“Whatever happens,” she says, “I’ll always be your big sister. I’ll always look after you, whenever you need me, our whole lives. Okay? I’ll always be here. I’ll never let you drown.”

The brother and
sister who were lost

Once, a brother and sister lived with their mother and father. The sister was older than the brother and she had long hair that he loved to twirl his fingers in, and for a long time she was taller than him (and even when he finally overtook her, in his head she was still always in charge).

One day, someone asked the little brother, What do you want to do when you grow up? And he replied, I’m going to live in a little house by the ocean. Just one room for me and my big sister, and we’ll wake up every morning and look out at the beach and just be all by ourselves.

But you have to have a job, the person told him. (It doesn’t matter who the person was. Every story has some people in it who are unimportant. But just so they don’t feel bad, let’s say this person was a lady called Elinor, and she had a big house and servants and seventeen cats, and she always wore a turban in the afternoons and liked to take naps on a beautiful gold brocade chaise-longue.)

I’ll write books, said the little brother.

And what about your big sister?

I’ll make enough money for both of us, said the little brother, and the lady called Elinor with the big house and the servants and the seventeen cats laughed, and went home to put on her turban and take a nap.

But the little brother didn’t mind. He and his sister had talked about their dream many times. They knew it was what they both wanted.

And they loved each other fiercely, even when they drove each other mad.

Then one day, the two children looked up and realised they were lost. Exactly how this happened, it’s impossible to say. Or perhaps it was simply too sad to talk about, so that part was always left out of their story, and after a long time, it was forgotten. Perhaps they took the wrong path on a long journey. Perhaps they were playing in a wood when darkness fell, or perhaps they sailed away in a nutshell and found themselves on a cold shore with no stars to navigate home by. Whatever the explanation, on that terrible dark day, they both looked up from whatever they were doing, and realised they no longer had a home.

And the little brother was frightened. But his big sister took his hand and said, Don’t worry, little brother. I promised I’d always look after you, and I always will. Whatever happens, I’ll always, always take care of you.

After that, the little brother knew there was nothing to be afraid of, because his big sister was holding his hand, and she would never let him go. Whatever happened, he would always be littler than she was, and she would always take care of him.