The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

on the street, and then marched him home to Mam and told her off. Mam
snatched Jamie by the neck and walloped him herself. “You idiot! Stealin’
sweets is one thing! What were you wanting with a chop?”
“Ada’s hungry,” Jamie sobbed.
I was hungry. Walking was so much work, I was always hungry now. But it
was the wrong thing to say, and Jamie knew it. I saw his eyes widen, afraid.
“Ada! I should have known!” Mam wheeled toward me. “Teaching your
brother to steal for you? Worthless runt!” She backhanded me. I had been
sitting on my chair. Without thinking, I jumped up to dodge the blow.
I was caught. I couldn’t take a step, not without giving away my secret.
But Mam stared at me with a glittering eye. “Getting too big for your britches,
ain’t you?” she said. “Get down on your knees and get into that cabinet.”
“No, Mam,” I said, sinking to the floor. “No. Please.”
The cabinet was a cubby under the sink. The pipe dripped sometimes, so
the cabinet was always damp and smelly. Worse, roaches lived there. I didn’t
mind roaches out in the open so much. I could smash them with a piece of
paper and throw their bodies out the window. In the cabinet, in the dark, I
couldn’t smash them. They swarmed all over me. Once one crawled into my
ear.
“In you go,” Mam said, smiling.
“I’ll go,” Jamie said. “I nicked the chop.”
“Ada goes,” Mam said. She turned her slow smile toward Jamie. “Ada
spends the night in the cabinet, any time I catch you stealin’ again.”
“Not the whole night,” I whispered, but of course it was.
When things got really bad I could go away inside my head. I’d always
known how to do it. I could be anywhere, on my chair or in the cabinet, and I
wouldn’t be able to see anything or hear anything or even feel anything. I
would just be gone.
It was a good thing, but it didn’t happen fast enough. The first few minutes
in the cabinet were the worst. And then, later on, my body started hurting
from being so cramped. I was bigger than I used to be.
In the morning, when Mam let me out, I felt dazed and sick. When I
straightened, pain shot through me, cramping pains and pins and needles
down my legs and arms. I lay on the floor. Mam looked down at me. “Let that
be a lesson to you,” she said. “Don’t be getting above yourself, my girl.”