Tennis Shoes (7 page)

Susan counted on her fingers.

‘So you've only one and twopence. You want another fivepence halfpenny. That will have to come out of your pocket-money.'

‘I know. I'm saving a penny this week. School costs a lot of money.'

‘Well, where is your one and twopence?' said Susan. ‘Don't you think I'd better take it back to London and look after it? You might see another catapult or something. As a matter of fact, it doesn't matter about the rest of the money. I kept my whole half-crown because I thought we might need it. I'll put your fivepence halfpenny out of that.'

Jim was just going to argue that it was not fair on her, but the man in front of them suddenly caught a fish. It was not a very big or important-looking fish, but of course they had to get up and watch and see if they could help. Lots of other people came to watch and help too. But Jim and Susan, as they were there first, did the real helping and the man noticed it. When the fish was safely on the pier he gave it to Susan.

They, and the fish, went back to the school for tea. They were not having it this time with the boys. Instead, there was tea in the drawing-room. A special table was laid in the window for Susan and Jim. Mrs. Partridge only gave one look at the fish and then said:

‘How about having that cooked for your tea?'

Altogether it was a perfectly lovely day. Susan hated to say good-bye to Jim, but she could not help thinking that it could not really be very miserable for him with people like Mr. and Mrs. Partridge. Extraordinary to have heads of the school like that. She could not imagine the head of St. Clair's having any fish you caught cooked for tea. If it came to that, she could not imagine having tea with her at all.

On the way home she told her father about the school tennis. Dr. Heath drove on while she was talking without seeming to listen; but she knew he was really, it was just his way. When she had finished he looked down at her and smiled.

‘You and your St. Clair's. I shall have to take you away one day, Sukey. How being a proper St. Clair's girl does worry you!'

Susan grew red.

‘Well, oughtn't it to? You do see I'd look simply awful not coaching for a tennis team, if I could coach for it. If I get into a team next year it's a mark every week for my house and extra marks if I do well in the match. You couldn't expect a house not to want those.'

‘All right, my dear. Have your coaching. I quite see you will find life unendurable without it.' He hesitated. ‘Though I don't know really whether it matters terribly what the house thinks.'

‘Oh, but it does, daddy. You ought to have heard them when one of the girls wouldn't play in the hockey team because she wanted to ride.' She frowned in a worried way. ‘You know, daddy, it's awfully nice being taught to play properly, but it costs a lot, and I don't see why any of us should be any good.'

He waited to answer while he passed two cars and got further up in the queue of London-bound traffic.

‘I dare say none of you will. Your grandfather was good and, though I says it as didn't ought, I looked like being first-class myself before my leg. It would be grand if one of you turned out an ace at something, and tennis in our family is the likeliest shot. There was a time, you know, Susan, when English people were better at games than almost anybody in the world. I sometimes think that we are going backwards. Don't think I mind just because of England—I don't. I'd like to see no countries at all but just one world with no frontiers. But there are countries, and I feel that the fact that England doesn't win now as we used to is a reflection on us doctors.'

‘You! Why? What can you do?'

Dr. Heath stared at the road ahead as if he could see a vision.

‘We don't teach physical training nearly so much as we ought to. We are far too fond instead of medicines and cutting people up. I think every father and mother in the country ought to aim at making their children first-class in some line.'

‘But everybody can't play games, and, anyway, everybody couldn't win.'

‘Of course they couldn't, but they could try, and because they tried the whole standard would go up. Besides, games aren't the only thing. Ever hear of Amy Johnson, who flew alone to Australia in a second-hand aeroplane before flying was half as safe as it is now? When we read of people like her it does us good. We remember we had good people once, and will have them again.'

‘Of course I'd like to be really good, but I'm afraid I never will.' Susan wriggled more comfortably into her seat. ‘You see, I don't like people watching me, and they would if I had to play at Wimbledon.'

Dr. Heath laughed.

‘They certainly would. Well, try and get into your St. Clair's team. Perhaps it will help your temperament, but remember, if I find you getting into bad habits I'll drag you out of it again by the scruff of your neck, whatever your house says.'

