The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

She sighed, air coming out her nose so she soundedlike Butter. “I don’t. I
don’t care what you do. Only I thought you’d like to be around someone your
own age, for a change, and I was happy for you that you’d gotten the
invitation.”
I swallowed. I didn’t feel happy. I felt something else. Scared? I didn’t
know. “I don’t want to go,” I said. “You don’t have to write anything.”
“I have to write and decline the invitation,” Miss Smith said. “You’ve got
to answer, either way.”
I hadn’t known that, of course. I kicked at the chair leg with my good foot
while she got out paper and a pen. She wrote something down, then shoved it
toward me. “That says: ‘Miss Smith regrets that she is unable to accept your
kind invitation for October seventh.’ That’s how you say no politely. And quit
kicking the chair.”
I kicked harder. I didn’t care if I was polite or not. “I don’t need the colonel
staring at my foot,” I said.
“How could he?” Miss Smith asked. She grabbed my good foot and held it
still. “I said, stop it. And the colonel wouldn’t be staring at you under any
circumstances. He can’t see much of anything. He’s gone blind.”
On the actual day of the seventh it rained, cold and hard. I couldn’t ride. Miss
Smith gave Jamie scissors and a magazine with pictures of planes in it, and he
was happy cutting them out and then flying them around the rug. I didn’t have
anything to do. “I couldn’t have gone to that stupid tea anyhow,” I said.
Miss Smith looked up from her sewing machine. She’d found some old
towels and was turning them into dressing gowns for Jamie and me. Dressing
gowns were like coats you put on over your pajamas in winter when you
weren’t in bed. It wasn’t winter cold yet, but it was cold enough that Miss
Smith had lit the coal fire in the living room. That and the kitchen range kept
the house warm.
“We’d have used my big umbrella,” Miss Smith said. “You still could have
gone.”
“Can I go now?” I asked.
Miss Smith shook her head. “Once you’ve given your answer you can’t
change your mind,” she said. “It’s not polite.”
“I don’t care about polite!”
“Maybe not,” she said, crisply, “but the colonel does, and tea parties are