Tennis Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  The day before Jim went back to school the children had a committee meeting in the garden. They brought out a table, four chairs, and pencils and paper for every one. Susan knew this was right, because once when she had a cold she had been in the room while her mother held a committee of the Hospital Linen Guild. When everything was brought out she looked it over carefully to see all was in order.

  ‘At meetings,’ she said rather grandly, ‘there have to be a chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer.’

  Jim sat down on the table.

  ‘You aren’t the only one who knows that. But do you know what they all do?’

  Susan hesitated.

  ‘Well, I was very little and I was reading Peter Rabbit all the time, but the chairman was the one that said what every one was going to talk about. The secretary wrote down what everybody talked about. The treasurer looks after the money.’

  Jim nodded.

  ‘That sounds right Secretaries keep minutes.’

  Susan was puzzled.

  ‘Minutes! Do you mean the secretary has to have a clock to see how long it is all taking?’

  Jim was vague what minutes were. They came into talks they had once a week at school, called ‘Current Affairs.’ They were all about parliaments and things like that. All over the world secretaries seemed to take minutes.

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I think it’s just what the secretary writes down is called.’

  ‘We shan’t need to have a treasurer,’ Nicky pointed out. ‘The meeting is about the tennis house, and, as it has all the money inside it, I suppose the tennis house is the treasurer.’

  Susan retied the ribbon on the end of one of her plaits.

  ‘Well, we can’t bring the tennis house to the committee—we wouldn’t be allowed to—so we had better call somebody treasurer even if they don’t do anything. I’m sure there has to be one, or it isn’t a proper meeting.’

  Nicky hopped round the table.

  ‘Well, bags I the chairman.’

  Susan gave her a very odd look.

  ‘Well, you won’t be. The chairman has to be the oldest person, and that’s either Jim or me; and Jim is by ten minutes, so it’s him.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be secretary.’ Nicky sat down at the table and drew on the committee writing-paper a cat’s back view sitting on a brick wall with the sun setting behind it in between two mountains. ‘You all talk an awful lot and very fast. I couldn’t write it down.’

  ‘I’ll be secretary,’ Susan offered. ‘And if any one talks too much the chairman has to tap on the table for people to be quiet. You’ll have to be treasurer, Nicky. And don’t mess about on the committee writing-paper.’

  Nicky drew three hairs on the cat’s tail and laid down her pencil.

  ‘Why can’t David be?’

  They all looked at David, who was kneeling on the grass mending a signal-box.

  ‘David, come and sit down,’ Jim called. ‘You’re part of the committee.’

  ‘Can I bring my signal?’

  Jim looked as if he was going to say ‘No,’ so Susan whispered hurriedly:

  ‘He won’t sit still if he doesn’t.’

  ‘All right. Bring your signal.’ Jim sat down at the top of the table. Susan sat on his left. Nicky was at the bottom. David climbed on to the chair facing Susan.

  ‘I suppose,’ Susan said, ‘I ought to write down bits about chairmen and things?’ She began writing quickly. While she was doing it Nicky went on drawing. Jim got up and showed David what was the matter with his signal-box. When she had finished writing Susan cleared her throat. ‘I think this is all right: “A meeting was held about getting more money for the tennis house. Jim was chairman. I am secretary. Nicky is treasurer.”’

  ‘I can’t see why David can’t be treasurer,’ Nicky argued.

  ‘I can’t see why it matters who is,’ Jim pointed out. ‘You said yourself the tennis house is treasurer really. Now, for goodness’ sake, do be quiet all of you. The thing is, how are we going to get some money to put into it?’

  ‘Well, I thought’—Susan clasped her hands at the back of her neck—‘there’s our pocket-money. Do you know how much we get? I worked it out last night. Jim and I have threepence a week. Which is a shilling a month. Which is twelve shillings a year. Nicky has twopence a week. Which is eightpence a month. Which is eight shillings a year. David has a penny a week. Which is four shillings a year. Then there’s Christmas money and birthdays and things like that. Shall we all vow we’ll put half of everything in the tennis house?’

