21 amanda makes plans
again the news flew round the school like wildfire! “amanda went swimming out to sea and got caught in the current! june went down to bathe in the pool and saw her. she got the little boat and rescued her—but amanda’s badly hurt.”
“fancy june rescuing her bitter enemy!” said the lower-formers. “good old june! she’s collapsed, matron says. they are both in the san.”
june soon recovered. she had been completely exhausted, and that and the panic she had felt had knocked her out for a few hours. then she suddenly sat up and announced that she felt quite all right, could she get up, please?
“not yet,” said matron. “lie down. i don’t want to speak severely to such a brilliant life-saver, but i might, if you don’t do what you’re told! you certainly saved amanda’s life.”
“how is amanda?” asked june, shivering as she remembered amanda’s terrible leg and arm—bruised and swollen and cut.
“she’s not too good,” said matron. “her arm isn’t so bad—but the muscles of the leg have been terribly torn. on a rock, i suppose.”
june lay silent. “matron—will it—will this mean amanda can’t swim or play games any more this term?”
“it may mean more than that,” said matron. “it may mean the end of all swimming and games for her—unless those muscles do their job and heal up marvellously.”
“but—amanda was going in for the olympic games next year,” said june. “she was good enough, too, matron.”
“i know all that,” said matron. “it’s a bad thing this, june. when a person has been given strength and health and a wonderful gift for games, and throws it all away for an hour’s forbidden pleasure, it’s a tragedy. what that poor girl is thinking of, lying there, i don’t like to imagine.”
june didn’t like to imagine it, either. how terrible for amanda! and to think she had brought it on herself too—that must be even more terrible.
“can i go and see amanda?” she asked matron, suddenly.
“not today,” said matron. “and let me tell you this, june—i know about your clash with amanda, and i don’t care who’s right or who’s wrong. that girl will want a bit of help and sympathy, so don’t you go and see her if you can’t be generous enough to give her a bit. you saved her life—that’s a great thing. now you can do a little thing, and make it up with her.”
“i’m going to,” said june. “you’re an awful preacher, matron. i can’t imagine why i like you.”
“the feeling is mutual!” said matron. “now, will you please lie down properly?”
june found herself a heroine when she at last got up and went back to school! there were cheers as she came rather awkwardly into the common-room, suddenly feeling unaccountably shy. susan clapped her on the back, felicity pumped her right arm up and down, nora pumped her left.
“good old june!” chanted the girls “good—old—june!”
“do shut up,” said june. “what’s the news? i feel as if i’ve been away for ages. played any tricks up in the sixth form yet?”
“good gracious, no! we’ve been thinking and talking of nothing else but you and amanda!” said felicity. “we haven’t once thought of tricks. but we ought to now—just to celebrate your bravery!”
“i wish you wouldn’t be an ass,” said june. “i happened to be there, and saw amanda in difficulties, that’s all. it might have been anyone else.”
but the second-formers would not hide their pride in june. alicia was pleased and proud too. she came down to clap her small cousin on the back.
“good work, june,” she said. “but—it’s jolly bad luck on amanda, isn’t? out of all games for the rest of the term—and maybe no chance for the olympic games next year either.”
no one said, or even thought, that it served amanda right for her conceit, and for her continual boasting of her prowess. not even the lower-formers said it, though none of them had liked amanda. her misfortune roused their pity. perhaps the only person in the school who came nearest to thinking that it served amanda right was the french girl, suzanne, who had detested amanda for her brusque ways, and for her contempt of suzanne herself.
but then suzanne could not possibly understand why amanda had gone for that long swim, nor could she understand the bitter disappointment of being out of all games for so long.
june was as good as her word. she went to see amanda as soon as she was allowed to, taking with her a big box of crystallized ginger.
“hallo, amanda,” she said, “how’s things?”
“hallo, june,” said amanda, who looked pale and exhausted still. “oh, i say—thanks for the ginger.”
matron went out of the room. amanda turned to june quickly. “june—i’m not much good at thanking people—but thanks for all you did. i’ll never forget it.”
“now i’ll say something,” said june. “and i’ll say it for the two of us and then we won’t mention it again. we were both idiots over the coaching, both of us. i wish the row hadn’t happened, but it did. it was fifty-fifty, really. let’s forget it.”
“you might have been in both the second teams,” said amanda, regretfully.
“i’m going to be!” said june. “i mean to be! i’m going to practise like anything again—and will you believe it, moira’s offered to time me at swimming each day, and stand and serve me balls at tennis each afternoon!”
amanda brightened at once. “that’s good,” she said. “june—i shan’t mind things quite so much—being out of everything, i mean—if you will get into the second teams. i shan’t feel i’m completely wasted then.”
“right,” said june. “i’ll do my best.”
“and there’s another thing,” said amanda. “i’m going to spend my time coaching the lower-formers when i’m allowed up. i am to have my leg in plaster and then i can hobble about. i shan’t be able to play games myself, but i shall at least be able to see that others play them well.”
“right,” said june again. “i’ll pick out a few winners for you, amanda, so that they’ll be ready for you when you get up!”
“time to go, june,” said matron, bustling in again. “you’ll tire amanda with all your gabble. but, dear me—she looks much brighter! you’d better come again, june.”
“i’m going to,” said june, departing with a grin. “don’t eat all amanda’s ginger, matron. i know your little ways!”
“well, of all the cheeky young scamps!” said matron, lifting a hairbrush and rushing after june to give her a friendly spank. but june had gone.
matron put back the brush. she was pleased to see amanda looking so much brighter. “june’s just like alicia, that wicked cousin of hers,” she said. “yes, and alicia is just like her mother. i had her mother here, too, when she was a girl. dear, dear, i must be getting old. the tricks alicia’s mother used to play too. it’s a wonder my hair isn’t snow-white!”
she left amanda for an afternoon sleep. but amanda didn’t sleep. she lay thinking. what long long thoughts come to those in bed, ill and in pain! amanda sorted a lot of things out, during the time she was ill.
nobody pointed out to her that pride always comes before a fall, but she pointed it out a hundred times to herself. nobody pointed out that when you had fallen, what really mattered was not the fall, but the getting up again and going on. amanda meant to get up again and go on. she meant to make up for many many things.
“and if my leg muscles never get strong enough for me to play games really well again, i shan’t moan and groan,” she thought. “after all, it’s courage that matters, not the things that happen to you. it doesn’t really matter what happens, so long as you’ve got plenty of pluck to face it. courage. pluck. well, i have got those. i’ll be a games mistress if i can’t go in for games myself. i like coaching and i’m good at it. it will be second-best but i’m lucky to have a second-best.”
and so, when she got up and hobbled around, amanda was welcomed everywhere by the lower-formers, all anxious to shine in her eyes, and to show her that they were sorry for her having to limp about. amanda marvelled at their short memories. “they’ve forgotten already that i never bothered to help anyone but june,” she thought. she gave all her extra time to the eager youngsters, the time that normally she would have had for playing games herself, if it hadn’t been for her leg.
“she’s really a born games teacher!” the games mistress said to miss peters. “and now she’s taken june on again, and june is so remarkably docile, that kid will be in the second teams in no time!”
so she was, of course, unanimously voted there by moira, sally and darrell. amanda felt a prick of pride—but a different kind of pride from the kind she had felt before. this time it was a pride in someone else, not in herself.
“and now, my girl,” said alicia to june, “now you can show the stuff you’re made of! we had hoped that amanda might win us all the inter-school shields and cups that there are—but she’s out of it. so perhaps you’ll oblige, and really get somewhere for a change!”
