A Waltz for Matilda Read online

  Other titles by Jackie French

  Historical

  Somewhere Around the Corner • Dancing with Ben Hall

  Soldier on the Hill • Daughter of the Regiment

  Hitler’s Daughter • Lady Dance • The White Ship

  How the Finnegans Saved the Ship • Valley of Gold

  Tom Appleby, Convict Boy

  They Came on Viking Ships • Macbeth and Son

  Pharaoh • The Goat who Sailed the World

  The Dog who Loved a Queen • A Rose for the Anzac Boys

  The Donkey who Carried the Wounded

  The Horse who Bit a Bushranger • Oracle

  The Night They Stormed Eureka

  Fiction

  Rain Stones • Walking the Boundaries • The Secret Beach

  Summerland • Beyond the Boundaries

  A Wombat Named Bosco • The Book of Unicorns

  The Warrior – The Story of a Wombat

  Tajore Arkle • Missing You, Love Sara

  Dark Wind Blowing

  Ride the Wild Wind: The Golden Pony and Other Stories

  Non-fiction

  Seasons of Content

  How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri

  Invaded My Maths Class and Turned Me into a Writer

  How to Guzzle Your Garden • The Book of Challenges

  Stamp, Stomp, Whomp

  The Fascinating History of Your Lunch

  Big Burps, Bare Bums and Other Bad-Mannered Blunders

  To the Moon and Back • Rocket Your Child into Reading

  The Secret World of Wombats

  How High Can a Kangaroo Hop?

  Outlands Trilogy

  In the Blood • Blood Moon • Flesh and Blood

  School for Heroes

  Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior

  Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs

  Wacky Families Series

  1. My Dog the Dinosaur • 2. My Mum the Pirate

  3. My Dad the Dragon • 4. My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome

  5. My Uncle Wal the Werewolf • 6. My Gran the Gorilla

  7. My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken

  8. My Pa the Polar Bear

  Phredde Series

  1. A Phaery Named Phredde

  2. Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce

  3. Phredde and the Zombie Librarian

  4. Phredde and the Temple of Gloom

  5. Phredde and the Leopard-Skin Librarian

  6. Phredde and the Purple Pyramid

  7. Phredde and the Vampire Footy Team

  8. Phredde and the Ghostly Underpants

  Picture Books

  Diary of a Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)

  Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley)

  Josephine Wants to Dance (with Bruce Whatley)

  The Shaggy Gully Times (with Bruce Whatley)

  Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip (with Bruce Whatley)

  Baby Wombat’s Week (with Bruce Whatley)

  Queen Victoria’s Underpants (with Bruce Whatley)

  The Tomorrow Book (with Sue deGennaro)

  Copyright

  Angus&Robertson

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia

  First published in Australia in 2010

  This edition published in 2010

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  Copyright © Jackie French 2010

  The right of Jackie French to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8JB, United Kingdom

  2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

  195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  French, Jackie.

  A waltz for Matilda / Jackie French.

  ISBN: 978-0-7322-9021-4 (pbk.)

  ISBN: 978-0-7304-9396-9 (ePub)

  For children.

  Swagmen—Australia—Juvenile fiction.

  A823.3

  Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio

  Cover images: girl by Tim Flach/Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com