Love With Limits

Chapter 2

After puking in and on the not so clean toilet, Robin was mortified. The very idea that he had been seen in his underwear was bad enough but being seen vomiting all over himself was worse. Much much worse.

And now he would be late.

He had cleaned himself up in the shower about half an hour after deciding it would be safe to go outside again. It had taken him a whole hour to get the smell of faeces out of his hair and his feet had taken even longer.

He was running as if his life depended on it.

"Come on Robin," he chanted to himself while running down the cobble stone street, "you can't be late on the first day. You can't be late. You can't be late. You can't be late..."

But of course, he tripped and fell on the cobblestones in front of his school and was late.

"Rats," he murmured under his breath, forming little clouds that fogged up his glasses.

Even though he could not see, he could still hear perfectly. Footsteps grew nearer and nearer, louder and louder until they stopped right by his head (which was throbbing in pain because of the impact with the pavement).

Whoever's footsteps they were must have been running for ages because they were panting - no wait, wheezing for air.

The bell had long since gone by the time the mystery person found it in themselves to speak:

"You're blocking t'doorway. You en't meant to block t'doorway ya know."

"Uh... What?"

"Move." Their voice was abnormal to Robin and he could not help but laugh at the way they spoke. Big mistake on his part, if I might say so myself. Never laugh at a girl's accent when they're from Scotland or Yorkshire. And never ever ever laugh at a girls accent when they're from Scotland and have Yorky parents.

"Think t'way I speak be funny do ya? Think t'way I speak be a laughin' matter do ya?"

By now, Robin was already laughing so hard, it was difficult to breathe.

"Y-yeah... Yes yes I do..." Another fit of giggles rose up and it was too difficult now to pretend he wasn't laughing.

"Listen up you wee scumbag I be talking t'way I be talking but it en't funny ya know. If you be wantin' a bloody nose to go with your bloddy nerves I would be happy to help ya kid. Now get outa my way."

She kicked him in the stomach and stepped over him. She hadn't gotten very far when a booming voice called out:

"KARLA TURNER AND YOU BOY GET INTO SCHOOL NOW! I WILL BE SEEING BOTH OF YOU IN DETENTION!"

Great. Just great.

---

The detention room absolutely stank. Not the usual stink but more of a hit-the-back-of-your-throat-when-you-breath kind of stink. And Robin hated everything about it. 

Maybe it was a condition for all buildings in England to be either completely rank or completely gross. It certainly seemed like it. The ceiling had damp spots that were dotted with brown and green and the air was hot and sticky. 

Robin was clearly not the only one who hated the classroom. Another five or six pupils were sat at desks with either their school ties over their noses or holding their hair infront of their faces as make-shift gas masks. He sat at the front of the classroom so that he could get out quickly if he needed to run from that Karla Turner one. 

The teacher in the room mumbled something under his breath that Robin couldn't hear as he had his headphones in his ears, cranked up to their full volume.

"James Williams."

"Yes sir."

"Billy Lang"

"Yes sir."

"Robin Brown."

No answer.

"Robin Brown?" the teacher stared around the room until his tired eyes found Robin, sitting at the front of the class with his earphones blatantly and obviously in his ears.

A low rumble of talking bubbled up in the classroom which soon progressed into a loud ruckus. He still couldn't hear a thing. 

"Quieten down everybody," the teacher tried and failed to calm the class down, "Robin! Get to the front of the classroom and write the reason why you did not listen to instructions on the board right this second!"

Robin removed his earphones and stood in defiance, not obedience. 

"Why?" 

"Because, Mister Brown, if you don't get up here before I reach ten, you will have to be in this detention room for the rest of your time at this school." Robin clearly wasn't listening to a word he was saying and couldn't care less what the teacher had to say as he waltzed out of detention without a care in the world.

The teacher simply wrote down a note in his notepad and continued with the register.

"Karla Turner."

"Right here sir," Karla waved her hand at the teacher then stood up to tuck her chair under the table.

"And where do you think you're going Miss Turner?"

"How do you think we'll be gettin' the bloomin idiot back if we don't go get 'im?"

Instead of the expected 'no' that the entire detention group was expecting, the teacher simply nodded his head, shrugged, and sat back down in his seat.

"Go ahead, it isn't like I would have expected him to stay after what happened anyway. Poor kid..."

But, of course, Karla didn't hear this and pursued Robin to the end of the corridoor where she spun him around, reached her arm back and...