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There was too much stuff to see. And I’d never known anyone to buy as much food as Miss Smith did, all at once. She paid for it too, straight up, with cash. Not a thing on tick. I nudged Jamie, and he nodded. Miss Smith was rich.
    On the sidewalk, Miss Smith counted her remaining coins and sighed. She led us into a stern-looking brick shop. The inside was just people standing behind counters. You couldn’t tell what they were selling at all.
    “What’s this place?” Jamie asked.
    “It’s a bank,” Miss Smith said. “You’ve been to banks before.”
    I didn’t know why she’d think so. I’d never even heard of a place called a bank. Miss Smith scribbled on a scrap of paper and gave it to one of the men behind the counter, and he counted out money and gave it to her .
    “A money store,” Jamie whispered, eyes wide.
    I nodded. We sure didn’t have one of those on our lane.
    We were back wearing our clothes from the day before—we couldn’t have gone into town wearing only Miss Smith’s shirts—but Miss Smith had washed them so we looked and smelled nice. She marched us into a store that sold clothing anyhow, and bought us each a new set of clothes, top and bottom, and something called underwear, which she said we had to wear from now on—three sets of that—and stockings and then shoes for both of us, Jamie and me.
    “I got shoes already,” Jamie said, eyeing the stout boots Miss Smith chose. “And Ada, she don’t need ’em.”
    Miss Smith ignored him. The shopkeeper, an unpleasant man with hairy eyebrows, said, “These evacuees is nothing but trouble, isn’t they, miss? My missus is that fed up already, she’s wanting to send them home. Filthy little rats wet the bed.”
    Miss Smith gave him a look that made him shut his mouth, except he begged her pardon first. And when we walked out the door I had a brown leather shoe on my good left foot.
    A real shoe. For me.
    Miss Smith had had to buy a whole pair. The man wouldn’t sell her just one. She carried the other shoe in a bag. “We’ll save it,” she said. “Perhaps someday...”
    I didn’t know what she meant, and I didn’t ask. I was getting tired, even with the crutches, and I only wanted to think about the walk home. But Jamie danced in front of me, smiling. “If they can fix your foot,” he said. “If they can fix it!”
    I smiled back at him. Jamie was such a hopeless fool.

Another thing Miss Smith did was exchange her old radio batteries for charged ones. Some folks in our lane had had radios, so I knew about them, but, as usual, not close up. Miss Smith’s sat in the main room on a glossy wood cabinet. As soon as we got home, Saturday night, she put the new batteries in and started it up. Voices came out, talking.
    Miss Smith sighed. “I wanted music,” she said. She reached up and switched it off. “I suppose we’ll have to hear all about the war, eventually.” She yawned and sat without moving.
    I thought of the food we’d bought. Apples. Meat. I stood up. “Want me to make some tea, miss?” I asked, by way of suggestion. “Cut some bread and dripping?”
    She frowned. “Of course not.”
    I sat back down, disappointed. I was hungry again. But then, we’d already eaten twice that day, if you counted the bread we swiped in the morning.
    “It’s nearly time for supper,” Miss Smith said. She gave me a sort of a smile, although, like Mam’s smiles, it didn’t make her look happy. “I’ll make supper. It’s my job to take care of you.”
    Right.
    But then she got up, and she did make supper. A huge supper. Ham. Boiled potatoes. Little round green things called peas, that came out of a can. Tomatoes, like the one Jamie swiped, only cut in thick slices. Bread, with butter. So many different colors and shapes and smells. The peas rolled around my mouth until I bit them and they squished.
    Supper was like a miracle, it was, all that food all at once, and yet Jamie, worn out and cross, refused to touch anything except