The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

“How’d you get here?”
“Walked,” I said. “I couldn’t let Jamie go alone.”
“Was it hard?” he asked.
I said, “Yes.”
An odd expression passed over his face, one I didn’t understand at all.
“Everyone feels sorry for your mam,” he said.
There was nothing I could say to that.
Stephen said, “She know you’re gone?”
I would have lied, but Jamie piped up, “No. She said Ada was going to get
bombed.”
Stephen nodded. “Don’t worry about walking to the station,” he said. “I’ll
give you a ride.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but one of his little sisters smiled up at me.
“He gives me rides,” she said.
I smiled back. She reminded me of Jamie. “Okay, then,” I said.
So Stephen White piggy-backed me to the station. The teacher that had
given me tea thanked him for helping. We marched in a long line, and the
teachers made us sing “There’ll Always Be an England.” Finally we got to the
station, which was overflowing with more children than I knew existed in the
world.
“Can you get onto the train all right?” Stephen asked, setting me down.
I grabbed Jamie’s shoulder. “’Course I can.”
Stephen nodded. He started to herd Billy and his sisters into a group, but
then he turned back to me. “How come she keeps you locked up, if you’re not
simple?”
“Because of my foot,” I said.
He shook his head. “That’s crazy,” he said.
“It’s because—because of whatever I did, to make my foot like that—”
He shook his head again. “Crazy.”
I stared at him. Crazy?
The teachers started yelling then, and we all climbed onto the train. Before
the noon church bells rang, the train began to move.
We’d escaped. Mam, Hitler’s bombs, my one-room prison. Everything.