“Lyndz!” I groaned under my breath. “Give her a ball, or the match can’t start.”
“Oops!” Lyndz said suddenly, turning pink, as she remembered what she was supposed to do. “Sorry.” But instead of bouncing the ball to the player like Fliss had shown her, she dashed over and handed it to Barbara Browne. There was a ripple of laughter round the court.
“Quiet, please,” said the umpire sharply.
“We’ve got to do better than this, or we’re going to look like real idiots,” Kenny fretted. “And won’t the M&Ms just love that.”
We started concentrating then. It was actually pretty easy, once we got the hang of it. All Kenny and I had to do was dash on to the court and pick up any balls which hit the net, and then roll them down to Rosie or Lyndz, depending on which player was serving. And once Lyndz realised that she was supposed to bounce the ball to the player and not hand it to them, things went really well.
The only problem was that Marina Warner was a bit bad-tempered. She wasn’t such a good player as Barbara Browne, and she got annoyed every time she lost a point.
“She’s a miserable so-and-so, isn’t she?” Kenny remarked to me, as Marina Warner stomped back to the baseline after hitting the ball into the net.
“Ssh,” I said, as Marina shot us a poisonous glare.
Her next serve was in, and Barbara Browne returned it. Marina hit the ball with a forehand drive, and it fell just over the net, near to where Kenny was crouched, but about a centimetre outside the white line.
“Out,” called the umpire.
“That was definitely in,” Marina snapped, rushing over to him.
“No, it wasn’t,” Kenny said helpfully. “It was out. I saw it.”
Marina Warner turned purple. She was so angry, I thought she was going to grab Kenny and shake her.
“Since when have the ballgirls been umpires?” she snorted scornfully.
“I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?” Kenny retorted. “And it was out!”
“Quiet!” the umpire said with a frown. “Carry on with the game, please.”
“She’s a right pain in the bottom, isn’t she?” Kenny said, pulling a face at Marina’s back. “I hope she loses!”
She did. Barbara Browne won by two sets to love, and when she hit the winning point, everyone started cheering. So did we! The umpire didn’t look too impressed at us joining in, but we didn’t care.
“I’m tired out,” Kenny moaned, as we joined up with the others. There was a fifteen-minute interval before the next match, and most of the audience were leaving. “You don’t think we’ve got to do this for the next match, do you?”
“How about if we swap over?” Rosie suggested. “You and Frankie can change with me and Lyndz.”
“Hang on a minute,” said Lyndz. “Shouldn’t we be getting out of here? I mean, we’ve seen the M&Ms and they’ve seen us.”
The M&Ms were just leaving the court. They were whispering to each other, and shooting us furious looks.
“Yeah, we’ve well and truly rubbed their noses in it,” Kenny said with satisfaction. “I suppose we’d better go.”
“We’ve been pushing our luck,” I pointed out. “Mrs Morgan could have walked on to that court and spotted us at any moment.”
We hurried over to the door, and went out with the last few spectators.
“Let’s get changed, and get out of here,” I said urgently.
“Wait.” Kenny grabbed my arm, and yanked me back. “There’s that woman again, the one with the clipboard.”
The woman who’d sent us to get changed was standing talking to a group of five girls, a little bit older than us.
“Do you think they’re the real ballgirls?” Fliss asked nervously.
We crept behind a nearby bush, and listened hard. We could just about hear what they were saying.
“And your mum’s car broke down,” the woman was saying suspiciously. “That’s why you’re late.”
“That’s right,” one of the girls replied.
“Hm, that’s strange,” the woman went on. “Because we’ve actually got all our ballgirls, and we’ve got no uniforms left, anyway.”
“But we’re supposed to be ballgirls,” the girl said firmly. “Ask my mum, she’s a member here.”
“There’s something funny going on,” the woman said, sounding puzzled. “Come with me, and we’ll find Mrs Morgan and see what she says.”
They all went off. Immediately we dashed out from behind the bush, and into the changing-rooms.
“Hurry up,” Kenny urged us.
