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 valiantly¹, 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 bumpy² 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 uneven³ bit and swerved⁴ a little to the right. June lashed⁵ 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, shrieking⁶ 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!”

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