The Mysterious Disappearance of an Old Lady

One day, Grandma (great) Manya disappeared. Here is how it was. Early in the morning, she got up, put on a beautiful sundress, took her grandmother's large bag and left. She took a tram, then another, and even another. It was a way to the dacha.

An important digression. A dacha is a country summer house where people grow fruits, vegetables, or flowers and relax on a sun lounger on the veranda.

However, let's return to my great-grandmother. She didn't return from the dacha at the appointed time. And her relatives began to look for her. At first, of course, they looked for Manya at the dacha. But there, the relatives found only traces of a short stay: cut flowers, collected fruits, and unfinished tea. Then, they looked for her all over Odessa. Neighbours, friends, her other relatives, acquaintances and even strangers knew nothing about where the Manya had gone. She was also not in the hospitals or the police. She wasn't even in worse places (where you seem to exist but are no longer there).

At that time, my parents and I lived in another city, one and a half thousand kilometres away. The vice-grandmother (the great-grandmother's daughter) called us and said Manya had disappeared without a trace. Ahhing and groaning, my mother began to ask if they had looked for my great-grandmother everywhere and if they had interviewed all her friends and acquaintances. And at that moment, someone rang our doorbell.

You guessed it right, dear reader. One and a half thousand kilometres from Odessa, Grandma (great) Manya stood on the threshold in a spiffy sundress. She had a bucket of apples and a bouquet of daisies.

"I came to congratulate Mashenka on her birthday," said Manya, beautifully emphasising the "O" in some Russian words.

Later, while Mom poured her tea, Dad said severely, "Grandma, the relatives are looking for you all over Odessa."

"Oh, why do they look for me?" the great-grandmother was calm and surprised. "I wasn't lost. I was on the plane."

It was the twentieth of July, my birthday. And it was a long, long time ago.