  ‘Oh, I say!’ Jim got rather red; he did not like to seem meaner than Susan, but he thought it was an awful idea. ‘Not half! My threepence doesn’t do for all the things in any case. Couldn’t we give the extras?’

  Nicky drew a frieze of dancing rabbits. At least, that was what they were meant to be.

  ‘I don’t mind telling anybody who might be interested that Nicky Heath is keeping her pocket-money for herself.’

  This from Nicky made Jim more amenable to Susan’s idea. Nicky really was insufferable the way she would do what she liked and never cared what other people thought. He was just going to say something snubbing when David interrupted.

  ‘I spend my penny on my farm at Woolworth’s. I need a lot more animals.’ He felt this was all and more than he need contribute to the meeting. He slid off his chair and sat under the table. Obviously it was more comfortable down there.

  Susan leant over to Nicky.

  ‘If you don’t mean to put in any money, what do you mean to do? Do you know Pinny is knitting jumpers for people? At least, she’s going to when someone wants a jumper knitted, and she’s putting all the money she makes in the house. And do you know, daddy and mummy are putting in all the bits they can save? The sort of money they used to use for going to the theatre sometimes. You can’t be so mean as to let everybody else save money to make you good at tennis and not ever give anything at all.’

  ‘I could.’ Nicky added another rabbit to her frieze. ‘Who ever said I wanted to be good at tennis, anyway?’

  Jim and Susan looked at her in disgust.

  ‘Well, suppose,’ Susan suggested, ‘we could think of a way of making money, would you help then?’

  Nicky sat up straight in her chair.

  ‘If you wouldn’t all be so cross I would have told you something. I have thought of how to make money for the tennis house, and you ought to write it down in minutes.’

  Susan took up her pencil again.

  ‘I might, but I’ll hear it first. I’m not going to waste my minutes on stupid things.’

  Nicky leant forward.

  ‘You know that when they wanted money for the church last year mummy had that bridge tournament in the drawing-room? The one we helped put the ash-trays out for. Mummy made six pounds that afternoon. Why shouldn’t we?’

  Susan laid down her pencil in disgust.

  ‘That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. Which of us plays bridge?’

  ‘I didn’t think,’ Nicky went on quite unmoved, ‘we’d play bridge, stupid, but family games.’

  Jim tried to be fair. It was rather a good idea, but it was annoying that it was Nicky who had thought of it. It spoilt the meeting rather. The chairman ought to be the one to think of things like that. He looked at Susan. She was writing the idea down.

  ‘What do you think, Sukey?’

  Susan finished writing. She looked up.

  ‘It’s a good idea, but I see a snag. Ordinarily when people have bridge tournaments and things it’s for a charity. Money for the tennis house is for us. I don’t think we could ask people to come and play games for that.’

  Jim thought this over.

  ‘Do you suppose that if you give people tea and prizes they mind where the money goes?’

  Susan put her head on one side.

  ‘I don’t see how we could get any money if we give tea and prizes. You see, if we asked people to come and play games it would be all the girls in my form, all the
ones in Nicky’s, any boys from your school that live in London, and just the children round here. None of those would pay more than threepence. If we had to buy tea out of it, and prizes, I don’t see where the money for the tennis house is coming from.’

  Nicky went back to her drawing.

  ‘I think mummy would give us the tea and there’ll be some things we don’t want for prizes.’

  Jim looked at her witheringly.

  ‘You can be a fool. If mother has to buy the tea, she might just as well put the money straight into the tennis box.’

  ‘If we had the trouble of doing the party,’ Nicky explained, ‘anyway it would show we meant to put money in.’

  Susan scratched the whole of Nicky’s suggestion out of the minute book, her pencil making as much scratching-out noise as possible.

  ‘It was a rotten idea really,’ she said. ‘I wish I’d never written it down.’

  Jim rapped the table with his pencil.

  ‘Well, come on. Any other ideas?’

