Chapter 2

Mr Bletchingly turned to stick his tongue out and pull a strange face at her as she left. Then he turned back and focussed on the task at hand.

"Ignore her," he scoffed. "where did Reigate get to?"

"Uuhhhh…" She had been wandering around earlier, but he hadn't seen her for a while.

Mr Bletchingly smiled and inhaled deeply.

"Let's go find her, then you two are coming back to the Geography office for the next" – he looked down at his watch – "10 minutes. After that, you're free to go and overthrow the government or whatever it is that young people like to do nowadays".

Redhill grinned and hefted his bag onto his back, and the two began scanning the library to try and find Reigate. The whole place was almost empty, and most of the other people there were sat in a huddle around a table in the corner and having a heated discussion about something, talking quietly enough that the librarian hadn't come to tell them off yet. As expected, they found her reading. She looked so peaceful and open that Redhill almost felt guilty when Mr Bletchingly interrupted her and asked to come back to his office with them.

Before long they were all sat on various Geography teachers' seats, having dragged them over to Mr Bletchingly's desk to make an awkward huddle of three. The blinds were open and they could see how dark it was outside. Thankfully, the Geography teachers seemed to have much more common sense than Mrs Cranleigh and had kept the windows shut and the heating on. Reigate looked around curiously, as she hadn't spent any considerably length of time in there before. On every wall there were photos of people, maps, certificates, Christmas and Birthday cards, and artwork from students. There were a few dirty mugs and pieces of crumpled up paper lying around, and one teacher's desk had so many school books and worksheets on it that the actual desk surface wasn't visible.

"Righty tighty then!" Mr Bletchingly clapped loudly, startling Reigate. Redhill, who had been waiting for her to stop staring at peoples' family pictures, couldn't entirely contain his laugh, and completely failed at trying to cover it with a cough. Reigate composed herself and rolled her eyes at him. Perhaps she had been a little… hasty to say that she would never waste time with him again. After all, it wasn't as though she had much of a choice.

"If this is going to work, then you two are going to have to put some elbow grease into it – aka you're going to have to sit next to each other rather than at opposite ends of the library next time. Understood? OOH!" he slapped his thighs enthusiastically. "I just had a brilliant idea! For your detention tomorrow, you two are going to …..uhhh…..be moving … uhhh… chairs around together. Haha! I'll just message the caretaker and tell him not to worry about setting up for the assembly the day after tomorrow. You two need to set out 150 chairs out in the sports hall, and after that you can go home"

Redhill groaned and slid down further into his chair.

"Sir, do we have to? Can we not do something like scraping gum off tables? That's way less effort"

Reigate thought it was a little strange that Redhill was able to be so friendly and honest with a teacher, but interrupted vehemently as soon as she heard the words "scraping" and "gum".

"NO we are not doing that! We are not touching other people's disgusting used gum. Redhill, please please please never ask him to make us do that ever again". She leant further forward incrementally as she spoke, legs crossed and hands on thighs. Redhill raised his hands in surrender and laughed, not wanting to argue with her. Mr Bletchingly's eyebrow raised and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards.

"Sorry Redhill, but it looks like you're doing chairs tomorrow".

Redhill was still smiling slightly as he nodded.

"Ok cool, you guys can go home now I guess"

Reigate was of course up and putting her chair back where she had taken it from before Redhill could even get to his feet. She threw a "bye" over her shoulder as went, and Mr Bletchingly walked to the open door to respond with "see you tomorrow!" He put Redhill's chair back for him, and then moved to stand at his own.

Just as he was about to leave, Mr Bletchingly called out to him.

"Redhill, hold on a second. There's something that we need to talk about…"

Redhill came to a halt and spun around.

"Mrs Cranleigh told us something that concerns your future today in the staff meeting at lunch time. We really aren't supposed to tell you, but I think you have the right to know" He looked deeply troubled now, which contrasted horribly with how happy he had been only a minute or two before. Redhill tilted his head and stood up taller. It had started raining and you could see it splattering on the window. Walking home tonight would be horrific.

"She said that…..if your grades continue to fall, they'll have no choice but to expel you" Mr Bletchingly winced slightly, as though saying it aloud had physically pained him.

Redhill stood still for a moment, thinking.

"Redhill, I'm really sorry and I promise that I tried my best to tell them that they didn't have to kick you- "

Redhill was gone before he could finish his sentence.

Mr Bletchingly moved his chair back from where it had been facing the two others, and sat down on it heavily. When he checked his watch, he saw that the school site wouldn't be closing for another half an hour. He shoved the pile of green books on his desk to the side, and pulled his laptop out. After a little deliberation, he decided to write to some of the more sympathetic teachers who taught Redhill, and make a master plan that made sure that nobody would be getting kicked out.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :)))). Also, thank you to everyone who has to put up with me asking them loads of questions about grammar and spelling and synonyms etc.