by Anne Digby
Crack!
It was a winner!
‘Game, set and match to Trebizon.’
Rebecca nearly fainted with relief. Sportingly, the onlookers applauded.
‘Did you see the way that kid played?’ someone said.
‘She deserved to win, playing on her own like that!’
‘Well done, Rebecca!’
The team crowded round her, clapping her on the back.
But what was wrong with Pippa?
She was quiet all through the tennis tea, moody even. There was an air of secret anticipation about Eddie Burton, who’d sat on the sidelines as reserve and been forced to watch Pippa’s poor play with mounting frustration. And Eddie was right to be hopeful.
Miss Darling looked grim.
‘Were you feeling all right this afternoon?’ she asked Pippa on the train journey back to Trebizon. ‘You played very badly.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Pippa shrugged. ‘Just one of those things.’
‘Worried about exams? Working too hard?’ Pippa was taking A levels after half-term. But then so were Della, Kate and Jilly.
‘No harder than anybody else,’ said Pippa. ‘I don’t believe in making excuses. I just played badly. Rebecca played well, thank goodness.’
‘I’ve had a word with Kate and we think Eddie had better come in for the semi-final,’ Miss Darling said then. ‘She hasn’t got any big exams this term.’
Pippa leaned back against the carriage seat and closed her eyes for a moment. Dropped from the team! She must have played badly!
‘Whatever you and Kate think best,’ she said.
She opened her eyes and stared out at fields and woods, flashing by, without even seeing them. She was still sitting like that when the train pulled in at Trebizon station.
‘We’re here, Pippa,’ whispered Rebecca.
Pippa had been dropped from the team – just like that! Rebecca could still hardly take it in. And this was her last term!
But she was sure there was something else on Pippa’s mind – and she kept wondering what it was.
She never dreamt that it was to do with her.
As soon as they got back to school, Pippa went to see Miss Welbeck.
‘I haven’t spoken to Rebecca,’ she said. There was a high colour in her cheeks. ‘I didn’t think it was necessary!’
‘You didn’t?’
‘I’m perfectly certain that Rebecca had nothing to do with the hoaxes!’
‘Oh?’ Miss Welbeck sounded sceptical.
‘Why – why would a girl like Rebecca behave like that?’ Pippa burst out. ‘What are your reasons for thinking it was her?’
‘I don’t have to explain my reasons to you, Philippa.’
‘But – but you must have some –’
‘Oh, she’s at a silly age, you know.’
Pippa felt as though she must leave the room before she exploded. She took a few paces towards the door, then stopped, and turned round.
‘If you’re so sure it’s Rebecca, why don’t you have her in and ask her, outright? You’ll soon find out you’ve got the wrong girl!’
‘I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing,’ Miss Welbeck said, icily.
‘But you’ve had other people in!’ Pippa exclaimed.
‘I’m handling things differently now,’ said Miss Welbeck.
ELEVEN
The Taxi Driver Remembers
Right up to half-term, things went marvellously well for Rebecca. In so many ways this term, which she would always look back to as the tennis term, was turning out to be the best ever.
Why couldn’t it be like that for Pippa?
After she was dropped from the team, Pippa seemed to withdraw.
‘It’s probably for the best,’ she told Rebecca, the morning after they’d been to St Mary’s. ‘I’ve always said you were going to leave me far behind at tennis, haven’t I? Besides, my exams are next month and now I’ll have more time to work.’
But Rebecca knew that she was just putting a brave face on things. It had been humiliating to play so badly and be dropped from the team. And there was something else worrying her, too, a lurking uneasiness just below the surface. She saw very little of Pippa over the next two weeks but sometimes she caught glimpses of it in her face. Rebecca decided it must be to do with the exams. Poor Pippa! She’d never thought of her as the anxious sort.
Rebecca herself was finding life wonderful.
The second half of May was glorious and she went swimming and surfing in Trebizon Bay several times. The Third Year boys from Garth College joined them sometimes and they were such fun to be with! She saw nothing of Robbie, still slaving away for his Fifth Year exams, but she looked forward (with a secret glow of anticipation) to the Commem Ball at the end of June and to wearing her new dress.
