The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Mam.
I didn’t know what to think. I steadied Butter in front of the garden wall,
my hands on the reins, and looked at her. She looked back at me, shading her
eyes with her hand. Her expression, of mingled anger and disinterest, didn’t
change. “Hello,” I said.
She scowled. “Who’re you?”
She didn’t recognize me.
I dismounted Butter, landing carefully on my good left foot. I untied my
crutches from the back of the saddle and swung myself forward, over the
garden wall. “I’m Ada,” I said.
Her expression turned to outrage as she realized who I was.
“What the ’ell’s this?” she said. “Just who do you think you are?”
Jamie was holding Mam’s hand. Jamie looked so hopeful.
“Coming in on a pony!” Mam said. “Like little Princess Margaret, are you
now?”
“I learned to ride,” I said. “I go sidesaddle so it doesn’t hurt my—”
Mam thrust a battered envelope under my nose. “And this,” she said.
“What’s the meaning of this, eh?”
I looked. It was one of Susan’s letters. It was her handwriting on the
envelope.
“Want some kind of operation, do you?” Mam said.
My heart leaped. “They can fix my foot. The doctor said—”
“Like ’ell they can,” Mam said. “Isn’t nothing going to fix that foot. First I
get a letter says now I have to pay the government for taking my kids away,
nineteen shillings a week and the government wants me to pay—”
“No one will make you—” Susan interjected.
“—and then here’s this. Sent to the wrong place, just got it, I did, and what
is it but someone with the bloody cheek to be tellin’ me what to do with my
kids. And then here you are, all dressed up, sittin’ on a pony, nose in the air,
actin’ for all the world like you’re better than everybody—”