"I can't believe it," Felix King exclaimed. "There's going to be a real magic lantern show, right here in Avonlea!"

He said this over a great mouthful of hard candy, which he was munching on the steps of the Avonlea general store. In Company with his sisters, Felicity and Celicy, and his cousins, Sara Stanley and Andrew King, he was ogling the bulletin board, which announced all public events of importance in Avonlea. Today it had a single poster spread grandly across the middle. BEATTY'S MAGIC LANTERN SHOW, the poster announced, to be held at the Avonlea Town Hall that very evening. "Sold Out!" was stamped in hugh letters across the announcement. All the proceeds were to go to the Avonlea School library.

Felicity King inspected the bold print as though to make sure the momentous event was really going to take place. Avonlea was a quiet village, and entertainment spectacles of this magnitude were rare indeed.

"I'm looking forward to it so much. Mother said I could wear my best pink muslin."

Felicity was Felix's older sister and would never dream of speaking with her mouth full. Felicity was tidy, practical and very particular about her own dignity. Her eyes were already alight with a vision of herself swishing up the Town Hall steps in her best, most becoming dress. Cecily, Felix's younger sister, was too small to care about how she looked. She stopped sucking on her candy altogether, imagining the wonders of the show itself.

"I can't wait! I've never seen a magic lantern show before!"

"I've seen alots of them," put in Sara Stanley. "In Montreal, father used to take me all the time!"

"Well, la-de-da!" was Felicity's answer to that, lest Sara give herself airs about her fancy upbringing.

Sara had grown up in Montreal, with her own nanny and more muslin dresses than any one girl could possibly need. But all that was before her father's financial troubles had sent her to stay with her Aunts Hetty and Olivia in Avonlea. Sara hadn't been in Avonlea very long, and she was having all the usual troubles trying to fit herself into the tightly knit rural community. The other children, especially, weren't sure whether or not they liked this dreamy, city-bred cousin from "away." "Away" was what Prince Edward Islanders called any place outside their sea-bound province.

Felicity was having the hardest time adjusting to Sara. Up until Sara came, Felicity, the eldest girl among the King children, had been able to queen it over the rest. Now Sara, at twelve almost as old as Felicity, was challenging her leadership.

Felix was much more interested in the magic lantern itself. Magic lanterns had been the rage for as long as he could remember, and he was dying to get his hands on one.

"Maybe the fellow will let us see how it works."

"It's really pretty simple."

So said Andrew King. Andrew was staying with Aunt Janet and Uncle Alec King while his father, Uncle Alec's brother, Alan, was in South America working as a geologist. Andrew was good with his hands and prided himself on knowing lots and lots of useful things.

"Oh, good, then there's half a chance even Felix might understand!"

Felicity tossed off the sarcasm as shee took another nibble of her candy and went back to playing jacks with Cecily. They were all waiting for Aunt Olivia, who was inside the store.

"And no chance you will, Felicity!" Felix shot back. It was a point of honor with Felix not to be downtrodden by his sister, even though his resistance didn't often succeed.

"See," Andrew explained, drawing diagrams in the air with his hands, "they've got these glass slides with pictures painted on them, and they put the slides between the lens and a light source, and then project them onto the screen.... Understand?"

Whether he did or not, Felix nodded vigorously. Andrew's explanations got more technical. Sara approached the game of jacks, but Felicity's back was firmly turned. With a sigh, Sara stepped away again. Since there seemed nothing for it but to amuse herself, Sara began to stroll beyond the store a little bit, savouring her peppermint stick.

It was still very early in the morning, and that added a special pleasure to the candy. Dew sparkled on the grass and breakfast smells wafted onto Avonlea's single street. No matter how many magic lantern shows she had seen, Sara still got excited about them. She, too, looked forward to the one tonight, hoping it wouldn't be just nice, instructive travel slides, but a gripping story. Sara had an imagination -- rather more imagination than was good for her, her Aunt Hetty thought -- and loved stories, the more dramatic and heartrending the better. Tales about ghosts or shipwrecks sent chills right up her spine, even if they had happy endings. Star-crossed lovers parted by cruel circumstance were thrilling too. Or maybe...

A sharp thud above Sara's head startled her out of her daydreams. She looked up. Could that be a valise emerging from that upstairs window? And a man's leg struggling to get out behind it?

It was indeed. And at the Avonlea boarding house too.

The sight was so extraordinary that Sara simply stood there, open-mouthed, as the rest of the man tried to follow the leg and ended up stuck halfway over the windowsill. When the man got his head out, the first thing he saw was Sara, leaning over the picket fence, staring up at him. He was a beefy, ruddy gent, but he turned rather pale at finding himself observed and squeezed out a hurried laugh. With the hand that wasn't clutching the valise, he pointed down toward the door.

"Oh, heh, heh, that door sticks all the time. Have to use the window."

Sara herself had had to climb out the odd window in her time, and she knew it to be a very uncomfortable practice.

"You could hurt yourself," she told him, finding her tongue at last. "Someone should fix that.Would you like me to get someone?"

"Oh-no, no thanks!"

The idea of bothering someone at that early hour to fix a door seemed to fluster the fellow so that he banged his head on the window sash in a renewed attempt to get the rest of himself through. From inside, a woman's voice floated out.

"Mr. Beatty, your breakfast is ready."

