“What were you going to do with it?”
No one answered.
“What were you going to do with it?” Mimi shouted.
Still silence prevailed.
Knowing all the vulnerable points, Mimi made for roly-poly Sue and began to tickle her.
“We—were—wrapping it—to—please, Mimi, please, I’ll tell—to mail to Honky.”
“You’re worse than traitors,” Mimi cried.
“Hold her, Sue,” Betsy called. Snatching up the picture, she and Chloe fled.
As soon as Mimi wrenched herself free, she hunted high and low and could not find them. They had succeeded in making a getaway. For thirty minutes Mimi stood guard in the post office. Then she gave up. She had something else to look for besides two silly girls. She had lost two of Dit’s good tennis balls practicing, and if she didn’t find them, it would take the rest of her week’s allowance to buy new ones. Forty-five cents apiece. Two times forty-five was ninety cents! Mimi ran toward the tennis courts.
She had lost the first one on a hard serve. That was all right, but losing the second had been unnecessary. Taking Jill’s advice she had sent the second ball after the first. That meant she had stood in the same place and served the second ball as nearly like the first as possible. It had gone wild, too, and disappeared before her very eyes. She’d be glad when her serve was under control, when she could serve both balls hard the way Dit did. The way Mimi served now, she batted the first one as hard as she could, but in case it did not go in the proper court, which was more than half the time, she eased up on the second. She could drop an easy serve anywhere in the court she pleased.