The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

the strange food, though the only way to do that was by threatening him.
“How long do we have to stay here?” he asked.
“Dunno,” I told him. “’Til the end of the war, maybe, or ’til Mam comes to
take us back.”
“How long ’til the war ends?”
“Couple weeks, I guess. Maybe longer.”
“I want to go home,” Jamie said.
He said that all the time, and I was tired of hearing it. I turned on him.
“Why?” I said, nearly spitting the word. I kept my voice low, but rage I didn’t
know I felt gushed out of me. “So you can do anything you want, and I can do
nothing at all? So I can’t boss you? So I can be shut up in a room?”
His round eyes filled with tears. “No,” he said, in a whisper. “I don’t care if
you boss me. And she probably won’t shut you up, now you’ve got crutches
and all.”
“Everybody thinks I’m nasty, back home. They think I’m some kind of
monster.”
“They don’t,” Jamie said, but he turned his face away. “They won’t.” He
started crying in earnest, muffling his sobs in his pillow. “You’ve got
crutches!” he said.
“Crutches don’t change my foot!” I said. “It’s still the same. It still hurts.
I’m still the same!”
Jamie said, through sobs, “At home I know the words for things.”
I knew what he meant. I knew how overwhelmed I felt sometimes, going
into a shop full of things I’d never seen before. “There’s nothing good at
home,” I said. “You were hungry. Remember?”
“No,” said Jamie. “I wasn’t ever hungry. I never was.”
If he wasn’t, it was only because I gave him most of the food. “I was,” I
said. “I was hungry, and I was alone, and I was trapped, and right now, no
matter what, you have to do what I say. You have to stay here with me. I’m
the person who keeps you safe.”
Jamie’s sobs slowed. He looked up at me, his brown eyes still brimming
with tears. He rolled over onto his back and I pulled the sheet up to his chin. I
patted his skinny shoulder. “Is this safe?” he asked.
It didn’t feel safe. I never felt safe. “Yes,” I said.