Читать книгу Red Sky in the Morning - Elizabeth Laird - Страница 5

Preface

I was four years old when my little brother Alistair was born. I can remember the first time I saw him, lying in a crib by my mother’s bed, thin wisps of hair on his large head. I lifted the corner of his blanket and saw his little feet. I was amazed that feet could be so tiny.

I was too young to understand Alistair’s many disabilities, or what it might feel like to be him, but I knew how to make him laugh, by pushing my face up against the bars of his crib and sticking my tongue out, or dancing around and waving the skirt of my dress. I knew how to make him cry too, and I regret to say that I did that sometimes, when I felt jealous of all the attention he was getting.

People often ask me if I put real people into my stories. The answer is no. I might borrow a bit here and there—the way someone speaks, or a particular little habit, or a real incident that I remember. But my characters are themselves, made up, with lives of their own. The family in Red Sky in the Morning is nothing like my family, and I don’t think that either Anna or Katy is much like me. They’re just themselves.

But there’s one exception to my usual rule. The character of Ben in this book is my brother Alistair.