Breakfast must have been an alarming idea, for the man jerked himself all the way out onto the porch roof and looked wildly about. His gaze lit upon a horse and buggy tied up in front of the general store. Gingerly, he edged down toward the eaves and motioned to Sara.

"Ah...there is something you could do for me.Bring my horse and carriage over so I can jump into it, would you?"

"Mr. Beatty, Mr Beatty," sang out the voice from inside again. "Are you there?"

The man now had one leg hanging down over the roof edge and looked as though he wanted his horse and buggy very urgently indeed. It never occurred to Sara to hesitate. She had already untied the horse and was starting to lead it toward the boarding house when Andrew spotted her.

"Hey," he shouted, "what do you think you're doing?"

"Just helping someone out."

Sara was helpful by nature, and especially pleased when she could help someone out of afix. The man, by this time, had taken a daring leap from the roof edge straight down into the petunia bed.

"But isn't that Mr. Biggins' buggy?"

Felicity had now spied Sara and jumped up right in the middle of a game of jacks.

"No it isn't," Sara tossed back. It was ridiculous that the man wouldn't know his own rig.

"It is so Mr. Biggins' buggy," Felicity sputtered, starting after her cousin. "I saw him go into the store."

Felicity was too late. The man had already cleared the yard fence, flung his valise into the back of the buggy and jumped up into the driver's seat.

"Thank you, miss," he said to Sara, snatching up the reins and grinning a sly, triumphant grin. With a great thwack, he laid the whip across the horse's back, sending the surprised beast leaping down the street, the buggy careening behind it. Dust choked Sara at exactly the same moment Mr. Biggins and Mr. Lawson tore out of the store to see what all the commotion was about. Mr. Biggins saw what was the matter at once.

"Stop!" he shrieked. "That's my buggy!"

Dropping the bag of flour he was carrying, Mr. Biggins began to run after the speeding vehicle. The bag of flour burst on the ground behind him, spilling flour everywhere. Mr. Lawson, the storekeeper, who had just sold Mr. Biggins that flour, barely noticed. He had just recognized the buggy's driver.

"Why, that man owes me fifty dollars in merchandise. Come back!"

Mr. Lawson waved his arms in futile fury, bringing his wife and Olivia King running out onto the store steps. Mr. Biggins, still shouting, "Come back with my horse! " was puffing along as fast as his legs would carry him. He was no match for the horse, but his shouts did reach Constable Jeffries, who was standing in front of the blacksmith's shop, thumbs tucked into his suspenders. Constable Jeffries started blowing his whistle frantically as the buggy jolted by.

"Stop, in the name of the law!"

All he got for his trouble was a mouthful of road dirt and a split second to jump for his life. He landed in the smith's pile of hay, luckier by far than the two ladies farther down the road. They ended up upside down in the ditch in the wake of the galloping rig.

Mr. Biggins wheezed up, his feet dragging to a halt. "Stop...thief," he managed one last time, the words barely a gasp. Mr. Biggins was purple with rage; he was much too old and too fat to be chasing stolen buggies through the street at eight o'clock in the morning.

All the shouts in Avonlea wouldn't have done any good. The buggy skidded round the bend at the far end of the road, nearly running over a cyclist for good measure, then vanished completely from sight.

Back in front of the store, all was upset and confusion.

"Why, that was Mr. Beatty," declared Olivia King as though scarcely able to credit her own eyesight.

Felicity glared at Sara, who was still frozen rigid by what had just happened. "I told you it was Mr. Biggins' buggy," Felicity hissed. Righteous indignation was Felicity's specialty.

"He ran up quite a bill at our store," Mrs. Lawson contributed. "I told my husband not to trust him."

Olivia scarcely heard this. Her hand suddenly flew to her mouth. This was the same Mr. Beatty mentioned so prominently on the nearby poster.

"Oh, my goodness. What about the magic lantern show?"

Prospects of the evening's entertainment disappeared before Olivia's very eyes. Olivia had an optimistic nature, however, and instantly discovered something positive to pull from the mess.

"Oh, well, it's a good thing the ticket money is safe with you, Mr. Lawson."

This simple statement produced astonishment in the storekeeper. "But Mr. Beatty said you had the proceeds, Olivia!"

"Why would I have the proceeds! He said you had them...."

As the awful realization dawned, silence struck them all.

"Oh no!" breathed Olivia when she'd recovered herself. The money, so painstakingly collected, was even then heading for parts unknown in Mr. Beatty's valise.

Mr. Biggins came lurching back. He had had tirne to brood on the wrong done him and was working himself into a fine old lather. Horses and buggies weren't easy to come by. Neither were bags of flour.

"I'd like to know how that man got hold of my horse and buggy! " Mr. Biggins rapped out, looking as though he would like to make chopped mincemeat out of the culprit right then and there.

Felicity pointed sweepingly at Sara.

"She gave it to him!"

Every eye turned and fixed itself on Sara, who had red dust in her hair and dismay written all over her.

"Oh, Sara," cried Olivia, "how could you?"

"I didn't know it wasn't his buggy!"

This might have been perfectly true, but in the eyes of the gathered group, it seemed a sorry excuse for the calamity that had fallen upon them. It's all my fault, Sara thought miserably, knowing that guilt had just begun to haunt her. How all of Avonlea would make up its mind that it detested her.

And Felicity! If Sara stayed in Avonlea a hundred years, Felicity would never let her hear the end of this!!