It was planned to send two older children to the Caucasus from the orphanage, but they immediately disappeared into space. A twins Kuzminy, in the orphanage Kuzmenysh, on the contrary, said they would go. The fact is that a week before this, the digging they made for the bread slicer collapsed. They dreamed once in a life of satisfying food, but it did not work out. Military sappers called the digging site, they said that without technology and preparation it is impossible to dig such a metro, especially for children ... But it was better to disappear just in case. Damn this suburbs, ravaged by war!

The name of the station - Caucasian Waters - was written in charcoal on plywood, nailed to a telegraph pole. The station building burned down during recent battles. Over the entire many hours' journey from the station to the village where the street children were stationed, there was no approach, no car, no casual traveler. Empty around ...

Fields are ripening. Someone plowed them, sowed, someone weeded. Who? .. Why is it so deserted and dull in this beautiful land?

The Kuzmenyshs went to visit the teacher Regina Petrovna - they met on the road and they really liked her. Then they moved to the village. People, it turned out, live in it, but somehow secretly: they don’t go out on the street, they don’t sit on the mound. At night they don’t light the huts. And in the boarding school news: the director, Pyotr Anisimovich, agreed on work at the cannery. Regina Petrovna and Kuzmenysheys wrote there, although in fact they sent only seniors, fifth or seventh grades.

Regina Petrovna also showed them a hat and an old Chechen strap found in the back room. I gave the strap and sent the Kuzmenysh to sleep, and she sat down to sew winter hats from them for a hat. And I didn’t notice how the window shutter quietly leaned back and a black muzzle appeared in it.

There was a fire at night. In the morning, Regina Petrovna was taken away somewhere. And Sashka showed Kolka numerous traces of horse hooves and a sleeve.

The cheerful chauffeur Vera began to take them to the cannery. The factory is good. Migrants work. Nobody guards anything. Immediately scored apples, and pears, and plums, and tomatoes. Aunt Zina gives “blissful” caviar (eggplant, but Sasha forgot the name). And once she admitted: “We are so boimsi ... The Chechens are damned! They brought us to the Caucasus, and they were taken to the Siberian paradise ... Some of them didn’t want to ... So they hid in the mountains! ”

Relations with the settlers became very strained: the eternally hungry colonists stole potatoes from the gardens, then the collective farmers caught one colonist on a melon ... Peter Anisimovich suggested holding an amateur concert for the collective farm. The last number Mityok showed tricks. Suddenly, hooves clattered close by, the neighing of a horse and guttural cries were heard. Then banged. Silence. And a cry from the street: “They blew up the car! There is our faith! House is burning!"

The next morning it became known that Regina Petrovna had returned. And she invited the Kuzmenyshs together to go to the subsidiary farm.

Kuzmenysh got down to business. In turn, went to the fontanel. They drove the herd into the meadow. Grind the corn. Then the one-legged Demyan arrived, and Regina Petrovna urged him to plant the Kuzmenyshs in the colony and get food. They fell asleep on the cart, and woke up at dusk and did not immediately understand where they were. For some reason, Demian was sitting on the ground, and his face was pale. "Quiet! - poked around. - There is your colony! Only there ... it's ... empty. "

The brothers went into the territory. Strange appearance: the yard is littered with junk. There are no people. The windows are broken. The doors are torn off the hinges. And - quietly. Fearfully.

They rushed to Demyan. They walked through the corn, bypassing the gaps. Demian walked in front, suddenly jumped somewhere to the side and disappeared. Sasha rushed after him, only his belt flashed the gift. Kolka sat down, tormented by diarrhea. And then on the side, right above the corn, a horse's face appeared. Kolka flopped to the ground. He opened his eyes and saw a hoof right in his face. Suddenly the horse pulled back to the side. He ran, then fell into some kind of pit. And fell into oblivion.

The morning came blue and peaceful. Kolka went to the village to look for Sasha with Demyan. I saw: a brother stands at the end of the street, leaning against a fence. I ran straight to him. But on the move, Kolka’s step began to slow down by itself: Sasha stood strangely. He came close and froze.

Sasha was not standing, he was hanging, fastened under his armpits on the tips of the fence, and a bunch of yellow corn was sticking out of his stomach. Another ear was stuck in his mouth. Below the abdomen, black dangled in panties, entrails in Sashkin’s blood clots. Later it turned out that there was no silver strap on it.

A few hours later, Kolka dragged the cart, took his brother's body to the station and sent with the train: Sasha really wanted to go to the mountains.

Much later, a soldier came into Kolka and turned off the road. Kolka slept in embrace with another boy, apparently a Chechen. Only Kolka and Alkhuzur knew how they wandered between the mountains, where the Chechens could kill the Russian boy, and the valley, where the Chechen was already in danger. How to save each other from death.

Children did not allow themselves to be separated and were called brothers. Sasha and Kolya Kuzmin.

From the children's clinic in the city of Grozny, the children were transferred to a children's detention center. They kept street children there before sending them to different colonies and an orphanage.