The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

wouldn’t be lost again. I tied my crutches to the back of the saddle so I had
them for doing chores.
Fred taught me to kick less. He taught me to use one leg only to ask for a
canter, so that I didn’t have to get bounced by the trot. He tried to teach me to
post to the trot—to rise and fall to the motion smoothly, without bouncing—
but that was hard with only one stirrup. He taught me more about steering,
and when he was happy with my progress he set up little poles in the field
beyond the stable yard and had me practice going over them. It was a long
way from jumping the stone wall. Fred said I wasn’t to try that on Butter until
he told me I was ready.
Stephen White’s colonel sent another invitation to tea. I declined. “Idiot girl,”
Susan grumbled.
Meanwhile the war had become an endless stream of pamphlets the
government sent through the mail. How to wear your gas mask. Why to carry
your gas mask. How not to get hit by a car in the blackout. (You could carry a
flashlight, if you covered over the glass with tissue paper; you should paint
curbs white so the people driving the cars could see them.) Why you should
give the government your excess pots and pans. (They wanted to make planes
from them. Susan refused to do it. She said she had exactly as many pans as
she needed. This made Jamie so upset that eventually she relented, and gave
him an old nasty chip pan to turn in.)
There weren’t any bombs. What there were was German submarines,
circling all of England, trying to blow up any ships heading in or out of her
harbors.
This was a big problem, Susan said, because England didn’t grow enough
food. Most of the food English people ate was shipped in from other
countries. Already there was less food in the shops, and what was there cost
more, though Susan said some of that was because the summer was over. We
wouldn’t see as many fresh fruits and vegetables until next spring.
You never saw anyone more interested in fruits and vegetables than Susan.
We were all the time having to eat strange things. Brussels sprouts. Turnips.
Leeks. Peaches, which I loved, but also prunes, which I didn’t. Prunes came
in cans and were slimy going down.
Every week that went by without bombs, more evacuees returned to
London. Even the ones living with Lady Thorton had gone. In the village
Lady Thorton fussed about it, but she couldn’t stop parents from sending for
their children. “London will be bombed,” she insisted.