Kids into books: Red Sky in the Morning

This week's title: Red Sky in the Morning

Author: Elizabeth Laird

Illustrator: Angelo Rinaldi

Publisher:Macmillan, $13.95

Age Group: 10 years +


But then Mum gave an awful scream, and Dad rushed back into the bedroom and shut the door in my face. I didn't dare go in. I didn't even want to any more. I felt too small and helpless. Frightful thoughts rushed through my mind, like what would happen if Mum died, and I had to sacrifice my youth to looking after Dad and bringing up Katy, who was seven, and absolutely horrible.

The minute I thought of Katy, I remembered my responsibilities. It was my job to run the house and family while Mum was otherwise engaged, and I decided I had better start by running Katy. I went back down the corridor to her room.

Katy is an unusually irritating child. Even Mum admits that she's a nuisance. She says it's because Katy's going through a stage, but either Mum's wrong, or else it's a very long stage, because Katy seems to have been in it since she was born. One of the worst things about her is that you can never get her to go to sleep. We all have to creep around the house once she's gone to bed, and I can't even play my own tapes in my own room, which I feel, quite frankly, is a violation of my human rights. And she wakes up in the middle of the night if a moth so much as brushes its wings against her bedroom window. I never would have thought she'd sleep through the noise Mum was making, but that's the maddening thing about Katy. She's so unpredictable.