Susan was only half listening. The sea air had made her sleepy. Presently her father said something about Ashdown Forest, but she must have been nearly asleep, for what she answered was:

‘It was a lovely fish. We ate half each.'

CHAPTER V

THE UMBRELLA MAN

Nicky had been having a lesson from her father on how to serve. It had been an annoying lesson. For one thing it was very hot. For another, she thought her father was fussing as usual about things that did not matter. She had done all the things she had been told. Thrown the ball about five feet into the air, ‘smoothly' as her father called it, and what in juggling Annie called ‘easing it along,' but it meant exactly the same thing. She had stood properly, right round with her left shoulder facing the net. She had swung her racket properly. Each time she had been told to stop and look where it was; it was in a line with her left shoulder, which she knew was right. She had hit the ball properly at least five times out of ten. She had not even forgotten to fling out her left arm to help her balance. Most important of all, not once had she taken her eye off the ball except when the cat from next door walked across the wall, and anybody would have stopped to look at him. She had even remembered that awful follow through. Instead of being pleased and telling her how good she was, which Nicky considered was only fair, her father kept up a continual moan of: ‘Your feet, Nicky. You're foot-faulting again.'

Nicky argued that it was ridiculous. If she had to keep on hitting balls hard she could not keep thinking about her feet. She got very cross indeed. She had stood right to begin with—she was sure she had. Her left foot had started just behind the line and her right foot, of course, well behind that. She did not believe it was true that her right foot swung over the line before she had hit the ball and not after it. In fact, she knew quite well that it had not. What with the heat and one thing and another she would probably have gone on arguing for hours, only a patient rang up and wanted her father, and he had to go.

After he had gone she lay flat down on the grass without bothering to put on her jersey, which would certainly have got her into trouble if Pinny or her mother had seen her. She wished she had got something to do. Something nice ought to happen every Saturday afternoon. It was mean Susan had gone out to tea. She thought it was very unfair of Susan's friends to ask Susan out to tea and not ask her. Even David would be better than nothing, but he was in the drawing-room with Pinny, singing. She thought David's singing a disgusting noise. She thought it was very stupid of Pinny and her mother to encourage him. There he was going on and on:

‘A pocket full of rye,

Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie—'

‘What a stupid song!' Nicky growled. If you baked birds they couldn't sing.

‘The king was in his counting-house, Counting out his money.'

Nicky sat up. ‘Counting out his money.' What an awful thing! Only two weeks to the holidays and she had not got her one shilling and a penny for the tennis house. Of course she had not promised to get it, but she had meant to really. One and a penny. Even if she kept to-day's money and next Saturday's and the Saturday's after, that would be only sixpence. Sixpence! Well, sixpence wouldn't be any good, so she might as well spend this week's twopence. She got up.

Just down the road from the Heath house there was a cake shop. It was not a very big cake shop, but they were allowed to go to it by themselves because it was on the same side of the road. It was kept by a Mrs. Pettigrew. The children always called her Mrs. Pettigrew when they spoke to her, but at home they called her Mrs. Tiggy Winkle.

Nicky went to Mrs. Pettigrew's and did as satisfactory a spending as was possible with twopence; just as she was going, Mrs. Pettigrew picked up a paper bag and put a macaroon in it.

‘Something extra because it's a nice day.'

Nicky walked back up the road eating the macaroon. Because of it she would have been perfectly happy if she had not been worrying about the one and a penny. Suddenly round the corner came a man pushing a barrow. At the end of the barrow were balloons and those paper things that spin round. On the barrow were jam-jars and at the far end some old clothes. Nicky went across to have a look.

‘Why have you got those balloons?' she asked.

The man stopped his barrow.

‘Well, miss, I gives them in exchange like for the jam-jars.'

‘Do you give them in exchange for the clothes too?'

‘No, I buys them. Got a bit of a shop about a mile from here. I deals in old clothes.'

‘Do you mean you buy them?' said Nicky, surprised, for the clothes did not look worth buying.

