Read Online Tennis Shoes by Noel Streatfeild - Free Book Online

at her and smiled.
    â€˜You and your St. Clair’s. I shall have to take you away one day, Sukey. How being a proper St. Clair’s girl does worry you!’
    Susan grew red.
    â€˜Well, oughtn’t it to? You do see I’d look simply awful not coaching for a tennis team, if I could coach for it. If I get into a team next year it’s a mark every week for my house and extra marks if I do well in the match. You couldn’t expect a house not to want those.’
    â€˜All right, my dear. Have your coaching. I quite see you will find life unendurable without it.’ He hesitated. ‘Though I don’t know really whether it matters terribly what the house thinks.’
    â€˜Oh, but it does, daddy. You ought to have heard them when one of the girls wouldn’t play in the hockey team because she wanted to ride.’ She frowned in a worried way. ‘You know, daddy, it’s awfully nice being taught to play properly, but it costs a lot, and I don’t see why any of us should be any good.’
    He waited to answer while he passed two cars and got further up in the queue of London-bound traffic.
    â€˜I dare say none of you will. Your grandfather was good and, though I says it as didn’t ought, I looked like being first-class myself before my leg. It would be grand if one of you turned out an ace at something, and tennis in our family is the likeliest shot. There was a time, you know, Susan, when English people were better at games than almost anybody in the world. I sometimes think that we are going backwards. Don’t think I mind just because of England—I don’t. I’d like to see no countries at all but just one world with no frontiers. But there are countries, and I feel that the fact that England doesn’t win now as we used to is a reflection on us doctors.’
    â€˜You! Why? What can you do?’
    Dr. Heath stared at the road ahead as if he could see a vision.
    â€˜We don’t teach physical training nearly so much as we ought to. We are far too fond instead of medicines and cutting people up. I think every father and mother in the country ought to aim at making their children first-class in some line.’
    â€˜But everybody can’t play games, and, anyway, everybody couldn’t win.’
    â€˜Of course they couldn’t, but they could try, and because they tried the whole standard would go up. Besides, games aren’t the only thing. Ever hear of Amy Johnson, who flew alone to Australia in a second-hand aeroplane before flying was half as safe as it is now? When we read of people like her it does us good. We remember we had good people once, and will have them again.’
    â€˜Of course I’d like to be really good, but I’m afraid I never will.’ Susan wriggled more comfortably into her seat. ‘You see, I don’t like people watching me, and they would if I had to play at Wimbledon.’
    Dr. Heath laughed.
    â€˜They certainly would. Well, try and get into your St. Clair’s team. Perhaps it will help your temperament, but remember, if I find you getting into bad habits I’ll drag you out of it again by the scruff of your neck, whatever your house says.’
    Susan was only half listening. The sea air had made her sleepy. Presently her father said something about Ashdown Forest, but she must have been nearly asleep, for what she answered was:
    â€˜It was a lovely fish. We ate half each.’

CHAPTER V
    THE UMBRELLA MAN
    Nicky had been having a lesson from her father on how to serve. It had been an annoying lesson. For one thing it was very hot. For another, she thought her father was fussing as usual about things that did not matter. She had done all the things she had been told. Thrown the ball about five feet into the air, ‘smoothly’ as her father called it, and what in juggling Annie called ‘easing it along,’ but it meant exactly the same thing. She had stood properly, right