We didn’t need much persuading. We changed out of our clothes in double-quick time, and then ran for the door. We peered outside to check that the coast was clear, and then we hurried outside.
“Keep a look-out for my mum,” Fliss told us, as we headed for the exit.
We nearly made it safely out of the tennis club, too. We wouldn’t have stopped if we hadn’t seen the M&Ms standing by the fountain…
“Oh, there you are!” the Queen said. Funnily enough, she didn’t look annoyed any more. She looked like a cat who’d just had a big saucerful of cream. “We were looking for you.”
“Where are you going?” the Goblin chimed in.
“Home,” Kenny said breezily. “We’ve finished being ballgirls. You did see us, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes.” The Queen folded her arms, looking smug. “But are you sure that’s what you were meant to be doing?”
She couldn’t be on to us – could she?
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“We heard Mrs Morgan talking to somebody, and she said five girls had got into the club, who weren’t members,” Emma Hughes said gleefully. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
We all tried not to look guilty.
“Don’t be stupid,” Kenny retorted. “How could we have been ballgirls if we weren’t meant to be here?”
“I don’t know.” The Queen frowned. “But we’re going to tell Mrs Morgan right away, aren’t we, Emily?”
“Yeah,” Emily agreed eagerly.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” Kenny growled, taking a sudden step towards them.
Emma Hughes panicked, and jumped backwards. She knocked into the fountain behind her, sat down in surprise for a moment on the edge of it, and then tipped backwards, her legs and arms waving.
“Help!” she shrieked as she fell into about half a metre of not-very-clean water.
We all burst out laughing, except for the Goblin, of course.
“Serves you right,” Kenny grinned, walking up to the edge of the fountain. “Aaargh!”
We all gasped as Kenny slipped on a patch of water, and went flying. She landed heavily on the ground, and we rushed over to her.
“Are you OK, Kenny?” Lyndz said anxiously.
Kenny’s face was white. “No,” she said through gritted teeth. “I think… I think I’ve sprained my ankle!”
“Serves you right, Laura McKenzie!” yelled Emily Berryman. She was trying to help Emma out of the fountain. The Queen was dripping wet from head to toe.
“Everyone’s looking,” Fliss said nervously. People sitting outside on the restaurant patio were staring at us. “Can you walk, Kenny?”
Kenny was trying to pull herself to her feet, hanging on to the edge of the fountain. “I don’t know,” she gasped, looking as if she was in a lot of pain. “You’ll have to help me.”
Lyndz and I put our arms round her, and we began to make our way slowly towards the exit, with Kenny leaning on us and hopping along. We left the Goblin trying to dry the Queen off with her hanky.
“How is Kenny going to cycle home?” Rosie asked suddenly.
We all looked at each other in dismay.
“She isn’t,” I said at last.
“I can try,” Kenny said bravely, putting her injured foot down on the ground for a second. “Ow!”
“So what’re we going to do?” Lyndz asked.
“We could find Fliss’s mum and te
ll her what’s happened,” Rosie suggested. “Then she could give us a lift.”
Fliss turned a sickly green colour. “She’d be so mad, I’d be grounded till I’m eighteen,” she muttered.
“There must be a phone here,” I said. “We could ring one of our parents, and get them to pick us up.”
“Then they’ll want to know what we’re doing here,” Rosie said gloomily.
None of us could think of anything to say. We seemed to have got ourselves into the worst mess ever. It didn’t look like there was anything we could do except own up.
“Hello, girls,” said a voice behind us.
We all nearly jumped out of our skins. We turned round to find Mark standing there. He was frowning, and looked pretty upset.
“H-hello,” we gulped, waiting for him to start yelling at us.
But Mark didn’t seem too worried about us being there. In fact, he just didn’t seem interested at all. He wasn’t even looking at us. He was glancing all around him, as if he was looking for someone or something.
“Maybe you could help me, girls,” he said urgently. “I’ve lost something, and it’s really important that I find it again. You could help me search for it.”
“Sorry,” Kenny said. “I’ve sprained my ankle.”
“And we were just leaving,” Fliss added quickly.
