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Ten

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty One

       Chapter Twenty Two

       Chapter Twenty Three

       Chapter Twenty Four

       Chapter Twenty Five

       Chapter Twenty Six

       Chapter Twenty Seven

       Chapter Twenty Eight

       Chapter Twenty Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty One

       Chapter Thirty Two

       Chapter Thirty Three

       Chapter Thirty Four

       Chapter Thirty Five

       Chapter Thirty Six

       Chapter Thirty Seven

       Chapter Thirty Eight

       Chapter Thirty Nine

       Chapter Forty

       Chapter Forty One

       Chapter Forty Two

       Chapter Forty Three

       Chapter Forty Four

       Chapter Forty Five

       Chapter Forty Six

       Chapter Forty Seven

       Chapter Forty Eight

       Chapter Forty Nine

       Chapter Fifty

       Chapter Fifty One

       Chapter Fifty Two

       Chapter Fifty Three

       Chapter Fifty Four

       Chapter Fifty Five

       Acknowledgements

       Keep Reading …

       About the Author

       Also by Cecelia Ahern

       About the Publisher

       1

      Jenny-May Butler, the little girl who lived across the road from me, went missing when I was a child.

      The Gardaí launched an investigation, which led to their lengthy public search for her. For months every night the story was on the news, every day it was on the front pages of the papers, everywhere it was discussed in every conversation. The entire country pitched in to help; it was the biggest search for a missing person I, at ten years of age, had ever seen, and it seemed to affect everyone.

      Jenny-May Butler was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty, who smiled and beamed from the TV screen into the living room of every home around the country, causing eyes to fill with tears and parents to hug their children that extra bit tighter before they sent them off to bed. She was in everyone’s dreams and everyone’s prayers.

      She too was ten years old, and in my class at school. I used to stare at the pretty photograph of her on the news every day and listen to the reporters speak about her as though she was an angel. From the way they described her, you never would have known that she threw stones at Fiona Brady during yard time when the teacher wasn’t looking, or that she called me a ‘frizzy-haired cow’ in front of Stephen Spencer just so he would fancy her instead of me. No, for those few months she had become the perfect being and I didn’t think it fair to ruin that. After a while even I forgot about all the bad things she’d done because she wasn’t just Jenny-May any more: she was Jenny-May Butler, the sweet missing girl from the nice family who cried on the nine o’clock news every night.

      She was never found – not her body, not a trace of her; it was as though she had disappeared into thin air. No suspicious characters had been seen lurking around, no CCTV was available to show her last movements. There were no witnesses, no suspects; the Gardaí had questioned everyone possible. The street became suspicious, its inhabitants calling friendly hellos to one another on the way to their cars in the early morning but all the time wondering, second-guessing, and visualising

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