The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

wrong.” She put a finger under my chin. “Look at me. Now, tell me.”
I looked at her, but only for a second. I squirmed away from her grasp.
Finally I gasped, “I broke your sewing machine.”
Susan sighed. “Look at me,” she said. She tipped my chin up again. “You
tried to use my sewing machine?”
I nodded. Squirmed away. Looked at the ground.
She tipped my chin up. “And you broke it?”
I nodded. Looking her in the eye was nearly impossible. “It’s okay,” she
said. “No matter what, it’s okay.”
I couldn’t believe her. It wasn’t going to be okay.
“You did do something wrong,” she said. “You should have asked me first.
But you don’t need to be so afraid. I’m not going to hurt you because you
made a mistake. Let’s go see how badly it’s broken.”
She made me go down the stairs to the living room. The fire was lit and the
room was growing warm. It turned out that I’d only broken the needle, not the
entire machine. Needles wore out sometimes, Susan said, and you had to
replace them anyhow. She had an extra needle, so she took the broken one out
and replaced it. Then she removed the snarled mess of cloth and thread. “It
really is all right,” she said. “Do you want to see what you did wrong?”
I shook my head. My stomach hurt so bad. Susan pulled me over anyhow,
and showed me how the machine worked, and how I’d needed to lever the
needle into place before I started the machine running. “Tomorrow you can
practice,” Susan said.
“No thank you,” I said.
She pulled me close to her, in a sort of one-armed embrace. “Why did you
hide? Why were you under the bed?”
Jamie had been hovering the entire time. “Mam puts her in the cabinet,” he
said, “whenever she’s really bad.”
“But why put yourself there, Ada? You didn’t have to.”
So I can stay. SoIcanstaysoIcanstaysoIcanstay.
“I’m not going to shut you up anywhere, no matter what, okay?”
“Okay.” My stomach felt awful. My voice sounded very small. I could
barely make my mind stay in the room with Susan and Jamie. I said, “I know
I have to leave. Please, can Jamie come too?”