The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

“Suppose so.” He made me go around the field, first at the walk, then at
the trot. Trotting was gobs easier in the sidesaddle—I still bounced, but I
couldn’t really get shaken loose.
“That’s enough for now,” Fred said. “You can practice runnin’ on your
own. No jumping yet.”
Never any jumping yet.
When I’d finished my work I went home by way of the tall hill above the
village. Susan had drawn it on my map for me. At the top of the hill I stopped,
and watched the ocean for a long time. Some days I saw ships, far off in the
distance, and once or twice a fishing boat closer in. Today there was nothing
but glimmering sunlight, birds circling, tiny white waves crashing against the
shore. Susan said there was sand at the water’s edge, and when there wasn’t a
war it was a lovely place to walk and look at the ocean. Just now the beach
was fenced with barbed wire, and planted with mines, which were bombs in
the ground, in case of invasion. We’d walk on the beach when the war was
over, Susan said.
Susan didn’t think I should accept the sidesaddle. She thought it was too
valuable of a gift. She marched it and me over to Lady Thorton in the WVS
office. “That old thing?” Lady Thorton said. “It must have been my aunt’s.
Mother never rode. Of course Ada may have it, or Grimes wouldn’t have
given it to her. Margaret doesn’t want it, and neither do I.”
Maggie sent me a letter from her school. Susan laid the envelope on the table
one afternoon, and I traced the word I recognized on the front with my finger:
Ada. I still had the paper where Susan had written my name, and I’d copied it
over and over.
“Shall I read it to you?” Susan asked.
“No,” I said. I opened the letter and stared at the marks on the paper inside.
No matter how hard I stared, they didn’t make sense. That night I tried to get
Jamie to read it. “Her handwriting’s all curly,” he said. “I can’t read that.”
Still, I didn’t want Susan to help me. In the end I brought it to Fred. He
chewed his pipe and said Maggie wanted us to ride together when she came
home for Christmas holidays.
“I won’t be here for Christmas,” I said. “The war will be over by then.”
Fred shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so,” he said. “That’s barely a month