The War that Saved My Life (10 page)

“I’ll talk to you later,” Stephen said. “Later, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, still puzzled.

Back on the other side of the street, Miss Smith and Jamie stood in front of a second poster. “This one’s better,” Jamie said.

“‘Freedom is in peril,’” Miss Smith read. “‘Defend it with all your might.’”

It was better. “What’s ‘might’?” I asked.

“I might have some tea,” said Jamie.

“No—well, yes,” Miss Smith said. “But in this case, it means strength. Force. Defend it with everything you’ve got.”

“Freedom is in peril,” Jamie shouted, running ahead. He waved his arms wildly. “Freedom is in peril, defend it with everything you’ve got!”

“What’s ‘freedom’?” I asked as Miss Smith and I followed.

“It’s—hmmm. I’d say it’s the right to make decisions about yourself,” Miss Smith said. “About your life.”

“Like, this morning we decided to come into town?”

“More like deciding that you want to be a—I don’t know—a solicitor. When you grow up. Or, perhaps, a teacher. Or deciding that you’d like to live in Wales. Big decisions. If Germany invades, we’ll probably still be able to go shopping, but we might not get to decide much else.”

As usual, I mostly didn’t understand her, but I was tired of trying. “Stephen White has to live with a grumpy old man,” I said.

“I noticed,” Miss Smith said. “I’m sorry to see the colonel looking so frail. He was one of Becky’s foxhunting friends—one of the huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’ sort. I didn’t realize he was so old.”

“He made me touch his hand.” I shuddered.

“That’s just manners,” Miss Smith said.

“So he said.”

Miss Smith grinned. I didn’t know why. “Skeptical child,” she said, making me frown even harder. She grabbed the end of my plait and swung it. “
Your
courage,
your
cheerfulness,
your
resolution”—she was saying it wrong. I scowled—“will bring
you
victory, my dear.”

We’d reached the greengrocer’s. Jamie waited for us, holding open the shop door. I flicked my plait away from Miss Smith. I wasn’t going to ask what any more words meant, I was so tired of words, but Miss Smith looked at me and answered my question anyway. “Victory,” she said, “means peace.”

A few days later the teacher who’d been with us on the train came by the house to say that school was starting. The village didn’t have an empty building big enough to hold the evacuated children, so the evacuees had to share the village school. The regular village students would attend with their regular teachers from eight until noon, and then the evacuees and the evacuated teachers would go from one in the afternoon until five.

The teacher gave Miss Smith directions to the school. “We’ll see you Monday afternoon,” she said to Jamie as she got up to leave.

We’d all four been sitting in the main room of Miss Smith’s house, on the squishy purple chairs and sofa. Miss Smith had made tea. Now she smiled quizzically at the teacher and said, “Ada too, of course.”

I don’t know how I looked, but Jamie’s and the teacher’s mouths fell open. The teacher’s mouth closed first. “Ada’s not on our list,” she said. “I told you that when I gave you their mother’s address. We’ve only got Jamie down.”

Jamie said, “Ada’s not allowed to go outside.”

I said fiercely, “That’s rubbish, it was only ever in London and you know it.”

“But not
school,
” said Jamie.

I’d never been. Never thought about going. But why not? I could get there on my crutches, it wasn’t that far.

Miss Smith argued that lists didn’t matter. Surely the lists weren’t accurate, and besides, many of the children had already gone back to London. There had to be room for me.

“Room, yes,” the teacher said slowly, “but is it appropriate?” She stood and took a book off one of Miss Smith’s shelves. “Here,” she said, holding it open and out to me, “read a bit of that.”

I looked at the page. The rows of marks blurred and swam before my eyes. I looked up. The teacher nodded. Miss Smith came over and put her arm around me. I tried to pull away, but Miss Smith held on.

“You see,” the teacher said softly, “she isn’t educable.”

I didn’t know what educable meant. I didn’t know if I was educable or not.

“She simply hasn’t been taught,” Miss Smith said. “She’s far from stupid. She deserves a chance.”

The teacher shook her head. “It wouldn’t be fair to the others.”

The door clicked softly as she left. Miss Smith grabbed my shoulders with both hands. “Don’t cry,” she said. “Don’t cry, she isn’t right, I know you can learn. Don’t cry.”

