Читать книгу Summer Term at St. Clare's - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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In a day or two the twins had settled down so well again that no one even remembered they had been late in coming back. They felt that it was a little unfair that the teachers so soon forgot this, for once or twice they were scolded for not knowing things that the rest of the class had been taught during the first week.

But the twins had good brains and soon caught up with the others. They had always loved the summer term at their old school, and they found that it was just as nice at St. Clare’s. There was no lacrosse that term, of course, but instead there were tennis and swimming—and they were grand!

There were eight courts at St. Clare’s, and Belinda Towers, who had charge of them, drew up a careful timetable so that every girl could have her turn at tennis practice. Miss Wilton, the sports mistress, was an excellent coach, and soon picked out the girls who would do well.

Margery Fenworthy, one of the old first-formers who had gone up into the second form, was brilliant at tennis, as she was at all sports. Miss Wilton was delighted with her.

‘She’s so strong,’ she told Belinda, ‘and she has a lovely style. Watch her serve, Belinda. See how she throws the ball up high, and gives it just the right smack when it comes down—and skims it over the top of the net. You know, I shouldn’t be surprised if she wins the school championship this term, and beats all you top-formers!’

‘I don’t mind if she does!’ said Belinda, ‘so long as she wins the matches against the other schools we play! Oakdene and St. Christopher’s are both running singles championships, you know, this term. Perhaps we can put Margery in for our player. She’s better than I am.’

‘Well, there’s not much to choose between you,’ said the sports mistress, ‘except that Margery is immensely strong.’

The twins were quite good at tennis, and Miss Wilton was pleased with their style. ‘Practise well and you may be in the tennis team for the first form,’ she said. ‘We shall be playing plenty of matches this term, so you’ll have some fun if you get into the team.’

The twins flushed with pleasure, and made up their minds to practise every minute they could. They loved their school and were very anxious to do everything they could to bring it fame among other schools.

But Miss Wilton was not so pleased with their Cousin Alison. Alison did not like games. ‘They make me get hot and messy,’ she always complained. ‘I hate running about, especially in the hot weather. My hair gets all wet at the back of my neck.’

‘Alison, you make me feel sick,’ said Bobby Ellis, who always said straight out what she was thinking. She was a bit like Janet that way, without Janet’s hot temper. ‘You’re nothing but a little peacock, always hoping some one’s going to admire you!’

‘Alison got much better last term,’ said Pat, trying to stick up for her cousin. ‘She really did try to get on with lacrosse.’

‘Well, Sadie says ...’ began Alison, quite forgetting what the girls thought about this refrain of hers. At once the girls nearby took up the chorus.

‘Sadie says ... Sadie says ... Sadie says ... What does Sadie say?’ they chanted.

Alison turned away in a temper. She was usually quite a good-tempered girl, but she hated being teased, and she certainly was getting a lot of it that term. She flew off to find her precious Sadie. Sadie didn’t care about games either. It was difficult to find out what she did care about, with the exception of clothes, hair, nails, complexion—and the cinema!

Sadie frankly didn’t try at tennis or swimming. She hated the water. So did Alison. Alison couldn’t bear going in. ‘It’s so icy-cold!’ she complained, as she stood at the top of the steps leading down into the deliciously green water. She would stand there, shivering, until one of the girls gave her an exasperated push and sent her in with a gasp and a flop. Then she would come up, spluttering in fury, and glare round for the girl who had pushed her in. But Bobby or Janet or whoever it was would be well away at the top of the swimming-pool!

Only one of the new girls really took to tennis and swimming. That was Bobby Ellis. She was a good sport, and so daring that she even pushed Miss Wilton unexpectedly into the pool, a thing that no other girl would have dared to do. Nobody ever knew what Don’t-Care-Bobby would do next. She really seemed to care for nothing and nobody, and went her own sweet way regardless of rules or punishments. She was good at tennis and a fast swimmer—but not one of the other new girls was any good at sports.

Prudence was no sport. She thought games were a waste of time, but only because she was no good at them. She fancied herself at clever conversation, and was always trying to get the other girls to argue about such things as ‘Should women rule the world instead of men?’ and ‘Should girls be given exactly the same education as boys?’

‘Oh shut up!’ Janet would say. ‘Keep that sort of thing for the Debating Hour, for goodness’ sake! If you took a bit more interest in the jolly things of life, and did something instead of always talking and prating and airing your wonderful opinions, you’d get on better. I consider you’re a silly little empty-head, for all your talk. Golly, you can’t even play a simple game of cards!’

‘My father says cards lead to gambling,’ said Prudence. Her father was a clergyman, and the girl had been brought up very strictly. ‘My aunt, who married Sir Humphrey Bartlett ...’

There was a groan at this. The girls were getting heartily sick of Prudence’s grand relations, who were brought into the conversation whenever possible.

‘Let me see,’ said Bobby, pretending to be interested, ‘was that the aunt who always had blue silk sheets on the beds? Or was it the one who threw a fit because the house-parlour-maid dared to give her a hot-water bottle with a cover that didn’t match the eiderdown? Or was it the one who kept table-napkins embroidered with every letter in the alphabet so that no matter what the names of her guests were, there was always a napkin with the right initial?’

