16 a row—and a trick

the first thing that happened was the row between june and amanda. most people had thought the two would blow up sooner or later, and they did!

it was over quite a simple thing. amanda was coaching june at tennis, sending her fast serves to take—so fast and hard that june was half scared of some of them! but she slammed them back valiantly, pleased at being able to handle such terrific serves.

“june! use your head!” shouted amanda, stopping her serves for a minute. “what’s the good of returning these fast serves if you don’t put the ball somewhere where i’ve got to run for it! or even somewhere that i can’t reach! all you do is to put them back right at my feet.”

“it’s as much as i can do to take the serves, let alone place the return ball,” answered june. “give me a chance! also, the court is a bit bumpy this end, and the ball doesn’t bounce true. it puts me off when that happens.”

“don’t make excuses,” said amanda.

“i’m not!” yelled june, indignantly. but amanda was already throwing the ball high in the air for her next serve.

the ball flew like lightning over the net to june. again it bounced on an uneven bit and swerved a little to the right. june lashed at it wildly.

it flew straight up into the air, and then swerved right over the netting round the court, landing in the middle of a watching group, who fell all over themselves trying to catch the ball, shrieking with laughter.

“if you fool about, june, we’ll stop,” said amanda, honestly thinking that june had hit the ball wildly on purpose. something immediately went “ping” inside june, as it always did when she lost her temper.

she didn’t lose it outwardly at first. she merely collected up the balls round the court, and then sent them all flying over the surrounding netting into the watching girls, one after another.

“i’m finished,” she announced to amanda. “it’s impossible to work with you. i shan’t turn up for this sort of thing any more. it’s not worth my while. so long!”

and under the admiring eyes of the watching girls, june strolled off the court, whistling softly.

amanda called to her. “don’t be a fool, june. come back at once.”

june took no notice. she whistled a little more loudly, and began throwing her racket up into the air and catching it deftly as it came down. she did a few imaginary strokes with it, and then began to fool. the watching girls laughed.

amanda strode after june. “june! i told you to come back. if you don’t, i’ll see you’re not chosen for even the third team.”

“don’t want to be!” said june, throwing her racket up into the air again and catching it. “you go and find some other second-former to bawl at and chivvy round. don’t waste that nice kind nature of yours, amanda.”

and this time she really did go off, having given amanda a look of such scorn and dislike that amanda was shocked. the little group of spectators were scared now. they dispersed, whispering. what a bit of news to spread round the school. what a row. and wasn’t june marvellous! “honestly!” whispered the first-and second-formers, “honestly she doesn’t care for anyone, not even amanda!”

amanda told sally, darrell and moira the news herself. “june flew into a temper and the coaching is off,” she announced. “i’m not giving up any more of my time to that ungrateful little beast. i’m sorry i gave her any now. but she would have been well worth it.”

“oh, what a pity!” said sally. “we had arranged to watch june swimming tomorrow, and playing tennis the next day, to see if she could go into the second team, as you suggested. she’s already good enough for the third. she could have been in all the matches!”

“well, she can’t be,” said amanda, and then she spoke spitefully. “she’s gone off her game this week. she doesn’t deserve to be in the third team either.”

alicia spoke to june about it. “what happened?” she said. “couldn’t you have stuck it for a bit longer? we were going to come and watch you swimming and playing tennis this week—meaning to put you into the second teams, so that you could play in the matches.”

“i’m not going to be chivvied about by anyone,” said june. “least of all by amanda. not even for the sake of shining in the second teams with the fourth- and fifth-formers!”

“but, june—aren’t you rather cutting off your nose to spite your face?” asked alicia. “don’t you want to play in the matches? they’re important, you know. we do want to win them this year. we lost the tennis shield last year, and were only second in the swimming matches.”

june hesitated. she did want to play in the matches. she would have liked to bring honour and glory to the teams—and yes, to malory towers too. june was really beginning at times to see that one should play for one’s side and not always for oneself.

“well,” she said at last, “i’ll be honest with you, alicia. yes, i was looking forward to playing in the matches, and i was pretty certain i’d be chosen. but amanda is a slave-driver and nothing else—she made me slave and she got good results—but she’s so absolutely inhuman. i couldn’t stick her one moment more, even if it meant giving up the matches.”

“although you knew you might help the school to get back the tennis shield and win the swimming?” said alicia.

there was a pause. “i’m sorry about that,” said june, with an effort. “i didn’t think enough about that side of the question, i’m afraid. but look, alicia—it’s done now, and i’m not going back on my word. i’m fed up to the teeth with tennis and swimming. i don’t want to touch a racket again this term, and if i go into the pool, i shall just fool about.”