“What have you lost?” I asked. I felt a bit sorry for Mark, he looked so worried.
“A little blue box,” Mark told me, “with gold writing on the top.”
“Oh!” Fliss dived into her pocket, and pulled out the box she’d picked up in the flowerbed when we were hiding round the side of the marquee. “I’d forgotten about it, what with – er – everything going on. Is this it?”
Mark’s face lit up as if someone had just given him a million pounds.
“That’s it!” he said, looking hugely relieved. “It must have fallen out of the pocket of my shorts. I can’t thank you enough, girls.” He took the box from Fliss, then frowned. “How did you girls get in here, anyway? You didn’t come with Nikky and Jill, did you?”
We’d been rumbled. Should we own up, or try to think of a way out? Kenny was in too much pain to come up with one of her ‘brilliant’ plans, and to be honest, I couldn’t think of anything myself.
“Felicity! What are you doing here?”
Too late. Fliss’s mum and Auntie Jill had appeared from nowhere, and were charging towards us. Fliss almost fainted on the spot, and the rest of us weren’t far behind her.
“I can’t believe it!” Mrs Proudlove said, looking dazed. “What on earth are you girls doing here?”
“And how did you get in?” Auntie Jill added.
No one got a chance to say anything more though. Suddenly the M&Ms came out of the clubhouse. Emma Hughes had a towel round her shoulders, and she looked triumphant when she saw us.
“There they are, Mrs Morgan!” she shouted.
We were all horrified. Next moment the club secretary rushed out of the clubhouse behind the M&Ms, and glared at us.
“Aha!” she said loudly. “So there you are. You’ve led me a merry dance, haven’t you?”
She stomped down the clubhouse steps, and rushed over to us. The M&Ms followed her, grinning.
“Oh, dear,” Fliss’s mum said nervously. “I hope these girls haven’t been a nuisance again, Mrs Morgan.”
“Worse than that.” The club secretary folded her arms grimly. “I have reason to believe that they forced their way into this club without proper membership cards.”
We all hung our heads and looked sheepish. We were really in for it now. And didn’t the M&Ms just love it. They were both lapping it up.
“Actually that’s not true, Mrs Morgan,” Mark said suddenly.
What?
“The girls are here as my guests,” Mark went on. Mrs Morgan and the M&Ms looked really taken aback, and Fliss’s mum and Auntie Jill stared at him.
“Your guests?” Mrs Morgan repeated fiercely.
Mark nodded. “You see,” he went on, “this is a very special occasion.”
Suddenly, for some reason, he got down on one knee. We all goggled at him.
“What’s he up to?” Kenny whispered. “Has he gone barmy?”
Mark took Auntie Jill’s hand, and then flipped the box open. We saw the sparkle of a diamond inside.
“Jill, please will you marry me?” he said.
Everyone was stunned. There was silence for a few seconds, and then Auntie Jill burst into tears.
“Just say YES!” Kenny whispered.
“Yes, Mark,” Auntie Jill sobbed happily, as he slid the ring on to her finger. “Of course I’ll marry you!”
We all began to cheer. Fliss was nearly wetting herself with excitement, Mrs Proudlove was crying too and hugging her sister and Mark, and the people in the restaurant stood up and started clapping. Even Mrs Morgan looked pleased. Only the M&Ms slunk off, still looking grumpy!
“This is great!” Lyndz grinned.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll get to be a bridesmaid,” Fliss said excitedly.
Mark came over to us. “Thanks, girls,” he said, with a wink. “If it hadn’t been for you, I might never have got that ring back. And I’d been saving up for it for weeks.”
“Thank you for saving our necks,” Kenny whispered.
Mark smiled at us. “No problem. Especially as Fliss and I are going to be related now.”
Fliss turned pink. “Yeah, you’ll be my uncle,” she said.
Mrs Proudlove and Auntie Jill came over to us, and we all crowded round to look at the engagement ring.
“Mrs Morgan has very kindly offered us glasses of champagne to celebrate,” Fliss’s mum told Mark.
“Great!” Kenny said.