  Nicky looked very annoying.

  ‘The chairman is the one who says what everybody is going to talk about.’

  ‘All right.’ Jim pushed his hands into his pockets. ‘I will. If you’d agreed at the beginning to give some of your pocket-money we should have finished ages ago. I think the best plan is for each of us to agree to put in what equals half our pocket-money for next term. Next term is thirteen weeks. Thirteen threepences is——’ He paused.

  ‘Three and threepence,’ Susan whispered.

  ‘Three and threepence,’ Jim said loudly. ‘And half that is——’ He looked anxiously at Susan.

  ‘One and sevenpence halfpenny,’ she hissed.

  ‘One and sevenpence halfpenny,’ he agreed, just as if he had thought it out for himself. ‘Then, Nicky, you have thirteen twopences, which is——’ This time Susan wrote down ‘2s. 2d.’ very large on her minute paper. ‘Two and tuppence,’ Jim went on, ‘which means half is one shilling and a penny. David has only one shilling and a penny. Half that is sixpence halfpenny. David’—he looked under the table—‘will you promise to put six pennies and one halfpenny in the tennis house before I come back from school next holidays? You get lots of extra pennies from people.’

  David sighed. Any extra pennies, even his pocket-money, he had some difficulty in spending as it was. Pinny said: ‘Look after the pence and the pounds will look after themselves.’ All the same, he liked the tennis house and quite understood the idea that everybody was to help. He climbed out and stood beside Jim.

  ‘All right. Six pennies and one halfpenny will be my oppert’ry.’

  ‘Offertory,’ Jim corrected. ‘And that’s only in church. Will you give one shilling and one penny, Nicky?’

  Nicky bit the end of her pencil and looked thoughtfully at the sky.

  ‘I might.’

  ‘You must promise,’ Susan urged. ‘We’re all going to. You know it needn’t come out of your pocket-money. You get extra money sometimes. We all do.’

  ‘I won’t promise, because I mightn’t be able to keep it. But I will try very hard.’

  Jim sat on one leg.

  ‘I do think, Nicky, you grow nastier every day. We’ll give one and sevenpence halfpenny each, of course, won’t we, Susan? Would you put that all down in minutes and see how much it comes to?’

  Susan wrote the sum down and added it. It came to four shillings and tenpence halfpenny.

  ‘Four and tenpence halfpenny! As much as that!’ Jim looked respectfully at her sum. Annie came out on to the steps.

  ‘Whoop, whoop, coming over! Anybody care for a slice of chocolate cake? Your father says bits between meals are bad. But I say a little of what you fancy does you good, and seeing it’s Jim’s last day why not?’

  Jim got up quickly. He was tired of the meeting.

  ‘Well, I think we had finished anyway, hadn’t we?’

  He only spoke to Susan. Nicky and David were already racing up the garden.

  CHAPTER IV

  EASTBOURNE

  Usually term time seems longer than holiday time. To Susan and Jim it felt longer than it does to most people. Some twins are quite unlike and do not care a bit how seldom they see each other. They were not like that. They never discussed it. They certainly could not have explained, but in a sort of way they only felt half themselves when they were separated.

  It was easier really for Jim than for Susan. He had made a lot of friends at the school at Eastbourne. Susan had heaps of friends at St. Clair’s, but school friends are never the same when you go by the day instead of being a boarder.

  The worst of it for Susan was that she and Nicky did not get on. She really felt that Nicky ought to count as a little one and go about with David. Instead of that there they were, going to school together.

  St. Clair’s was thought a very good school. That is to say, it had masses of boards in the hall, with the names of all the people who had won scholarships and exhibitions written on them in gold. In the gymnasium there were even more boards, bearing the names of those who had distinguished themselves at games, written in scarlet.

  Susan hated being conspicuous. She never went anywhere without trying to be as much like everybody else as possible, at least on the outside. St. Clair’s tried to make everybody alike inside as well as out. Susan knew outside she was managing very well, but she sometimes doubted if she was the real St. Clair’s girl inside.