Why would I cry? I never cried. But when I shook myself free of Miss Smith’s grasp, tears shook loose from my eyes and slid down my cheeks. Why would I cry? I wanted to hit something, or throw something, or scream. I wanted to gallop on Butter and never stop. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t run, not with my twisted, ugly, horrible foot. I buried my head in one of the fancy pillows on the sofa, and then I couldn’t help it, I did cry.

I was so tired of being alone.

Miss Smith sat down on the sofa beside me. She put her hand on my back. I squirmed away. “Don’t worry,” she said, almost like she cared about me. “They’re wrong. We’ll find another way.

“I know you aren’t stupid,” she continued. “Stupid people couldn’t take care of their brother the way you do. Stupid people aren’t half as brave as you. They’re not half as strong.”

Stupid. Simple. Educable. Thoughtful.
All just words. I was so tired of meaningless words.

That night, after our baths, Miss Smith came to the doorway of our bedroom before we fell asleep. She hesitated. “I’ve brought something,” she said. “This was my favorite book when I was a little girl. My father used to read it to me at bedtime. I thought I’d start reading it to you.”

I turned my head away. More words. Jamie asked, “Why, miss?”

“I wish you’d quit calling me
miss
,” she said, pulling the chair close to Jamie’s side of the bed. “My name is Susan. You should call me that. I’m reading to you because I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Jamie said, “Why would we enjoy it?”

Miss Smith didn’t answer. She said, “This book is called
The Swiss Family Robinson
. Listen.” She cleared her throat and began. “‘For many days we had been tempest-tossed. Six times darkness closed over a wild and terrific scene...’”

I buried my head deeper into my pillow. The drone of her voice sounded like a fly buzzing against a window. I fell asleep.

In the morning, though, those first words stuck in my head until I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Miss?” I said at breakfast. “What’s ‘tempest-tossed’?”

Miss Smith looked at me over her mug of tea. “Caught in a storm,” she said. “Wind and rain and lightning, and if you’re in a boat, at sea, you get tossed from side to side. You’re all thrown about, because of the storm.”

I looked at Jamie. “That’s us,” I said. “All thrown about. We’re tempest-tossed.” He nodded.

I turned back to Miss Smith. “What’s ‘educable’?”

She cleared her throat. “Able to be educated,” she said. “Able to learn. You are plenty able to learn, Ada. You are educable. I know you are. That teacher is wrong.”

A plane zoomed overhead. Jamie jumped up. We heard and saw planes all the time now, because of the airfield, but Jamie never tired of watching them. I got up to go out too.

“Ada,” Miss Smith said, “if you like, this morning I’ll start to teach you to read.”

I edged away. “No, thank you,” I said, using the manners she taught me. “I want to go look at the planes.”

She shook her head. “That’s not true.”

“I want to talk to Butter.”

Miss Smith leaned forward. “You’re perfectly capable of learning. You mustn’t listen to people who don’t know you. Listen to what you know, yourself.”

What I knew, I’d learned looking out a single window. I knew nothing. Words she used—
capable, tempest-tossed
. Even little words,
sea
. What was a sea? Boats came down the River Thames. Was a sea the same as a river? I knew nothing, nothing at all.

“I need to see the pony,” I said.

She sighed. “Suit yourself,” she said, and turned away.

I’d found a brush in the storage room and I used it all over Butter’s yellow coat. Dust and loose hair flew up. I could tell he liked it. “Good, isn’t it?” I asked him. “Gets the itches out.”

My skin didn’t itch the way it used to. The stinky lotion cleared up the rough patches on my skin, and my head felt better now that Miss Smith brushed my hair for me every morning. She braided it for me into a single plait down my back, so it stayed neater, out of my way in the wind, and wasn’t as tangled at night. She brushed me the way I brushed Butter, which was odd no matter how I thought about it.

“Look,” Jamie cried, pointing to the sky. “It’s a different one!” He ran across the pasture, trying to get a better view of the plane.

I rode Butter twice around the field before he got me off.

At lunch Miss Smith said she would walk Jamie to school for the first day. “You’ll be all right by yourself, Ada?” she asked. “Or you could come.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t going near the school. And that turned out to be lucky. The minute Miss Smith left with Jamie I climbed back onto Butter, and so I was there when the strange horse jumped into our field.