The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

that evening, while we were still eating; we’d carried our plates to the shelter
with us.
“An’ now he’s dead,” Jamie said, chewing with his mouth open. “We took
him out to a field, lined him up, and pow!” He mimed firing a gun. I flinched.
“Probably not,” Susan said. “I asked.”
Jamie narrowed his eyes. “What’d we do, then?”
“Nobody will say for sure.”
I picked through the boiled potatoes on my plate. Susan had left the peels
on, because peeling potatoes wasted food and we weren’t allowed to waste
food in wartime. I didn’t like the peels. England had a lot of potatoes; we
were supposed to eat them every day.
“Probably turned him,” Susan said. “Made him a double agent. That means
the government would force him to send false messages back to Germany,
with that transmitter of his.”
“They’d make him tell lies,” I said.
“Yes,” Susan said.
Jamie scowled. “I wouldn’t do that. If the Germans caught me—”
“I would,” I said. “If he doesn’t lie, they’ll shoot him. I’d lie if I had to.”
Now sometimes the German planes attacked in daylight. If they were far
away Jamie and I stood in the field and watched them, shielding our eyes
against the sun. The planes looked like swarms of insects buzzing in circles in
the sky, until one plummeted, leaving a trail of smoke. From such a distance I
couldn’t tell the English planes from the German ones, but Jamie could.
“One of ours,” he’d say, or, “One of theirs.”
Sometimes we could see the puff of a parachute opening, as a pilot bailed
out. I always hoped for that puff, even when the plane was German.
Two of the pilots who had come for Christmas dinner had died. When
Jamie found out, he cried himself to sleep. I thought of their faces, how they’d
laughed and played with Jamie. Unlike Jamie, I hadn’t remembered their
names. I’d been too upset, that day, about my green dress.
I understood why I’d been upset on Christmas. I’d felt overwhelmed; I
really couldn’t help myself. But now, thinking back, it seemed a little silly to
be unhappy about a dress when the pilots were dead. If I had it to do over, I
would at least have learned their names.