DAY ZERO
Milica was observing the street through the foggedup attic window. The view swept across the neighbour’s yard and the husky Bole. He was howling at nothing in particular, like a fire engine siren. Her dad must be tossing in bed, thinking about the fires he had yet to put out. The freezing rain bounced off the garage roof like a hail of nails. If only she could wake up invisible in the morning! Even though her curls covered the best part of her cheeks, that wasn’t enough.
It was a game Petra and she had made up long ago: which superpower would they have and why? Milica wavered between super strength and invisibility. Still, with the latter, she could hide from everyone at school.
Now, she was standing in the dimly lit kitchen, chewing a cardboard-like pizza. Halfway through a slice, she changed her mind and threw it all in the bin. She sucked in her stomach, then let it out.
“If only I could disappear.”
The fridge held nothing but frozen vegetables. Her dad had been promising for days to finally start that healthy eating campaign, though neither of them knew what that meant. His hat hung on the coat
rack. His boots, the kind you jump into with both feet, lay on the floor. When would he ever get to the supermarket? She’d have to go herself. An image of broccoli was glowing on her phone’s small screen, with green letters forming the title: Slim Waist with Greens. Five Healthy Salads That Melt Pounds in a Flash.
On the table, in front of the TV, stood an empty Fanta bottle and a bowl of popcorn that had been full until a moment ago. Only unpopped kernels remained.
That evening, after the big farewell, Dad put on a zombie film to show her that there were bigger problems than hers. He fell asleep precisely at the part where a horde of hungry zombies were chasing the main characters. Milica liked horror films. She found them relaxing as they were perfectly exact. She always knew who would get killed and when, which wardrobe the monster would come out of and who would defeat it in the end. Still, the monster had to survive to make a sequel. What she couldn’t predict was the next day. The first day without Petra. 09:34 pm Milica:
if we became zombies tomorrow, who would eat more brains?
are you packed? hope you’re not, that all the roads are snowbound and your dad realises he’s forgotten how to ski
In the house with a white façade, on the opposite end of town, that is, about a fifteen-minute walk from Milica’s house, Petra was in her room, turning a ballerina figurine over in her hands, a ceramic piece of evidence that she used to take ballet lessons, for an entire month. She frowned, remembering the strict teacher with beady eyes, the girls who talked only about food, and the uncomfortable ballet shoes. She threw away the figurine, suddenly and secretly, so her mum wouldn’t see. Luckily, Danijela was busy zipping up a giant daisy-print suitcase, into which she had packed perfectly folded jumpers.
“Are you done?”
Petra looked at the pile of folded shirts on the bed.
“Not like that, Petra! They’ll all get creased in transit. How did I teach you? Sleeves first, straighten the seams and fold once, twice. Like this!”
Petra started folding the shirts again. Sleeves, seams, fold. Sleeves, seams, fold. Sleeves…
“Stop, Mum, I’ll do it!”
She grabbed a framed photograph. Inside the white frame, Milica and Petra were sprawled out on the grass, smiling. Their trousers were green from rolling downhill and they looked so happy.
Petra carefully put the photograph away into a box labelled My stuff!!! Fragile!
“And where shall we put this?”
Danijela was wrapping certificates and letters of appreciation in newspaper sheets, carefully, as if she were defusing a bomb. Recitation, drama club, singing, volleyball, piano and Danijela’s favourite:
first place at the regional chemistry competition. Petra would have preferred never to see again those reminders of everything she’d tried by the age of fourteen, everything her mum thought she should try, everything in which she’d failed to find herself. She was going to say it now; she was getting ready. ‘I don’t need it; throw it all away.’ Or: ‘You enter the chemistry competition; leave me alone for once.’ Instead, she said:
“I’m going to help Dad.”
Danijela smiled and her perfect teeth, a match for the rest of her body, gleamed.
Dad shut the garage door with such a creak that Petra thought it was disassembled furniture wailing from the dark.
“Look, son,1 what beauties!”
He was dusting off his old skis.
“They just need a bit of waxing and they’ll fly!”
In the now much larger living room, Petra’s dad was happily trying on his skis when he heard: “Raško, enough. You’ll hurt your knee again and then what?”
Danijela raised her eyebrows, which was a wellknown sign. He put his skis away quickly and noiselessly. Even Danilo, everyone’s pet, aware of his status at almost six, seemed to be floating through the rooms.
“Peki, I am a ghost.”
“Of course you are.”
1 In Serbia, parents sometimes call their daughters “son,” translator’s note.
Petra let her brother drag her through the empty, suddenly unfamiliar rooms. In her room, there was a blueberry stain, Milica’s doing. Without such details, Petra’s room would have been utterly ordinary, always tidy. What would her new room look like without Milica to add colour? Would some new family just walk in here, into her house? Some girl would plant a little flag among the walls and say: “This is mine now.” And she wouldn’t know that one girl called Petra used to live here.
11:02 pm
Petra: whose house is this… it isn’t mine
She looked at the boxes lying all over the place. Stacked one on top of another, towers, a genuine cardboard city. In it, an entire family.
01:02 am
Petra: don’t straighten your hair in the morning I already miss you
At that exact moment, one heart was pulsing on Petra’s screen.
821.163.41-93-31
JOVANOVIĆ, Aleksandra, 1996-
Petra Is Really Gone / Aleksandra Jovanović ; [illustrated by Jakša Lakićević] ; translated from the Serbian by Nataša Srdić. - 1st English-language ed. – Beograd : Kreativni centar, 2025 (Beograd : Klik Tim). – 177 str. : ilustr. ; 20 cm Prevod dela: Petra je stvarno otišla. – Tiraž 300.
ISBN 978-86-529-1345-9
COBISS.SR-ID 163500297
