On that very morning, Valentina and Oksana, bitter enemies, wake up to a red sky with blue clouds in the south. Not knowing what it was, they head off to school like normal. Except it isn't normal. Policemen are everywhere, and no one will tell them anything. Turns out, the nearby power plant, Chernobyl, exploded. After THREE DAYS the government finally started evacuating the city, and Oksana's mother was taken away because her radiation level was "too high". Oksana joins Valentina and her mother, and eventually, they travel to Kiev, around 60 miles away. There they stay with Petrovna, who after learning about them having radiation on them, kicks them out. Unfortunately, there are only two tickets to Leningrad so Valentina's mother has to stay behind. They live with Rita Grigorievna, Valentina's grandmother, for about 6 months. There, they encounter a new school, a foreigner's shop, and Oksana begins to work for Comrade Orlov to get a ticket to Minsk to get back to her mother. During Oksana's birthday party, her mother comes to take her back to Minsk. When she gets to her mother's apartment, Oksana realizes that, instead of trying to get her daughter back, her mom worked on getting a new husband. She then sees that he is just like her old Papa, mean and arrogant. Oksana sends a letter to Valentina, explaining her situation, whose mother has now come back to stay. Unluckily, Dyadya Boris found the message, and hit her. Meanwhile, in Leningrad, Valentina and her family are working on getting Oksana false identity papers to Uzbekistan to live with Rita's old friends. Eventually, they come to Minsk and rescue Oksana, and send her off to the foreign country. Now that everything is fine, Valentina's family moves to a new apartment, and Oksana is safe in Uzbekistan. My rating is 5 out of 5 stars.