Excerpt from Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

They stood up from the straw and she brushed the child down. He was a bony, startle-eyed thing—giving the impression of being thoroughly X-rayed—with an insubordinate crackle of black hair. She shook her head, laughing.

"What?"

"Zachary Lee, I honestly don't know why we bother evacuating you. You look as if you've been bombed already."

He scowled. "Well, you smoke like this."

He gave his impression of Mary smoking like Bette Davis, as if the burning Craven "A" generated a terrific amount of lift. The cigarette, straining to rise, straightened the wrist nicely and lifted the first and second fingers into the gesture of a bored saint offering benediction.

"Yes, that's it!" said Mary. "But do show me how you would do it."

Slick as a magician palming a penny, Zachary flipped the imaginary cigarette around so that the cherry smoldered under the cup of his hand. He cut wary eyes left and right, drew deeply and then, averting his face, opened a small gap in the corner of his mouth to jet smoke down at the straw. The exhalation was almost invisibly quick, a sparrow shitting from a branch.

"Good lord," said Mary, "you smoke as if the world might tell you not to."

"I smoke like a man," said the child, affecting weariness.

"Well then. Unless one counts the three Rs, I don't suppose I have anything to teach you."

She took his arm and they walked together—he wondering whether the lions would be dropped on Berlin by day or by night and she replying that she supposed by night, since the creatures were mostly nocturnal, although in wartime, who knew?

They rotated through the exit turnstile. Mary made the boy go first, since it would be too funny if he were to abscond again, with her already through to the wrong side of the one-way ratchet. If their roles had been reversed, then she would certainly have found the possibility too cheerful to resist.

On the grass they found the school drawn up into ranks, three by three. She kept Zachary's arm companionably until the headmistress shot her a look. Mary adjusted her grip to one more suggestive of restraint.

"I shall deal with you later, Zachary," said Miss Vine. "As soon as I am issued with a building in which to detain you, expect to get detention."

Zachary smiled infuriatingly. Mary hurried him along the ranks until they came to her own class. There she took plain, sensible Fay George from her row and had her form a new one with the recaptured escapee, instructing her to hold his hand good and firmly. This Fay did, first taking her gloves from the pocket of her duffel coat and putting them on. Zachary accepted this without comment, looking directly ahead.

The headmistress came to where Mary stood, twitched her nose at the smell of cigarette smoke, and glanced pointedly heavenward. As if there might be a roaring squadron of bombers up there that Mary had somehow missed. Miss Vine took Zachary by the shoulders. She shook him, absentmindedly and not without affection. It was as if to ask: Oh, and what are we to do with you?

She said, "You young ones have no idea of the difficulties."

Mary supposed that she was the one being admonished, although it could equally have been the child, or—since her headmistress was still looking skyward—it might have been the youthful pilots of the Luftwaffe, or the insouciant cherubim.

Mary bit her cheek to keep from smiling. She liked Miss Vine—the woman was not made entirely of vipers and crinoline. And yet she was so boringly wary, as if life couldn't be trusted. "I am sorry, Miss Vine."

"Miss North, have you spent much time in the country?"

"Oh yes. We have weekends in my father's constituency."

It was exactly the sort of thing she tried not to say.

Miss Vine let go of Zachary's shoulders. "May I borrow you for a moment, Miss North?"

Excerpted from Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave. Copyright © 2016 by Chris Cleave. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.