She played in another round-robin tournament, organised for the county C and D junior squads, and did very well. ‘You’re in the running for promotion if you keep this up, Rebecca,’ Mrs Ericson told her.
Most heartening of all, the whole business of the hoaxes seemed to have been forgotten. It looked like being one of the world’s great unsolved mysteries. The unpleasant little shadow of suspicion that had clung round Rebecca and Tish had faded away and Rebecca now seemed very popular, for the news of how she’d played at St Mary’s had quickly spread round the school. The baby of the team had saved the day!
The Trebizon girls were a competitive lot and they loved winning. Now they were in the semi-final of the inter-schools cup!
It was thus expected and demanded of the First VI that they beat Hillstone School and get to the final.
On Wednesday, second of June, they did just that! It was an away match at the rival school, which was in the centre of the big town of Hillstone, some forty miles away. The Trebizon team scored a convincing win – 3–0 – and Miss Darling was actually seen to smile! Rebecca had missed Pippa badly at team practices, finding Eddie Burton a very stolid and unexciting partner by comparison, but there was no doubt that Eddie proved rock-like on the day, with none of the alarming unpredictability that Pippa had displayed on the day of the St Mary’s match.
The news swept around the school and when, the following morning, Miss Welbeck announced at Assembly that the final would be played at Trebizon on the afternoon of Saturday, twenty-sixth June – the school’s Commemoration Day – cup fever reached a new pitch.
‘That might be quite a day for you, Rebecca,’ said Sue. Rebecca had told the others her secret now – that Robbie would be taking her to the Commem Ball.
‘It’s the Garth College tennis cup that day and Robbie usually wins it!’ realised Tish. ‘Just think – if he wins and you win –’ She giggled. ‘It’ll be just like the Wimbledon Ball!’ She pushed Rebecca into the form room, where Miss Gerard was waiting to take them for French. ‘Pity he’s such a rotten dancer!’
Rebecca laughed. But all through French she kept going off into little daydreams.
‘Pay attention, Monique!’ exclaimed Miss Gerard.
Rebecca wondered who Monique was and then suddenly remembered that was her French name!
They broke up for half-term on Friday afternoon – after Sports Day.
Tish won the intermediate 800 metres and both Aba and Laura broke records in the sprints. All three girls qualified for the area sports. Unlike last Sports Day, the weather had suddenly turned cool and cloudy and so the special tea took place in the dining hall, instead of out-of-doors on the terrace. But the little sandwiches and sausage rolls and coffee cake and cream eclairs were as delicious as ever.
Mr and Mrs Murdoch were there with Sue’s brothers David and Edward – Garth College had broken up at lunch time – and so were all the Andersons. They included Rebecca in everything and Robbie was especially attentive – so much so that Doctor Anderson looked at his wife and raised his eyebrows. Nevertheless it was at times like this that Rebecca missed her parents most – and also longed to have a brother or sister and not be an only child.
&nb
sp; After tea, she hurried over to the boarding house to collect her weekend case, as the Andersons had offered to drive her to the Bus Station. She was spending half-term at her grandmother’s bungalow in Gloucestershire.
Pippa’s car was parked outside Court House and Annie was sitting in it. Pippa was waiting for Rebecca in the hall, holding a package.
‘Six advance copies of the magazine have just arrived,’ she told Rebecca. ‘I thought you might like one to send to your parents.’
She took a pristine copy of the summer issue of The Trebizon Journal out of the opened package and gave it to Rebecca. It was fresh from the printers and she could still smell the ink.
‘It’s beautiful!’ exclaimed Rebecca. ‘Oh, Pippa, your painting’s beautiful! The colours –’
She stared at the cover of The Journal. Pippa’s painting of the cedar tree, with the tiny figure in tennis whites lying beneath it, had made the most stunning cover she’d ever seen on the school magazine! And there, across the foot of the painting, was Rebecca’s own poem, set in a decorative panel. Rebecca just stared at it.
