Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma

“I think it will do now,” said Billie, at last. “Thanks so much, girls.”

“But how does the knee feel?” Laura insisted.

“All right, most of the time. Then once in a while when I least expect it, it grows a peculiar kink. I can’t quite explain it, but suddenly all the strength goes out of it and I feel as though I’d either have to sit down or take a nose dive. Never mind!” smiling at their serious faces, “let’s hope it will last through to-morrow. That’s all I ask of it!”

“That’s all you ask of it, yes,” grumbled Vi. “But that’s an awful lot to ask of a weak knee, Billie. I’m worried about it. If you’d only kept off of it this past week or two, it might be all right now. As it is – why, don’t you know that this tournament is important?”

“Don’t I know that this tournament is important! Of course I know! Don’t be silly, Vi.” Then, seeing that Vi looked a little hurt, she went on: “Oh, I’m sorry, honey. But don’t worry. It’ll turn out all right.”

Next day dawned gloomily, with more than a hint of rain in the sky. However, by ten o’clock the sun had come out to stay, the air was crisp and cool – ideal tennis weather.

Almost the entire student body of Three Towers flocked out upon the grounds. Lessons were suspended for the two days of the tournament. The teachers often came to watch a spirited match. It was not unusual for Miss Walters herself to occupy a camp chair close to the courts during the finals.

Billie crashed through the elimination sets, crushing her opponents without mercy.

“There she goes!” cried Vi, gnawing the ends of her fingers in her excitement. “6 – 0, 6 – 2, 6 – 0. Rose is down, and she waves a wicked racket, too. Oh, boy, there’s nobody can stand before Billie to-day!”

“Amanda Peabody is doing just as well. I never saw such pretty work in my life. She seems to be top form.”

Vi turned toward the quiet voice and saw Ray Carew standing beside her. She regarded the girl steadily for a long moment.

“Sounds to me as if you were rooting for Amanda, Ray. Are you?”

Rachael had the grace to flush. She avoided Vi’s direct glance.

“No,” she said, and in a moment walked over to join a friend.

When Vi turned again to watch Billie’s smashing service, her clever backhand, her choppy, certain net-work, the enthusiasm she had felt before was definitely overshadowed.

“Billie is just throwing away everything she has gained here by sticking to that wretched Edina Tooker. I can’t think what she sees in the girl. I never liked her, anyway – not from the very first!”

When Billie limped from the courts after a day of smashing victories, having reached the finals with a defeat of only one game, her first words were of praise for her adversaries.

“They were all good fighters and game losers,” she cried, her eyes shining. “Oh, what a day – what a marvelous day! Where’s Laura?”

“Here! I just stopped to lace my shoe.”

“You’ve reached the finals, too, haven’t you? Marvelous! We’ll double against Amanda and Eliza to-morrow.”

“But, Billie, how is your knee?”

“Gracious! I haven’t had time to think of it. Now you mention it,” with an experimental wriggle of the injured member, “it does hurt a little. Nothing to speak of, though. Oh, what a day!”

Next day, the great day of the finals, dawned bright and clear, though with a hint of rain which no one took note of on the western horizon. By ten o’clock the ring about the courts was packed solid with spectators.

Billie, warming up her service with Laura, vainly searched the ring of faces for Edina Tooker.

“Hiding up in the dormitory, eating her heart out, poor kid,” thought Billie, and dubbed her ball into the net.

“Hey, Billie!” Laura shouted. “Stop your daydreaming and send me the ball. I can’t pose for the Statue of Liberty all day. My arm waxeth weary.”

For revenge Billie patted a ball neatly over her head. Laura swung wildly for it and missed, while a ripple of merriment swept the audience.

“All right for you,” called Laura, good-naturedly. “I’ll get even with you yet!”

Soon after that the real business of the day commenced.

Billie in the singles, Billie and Laura in the doubles, swiftly eliminated all their adversaries except Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks.

Then these two girls went down to a decided but in no sense ignominious defeat before the combined powers of Billie and Laura.

When Billie at last faced Amanda Peabody for the last and deciding match of the tournament, an audible sigh broke from the spectators.

“Now,” said Rose Belser, “we are about to see something!”

“It will be a battle of the century,” predicted Connie Danvers.

On the courts Billie waved good-naturedly to Amanda.

“Your serve,” she called. “Ready?”

CHAPTER XXIV

A SMASHING SET

Amanda Peabody had won first serve and her choice of courts. Billie Bradley was handicapped not only by her knee – which was beginning to pain rather severely – but by the fact that the sun was in her eyes.

As Amanda slowly raised her racket for the serve, there was a pleased look on her face. She, too, had noticed Billie’s limp and her loss in speed.

“Ready!” she called.

The ball floated over the net lazily. It looked like an easy one, but Billie knew that serve of old. The ball had a tantalizing habit of stopping far short of that part of the court where you expected it.

Billie was ready and returned the ball neatly just over the net. Amanda raced for it, caught it with a clever, backhand stroke, and dropped it over the net. Billie swung at it viciously and sent it sailing over Amanda’s head for her first point.

“That was good, wasn’t it?” called Billie.

Amanda nodded sullenly.

“Fifteen love!” sang Billie, and set herself for the serve.

From that moment the match settled into one of the grimmest contests ever witnessed on the tennis courts of Three Towers Hall.

Each point was contested fiercely. Amanda and Billie were all over the courts at once; they swung at the ball as though it were a personal enemy; they caressed it deftly into incredible shots that left the spectators mute and tingling with admiration.

“I don’t much care who wins,” cried Connie Danvers, dancing wildly on the sidelines. “I don’t care! I don’t care! This is an exhibition worth waiting a hundred years to see. Go it, Billie! Oh boy, what a back hand! Ah – Amanda’s got it.”

“Forty-thirty,” cried Amanda, with a triumphant grin.