‘Yes. Now this pair of shoes'—he picked up a disgraceful old pair with holes in the soles—‘I give twopence for 'em. When I have done with them they'll be worth eightpence anywhere.'

‘Will they!' Nicky looked at the shoes with more respect. After all, eightpence is eightpence. She broke off a piece of her macaroon. ‘Would you like a bit?'

The man shook his head. ‘Kind of you, miss, I'm sure. But I can't touch nothing sweet on account of a hole in me tooth.'

‘Why don't you have it stopped?' Nicky asked, eating the piece of macaroon, feeling glad he had not wanted it.

‘Stopped!' The man sounded shocked. ‘Teeth will fall out when they're not wanted. I don't hold with all this messin' abaht.' He was going to move on, and then he changed his mind. ‘I suppose, missy, your pa and ma wouldn't have anything put away they didn't want, what they'd like to sell?'

‘What sort of things?'

‘Well, mostly anything. Boots, shoes, gents' suits, a nice coat, mackintosh, or an umbrella. Wonderful what I can do with an umbrella.'

Nicky looked at the sky. It would not rain for ages. It was much too hot. Nobody would want an umbrella. Perhaps nobody ever would again. Umbrellas were never used much anyhow, because of the car. At that moment her splendid idea came. In the hall was a stand of umbrellas.

‘How many umbrellas would you want for one and a penny?' she asked.

‘One and a penny!' The man said it in the sad voice of somebody who had never seen so much money. ‘Well, not less than four.'

‘Four.' Nicky thought of those in the hall. There was one of her father's, her mother's, and two frightful old ones that might have belonged to anybody. ‘You wait here,' she said breathlessly.

It only took a few minutes to get back to the house. She opened the front door carefully. She seemed to have been gone ages, but David was still singing. She could hear him:

‘So Binkie's the same as the First Friend was, And I am the Man in the Cave.'

She picked up the four umbrellas and went back to the man.

The man took the four umbrellas and turned them over. His nose screwed up as though they smelt nasty. Then he nodded.

‘Seein' it's you, one and a penny. Though, mind you, they aren't worth it.'

Nicky thought he was the nicest man she had ever known.

‘Thank you so much. It's very kind of you.'

The four umbrellas were put among the old clothes. Then the man fumbled in his trouser pockets. Nicky was just beginning to be afraid he had not got one and a penny when he found it. Two sixpences and two half-pennies. He laid them on the palm of her hand. Then he untied a red balloon and gave it her as well.

She was so pleased that she got quite pink. The man did not seem to want to be thanked. He picked up his barrow and pushed it quickly up the street.

Nicky, knowing how easy it is to spend money when you have it about, went at once to put it in the tennis house. She was just moving the chimney to push it in when she thought of something. The others were a very disbelieving sort. Would they believe her if she just said she had put it in? It was quite certain they would not. She must have a witness. She went to the kitchen.

Annie was making a cake. She nodded at Nicky.

‘You know I wouldn't wonder if something could be done with David. “Little David, the Singin' Wonder,” or something like that.'

‘I think it's a horrible noise,' Nicky objected. ‘Could you leave your cake a minute? I want you to see me put some money in the tennis house.'

‘For why?' said Annie, going on mixing.

‘Well, you see, if I just said I'd put it in the others mightn't believe me.'

Annie wiped her hands on her apron.

‘And no wonder. You're a proper twister. Come on, then, let's see you do it.'

Annie could not deny that the two sixpences were real, for she bit them to see. The two halfpennies looked all right. When the money was safely in, Nicky gave Annie half a sheet of paper and a pencil.

Annie wrote:

I saw Nicky put 1
s
. 1
d
. in the tennis house.

A
NNIE
.

It was still half an hour before tea, so Nicky tied the balloon on to the end of her bed and then went out into the garden again. She took
The Wind in the Willows
to read. She lay on her chest under the plane-tree, and ate the cake she had bought with her twopence. It was a pretence cream cake, so
The Wind in the Willows
got very sticky.