In the Fifth at Malory Towers (13 page)

Her knees shook just a little! How she hoped nobody could see them. It was silly to be nervous in a match — just the time not to be!

“Good luck,” whispered Susan, who was not far off. “Shoot a goal!”

Felicity nodded, still looking grim.

Darrell and Moira and Sally were together, watching. Most of the other fifth-formers were there, too, because many of them helped the younger ones and were interested in their play. A good sprinkling of the other forms were also there. Wellsbrough was a splendid school for sport and usually sent out first-class match-teams.

“Your small sister looks pretty fierce,” said Sally to Darrell. “Look at her! She means to do and dare all right!”

The match began. The ball shot out down the field, and the girls began to race after it, picking it up in their nets, throwing it, catching it, knocking it out again, picking it up, tackling one another and making the onlookers yell with excitement.

The Wellsbrough team shot the first goal. It went clean into the net, quite impossible to stop. The twelve-year-old goal-keeper was very downcast. One to Wellsbrough!

Felicity gritted her teeth. Wellsbrough had the lead now. She shot a look at Darrell. Yes, there she was, never taking her eyes off the ball. Felicity longed to do something really spectacular and make Darrell dance and cheer with pride. But the Wellsbrough team was tough, and nobody could do anything very startling. Always there was a Wellsbrough girl ready to knock the ball out of a Malory Towers lacrosse net as soon as it was there!

And always there was a Wellsbrough girl who seemed to be able to run faster than any of the home team. It was maddening. Felicity and Susan became very out of breath and panted and puffed as they tore down the field, their hearts beating like pistons!

And then Susan shot a goal! It was most unexpected. She was tearing down the field, far from the goal, with two Wellsbrough girls after her, and Felicity running up to catch the ball if Susan passed it.

Susan took a quick glance round to see if Felicity was ready to catch it. A Wellsbrough girl ran up beside Felicity, a tall girl who would probably take the ball instead of Felicity, if it was passed. Blow!

On the spur of the moment Susan flung the ball at the distant goal. It was a powerful throw, and the ball flew straight. The goalkeeper rushed out to catch it — but she missed, and the ball bounced right into the very middle of the net!

Cheers rang out from the spectators. Darrell yelled too. Then she turned to Moira.

“A very lucky goal. Those far throws don’t usually come off — but that one did. One all!”

It was almost half time. One minute to go. The ball came to Felicity and she caught it deftly in her net, jumping high in the air for it.

“Good!” yelled everyone, pleased to see such a fine catch. Felicity sped off with it and passed to Rita. She didn’t see a big Wellsbrough girl running up to her and collided heavily. Over she went on the ground and felt an agonizing pain in her right ankle. It was so sharp that she couldn’t get up. Things went black around her. Poor Felicity was horrified. No, no, she mustn’t faint! Not on the playing-field in the middle of the match! She couldn’t!

The whistle went for half-time. Felicity heaved a long shaky sigh of relief. Five minutes” rest. Would her ankle be all right?

She wasn’t going to faint after all! She sat there on the grass, pretending to fiddle with her lacrosse boot till she felt a little better. Susan came running up.

“I say — you went over with a terrific wallop. Did you hurt yourself?”

“Twisted my ankle a little,” said Felicity. She looked very white and Susan was alarmed. The games mistress came up.

“Twisted your ankle? Let’s have a look.”

She undid the boot quickly and looked at Felicity’s foot, pressing it and turning it.

“It’s an ordinary twist,” she said. “Horribly painful when it happens, I know. You’d better come off and let your reserve play.”

Felicity was almost in tears. Darrell came running up. “Has she twisted her ankle? Oh, she often does that. Her right ankle’s a bit weak. Daddy always tells her to bandage it fairly tightly — round the foot just here — and walk on it immediately, not lie up.”

“Well, I’m agreeable to that if Felicity can stand on it all right, and run,” said the mistress. “It’s up to her.”