‘Do you think your parents will like it –?’
‘Oh, Pippa!’
Outside, Annie sounded the horn. Pippa was dropping her room-mate off at the station to catch a train to London before driving home to Bristol herself, and they were running late.
‘I must dash,’ said Pippa, her face clouding over. There was something she wanted to ask Rebecca. She started to back away. But – she must know!
‘By the way, Rebecca –’
‘Yes?’ Rebecca tore her eyes from the cover.
‘Have you seen Miss Welbeck yet?’
‘Seen Miss Welbeck?’ asked Rebecca, puzzled. ‘What about?’
‘Oh nothing.’ Pippa was at once covered in confusion. Outside, the horn sounded again. ‘I thought she might have seen you about – but, oh it’s nothing important! I must go! Bye, Rebecca.’
‘Bye, Pippa.’
What would Miss Welbeck want to see her about? wondered Rebecca. About the poem, maybe? To say something nice about it. Was that what Pippa meant? What was wrong with Pippa these days? She seemed so nervy, somehow.
Rebecca’s gaze turned to the magazine cover. Her eyes drank in the dark green of the cedar tree and the golden sunlight. Her mind went right back to the beginning of term, when she’d first seen Pippa start work on the painting.
Pippa had been so happy at the beginning of term. She’d talked about it being her last term, how she wanted it to be perfect, the best ever.
Yet things had gone wrong for her and Rebecca didn’t quite know why. It had all started with the hoaxes somehow, that quarrel with Alison, Pippa taking it so much to heart. But of course it couldn’t be anything to do with that! It was just that for some reason Pippa wasn’t happy any longer and wasn’t even quite herself.
Rebecca looked at the picture again and felt saddened.
She spent three quiet days with her grandmother, who lived on a small estate in what was known as a ‘retirement area’, in a small town in Gloucestershire.
‘Lovely to see you, Becky! I’ve missed you!’
‘I’ve missed you, too, Gran!’ She hugged her. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages!’
‘Did that Greek family look after you properly in the Easter holidays?’
‘Of course they did, Gran!’ Rebecca smiled. ‘Their cooking wasn’t a patch on yours, though. But, you’ll never guess – they bought me a dress! The most lovely, lovely dress –’ She described it. ‘I’ve already worn it to a party and I’m going to wear it to the Commem Ball!’
‘Nobody else will have a dress like that, I’m quite sure!’ said old Mrs Mason. ‘What a pity you couldn’t have brought it with you to show me – but there, it would have got all squashed up in your little case.’
‘It’s packed right away at the back of the clothes cupboard,’ sighed Rebecca.
Her grandmother exclaimed over the cover of The Trebizon Journal and Rebecca’s poem. She exclaimed again when she heard about the county tennis and the school team and the inter-schools cup.
Rebecca had brought back enough news to keep her going for weeks!
But she didn’t tell her about the hoaxes. They were a thing of the past now. There didn’t seem much point.
Even Miss Welbeck had almost given up.
Over half-term she went out to dinner with Colonel Peters, a very old friend who lived in the town, and asked his advice.
‘Really, Madeleine, it boils down to whether Mrs Tarkus is a reliable source of information or not. You’ve only her word for it that one of your girls was mixed up in that dreadful nonsense. You say she can’t describe the girl’s face or anything like that. Just sounded like a Trebizon girl and she was shouting something about getting back to school –’
‘And it was nearly midnight, George, and we are the only girls’ boarding school around here –’
‘She could have meant she had to get back because she had school the next morning,’ pointed out Colonel Peters. ‘A Sunday night, wasn’t it? Or she could simply have been one of your domestic staff – or Garth’s – a few of them live in.’
‘True,’ said Miss Welbeck. ‘Mrs Tarkus seemed so sure . . .’
‘She’s always sure! A nuisance. A busybody! Always ringing people up late at night and complaining about something or other. She’d like to see the town cleared of young people – completely cleared. Banned!’
