The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

downstairs. You shout before you come down, and wait until I tell you okay.
Deal?”
I could only nod. In the days to come I could sometimes hear the whirr of
her sewing machine while I knit upstairs. I took a hot water bottle with me
and put a blanket around my shoulders, and I knit white wool and oddments
all the next two days. Wretched Bovril started wanting to sit in my lap on top
of the water bottle, until I threw him out and shut the door.
The day before Christmas was a Sunday. When Jamie and I got up we dressed
in the clothes Susan insisted we save for Sundays, Jamie in his white shirt and
tweed shorts and good dark socks, me in the red dress Maggie had given me.
We went down to breakfast and Susan shook her head. “Sorry, forgot. Go put
your regular things on for the day. We’re going to church at night. All of us,
even me. It’s Christmas Eve.”
Because it was Christmas Eve we had bacon at breakfast. During the day I
helped make biscuits. Jamie roasted chestnuts for the goose’s dressing. Susan
put the radio on, and sang along to the Christmas music.
Midafternoon she made us bathe. She brushed my hair downstairs by the
fire until it was dry, and braided it in two plaits instead of one. We ate supper,
and then she told Jamie to go upstairs and put on his church clothes. She told
me to sit still. “I have a surprise.”
She put a big box wrapped in paper onto my lap. Inside was a dress made
of soft dark green fabric. It had puffed sleeves and a round collar, and it
gathered at the waist before billowing out into a long, full skirt.
It was so beautiful I couldn’t touch it. I just stared.
“Come,” Susan said. “Let’s see if it fits.”
I held perfectly still while she took off my sweater and blouse, and settled
the green dress over my head. “Step out of your skirt,” Susan said, and I did.
She buttoned the dress and stepped back. “There,” she said, smiling, her eyes
soft and warm. “It’s perfect. Ada. You’re beautiful.”
She was lying. She was lying, and I couldn’t bear it. I heard Mam’s voice
shrieking in my head. “You ugly piece of rubbish! Filth and trash! No one
wants you, with that ugly foot!” My hands started to shake. Rubbish. Filth.
Trash. I could wear Maggie’s discards, or plain clothes from the shops, but
not this, not this beautiful dress. I could listen to Susan say she never wanted
children all day long. I couldn’t bear to hear her call me beautiful.
“What’s the matter?” Susan asked, perplexed. “It’s a Christmas present. I