Susan brought Felicity a lemon quarter to suck. She began to feel much better and colour came back into her checks. She stood up, testing her ankle gingerly. Then she smiled.

“It’s all right. It will be black and blue tomorrow, but there’s nothing really wrong. In a few minutes time it will be better.”

The games mistress bound the foot up tightly, and Felicity put on her boot again. The foot had swollen a little but not much. Chewing her lemon, Felicity hobbled about for a minute or two, feeling the foot getting better and better as she went.

“Nothing much wrong,” reported the games mistress. “A nasty twist — but Felicity’s a determined little character, and where another girl would moan and make a fuss and go off limping, she’s going to go on playing. It won’t do the foot any harm — probably do it good.”

The whistle went again, after a little longer half-time to give Felicity a chance to recover. The girls took their places, all at the opposite ends this time.

Susan was a marvel that second half. She saved Felicity all she could, and leapt about and ran like a mad March hare! Everyone cheered her.

Felicity’s foot ceased to hurt her. She forgot about it. She began to run again, and made another wonderful catch that set all the spectators cheering. She tackled a Wellsbrough girl and got the ball away. She ran for goal.

“Shoot!” yelled everyone. “SHOOT!”

But, before she could shoot, the ball was knocked out of her net and a Wellsbrough girl was speeding back down the field with it. She passed the ball on, and it was caught and passed again, and shot straight at the Malory Towers goal.

“Save it, save it!” yelled everyone in agony. The goal-keeper stood there like a rock. She made a wild slash with her lacrosse stick and miraculously caught the hard rubber ball, flinging it out to a Malory Towers girl at once.

“No goal, no goal!” sang the girls in delight. “Well saved, Hilda, well saved!”

“Looks as if it’s going to be a draw,” said Moira, glancing at her watch. “Only two minutes more. Felicity’s limping just a bit again. Plucky kid to run on as she did.”

“She’s got the ball!” cried Darrell, clutching Moira in excitement. “Another marvellous catch! My word, practice does pay! She catches better than anyone. Look, she’s kept it!”

Felicity was running down the field with the ball. She was tackled by a Wellsbrough girl, dodged, turned herself right round and passed to Susan. Susan caught it and immediately passed it back to Felicity, seeing two of the enemy coming straight at her. Felicity nearly didn’t catch it, because it was such a high throw, but by leaping like a goat she got it into the tip of her net, and it ran down safely.

Then off she went, tearing down the field, her face set grimly.

“SHOOT!” yelled the girls. “SHOOOOOOOOOOOT!”

And she shot, just as the stick of an enemy came crashing down to get the ball from her. The ball shot out high in the air, and the goal-keeper rushed out to get it.

She missed it — and the ball bounced and ran slowly and deliberately into a corner of the goal, where it lay still as if quite tired out with the game.

“GOAL!” yelled everyone, and went completely mad. Moira, Sally and Darrell swung each other round in a most undignified way for fifth-formers, Bill and Clarissa did a kind of barn-dance together, and as for the lower school, they began a most deafening chant that made Mam’zelle put her hands to her ears at once.

“Well — done — Felici — TEEEEEE! Well — done — Felici — TEEEEEE!”

The whistle went for time. The teams trooped off, red in the face, panting, laughing and happy. Felicity was limping a little, but so happy and proud that she wouldn’t have noticed if she had limped with
both
feet!

Darrell thumped her on the back. “You got the winning goal, my girl! You did the trick! Gosh, I’m proud of you!”

Moira thumped her, too. “I’m glad we put you into the team, Felicity! You’ll be there for the rest of the term. You’ve got team-spirit all right. You play for your side all the time.”

June was just nearby. She heard what Moira said, and felt sure she was saying it so that she might hear. She turned away, sick at heart.
She
might have been playing in the match — she might even have shot that winning goal. But Felicity had instead. June couldn’t go and thump Felicity on the back or congratulate her. She was jealous.