Miss Welbeck smiled and shook her head.
But it was the dress that really worried her.
‘She described it so graphically.’
‘Coincidence!’ snorted Colonel Peters. He leaned across the table and touched his companion’s hand. ‘Look here, Madeleine, discount Mrs Tarkus completely. She’s unreliable. Discount her, and what are you left with?’
Miss Welbeck sighed.
‘Just – just a couple of very stupid pranks, I suppose,’ she admitted.
Rebecca travelled back from her grandmother’s on the following Tuesday and her coach arrived at Trebizon Bus Station on the Tuesday afternoon. When she got into the first of three waiting taxis, she found it was her favourite cab driver.
‘It’s the princess herself!’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Trebizon School?’ As they drove up to the top of the High Street, he gave her a broad wink over his shoulder. ‘D’you know, I’ve been looking out for you for weeks.’
‘Oh?’ said Rebecca, in surprise.
There was something quite conspiratorial about his manner.
‘D’you know you left your scarf in my cab that night?’
‘What scarf?’ thought Rebecca. ‘What night is he talking about?’
‘I was going to bring it up to the school for you, but when I read about it in the local paper, I thought I’d better not. Didn’t want to get you into trouble!’
Rebecca’s mouth was hanging open with curiosity. He’d got her mixed up with somebody else!
‘Read about it in the local paper –?’ she inquired.
‘That rowdy party! The police being called in! That’s where you’d been, eh? I wondered what you’d been up to! No wonder you were in such a panic when you waved me down –’ They were coming out of the town now and passing the phone box on the top road. ‘Right here, it was,’ he chuckled. ‘You’d just been trying to phone through and then you saw me! I’ve never seen anyone so pleased to see a taxi as you were that night, me dear. Didn’t get caught, did you?’
‘Me?’ said Rebecca. ‘Er-no.’
Rebecca had a remarkably good memory and now she remembered that a noisy party had been going on, in a house called The Lodge across the street from Fenners, on the Sunday she’d got her place in the tennis team. Some time afterwards she’d read somewhere that there’d been a disturbance in the town that night, windows smashed and some youths arrested.
But that had been the day after the county tennis party at Exonford, when Rebecca had used the taxi. The cab driver was getting her mixed up with someone else! Wh
y? It must have been someone who looked like her. It was late at night . . . dark. Someone who’d been at the party . . . stepped out of the phone box, panic-stricken, and waved down the taxi to get her back to school. And she’d left her scarf in the taxi.
‘Where’s the scarf now?’ asked Rebecca, her heart beating hard.
‘Don’t worry, it’s down at the office, waiting for you. It’s wrapped up in a brown paper parcel. If you can tell me your name, I’ll label it for you and you can collect it any time –’
‘Rebecca Mason. Yes, write that on, please!’
They were turning in through the school gates.
Rebecca was thinking hard. It looked bad for her, a taxi driver thinking she’d been at a wild party late at night. But the minute she got her hands on that scarf, she’d find out who it belonged to – find out who the girl really was.
And that girl – surely – must be the hoaxer?
Why had she played the hoax? Maybe to create a diversion at Court House that night so that she could get back to her own house, unseen!
The whole unpleasant business of the hoaxes came back to Rebecca’s mind. ‘Will I have something to say to her!’ she thought. ‘Who is she?’
She must get the scarf – quickly!
‘Can I come and get it after tea?’ she asked. ‘What time does the taxi office shut?’
‘We’re open till seven. I’ll write your name on the parcel as soon as I get back, then any of the lads can give it to you. Where you to, now?’ he asked, slowing down in the school grounds, unable to remember her boarding house.
They were passing quite close to Parkinson House and Rebecca saw that Pippa was back. Her car was parked outside!
‘It’s all right, drop me here!’ she said. She’d tell Pippa all about it. Pippa could drive her down town to the taxi office, straight after tea!
She paid off the cab driver.
Looking at her face, he was reminded how young she was.
