The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

pub, only without beer, and cleaner.
    “Miss,” I whispered, taking my seat, “why are there blankets on the tables?”
    “They’re called tablecloths,” Miss Smith whispered back. “They’re to make the tables look nice.”
    Huh, I thought. Imagine dressing up tables. Imagine wasting cloth to dress up tables.
    A lady came over and Miss Smith asked for scones and a pot of tea. I remembered to put my napkin on my lap and to say thank you to the lady when she brought the tea, and the lady smiled and said, “What nice manners! She’s an evacuee?”
    I didn’t know how the lady could tell, and I didn’t like it that she could. Miss Smith said, “It’s your accent, you talk different from us country people.”
    I talked different from posh people is what she meant. I knew I did, and I didn’t like it, either. I was trying the best I could to sound like I fit in.
    When we finished our tea we went back to the school. Miss Smith walked right into the building without saying anything. She marched down the hall and threw open the first classroom door. She didn’t knock. I caught up to her just as she sucked in her breath. I looked inside and saw what she saw.
    The whole class, including Jamie, was working at their desks with pencils and paper. Jamie’s left hand was tied to his chair.
    It was tied tight even though he already had a bloody welt on his wrist.
    When I’d tied him up, at least I had let him go right away.
    Miss Smith said, “What is the meaning of this?” in a voice that made some of the little girls jump. Jamie saw us. His face flooded red.
    Miss Smith went to him and untied his arm. Jamie ducked. He ducked like he expected her to hit him, the way I ducked sometimes. Miss Smith said, “Jamie, I’m so sorry, I should have come sooner,” and put her arms around him. Jamie leaned against her. He started to sob.
    All this time I’d stood frozen in the doorway. Most of the students sat frozen at their desks. The only sounds were Jamie crying and Miss Smith murmuring words I couldn’t quite understand.
    The teacher unfroze herself with a jerk. She advanced on Miss Smith, eyes blazing. “I’ll thank you not to interfere!” she said. “Every time my back’s turned he’s using that hand of his. I won’t have it! I wouldn’t have to tie him if he’d obey me.”
    Miss Smith held her ground. Her eyes glittered. “Why shouldn’t he use that hand?”
    The teacher gasped. I didn’t recognize her, though I supposed she’d been on our train. She was an older woman with gray hair braided around her head, and round wire eyeglasses and a skirt that was too tight. When she gasped, her mouth went perfectly round, like her glasses. She looked like a fish. “It’s his left hand,” she said. “Everyone knows that’s the mark of the devil. He wants to write with his left hand, not his right. I’m training him up the way he’s supposed to be.”
    “I never heard such rubbish,” snapped Miss Smith. “He’s left-handed, that’s all.”
    “It’s the mark of the devil,” insisted the teacher.
    Miss Smith took a deep breath. “When I was at Oxford,” she said, “my professor of Divinity, Dr. Henry Leighton Goudge, was left-handed. It is not the mark of the devil. Dr. Goudge told me himself that fear of left-handedness was nothing more than silly superstition and unwarranted prejudice. There’s nothing in the Bible against people using their left hands. We can write and ask him, if you like. Meanwhile you will allow Jamie to use whichever hand he prefers or I shall take action for the wounds he’s received.”
    I hated when she spoke with such big words; I couldn’t follow it. Jamie’s teacher said, suspiciously, “When were you at Oxford?”
    “I graduated 1931,” Miss Smith replied.
    The teacher looked flustered, but she didn’t back down all the way. “You’re not to come into my classroom without knocking,” she said. “It isn’t allowed.”
    “I won’t again so long as I have no