Felicity was too happy to notice little things like that. She went off with her team and the Wellsbrough girls to a “smashing” tea. Anyone seeing the piles of sandwiches, buttered and jammy buns, and slices of fruit cake piled high on big dishes would think that surely it would need twenty teams to eat all that!

But the two teams managed it all between them quite easily. What fun it all was! What a noise of shouting and laughter and whole-hearted merriment.

“School’s smashing,” thought Felicity, munching her fourth jammy bun. “Super! Wizard!”

REHEARSALS began. A Tuesday and a Friday came, and another Tuesday — three rehearsals already!

“I think it’s going well, don’t you?” said Darrell to Sally. “Little Mary-Lou knows her part already — she must have slaved at learning it, because Cinderella has almost more to say then anyone.”

“Yes — and she’s going to look the part
exactly
,” said Sally. “Who would ever have thought that timid little Mary-Lou, who was scared even of her own shadow when she was in the lower school, would be able to take the principal part in a pantomime now!”

“Shows what Malory Towers does to you!” said Darrell. “Still, I suppose any good boarding-school does the same things — makes you stand on your own feet, rubs off your corners, teaches you common-sense, makes you accept responsibility.”

“It depends on the person!” said Sally, with a laugh. “It doesn’t seem to have taught dear Gwendoline Mary much.”

“Well, I suppose there must be exceptions,” said Darrell. “She’s about the only one that’s come up the school with us who doesn’t seem to have learnt anything sensible at all.”

“It was a shock when we told her she and Maureen might be twins!” said Sally. “She really saw herself then as others see her. Anyway, I think she is better than she was — especially since she’s had to go in for games and gym properly.”

“She doesn’t like being a servant in the play,” said Darrell, with one of her wide grins. “Nor does Maureen. They’ve neither of them got a word to say in the play, and not much to do either — but as they both act so badly, it’s just as well!”

“It’s an awful blow to their pride,” said Sally. “I say — Bill’s going to be good, isn’t she? She’s the surly baron to the life as she strides about the stage in her riding-boots, and slaps her whip against her side!”

Yes — the play was really going quite well. The fifth-formers were almost sorry that it was half-term weekend because it meant missing a rehearsal that Friday. Still, it would be lovely to see their people again. Darrell had a lot to tell her parents — and so had Felicity.

Felicity’s ankle had certainly been black and blue the next day, and she showed it off proudly to the first-formers. What a marvel to shoot a goal when you had an ankle like that! Felicity was quite the heroine of the lower school.

Half-term came and went, all too quickly. Darrell’s father and mother came, and had to listen to two excited girls both talking at once about pantomimes and matches.

“We’re rehearsing well, and my words sound fine, and you should see Mary-Lou as Cinderella,” cried Darrell at the top of her voice.

“And when I shot the winning goal I simply couldn’t believe it, but there was such a terrific noise of cheering and shouting that I had to,” shouted Felicity, at the same time as Darrell. Her mother smiled. What a pair!

Four of Bill’s brothers came to see her, and her mother as well, all on horseback! It was the boys” half-term, too, and Bill rode off happily, taking Clarissa with her. “What a lovely way to spend half-term,” thought Clarissa, “riding all day long, and having a picnic lunch and tea!”

Gwendoline watched her go jealously. If she had been sensible last term she could have been Clarissa’s friend. But she hadn’t been sensible — and now she was stuck with that awful Maureen!

The dreadful thing was that Maureen’s parents couldn’t come at the last moment, so Maureen had no one to go out with. She went to tell Gwen.

“Oh, Gwen — are you taking anyone out with you? My parents can’t come. I’m so bitterly disappointed.”

Gwen stared at her crossly. This
would
happen, of course. Now she would have to have Maureen tagging about with her all day long.

She introduced Maureen to her mother and Miss Winter, her old governess, with a very bad grace.

“Mother — this is Maureen. Her parents haven’t come today, so I said she could come with us.”

“Of course, of course!” said Mrs. Lacy at once. As usual she was dressed in far too fussy things, with veils and scarves and bits and pieces flying everywhere. “Poor child — what a shame!”