The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley Page A

cause,” Miss Smith said. She hugged Jamie to her, then stood. “I’ll be asking Jamie. I don’t want him ridiculed, looked down upon, or punished in any way for using his left hand.”
    The teacher sniffed. Miss Smith stood, and guided me to follow her out. I wanted to wait in the hall to be sure the teacher didn’t immediately tie Jamie back up, but Miss Smith said we needed to leave. “I’ve knocked her pride a bit,” she said. “We need to let her get it back.”
    I didn’t see why. I said, “I could have told them he hates being tied.” But I didn’t really understand why the teacher tied him, and I said so.
    Miss Smith sighed. “Ada, which hand do you eat with? When you hold a fork?”
    I held up my right hand. “This one.”
    “Why? Why not use both?”
    “This one feels better,” I said.
    “That’s right. And Jamie eats with his other hand, his left hand. He always does. That hand feels better to him.”
    I guess he did, but I’d never noticed. I’d never cared. “So?”
    “So he’s learning to write now, and it’s much harder to write with the hand you don’t eat with. I’ll show you, when we get home.” She opened the main door of the school, and we went out. A chill wind swirled some dead leaves around the steps. “In the Bible the good people stand on God’s right, and the bad people stand on the left, before they get cast into hell. So some—people—”
    “Idjits,” I supplied.
    “Yes.” She smiled at me. “Some idiots think left-handedness comes from the devil. It doesn’t. It comes from the brain.”
    “Like that man you were talking about,” I said.
    “What? Oh, Dr. Goudge. Yes, he’s Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. Where I studied.”
    “And he’s left-handed, like Jamie?”
    Miss Smith snorted. “I’ve no idea. I didn’t read Divinity. I never met the man.”
    She’d lied. I looked at her sideways. “So you didn’t go to Oxford,” I said. Wherever that was, whatever it meant.
    “Of course I did,” she said. “I studied maths.”
    We walked down the road. “Is a clubfoot like that?” I asked.
    “Like being left-handed? In a way. It’s something you’re born with.”
    “No, I mean, is it what that teacher said? A—a mark of the devil.” It would explain everything, I thought.
    “Ada, of course not! How could you think so?”
    I shrugged. “I thought maybe that was why Mam hated me.”
    Miss Smith’s hand touched my shoulder. When she spoke, her voice was uneven. “She doesn’t—I’m sure it’s not—” She stopped walking and turned to face me. “I don’t know what to say,” she said, after a pause. “I don’t want to tell you a lie, and I don’t know the truth.”
    It was maybe the most honest thing anyone had ever said to me.
    “If she does hate you she’s wrong to do so,” Miss Smith said.
    I shook that off. It didn’t matter, did it?
    Leaves skittered around the tips of my crutches. My bad foot swung in the air. I started down the road again, and after a moment Miss Smith followed.
    “Will you ride Butter when we get home?” she asked.
    “I think so,” I said. “I still can’t make him trot.”
    “Persistence,” Miss Smith said. “That’s what Lady Thorton says.”
    I’d asked. Persistence meant to keep trying.

The very next day, before Jamie went to school, Miss Smith took us to the post office to register for our identity cards. It was a war thing. We would all get cards to carry with us, so that if the Germans invaded, the government could tell who was German and who was English by asking to see our identity cards.
    They could also tell because the Germans would be speaking a different language. That’s what Miss Smith said. While we stood in line, she explained that all over the world people spoke different, not just different the way I sounded different from Miss Smith and Maggie, but different like actual different words. Jamie wanted to hear different words, so Miss Smith told us some.