The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

When we got to the end of the drive Mam stopped. “What’re those?” she said,
pointing to my crutches.
“I walk faster with them,” I said.
She snorted. “Like you need to walk.”
I said, “I can walk.”
“Not for long, missy,” Mam said. “Not for long.”
The train to London was even slower and more crowded than the one we’d
been evacuated on. Servicemen sat on kit bags in the aisle. One man offered
me a seat, because of my crutches, and Mam scowled at him and pushed past
me to sit down. The man started to speak. “I’m fine standing,” I said quickly.
“With my crutches—”
I should have kept quiet. Mam’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know who gave
you the idea it was all right to go out where people could see you,” she said,
in a low, furious voice. “Flaunting your crippled self. You can use them things
’til we get home, and not a minute longer.”
“But I can walk,” I said.
“But I don’t want you to. You hear me?”
I swallowed. It was worse than a nightmare.
“Ada caught a spy,” Jamie whispered.
Mam snorted. “Pull the other one,” she said.
“Tell her, Ada,” Jamie said. “Tell her your hero story.”
I kept my mouth shut and shook my head.
It was late at night before we got off the train, and went stumbling through the
inky blacked-out streets of London. I tripped over rough curbstones. The
shadows made noises I didn’t remember, but the decaying smell rising from
the damp streets was the same.
Butter, I thought. Think of riding Butter.
Mam had moved, she told us, to be closer to the factory where she now