  Stuck up in the hall over the platform from which the head read prayers every morning was: ‘Who aimeth at the sky shoots higher much than he who means a tree.’ Naturally Susan knew what it meant, but she knew as well (without actually thinking it) just what sort of sky St. Clair’s meant you to shoot at. Being good at work. Being good at games. Being a good influence in the school. Lots of other things which might have seemed part of the sky outside, certainly were not part of the one in. Music, for instance. Books or art in any form. Dancing was all right, but only as exercise. There was no harm in being able to sing or play an instrument, but being too fond of it was showing off. Reading books was all right, but you mustn’t talk about what you’d been reading. That was putting on side. If you painted or drew you were expected to do it in the art class once a week and not mess about with it at other times. Caricatures, of course, were different. That wasn’t drawing; that was being funny.

  The school suited Susan. She liked being in uniform. Brown serge in winter. Brown checked cotton in summer. She was good at lessons and at games. In fact, she was almost exactly what St. Clair’s wanted. It did seem hard on her, therefore, that before she had been at the school two years Nicky must arrive, undoing in a moment the good impression she had created.

  Nicky did not really mean to be as aggravating as St. Clair’s found her. But she never remembered rules, and she never wanted to be like anybody else. Susan was terribly ashamed of her.

  The school was divided into four houses. The marks of everybody in each house, both for lessons and for games, were added together, and a cup was given to the top house every term. The result was that St. Clair’s was full of girls struggling to get to the top of their class and to win their colours. In fact, almost all the school but Nicky. Susan did her best to make her try.

  ‘But you must see how you are letting your house down by always being at the bottom of your form.’

  Nicky would look aggravatingly vague.

  ‘What house?’

  ‘You know quite well it’s St. Catherine’s, Nicky. Your house-captain, Alison Browne, is awfully nice. You’re very lucky to be in her house. Such lots of people who were in it are on the boards.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be on a board,’ Nicky explained.

  Susan looked shocked.

  ‘But think of all the girls reading your name in gold, while they are at prayers in the morning, for ever and ever.’

  ‘I don’t see what good that would do me,’ Nicky argued.

  As she had no effect on Nicky, Susan had to apologize for her when her house grumb
led.

  ‘She’ll be all right presently. I know she’s always getting into rows, but she doesn’t seem to be able to understand about rules. She’s awfully proud at being in St. Catherine’s House really.’

  Susan wrote long letters to Jim telling him how awful it was about Nicky. But letters are unsatisfactory. Hers made her feel more than ever that she wanted him home.

  It was about half-way through the term when the worrying thing happened. St. Clair’s was not a tennis school. Lacrosse, hockey, and cricket were their games. Of course they played tennis and had tennis teams, but there were not enough courts to go round, and so it was never considered quite so important as other games.

  Tennis in the lower school was only for the two top forms. Susan had moved into the lower of the two top forms that term. She found she did not care much for the tennis now that she was allowed to play. Her father put her off for one thing. He said he would much rather she did not touch her racket at school. That he was trying to get some style into her, and messing about with a lot of kids would not do her any good. Susan felt inside that quite honestly this was true. But of course she could not possibly refuse to play. After all, her only excuse was that her father thought the game at school was not good enough. She was ashamed at agreeing with him inside. It was in a way criticizing your school, which was not done at St. Clair’s.

  The tennis was rotten. There was no coaching in the lower school and they all slammed the ball about just as they liked. Susan tried to practise special strokes, especially her backhand, which her father said was very weak. She would keep up a running criticism of herself in her head.

  ‘Look which way you are standing. Sideways. You can’t take a backhand unless your right shoulder is towards the net. Don’t spoon it up. Look at your feet, Susan. My good child, look at your left foot. Unless your left foot is behind for you to swing back on, how do you think you are going to take the ball? That was better. That was much better. Don’t get too close to the ball. You took that one very nicely indeed.’ And all the time she whispered: ‘Follow through. Follow through. You idiot, you took your eye off the ball.’