CHAPTER ONE
The List
Saturday, November 5, 2022
A ski village in the Carpathian Mountains
Babushka sat across from me at the kitchen table in the ski
chalet where our families had been living for the past few
months. Drone components were laid out in front of us, and
our shared tool set was spread out on a cloth between us: solder
gun, clippers, ties, and tweezers. Babushka\u2019s training as a jeweler
made her a natural for assembling drones, which were desperately needed by the Ukrainian army. When she asked if I
could help, I\u2019d jumped at the chance. I had just finished heat-
shrinking the second antenna to the frame of my drone when
Mom walked in carrying mugs of tea.
\u201cStop right there for a moment, Yaroslava,\u201d said Babushka.
Her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth, and her brow
was creased in concentration.
\u201cThere,\u201d she said, setting down her needle- nose pliers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cCamera secured.\u201d She looked up at Mom. \u201cThank you for
the tea.\u201d
\u201cRada, are you able to take a bit of a break? I\u2019d like to show
you something outside,\u201d Mom said.
\u201cPerfect timing,\u201d I said, stretching to ease the stiffness in my
back. We\u2019d been working for hours without a break. I grabbed
my mug and followed her outside to my favorite spot on the rock
that overlooked the mountains.
Mom pulled her phone out and swiped it on. She held it up to
show me. \u201cI just got a message from Dariia on my Facebook
Messenger account.\u201d
\u201cOh my God,\u201d I said. \u201cIs she okay?\u201d
\u201cShe\u2019s healthy. She\u2019s living with a Russian family in a suburb
of Moscow, and she\u2019s treated like a prisoner and a servant.
They\u2019ve changed her name and birth date. I\u2019ve got all the
details here.\u201d
\u201cWow,\u201d I said, pulling out my own phone. I always put my
notifications on silent when I make drones. \u201cI\u2019ve got a message
too.\u201d I opened it. \u201cThe same as yours, Mom. But there\u2019s a second one too.\u201d
\u201cWhat does it say?\u201d
I opened the second message and showed it to her. \u201cIt\u2019s a page
of addresses and names.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Mom grabbed the phone from me. \u201cIt\u2019s a listing of
Ukrainian kids, with their original names and new Russian
names, I bet. The addresses are in Russia. And the contact information lines up with the kids\u2019 Ukrainian names.
I think these are other Ukrainian kids who were kidnapped
to Russia, like Dariia.\u201d
\u201cDariia is so smart,\u201d I said. \u201cI bet that\u2019s exactly what this is.\u201d
\u201cThis is the best news we\u2019ve had in a long time.\u201d
I clung to Mom, and we bawled our eyes out. Dariia was alive.
We knew where she was, and we could now communicate with
her. And in typical Dariia fashion, she wasn\u2019t just worried about
saving her own skin, she was helping others who were stuck like
she was.
\u201cWhat do we do now, Mom?\u201d
\u201cWe tell her that we\u2019re okay and we\u2019re working on a way to get
her out.\u201d
\u201cBut how will we do that, Mom?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t know yet, but we\u2019ll figure this out.\u201d
Mom keyed in a message to Dariia and showed it to me before
hitting Send:
\u201cRada and I are sheltering in the Carpathian Mountains.
Your father is in a Russian prisoner of war camp. Info on other
kids welcome. We love you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Mom handed me back my phone. I leaned into her shoulder
and held the phone between us. I slowly scrolled through the
names until I reached the information about my sister.
\u201cShe\u2019s in Serpukhov,\u201d I said.
\u201cThat\u2019s practically all the way to Moscow,\u201d said Mom.
\u201cShe may as well be on the moon. How can we possibly rescue
her from there?\u201d I asked.
\u201cWe\u2019ll figure it out,\u201d said Mom. \u201cKeep scrolling.\u201d
\u201cLook,\u201d I said. \u201cThis girl named Genya is also in Serpukhov.\u201d
I scrolled back up to Dariia and then back to Genya. \u201cThey\u2019re
in the same apartment building. Even the same unit.\u201d
\u201cIf there are two kids in the same place, maybe we can connect with the other family and work together.\u201d
\u201cThe mother\u2019s number is right here,\u201d I said, enlarging it on
the screen.
Mom punched the number into her phone.
It rang, and rang, and rang.
No one picked up.
It didn\u2019t go to voicemail.
I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if the mother had been captured,
or maybe killed. Or maybe just the phone was dead\u2014 buried in
the burning rubble of a Russian bombing. I groaned. \u201cThis is
impossible.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Mom wrapped me in a hug. \u201cNone of this is easy. Show me
Genya\u2019s information again.\u201d
I scrolled to the spot and showed it to her.
\u201cLet\u2019s try the aunt,\u201d she said.
Mom put her phone on speaker and keyed in the aunt\u2019s number. One ring, two. Then a prompt to leave a voice message.
Mom looked startled. \u201cUm, ah . . .\u201d
I leaned closer to the phone and said, \u201cThis is Yaroslava
Popkova. My daughter was kidnapped, just like your niece.
They\u2019re living in the same apartment. Please call me.\u201d I keyed
in Mom\u2019s number at the prompt, then disconnected and sent the
same message by text.
\u201cThank you,\u201d Mom said. \u201cI had a deer-in-headlights moment.\u201d
\u201cI get it,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd now we\u2019re one step closer.\u201d
\u201cLet\u2019s just hope she gets the message and she\u2019s able to call
back,\u201d said Mom. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve got all these other kids\u2019 families to
work with too. We\u2019ll figure this out.\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHAPTER ONEThe ListSaturday, November 5, 2022A ski village in the Carpathian MountainsBabushka sat across from me at the kitchen table in the skichalet where our families had been living for the past fewmonths. Drone components were laid out in front of us, andour shared tool set was spread out on a cloth between us: soldergun, … Continue reading “Excerpt: Still Alive”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10371,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10370\/revisions\/10371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}