Rory spotted another poster. This one did not show a missing girl. It was an advert for a show. ‘We’ve not got thrown out of a theatre yet,’ he pointed out.

‘Great idea!’ cried the Doctor. ‘I love a show.’ He looked at the poster too. ‘Sammy Star, Master of Magic. Lovely!’

‘Sammy Star? He sounds like he should be doing children’s parties, not West End shows,’ Amy said.

‘Nonsense, it’ll be great,’ the Doctor told her. ‘I love a good magic trick.’ He wiped his chin with a hankie, looking puzzled. ‘In fact, I seem to have made jam magically appear on my face.’

Rory and Amy looked at each other and laughed. Still with a puzzled frown on his face, the Doctor took another doughnut out of the bag and started to eat it. Rory and Amy laughed even more.

They crossed the river and wandered through the streets. Rory and Amy both spotted several more ‘MISSING’ notices. Neither of them pointed out the posters to the Doctor.

They came to Trafalgar Square, and stopped to look at Nelson’s Column. The Doctor patted the head of one of the huge bronze lions guarding the base. He pointed out the statues that stood on plinths at three corners of the square. The fourth corner also had a plinth, but it was empty. ‘They didn’t have enough money for the last statue,’ he told Amy and Rory.

‘I’d heard they were showing works of art on it instead,’ said Amy. ‘Something new every year or two.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘That’s right. I think they’re now looking for something that can stay on it for good.’ He bit into his third doughnut. ‘Right. Let’s see about getting tickets for the Sammy Star show!’

Chapter Two

THEY WERE SITTING in the front row of the stalls. Any minute now, the lights would go out and the show would begin.

Amy flicked through a programme. ‘Hey, it says here Sammy Star used to do children’s parties,’ she told the others. ‘I know I said he sounded like he did, but that’s weird. He must be pretty good to go from that to the West End.’

‘He was on one of those TV talent contests,’ Rory told her. ‘It said so on the poster. Britain’s Got Magic, something like that.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Amy turned a page. ‘Got all about it here. Hang on, though, he didn’t win it. “He was laughed off the programme,” it says, “but he had the last laugh. Sammy Star now has a sell-out West End show. He has won great acclaim for the Graveyard Ghosts trick that forms the finale of his act.” Wow. The boy’s done good.’

Rory frowned. ‘If this show is a sell-out, how come we got the best seats in the house?’

The Doctor looked slightly sheepish. ‘Oh, I booked our tickets weeks ago. At least, that’s what they told me at the box office just now. So I’d better make sure I do it. Remind me to pop back in time and buy them later, will you? The universe might collapse if I don’t.’ As if to distract them, he quickly added, ‘Anyone like a doughnut?’ He put his hand in his pocket and found only an empty paper bag. ‘Someone’s nicked my doughnuts!’

Amy leant across and wiped a splodge of jam off his face. ‘You already ate them, you doughnut!’

The theatre was almost full now. The only empty seats were in the row behind the Doctor, Rory and Amy.

‘That’s odd,’ said the Doctor. He looked over his shoulder at the empty row. ‘If they booked seats that good you’d think they’d be keen to see the show. Yet they haven’t even turned up.’

‘Ooh, this might be them,’ said Amy, also looking behind them. A party of elderly people was coming down the aisle. They were led by a middle-aged woman in a navy blue blazer with gold buttons. She ushered her group into the empty row, telling them to ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ much too loudly.

Just as the last of the party sat down, the lights went out. Amy heard someone behind her draw in their breath sharply.

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Hooper, it’s just the show starting,’ said a cheerful voice.

Amy thought the voice belonged to the blazer woman. She wondered why so many people thought being old was the same as being stupid.

The curtain was raised. A spotlight shone onto the stage. A figure stood in the middle of it, head bowed. It wore a black top hat and was wrapped in a cloak.

There was a rumble of drums. A voice from above said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mr Sammy Star!’ The drums crashed more loudly and another, brighter, spotlight followed a man swinging down from above. As he reached the cloaked figure, the swinging man kicked out. The cloak crumpled into a heap and the audience gasped.

The top hat rolled away as Sammy Star landed on the stage. He scooped up the hat and pulled a large white rabbit out of it. Then he placed the hat on his head.

Everyone clapped as he took a bow.

‘Very nice,’ said the Doctor, raising his voice so Amy could hear him over the applause. ‘Of course, he had a second hat with a rabbit in it waiting ready for him. That’s why the stage was only lit by spotlights, so we wouldn’t spot the hats being swapped.’

Amy glared at him. ‘Don’t spoil it!’ she hissed.

Amy could have saved her breath. For each of Sammy Star’s tricks, the Doctor announced how it was done. He wasn’t trying to show off, Amy knew that. Working out the tricks was just the bit of the show he enjoyed the most.

It was a shame Sammy Star didn’t seem to enjoy it as much. At first he was clearly trying to ignore the Doctor. Later he started to twitch and glare at the front row. Amy was quite relieved when it came to the interval.

‘Having fun?’ she asked the Doctor as they sat in their seats at the front.

He nodded happily. ‘Oh yes. Although...’ A frown crossed his face and he stood up. ‘Back in a minute. I just want to check out a few things.’

Amy and Rory sat for a few moments just holding hands. ‘You don’t think something’s wrong, do you?’ Amy said after a while.

‘Nah,’ said Rory, although he looked worried. ‘Just because we’ve never had a holiday without monsters or crashing spaceships before...’

‘Well, no monsters so far, and we’ve been here almost a day!’ said Amy.

‘Monster!’ The shaky voice came from the row behind. It was a word that Amy and Rory couldn’t ignore. They both spun round.

The speaker was a member of the elderly party. She looked to be in her eighties, and tears were trickling down her cheeks.

Amy knelt up on her seat and reached over the back to hold the old lady’s hand. ‘Hey, don’t cry,’ she said gently. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Monster,’ the woman repeated through her sobs.

‘Lost,’ said the elderly lady in the next seat. Amy turned her gaze on her. She was also crying. ‘So very lost. So lost we were never found.’

The woman in the blazer stood up. ‘Just ignore them,’ she said to Amy. ‘Mrs Hooper! Mrs Collins! Be quiet now! You’re getting on this nice young girl’s nerves.’

‘Oh no,’ Amy replied. ‘They’re not getting on my nerves.’ She didn’t like to hear people being spoken to so rudely, when they’d done nothing to deserve it.

‘Well, you’re very kind to say so,’ the woman said. ‘She’s very kind to say you’re not annoying her!’ she told the two old ladies loudly. ‘They were so keen to come,’ she went on, turning back to Amy. ‘The second they saw the poster it’s been Sammy Star, Sammy Star, day and night. Now then, Miss Leake, I said to myself, here’s an idea! Wouldn’t it be a lovely treat, taking them to see his show! But they’ve done nothing except make a fuss since we got here. Monsters indeed. Why, they don’t know the meaning of the word!’

‘Did you live through the war, Mrs Collins?’ Rory asked softly.

‘VE Day...’ she whispered back.

He nodded. ‘She might have a better idea of monsters than you think, then,’ he told the woman in the blazer, Miss Leake.