Before any of the girls were ready the mid year practice exams came round. It was the week before the Christmas holidays and there was snow on the ground. The halls of the school were crowded with children staying indoors, icy blasts of wind came every time someone opened an exterior door and they were all bundled up with jackets, scarves and gloves.
"I think they're getting the hardest exams out of the way first, that English exam was brutal." Jo complained. "I'm really not looking forward to the maths one tomorrow."
"Well, I have chemistry this afternoon, it should be fun." Anne said, enthusiastically.
"Only you could say a science exam would be fun. You are such a geek!" Heather teased.
"Well, I have the afternoon off so I'm going to go home and study. I really need to ace these exams." Jo said dejectedly.
"Want a study partner? I have the afternoon free too and I'm pretty good at maths." Susan asked.
They headed off together to the bus stop.
"So, she's back living at home? Any idea how her mum is?" Heather asked.
"Not great." Anne said sadly, "she's still recovering from the last operation and they are talking about bringing her in for another one. Susan said they are having them around to their house for Christmas dinner because Jo's mum isn't up for cooking. Or shopping, or wrapping. Apparently getting out of bed to the toilet is hard enough. Jo is helping out around the house and her dad is doing most of the cooking."
"Oh man, that must be hard on her. Hopefully it won't affect her grades, she's really pinning her hopes on this scholarship." Heather sympathised.
"Yeah, these mid year exams are important for all of us, apparently the conditional offers are mainly done on the mid year results." Anne reminded them, resulting in groans from Heather and Abby.
Over the week the girls got more and more flustered, the exams making them realise how much they hadn't recalled from class and causing panicked late night study sessions. They were fairly burnt out by Thursday.
"So, last exams tomorrow. I've got computing and statistics, what do you guys have?" Anne asked.
They went round the group and almost nobody had the same exams, the last day had obviously been reserved for the optional classes and they had all taken slightly different options.
"I am so glad this week is almost over. I feel like I haven't slept all week." Indeed, all the girls looked like they had bags under their eyes. The boys they were having lunch with however, all seemed to be loving the relaxed schedule. It seemed like they weren't taking the exams seriously at all.
"Let's do something this weekend. Let off steam. We could bring movie night forward? Or squash? You said that was fun." Anne suggested.
"That's a good idea. We could do both. Does everyone have non marking trainers?" Heather asked, the school required indoor gym shoes to be non marking so in essence she was basically just reminding them to take them home. "We have at least four racquets at home so we just need to book the courts."
There was a feel of celebration on the Saturday, all the exams were over and school was out for the holidays. In the morning there had been a thick shimmering sheet of frost over everything with a clear sky and not a breath of wind, it had truly felt christmassy.
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By the time it came close to their court booking in the afternoon the frost had melted and the day felt only mildly nippy. The girls met again outside the pool building, smiling and happy. Susan and Heather were both wearing cute little tennis dresses while everyone else had opted for shorts and t-shirts.
“So, I take it the dresses mean you two play a bit of racquet sports?” Jo asked.
“Well, Heather plays squash a bit but I only play tennis sometimes in the summer. My mum just liked the dress.” Susan explained.
“Okay girls, we're going to play on two courts, left court winner stays on, right court loser stays on. That is, until you're too tired.” Heather said, taking charge. She explained the rules and showed them the serve before retreating upstairs to watch with Jo and Mae who had opted to watch for a match or two.
They started warming up, and warming the ball up, “Come on, hit it hard, flick the wrist, get the ball moving, if you don't hit it hard it won't warm up!” Heather called from the balcony. The girls below were struggling to get the ball to come back past the line. “Come on, smash it!”
Eventually the balls warmed up and started bouncing further, the girls were probably also getting the hang of having to hit it hard unlike tennis. “Okay, we’re going to start. Its new rules so you don't have to be on your serve to win a point okay? Geeze why am I asking, you guys never watched squash in your lives.” Heather was getting quite animated.
They played the first games to eleven, ignoring the two clear points rule. The girls then swapped out and Jo and Mae went in. Once people got the hang of the game it was hectic, sprinting front to back and side to side. The second games lasted longer and the two girls who had played both games decided they were not staying on, both of them were breathing heavily. Heather had been coaching, scoring and refereeing both matches and handed the task off to Kelly who thought she had at least the coaching part down. Shouting ‘Return to the T’ constantly seemed to be all that part consisted of.
Heather had decided to play Jo, she had been watching all the girls and whilst Jo didn't have the hand eye coordination to put the ball in the desired location each shot, she was reaching the ball and making a return consistently.
She started off with a serve straight to where Jo was standing, Jo returned the shot and Heather effortlessly reached and returned it, straight to the furthest point on the court. Jo managed to get to that ball too, with a heroic effort which ended in her smashing into the wall. Heather stepped to the shot and casually returned it to the back corner, furthest away from Jo who didn't even try to get to the ball.
The girls who were watching all cheered, amazed at how easy Heather was making the game look. She continued to trounce Jo thoroughly, ending the game eleven nil and by the end of the game the other girls had stopped their game and were watching rapt from the balcony.
“Now, do you see what I did?” Heather asked, “I returned to the T, every single shot. Watch, see, two steps from here to the corner, two back. Even if Jo returns the ball to the same place, I can still get there and return it.” The girls were all nodding. “Good, now go try it. I'm going to play Jo a couple more times, she isn't winded yet.”
She proceeded to play another three games with Jo, each one Jo managed a little better, there were more volleys at least but the games still ended eleven nil.
“Good game.” Heather said, patting Jo on the shoulder. Jo was breathing harder than she did during speed training, harder than she ever breathed doing uphills on the trails.
She looked at Heather in amazement. “How are you not wrecked?”
“Well, you still aren't getting back to the T consistently and your shots are not targeted to make me move. You're getting there though, perhaps you should come to a practice night sometime?” She said as they vacated the room for the other girls.
By the end of their hour booking most of the girls were sweaty and tired. They showered and changed before taking the bus to Anne’s house.
“Sorry girls, no pizza tonight. It's going to be too damned cold out.” Pete apologised. “It's pasta night instead, I've done a cheesy macaroni and a pesto shells.”
The girls tucked in with gusto, the squash had built up a hunger. They all talked animatedly about their games, Pete and Jane listening intently.
As they all filtered upstairs for the movie Pete stopped Anne, “Hey, I just wanted to say thank you. It's really good of you to include your sister like you have this year. She really loves spending time with you and your friends.” He ruffled her hair and sent her off to watch sixth sense, wondering at the twist of fate that had made her include Kelly more in her life.