“Oh, no,” said Fliss’s mum, folding her arms. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

“Why not?” Kenny said, trying to look all innocent. “We wouldn’t be any trouble.”

Mrs Proudlove looked even more doubtful. “Yes, well…” she said. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Oh, go on,” Kenny nagged her. “We’d only sit and watch. We wouldn’t do anything.”

“And maybe we could learn something by watching you and Auntie Jill,” I added. “Then we could get better at tennis ourselves.” OK, so I was doing some serious sucking-up here. But if we didn’t turn up at the club now, after everything Kenny had said to the M&Ms, we’d look like prize prats.

“Oh, that would be great,” Rosie said, joining in to help me out. “I’m so rubbish at tennis. I bet I’d be loads better if I could watch someone really good.”

“Me too,” Lyndz added.

“And you and Auntie Jill are brilliant at tennis,” Fliss finished up.

“Well, I don’t know about that.” But Fliss’s mum looked pleased. She turned to Auntie Jill. “What do you think?”

“Oh, let them come,” said Auntie Jill with a smile. “There’s two of us to keep an eye on them, after all. And they can’t get up to much, if they’re just sitting watching us play.”

“Well, all right then,” Mrs Proudlove said, and we all cheered. “But I’m warning you,” she went on sternly, “I don’t want any messing around.” She stared hard at us. “We’ve waited a long time to get into this club, and we don’t want anything going wrong. Is that clear?”

We all nodded.

“I’ll see you there later,” Mark said, kissing Auntie Jill on the cheek. “’Bye, girls.”

“Yes!” Kenny said triumphantly, as we hurried over to the Proudloves’ people carrier. “I knew we could swing it!”

“You heard what Mum said, Kenny,” Fliss reminded her. “If we get into any trouble, I’m dead – and so are the rest of you.”

“We’ll all be really good,” I said. “Won’t we, Kenny?”

“Yep, cross my heart and hope to die,” Kenny said loudly. “Unless the M&Ms annoy me, of course,” she added under her breath.

Mrs Proudlove drove us all home, and dropped us off one by one, after she’d arranged to pick us up in an hour or two.

“Mum!” I dashed into the house, yelling my head off. “Mum, is lunch ready? And is it OK if I go out this afternoon? Fliss’s mum is taking us to her tennis club.”

My mum was working in the study, with Izzy in the playpen next to her. She looked up from the computer and stared at me.

“A tennis club? I thought you hated tennis, and you were only going to the coaching sessions because Fliss forced you into it?”

“Oh, Mum, you’re so out of date!” I groaned. “Tennis is cool.”

Fliss’s mum turned up again bang on two o’clock to pick me up. She’d already collected the others, so I dived into the back of the people carrier to join them.

“I was just saying,” Mrs Proudlove remarked, as she pulled away from the kerb, “that I expect you all to be on your best behaviour, and not to show me up.”

“This is worse than going on a school trip!” Kenny whispered in my ear. “We’ve been getting the big lecture for the last five minutes.”

Auntie Jill, who was in the front seat, turned round and winked at us. “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” she said.

The Green Lawns Tennis Club was just outside Cuddington, in the countryside. I’d been past it and seen the big iron gates loads of times, but I’d never been in before. There was a large car park at the front, and large, brightly-coloured flowerbeds.

“Right, you can get out,” said Mrs Proudlove, switching off the engine. “But stay together where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Does she want us to hold hands like five-year-olds?” Kenny grumbled.

We went over to the entrance. Fliss’s mum insisted on walking in front, and she kept looking round at us nervously, as if she thought we were already up to something. There was a turnstile next to a little green-roofed hut, and a man with a big moustache and grey hair was sitting inside the hut, reading a newspaper. He glared suspiciously at us.

“Members only,” he snapped. “Membership cards?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Mrs Proudlove. She and Auntie Jill held theirs out, and the man took them. “And these girls are our guests,” she added.

The man looked down his nose at us as if we were a bad smell.

“Nobody’s allowed to play on our courts unless they’re wearing white,” he said, giving Kenny’s football strip a disgusted glance.

“They’re not playing,” Fliss’s mum said quickly. “Just watching.”

The man didn’t want to let us into the club at all. He handed the membership cards back really slowly, after he’d spent ages looking at them, and then he operated the turnstile, grumbling all the time to himself.

“He’s a real misery-guts, isn’t he?” Kenny said, as we went through. “I’ve seen more cheerful people at funerals!”

“Hey, this is pretty cool,” I said, looking around.

The tennis club was really big. There were lots of courts, and quite a few people were playing on them. There were landscaped gardens around the courts, filled with flowers, and there was a fountain too, of a boy riding on a dolphin. In the middle of it all was a big clubhouse, next to a posh-looking restaurant with tables set outside on a patio. We were all pretty impressed.

Rosie pointed at a poster pinned to the clubhouse door. “Look at that. That’s what the M&Ms were going on about last week.”

COME AND CELEBRATE 50 YEARS OF

THE GREEN LAWNS TENNIS CLUB!

A SPECIAL GALA AFTERNOON ON JULY 29^th

EXHIBITION MATCHES

REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED

ALL MEMBERS WELCOME!

“That’s in two days’ time,” Fliss said eagerly. “Maybe Mum will bring us to that.”

“That would really get up the M&Ms’ noses!” Kenny grinned.

