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First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd in 1976
This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2020
Published in this ebook edition in 2020
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
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Text copyright © Noel Streatfeild 1976
Cover illustrations copyright © Sarah Gibb 2020
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Noel Streatfeild asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007349616
Ebook Edition © Feb 2020 ISBN: 9780008244071
Version: 2020-02-26
To Sophie, who liked Thursday’s Child
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
– Anonymous
Contents
Chapter One: Far to Go
Chapter Two: The Postcard
Chapter Three: The Red Dress
Chapter Four: The Interview
Chapter Five: About the Play
Chapter Six: Katie
Chapter Seven: The Calendar
Chapter Eight: Miss Grey has a Plan
Chapter Nine: Her Ladyship Hears the Story
Chapter Ten: Lessons
Chapter Eleven: Rehearsals
Chapter Twelve: Licences
Chapter Thirteen: A Letter
Chapter Fourteen: Christmas
Chapter Fifteen: Precautions
Chapter Sixteen: A Scare
Chapter Seventeen: Margaret’s Gone!
Chapter Eighteen: The Search Begins
Chapter Nineteen: A Telegram for Liza
Chapter Twenty: The Prisoner
Chapter Twenty-one: The Search Goes On
Chapter Twenty-two: Hope
Chapter Twenty-three: Queen Eliza
Chapter Twenty-four: A Whistle in the Dark
Chapter Twenty-five: The End
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Books by Noel Streatfeild
About the Publisher
Every day when she arrived at the theatre Margaret would feel a sort of blown-up feeling inside because she was so happy. To other people there might not seem much about the theatre to make her happy, for it was only a tent. It had started life – many years before – with a little family circus who had grandly called it ‘The Big Top’. That circus had done well so the owner had bought a bigger tent and had advertised for a buyer for his old one. The advertisement had been seen by Mr Fortescue, actor-manager of the Fortescue Comedy Company,
