deliberately ignored her, and said nothing as he accidentally stepped on his own shoe lace. She couldn't help but laugh as he fell, coming down onto his hands and knees in front of her. His head snapped around to look at her, a murderous expression on his face. Her smile fell instantly, and she aplologied.

"Sorry!"

His face relaxed a little, and he dusted his knees off before picking up his book and walking back to his seat. He decided that maybe, just this once, he could try doing some homework and see if it helped him understand what was going on in class. He picked a book out of his bag at random – the chances were that he had some kind of overdue homework for that subject. He could have screamed when he saw it was Maths, but decided that he might as well at least look at whatever worksheet he was supposed to do. He opened it up to last lesson's work, and immediately shut it when he realised that it was trigonometry. He squeezed it back into his bag, and pulled another one out. Oh great, it was physics, one of his worst subjects. He had missed some basic concepts so he never fully knew what on earth was going on in lessons.

He folded his arms on the desk and rested his head on them for a second. Why was he doing this? He had already made it very clear to Reigate that he wasn't good with school and academic things, but he couldn't stop thinking about what she had said earlier. He wasn't ruining his life, he was just accepting that he sucked at lots of things, and that was absolutely fine, right? He lifted his head up again, and tucked his chair in. He got his pen out of his pocket, and opened to book to the most recent page. Great, he had no idea what the question was asking him to do. There were numbers and equations, so he assumed he would need a calculator. He swore under his breath – he didn't have one on him because he had left it on his desk at home. He stood up abruptly, and stormed over to the librarian's desk to see if they had a calculator there. This time, he nodded at Reigate as went past her. She looked him in the eyes, but neither nodded nor smiled. Redhill couldn't tell if that was a bad thing or not.

Of course he nodded again on the way back, but this time Reigate gave him a tiny smile, which he considered a major victory. Perhaps she didn't hate him as much as she seemed to? He dismissed that idea after a second, remembering what she had called him that morning. Unfortunately, he was now at a loss as to what homework he could do. The library apparently had no calculators he could borrow. Oh well. At least it was warm.

Reigate sat up again and stretched. She noted with surprise that it had only been half an hour since school had ended. She opted to stand up and go for a little walk around the library to stretch her legs, which were a bit stiff from having been crossed for so long. The Foreign Languages section was small, but she went over to look at it anyway. She read the blurb of a Spanish book about a photographer, and meandered around the different sections for a minute. Then she spotted a book she had read a few years ago, and sat down, leaning on the shelf, to skim over her favourite parts. It was a little different to how she had remembered it, but still brilliantly written.

Footsteps and the vague smell of coffee were the only warning Redhill got that there was someone coming towards him. He forced his phone into his trouser pocket, and tried to look as though he had been busy doing something productive. Both Mr Bletchingly and Mrs Cranleigh came up to him, and neither of them looked particularly pleased. Redhill smiled as pleasantly as he could.

"Well Redhill, what happened to you and Reigate doing homework together in the library?" Mrs Cranleigh demanded, somehow whispering at a normal speaking volume.

"Uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

"You were supposed to be bonding" she turned to Mr Bletchingly "They were supposed to be bonding! You know what, this is your problem. Either you sort him out, or I will, and I know which option you'd prefer". With that, she turned tail and left.

Thank you for reading! Have a nice day :)))