Prudence flushed. She had once boasted about an aunt who had blue silk sheets for her beds, but she hadn’t said anything about hot-water bottles or table napkins. Those were clever make-ups on Bobby’s part. She said nothing.

‘Well, go on, tell us!’ said Bobby. ‘We’re all eager to hear the latest Society News!’

But Prudence had sense enough not to be drawn into an argument with Bobby. Clever as she was at debating things, she was no match for the quick-witted Bobby, who got all the laughs whenever she argued with any one.

Pamela Boardman was very earnest over her tennis and swimming, but she was no good at them at all. ‘You see, I always had a governess before I came here,’ she explained to the girls, ‘and my governess didn’t play games. Anyway, I was never interested in them. I loved working at lessons.’

‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ said Pat. ‘You’re much too clever for thirteen! I think it would do you good to be bottom of the form for once, and really enjoy yourself out in the open air! You’re always stewing over a book.’

Carlotta had never played tennis before, and she was quite wild at it. Miss Wilton said that she really thought Carlotta imagined the tennis net to be about two miles high, the way she hit the ball into the air, sky-high!

‘Carlotta, when I was small, I played a game with my brothers called “Chimney-pot tennis”,’ she said solemnly to the fiery little girl. ‘We sent the ball up to the roof and tried to get it down a chimney. Well, it seems to me you would be very good indeed at that game! But as you are not playing with chimney-pots, I really would be very glad if you could have a look at the net over there, and see if you can get the ball anywhere near it when you serve. Now—throw it into the air—and hit it straight towards the net!’

There would be a shriek of laughter from the watching girls as Carlotta hit wildly at the ball, and, as likely as not, sent it over the wall into the kitchen-garden!

Her swimming was much the same, though she liked the water and was quite at home in it. But, as Belinda complained, she swam just like a dog, splashing out with legs and arms just anyhow.

‘You swim like my dog Binks,’ said Kathleen. ‘He sort of scrabbles along in the water, and so do you, Carlotta!’

Sadie couldn’t swim at all, and though she didn’t mind the cold, as Alison did, she hated having to put her carefully-set hair under a tight bathing-cap, and complained that the water ruined her complexion. So, with the exception of Bobby Ellis, the first-formers voted the new girls a complete failure at sports.

‘It’s a pity our form have lost Margery Fenworthy,’ said Isabel, as she watched the straight-limbed girl swimming the whole length of the pool under water. ‘She would win the championship for the school, and wouldn’t we first-formers be proud!’

May was a glorious month that year, warm and sunny. Swimming was in full swing, and daily tennis made the grass become worn at the service lines. A good many of the girls had school gardens, and these patches were soon full of growing seedlings of all kinds. Gardening was the one out-door thing that Pamela really seemed to like. She took a big patch and sowed many packets of seeds there. She bought little plants too, gay double-daisies, velvet pansies and pretty polyanthus to make the borders of her patch gay.

There were nature-walks over the hills and through the woods. Sadie and Carlotta knew nothing about nature, it seemed, and made some curious mistakes. When Pat exclaimed at the amount of frogs in the pond, Sadie looked at them with interest.

‘I got some early frog-spawn in the spring,’ said Pat, ‘and I got heaps of tadpoles from it. Most of them have turned into tiny little frogs now. They’re sweet.’

‘Do tadpoles turn into frogs, then?’ said Sadie in the greatest surprise. The girls laughed at her. They couldn’t imagine how it was that Sadie knew so little about the most ordinary things.

‘Didn’t you ever go to school before?’ said Pat.

‘Well, I lived mostly in hotels in America with my mother,’ said Sadie. ‘I had a sort of governess but she didn’t know much! You see, most of the time my mother was fighting a law-case.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Isabel.

‘Well, when my father died he left a funny sort of will,’ said Sadie. ‘And it seemed as if all his money would go to his sisters. So Mother had to go to law about it, and it took years to settle. She won in the end—and I’m to have the money when I’m twenty-one. It’s a proper fortune.’

‘So you’re an heiress?’ said Prudence, admiringly. ‘No wonder you have such nice clothes and things.’

It was the first time that Prudence had heard of Sadie’s fortune. After that every one noticed that the girl hung around Sadie continually.

‘See dear Prudence sucking up to the rich heiress?’ said Janet, scornfully. ‘She’s made friends with Pamela so that she can pick her brains—and now she’s making friends with Sadie because one day she’ll be rich. Nasty little humbug!’

‘That’s a bit unkind,’ said Pat. ‘After all, Sadie’s kind and generous, and we all like to be friends with her because of those things, not because she’s well-off. And Pam’s a nice little thing, though she’s such a swotter. I’m not friends with her because I want to pick her brains but because there’s something rather nice about her, in spite of her head always being inside a book.’

‘Well, stick up for Prudence if you like,’ said Janet. ‘I think she’s a humbug. I can’t stick her goody-goody ways. Can you, Bobby?’

Bobby agreed. There was no humbug about Bobby. You always knew where you were with her. She was warm, friendly and sincere for all her don’t-care attitude to every one and everything.

‘We’re a mixed bunch this term,’ said Pat to Isabel, as she gazed round her form one morning. ‘A very mixed bunch. There’ll be a few busts-up before we all shake down together!’