Surrey Crackfic

As Redhill stormed down the corridor, he could hear the English teacher still yelling at him. He considered turning back, but decided that there was no point in trying to explain his actions. Why should he get a detention for standing up for himself? He had elected to leave as soon as possible after calling his fellow student – a girl named Reigate – some impressively creative profanities. He knew that the teacher would believe her over him, and she would get away without so much as a warning.

He stopped at the boundary of the school property. Leaving would only make things worse for him. The only teacher who would possibly believe him was Mr Bletchingly, a slightly aged Geography teacher. Considered one of the most feeble and eccentric teachers at the school, Mr Bletchingly seemed to be constantly ignored and picked on by the students and other members of staff. Perhaps that was why he had become the only teacher that Redhill could relate to.

Redhill subtley walked past the Geography office a couple of times to ensure that Mr Bletchingly was the only person in there, before finally knocking on the frame of the perpetually open door.

"Redhill!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet and straightening his well-worn brown jacket. "What brings you here today – did you read the book I lent you?" Redhill slid his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked on his feet. "No, sorry, I came to tell you that no matter what other people tell you I did, I promise that Reigate started it again". Mr Bletchingly's expression darkened, and he gestured for Redhill to sit at another teacher's desk, before smoothly sitting back down at his own. "She said that I'm a lower class oik who'll end up doing drugs cos I'm too lazy and stupid for school". Mr Bletchingly sighed and rubbed his face with one hand, letting it rest at his chin. He mumbled something under his breath, and turned back to face his work, picking up his pen and tapping it slowly on his desk. Redhill took this to mean that the conversation was over, and decided not to worry Mr Bletchingly further by sneaking off to hide in the toilets and get the second hand smoke from other people skipping lessons. He pulled the book out of his bag instead, and began to read, slowly and haltingly.

Reigate strode out of class to get to the library, leaving her friends far behind her. They would bring up her heated discussion with Redhill, which she would much rather forget. Of course he would be at the library as well, because that strange Geography teacher was almost always walking around school at break time and Redhill had no other friends to talk to. The air was a little chilly as she went past the slightly open door that led to the playground. She shivered and pulled her suit blazer around her more tightly.

As expected, Redhill was sitting in his usual corner, reading a horribly boring looking book about Victorian Britain. To be fair, she reflected, history was the only subject that he could ever hope to beat her in, and this extra reading was probably why. She was miles ahead of him in other subjects, which she personally thought was because he never tried. It annoyed her to see so much wasted potential, although she would never say that aloud to anybody.

On any other day, she would have ignored him, but she thought that she should probably tell him about the detention he would be attending after school. She also considered apologising, but decided that he didn't deserve it.

Her normal seat was relatively far away from his, strategically placed so that he couldn't hear her complaining about him to her friends. She noted with distaste that an ignorant first year had taken her place. After dumping her bags at another random desk, she briskly made her way over to Redhill to talk to him. He looked up at her from under his messy blond hair to check who it was. Reigate stood directly next to him, with one hand resting on her hip.

"You have an after-school detention with Mrs Cranleigh"

He grunted in confirmation. She shifted on her feet. A few seconds later, he lowered his book.

"And you don't?" he asked, deliberately trying to annoy her. She grunted in confirmation as she turned and left to go to her own table – he noted that she used the same tone as he had only a few moments ago.

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Art was one of the few subjects that Reigate didn't have to share with Redhill. She was sat at a desk, which had once been completely dark brown, but was now stained a variety of different colours. Just left of her pencil case, Reigate could see that someone had written "there is more to life than exams". Just underneath that, someone else had added "true that". Her hand moved slowly and deliberately as she wrote yet another paragraph in her incredibly neat handwriting. Her long, brown hair hung over her shoulder and she flicked it over to her back as she sat up straight again. She put her pen down, being careful not to smudge her work. What was Mrs Cranleigh doing in an art classroom? It looked as though someone had managed to put her in an even worse mood than usual.

"Can I borrow Reigate for a moment?"

This was of course directed at Mx Bookham, the softly spoken but passionate art teacher. Mx Bookham turned around from their laptop with a gentle smile, and nodded.

"Of course you can!"

As Reigate walked slowly to the door to follow Mrs Cranleigh out of the room, they winked and whispered a reassuring " good luck". Reigate knew, of course, that the chances of her being in any sort of trouble were incredibly low. That didn't stop her from worrying a little.

Redhill slouched further into his uncomfortable plastic chair and stuck his legs out into the open space in front of him. If his parents were called in….last time his parents had had to meet up with his teachers, he had been grounded for a month and they had confiscated his phone as well. He knew it was just because they wanted his grades to improve, but he honestly couldn't care less. The walls of Mrs Cranleigh's office were bare, with nothing notable to hold his interest for more than a few seconds. He sighed and frowned. The window was open and he was getting cold.

Mrs Cranleigh barged into the room, followed by a slightly puzzled looking Reigate. She ran her eyes over him for a second, and narrowed them when she realised that the only available seat would be the one right next to his. He sat up quickly, not waiting for Mrs Cranleigh to have to tell him to. Reigate slid into the chair, just as Mrs Cranleigh sunk into hers. He turned slightly to look at Reigate, tilting his head. Why would the teacher want to speak to both of them at once? The petty argument of the morning didn't need to be discussed further – the blame had been pushed onto him and all relevant punishments had been dished out already.

Having shuffled her paperwork and prolonged the uneasy silence for what she deemed to be an acceptable length of time, Mrs Cranleigh finally decided to explain what was going on. Redhill had no idea how she wasn't shivering in her thin and summery floral t-shirt. He noticed Reigate glancing past his head at the open window, and shuffling around a bit to pull her dark grey skirt down an inch or two.

"Well, Reigate and Redhill" she nodded at each of them in turn "you've been called here because I have been…informed by another teacher, that your arguments aren't quite as one sided as I had believed." Redhill crossed his arms. She knew full well what had been going on in her classroom, she just thought that Reigate was right and decided not to tell her off. "And this same teacher has suggested a solution, to try and…..improve your relationship." She looked down at the piece of paper at the top of the stack on her desk. She cleared her throat. " You two will both be attending afterschool detentions together for the foreseeable future, starting with today. I'm sorry, but both of you need to learn to cooperate and this is the best idea that anyone can come up with." Redhill slumped into his seat once more, and watched as Reigate's frosty stare was directed at Mrs Cranleigh, who avoided looking back by shuffling her paperwork yet again. "How exactly is this fair?" Reigate asked forcefully. "What about clubs and homework?" Mrs Cranleigh's eyebrow seemed to twitch.

"You two are stuck together for those as well". At this, Reigate turned to Redhill.

"Well? Don't you have anything to say about all this". Redhill thought for a second.

"Yeah I do actually. Can we go back to lessons now? It's too cold in here"

"UGH"

Mrs Cranleigh nodded, stood up and walked over to the door. Redhill and Reigate filed out, neither of them thanking her for holding it open. They parted ways silently, and went back to their lessons.

Hi! Please tell me if there are any mistakes in grammar/spelling/ anything else :))))