The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Seeing the ocean was like seeing grass for the first time.
I’d been lost for a while, wandering unfamiliar lanes. When I first realized
I didn’t know where I was, I tried to retrace my steps back to Maggie’s, but I
ended up somewhere else entirely. I tried letting Butter show me the way, but
every time I gave him his head, he put it down and started to graze. He was no
use. I kept moving, searching for something familiar. Finally I saw a long, tall
hill and climbed it, thinking perhaps I could recognize Miss Smith’s house, or
at least the village, from above.
Instead I saw, stretched out in the distance, an endless carpet of blue and
gray. Clouds floated over it, and small white things seemed to flicker on the
surface of it, but mostly it was like grass, flat and broad and unchanging,
except that it went on forever, farther out than I could see. It made me feel
lost and shivery, looking at it. I stared and stared. What could it be?
Eventually I pulled my gaze down from it, and there was the village—I
recognized the church spire. So close to that gray-blue expanse. How had I
not known? I made my way down the hill, scrabbling through rough tall grass,
but keeping Butter’s head in the direction of the steeple. Then we found a
road, and kept going. Pretty soon I was riding right along the middle of the
main street. The village was quiet, the shops all shut up. The sky was getting
dark, and of course not a light showed anywhere. Above me came the roar of
an airplane.
At home Miss Smith and Jamie rushed out the door when they saw Butter
and me walking up the lane.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I got lost.”
Miss Smith said, “I thought you’d fallen off that pony and were lying dead
in a ditch somewhere.”
Jamie’s face went white.
“I wouldn’t have died,” I said. I went around to the back to take care of
Butter. Jamie helped me.
“How was school?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Teacher let you use your left hand?”