“you’ll fool about all your life, i expect,” said alicia, getting up. “all you think about is yourself and your own feelings. i’m sorry about it, june. you’re my cousin, and i’d like to have cheered myself hoarse for once, watching you do something fine—like darrell cheers felicity.”

she walked off and left june feeling rather small and uncomfortable. but nothing, nothing, nothing would make june go to amanda again. nothing in this world. june gritted her white even teeth and swung an imaginary racket into the air and caught it. finish! no more coaching!

nora came running up. “was that alicia? you didn’t tell her we were going to play the magnet trick on mam’zelle dupont today, did you?”

“don’t be an ass,” said june, scornfully. “do you suppose i’d split after we said we wouldn’t say a word?”

“oh. well, you seemed to be having such a confab,” said nora. “i came to ask if i could have the magnet. i’ve been waiting ages to ask you. was alicia rowing you?”

“no,” said june, shortly. “don’t be so jolly inquisitive, and mind your own business. here’s the magnet.”

nora took it, beaming. she felt proud of being chosen by the second-formers to play the trick up in the grand sixth form. she had planned everything very carefully, with felicity’s help.

“i popped into the sixth form and took one of the exercise books off the desk,” felicity had told nora. “all you’ve got to do is to walk into the room, apologize, and ask mam’zelle if the book belongs to a sixth-former. you can do the trick whilst she’s examining it.”

it sounded easy. nora was thrilled when the time came that afternoon. the second-formers were free, but the upper forms were busy with work. nora sped up to the sixth form with the book.

she heard the drone of someone reading aloud in french as she got there. she knocked at the door. mam’zelle’s voice came at once. “entrez!”

nora went in with the book. “excuse me, mam’zelle,” she said, holding out the book. “but does this belong to one of the sixth-formers?”

mam’zelle took the book and looked at it. “ah—it is mary-lou’s missing book,” she said. behind her nora was holding the powerful little magnet two inches away from mam’zelle’s neat little bun of hair.

alicia’s sharp eyes caught her action and she stared, hardly believing her eyes. all mam’zelle’s hair-pins at once attached themselves to the magnet. nora withdrew it hastily, said “thank you, mam’zelle” and shot out of the room before she burst into laughter. alicia felt sure she could hear the little monkey snorting in the corridor as she fled back to the second-formers.

mam’zelle seemed to have felt something. she usually wore more pins in her hair than mam’zelle rougier, and probably she had felt them all easing their way out! she put up her hand—and immediately her bun uncoiled itself and flapped down her back!

“tiens!” said mam’zelle, surprised. the girls all looked up. alicia felt like a first-former again, longing to gulp with laughter. mam’zelle patted her hand over her head to find her hair-pins. she could find none.

“que c’est dr?le, ?a?” said mam’zelle. “how queer it is!”

she stood up and looked on the floor, wondering if for some extraordinary reason her pins had all fallen down there. no, they hadn’t. mam’zelle grovelled on hands and knees and looked under her desk to make certain.

the girls began to laugh. alicia had quickly enlightened them as to what had happened. the sight of poor mam’zelle groping about on the floor for hair-pins that were not there, her hair hanging over one shoulder, was too much even for the staid sixth-formers.

mam’zelle stood up, looking disturbed. she continued her frenzied hunt for the missing pins. she thought possibly they might have fallen down her neck. she stood and wriggled hoping that some would fall out. she groped round her collar, her face wearing a most bewildered expression.

she saw the girls laughing. “you are bad wicked girls!” she said. “who has taken my hair-pins? they are gone. ah, this is a strange and puzzling thing.”

“most piggy-hoo-leeearrrr,” said suzanne’s voice.

“but nobody could have taken your pins, mam’zelle,” said darrell. “why not one of us has come up to your desk this afternoon.”

“ca, c’est vrai,” said mam’zelle, and she looked alarmed. “that is true. this is not a treek, then. my pins have vanished themselves from my hair. girls, girls, can you see them anywhere?”

this was the signal for a frantic hunt in every ridiculous nook and cranny. darrell was laughing helplessly, unable to keep order. for three or four minutes the sixth-formers really might have been back in the second form. irene produced several explosions, and even the dour amanda went off into fits of laughter.

“girls, girls! please!” mam’zelle besought them. “miss williams is next door. what will she think?”

miss williams thought quite a lot. she wondered what in the world was happening in the usually quiet sixth form. mam’zelle got up. “i go to make my bun again,” she said, and disappeared in a dignified but very hurried manner.