“I have to pop into the clubhouse, and find out which court we’re playing on,” Fliss’s mum said. She fixed us all with a laser-beam stare. “Don’t move, or touch anything while I’m gone.”

We stood outside the clubhouse with Auntie Jill, staring at everything going on around us.

“I wonder if the M&Ms are here yet,” Rosie said.

“Maybe we can have a wander round the courts, and find out,” Kenny began, but she shut up when Auntie Jill gave her a look. “Oh, I forgot. We’re not allowed to move!”

Fliss’s mum came back. “Court Seven,” she said to Auntie Jill. “Let’s go and get changed.”

We went over to Court 7. We looked at all the other courts we passed on the way, but there was no sign of the M&Ms.

“Maybe they haven’t arrived yet,” Lyndz suggested, as we reached the changing-rooms.

“You girls had better come with us while we get changed, so that we can keep an eye on you,” Mrs Proudlove began, but then she stopped as Auntie Jill pointed at a sign on the door.

ONLY PLAYERS ARE ALLOWED IN THE CHANGING-ROOMS

“Oh.” Fliss’s mum looked worried. “You’ll have to stay outside then. But—”

“We know,” said Kenny. “Don’t move!”

“Can’t we go on to Court Seven, and wait for you there, Mum?” Fliss asked.

Mrs Proudlove glared at her. “No, Felicity, you stay right here,” she snapped, and she and Auntie Jill went into the changing-rooms.

We all stood there, shuffling our feet for a few moments and getting really bored. Then Kenny started walking towards the tennis courts, which were right ahead of us.

“Kenny!” Fliss began to panic. “Come back!”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Fliss,” Kenny said impatiently. She leaned against the fence and peered into the nearest court. “Is this ours? Because it looks like someone’s playing on here already. There’s some rackets and tennis balls lying on the ground.”

I went over to her. “No, that’s Court Eight,” I said, squinting at the number on the fence. “Ours must be the next one.”

“Frankie, come back,” Fliss wailed, but I didn’t take any notice. After all, we were only about two metres away from her!

“Hey, what about a knock-up?” Kenny nudged me, and nodded at Court 8.

“Not a good idea, Kenny.” I shook my head. “Fliss’s mum would go mad.”

Kenny shrugged. “Oh, she’ll be ages yet. And anyway, why would someone leave tennis rackets and balls lying around, if they didn’t want people to use them?”

“Kenny,” I said warningly as she pushed open the door of the court, but that didn’t stop her. She walked in, and picked up one of the rackets.

“Kenny, what’re you doing?” Lyndz said. She and Rosie hurried over to join us, with Fliss trailing after them looking terrified. “Put that down!”

“It’s OK,” Kenny grinned. She brought the racket over to the fence and showed it to us. “This racket is really gross. I’m sure no one would mind if we had a game with it.”

Kenny was right, the racket was really awful. The strings weren’t broken, but it was made of wood, not like Mrs Proudlove’s posh metal one, and nearly all the paint had flaked off.

“Come on, who’s going to play against me?” Kenny asked, waving the racket around as she tried out her shots.

The rest of us looked at each other. We weren’t quite as brave as Kenny. None of us wanted to annoy Fliss’s mum.

“You lot are so boring!” Kenny announced. “Hey, have you seen what some of the players do when they win a match at Wimbledon? They throw their rackets right up into the air.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “I thought you hated tennis until this morning!”

“Well, I’ve seen the end of some of the matches, haven’t I?” Kenny retorted. “You know, while I was waiting for EastEnders to come on.”

“What happens when the rackets fall down again?” Rosie asked. “Do they catch them or what?”

“What if they don’t get out of the way in time, and it hits them on the head?” Lyndz wanted to know.

Kenny considered that. “I dunno,” she said. “Let’s give it a go!”

“Kenny, no!” Fliss yelled, but it was too late. Kenny had flung the racket into the air as hard as she could.

“Don’t worry, Fliss,” Kenny called, “I’ll catch it on the way down.”

The racket started hurtling downwards.

“Kenny, you’re not going to catch it!” I shouted. “Get out of the way!”

Kenny looked alarmed at the speed with which the racket was falling. She leapt out of the way, and the racket hit the hard surface of the court.

CR-R-R-ACK!

We all stared in horror. The wooden frame of the racket had split.

“What’s going on here?” said a loud voice behind us.

Luckily, it wasn’t Mrs Proudlove. Instead, a tall, plump woman with grey hair, wearing tennis whites, was marching towards us, followed by a much weedier woman of about the same age, who looked really scared. Not as scared as we were, though!

Before any of us had a chance to say anything, the tall woman spotted her broken racket lying on the ground.

“My racket!” she roared furiously, hurrying on to the tennis court. She snatched it up, inspected the damage and glared at Kenny, red-faced. “My lucky racket, the one my Aunt Fiona played with at Wimbledon in 1951!”

“Oh,” Kenny said politely. “I’m really sorry, but maybe it was time you got a new one anyway, then.”

She was trying to be helpful, but the woman almost had a fit.

“How dare you!” she shouted, waving the racket at Kenny. “This is part of my family’s history!”

“Steady on, Dorothy,” said the other woman in a wobbly voice. I think she was as frightened of her friend as we were!

“We’re really, really sorry,” Fliss stammered, looking as if she was about to faint with fright.

“Do you know who I am?” The woman glared round at us. “I’m Mrs Morgan, the club secretary. And I’m going to make sure you never set foot in Green Lawns again!”