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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,

      HarperCollins Publishers

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      London SE1 9GF

      The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      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

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Epigraph

      Chapter One: Far to Go

      Chapter Two: The Postcard

      Chapter Three: The Red Dress

       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

       Chapter One

       FAR TO GO

      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, who acted in what was called a fit-up theatre, that is to say, they put up a stage and curtains and acted in any building which could be rented where they could find an audience. It was the proudest moment in Mr Fortescue’s life when in 1895 he had bought the big tent and had had ‘Fortescue Comedy Company’ painted on it.

      Margaret could not go to the theatre until the afternoons for she had to attend the local school. She did not mind, for she loved school, not just for the lessons but because she was special there. Not that she needed to be told she was special, for she had always known that she was. Who else had been found in a basket when they were a baby with three of everything, all of the very best quality? Who else had a card sent with her which said, ‘This is Margaret Thursday whom I entrust to your care’? Who else had received fifty-two golden sovereigns each year for her keep? Margaret knew it was not because of this romantic start to her life that the children admired her, it was because they had seen her act Little Lord Fauntleroy and they thought she was wonderful.

      Oddly enough, that part of Margaret who was proud of herself did not care if she was admired as an actress or not. Acting was a different thing altogether. It was something that came to you when you stepped on the stage that made you forget everything except the part you were acting, that made you believe what you were saying and turned all the other actors into the people they were meant to be so she never,

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