Free Tennis Shoes by Noel Streatfeild Page B

see——’
    Nicky told the story of the afternoon. Every one would have found it easier to forgive her if she had sounded sorrier. Instead, she kept saying:
    â€˜Well, who wanted the silly old umbrellas anyway?’
    Dr. Heath hated punishments. He would not allow them unless they were a kind of cancelling-out of what had been done. He said sadly:
    â€˜Nicky, you’ve got to be punished. On your next birthday and at Christmas, and the birthday after that, and the following Christmas, instead of a present, mummy and I will put an umbrella in the stand here.’
    There was an awful pause. Nicky grew very red and swallowed hard.
    Susan thought it was a terrible punishment. Mrs. Heath felt miserable. Pinny cried. Annie made sympathetic clicking noises with her tongue against her teeth. Nicky looked round. She hated people to be sorry for her.
    â€˜Thank you, daddy,’ she said cheekily. ‘An umbrella is just what I was hoping I would get.’

CHAPTER VI
    THE TENNIS TOURNAMENT
    They were going to grandfather’s for the summer holidays. There had been some talk of the seaside. It was grandfather’s tennis-court that settled the point.
    Susan’s game had improved tremendously. She had worked hard and had definite style. She had put all she had been taught at home into her games at school.
    Jim had been playing cricket all the summer and had no tennis at all. He had done a certain amount of practice against a wall, and he had played a little squash, but of course his game was not up to Susan’s. The summer term for him really meant swimming. What with that and practising for the school sports, he had scarcely thought about his tennis. Dr. Heath hoped that by working hard with him every day he would get him up to a standard to play against Susan, which would be fun for them both as well as good practice.
    There was another reason why Dr. Heath was anxious to get Jim into form. Grandfather had written to say that there was to be a junior tournament, in aid of a charity, at some houses a mile or two from where he lived. There were to be both singles and doubles. He thought Jim, Susan, and Nicky might be entered for the singles, and Jim and Susan could play in the doubles.
    Dr. Heath was not sure about Nicky being allowed to play. She did not work nearly so hard as Susan and she had not Susan’s powers of concentration. On the other hand, for somebody as small as she was, she showed flashes of remarkable brilliance. It was odd how often, without any apparent effort on her part, her strokes came off. He was convinced that only work, and work, and then more work, could make you even passable at any games. Yet Nicky, who did not believe in working at all, could do so well. He thought it would be very bad for her if by luck and weak opponents she won a round or two in a tournament. It was the kind of thing that would make her lie back on her laurels for months.
    Going to grandfather’s meant to Pinny a tremendous lot of preparation. Grandfather had old-fashioned servants. Pinny had an unshakable conviction that they were tremendously interested in the children’s clothes. She pictured them peeping into drawers, taking frocks off coat-hangers, looking at where hems had been let down, sniffing at signs of fade. The result was that any dress that was getting on to its last legs she dipped in dye, and refurbished with buttons. It was the same with the boys’ shirts. If there was any sign of fraying they had new collars and cuffs. The result was that for weeks, what with the sewing-machine, the ironing-board, and basins of Lux and dyes, she hardly left the house.
    â€˜Oh, Pinny, dear,’ Mrs. Heath said, ‘you’ll wear yourself out, and really it’s not necessary.’
    Pinny, however, would not be put off.
    â€˜A stitch in time, you know,’ she observed, turning the sewing-machine wheel more furiously than ever.
    As a kind of reward to Pinny for all the