Tennis Shoes by Noel Streatfeild Page A

that she was being coached in case she might turn out what her father called ‘first-class.’ How awful to even suggest that any game at St. Clair’s was not ‘first-class.’ Of course, the tennis was not, and the tennis coaching was not, and everybody knew it, but it was not the sort of thing you could possibly say.
    All the rest of the day she turned the problem over and over in her mind. Should she not tell her father and just be coached? She knew at once that was no good. Nicky would be sure to hear and tell him. She did hope her father would understand. He had been at school himself. He must know how the rest of your house thought about you if you let them down.
    She had meant to tell him that evening after tea. She came in strung up to do it. But the moment she got into the house she was told something that put it right out of her head. Next Sunday her father was motoring her down to see Jim.
    In bed that night she remembered that she had forgotten about the coaching. But somehow, tennis and teams and things like that did not matter so much as they had. Nothing mattered really except that she would see Jim on Sunday. In any case they were driving down. If you are by yourself with somebody who is driving a car, it’s the easiest time really to explain things.
    The only thing wrong with Sunday was that they were to have lunch at the school. Susan had done it before and thought it terrifying. She supposed all the boys were not really staring at her, but she felt as though they were.
    Sunday was a most lovely day. The hedges were full of honeysuckle and dog-roses. The fields had so many buttercups in them that they looked as if they had turned yellow. It was so dry the cow-parsley along the borders of the road had its leaves grey with dust. Ashdown Forest looked cool. Susan would have liked to get out and walk through the trees and amongst the gorse. There was so much to see after being at Tulse Hill that she left talking about the coaching until they were going home.
    Jim was waiting in the school drive for them. He was most terribly glad to see them and would have liked to say so, but he never found it easy to say things to his family when they came to the school. School was school and family was family. You could not expect them to mix. So all he said was:
    â€˜Hallo! You don’t want to see the chapel again, do you? You saw it last time.’
    â€˜No. I think we’d better go and pay our respects,’ Dr. Heath suggested.
    Jim looked at his watch.
    â€˜Well, I don’t know about that yet. Lunch is a quarter past one. It’s only a quarter to. What would we do for half an hour?’
    But Dr. Heath said he thought they would not be too early, so they went in.
    As a matter of fact it worked out rather well. The headmaster’s wife, Mrs. Partridge, took Susan to wash and to do her hair, and when she came back she found both Mr. and Mrs. Partridge drinking sherry with her father, so she and Jim were able to get in a corner and talk.
    â€˜Dad gave me an awful shock,’ Jim told her. ‘In his letter he didn’t exactly say who was coming. I thought he might be bringing Nicky too. It would have been simply awful if he had. She’d have been sure to say or do something frightful in front of everybody.’
    His talking of everybody reminded Susan of lunch.
    â€˜Am I sitting next to you?’
    â€˜Yes. I’m to move up to the end. On the other side of you is Mr. Partridge.’
    Jim did not really care for having his family to lunch. Susan was pretty and all that, and she looked all right in that green thing she was wearing. But somehow it made him shy, the other boys looking at his father and sister. Of course, it was not likely they would do anything wrong, but they might. Anyway it was lucky they looked all right. He did not want to be like Lang last term. His mother coming down dreadful and fat and all over paint. She had left her lipstick on the napkin.