The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

blanket. Susan wrapped me in it the way she had on Christmas Eve, tight,
round and round. “Shh,” she said. “Shh.” She put her arms around me and
laid me on a bench and then half sat on me, squishing me between her
backside and the shelter wall. “We’re all here, we’re safe,” she said. She took
Jamie onto her lap. “It’s okay, Jamie, she’s just frightened. It’s okay.” Jamie
whimpered. “We’re safe,” Susan said. “It’s okay.”
The pressure of the blanket soothed me. Gradually I came back to the
shelter, to Jamie and Susan. I stopped screaming. My heart didn’t pound so
hard. I breathed the smell of the wool blanket, wet from my tears, instead of
the shelter-cabinet dampness.
From outside we heard another blast, farther away, and the ack-ack from
the antiaircraft guns at the airfield.
“We’re okay,” Susan said wearily. “We’re okay.”
When the all-clear sounded two hours later, Susan and I were still wideawake.
Jamie had fallen asleep on Susan’s lap. She carried him back to the
house. I walked beside her, trailing the blanket like a cape. We lay down in
the living room, too worn out to climb the stairs.
Late the next morning, when we woke, Susan said, “Ada, there will be more
bombs. We will have to go into the shelter. You’d better get used to it.”
I shuddered. I couldn’t imagine doing that again.
“What set you off?” Susan asked.
“Mam’s cabinet—the way it smells—” I made myself go somewhere else
in my head, fast, before panic overwhelmed me. Butter. I imagined riding
Butter.
Susan tapped my chin. “We can change the smell.”
She went to the market and bought aromatic herbs, rosemary, lavender, and
sage. She hung them in the shelter, upside down from the edges of the
benches, and their smell filled the little room even after they were crumbly
and dry. I couldn’t smell the dampness anymore. It helped. I still panicked.
Susan still always wrapped me in a blanket. But usually I could keep from
screaming, and I didn’t actually see the cabinet in my head. It was still awful,
but I didn’t frighten Jamie.
That was important, because we went into the shelter nearly every night
from that first time. The Battle of Britain had begun.