“It’s orange juice for you, girls,” Mrs Proudlove said with a smile. “And Kenny, I think we’d better get you to the first-aid tent, so that they can take a look at your ankle.”
Half an hour later, we were all sitting out on the patio in the sunshine. We had orange juice, and big bowls of delicious strawberries and cream, and we scoffed the lot! Kenny’s ankle had been looked at, and she was resting her leg on a chair. The guy in the first-aid tent had given her an ice-pack, and told her that it was a bad sprain, and not to walk on it if she could help it.
“You know, maybe we should join the tennis club ourselves,” Kenny said, finishing off her strawberries. “I reckon we could become members, if Mark put in a good word for us.”
“Hm, we’ll have to see about that,” said Fliss’s mum.
“Hang on a minute, Kenny.” Fliss suddenly put down her spoon. “Now that you’ve sprained your ankle, you won’t be able to pay in the tennis tournament on Friday.”
Kenny’s face fell. “Oh, rats!” she said. “And I was looking forward to thrashing the M&Ms. Today’s only Wednesday, though,” she went on hopefully. “Maybe I’ll be OK by Friday.”
“No, you won’t be,” said Mrs Proudlove firmly.
Kenny turned to me. “It’s up to you, then, Frankie,” she said. “You’ll have to take my place.”
“But I’m not as good as you,” I said, feeling a bit scared, even though I really did want to play.
“Don’t put yourself down, Frankie,” Mark cut in. “You’ve got the makings of a killer serve, and your ground shots aren’t bad either, for a beginner.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, turning red. “OK, I’ll play then.”
The others cheered. Fliss leaned across the table and clinked glasses with me.
“We’re going to beat the pants off the M&Ms,” she said. “Just you wait and see.”
“And don’t forget that there’s a sleepover at my place on Friday evening,” Lyndz added.
“We’ll be celebrating!” Fliss boasted confidently.
“You bet,” I said, trying not to sound too nervous…
“I’m really nervous,” I said to Fliss, for about the millionth time.
It was the last day of our week of coaching, and the day of the
tournament. We were hanging around, waiting for Mark to tell us who we would be playing.
Most of our parents had come along to watch, and they were sitting on folding chairs which had been placed around the courts. Rosie’s mum was there, my mum had come with Izzy, and Lyndz’s mum had come with her baby brother Spike. Kenny had arrived on crutches her dad had given her (he’s a doctor, remember?) with Mrs McKenzie, and Mrs Proudlove and Auntie Jill were there too. They were going to help with the umpiring, and so were some of the other parents.
The M&Ms were all dressed up in their gruesome tennis whites and looking completely smug, which annoyed me. They kept well away from us, though, after what had happened at the club!
Mark came over carrying a clipboard.
“Morning, everyone,” he called. “Now, let me explain what’s going to happen. We’ve got eight pairs of players, so there’ll be four matches to start off with. We’re going to draw names out of a bag to see who plays first.”
Mark had a box with folded-up bits of paper in it, and Auntie Jill came over and drew them out one by one. Rosie and Lyndz got Ryan and Danny in the first round, and me and Fliss got Seema and Zoë, who we didn’t know very well.
“I don’t think they’re very good though,” Fliss said to me in a low voice.
The M&Ms got Jack and Katie Marshall. They were twins, and they were quite good players, but, of course, the M&Ms were so sure they were going to win, they didn’t even look worried.
“Wouldn’t it be great if they got knocked out in the first round?” I said to Fliss, as we went over to our court. Rosie and Lyndz were playing Ryan and Danny on the court next to us, so that Kenny could watch both matches at the same time. One of the other parents was umpiring our match, and Fliss’s mum was in charge of Rosie and Lyndz’s. Each match was only going to be one set long, to save time.
“Come on, Sleepover Club!” Kenny bawled, waving her crutches in the air as we took our places on the court.
“I hope I can remember what to do,” I said, feeling worried, as I got ready to serve. Seema and Zoë were already standing on the other side of the net.
“You’ll be fine,” Fliss said. “I’ll remind you if you get things wrong.”
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