Lucky's Tree

By Marvin Paracuelles and Shukrije Pllana

The life was not easy for Don and his friends who unwillingly had to stop going to school and deal with a situation that created confusion and left them with so many unanswered questions. It was even harder for Don when he was forced to be separated from his dog Lucky who was as well a victim of the unusual circumstances. Without knowing how dangerous the situation was, Don and his friends started this mission searching for Lucky. Don had put his life in risk and faced so many barriers while attempting to reach his goal and yet he never gave up on his journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483641614

Marvin Paracuelles

Making her debut as a children’s book author with “Time with My Uncle,” Lori Marchand finds comfort and inspiration watching her great nephew, Mason, during his interactions with those who love him. Searching her local book stores and finding no “uncle and nephew” books that sufficiently conveyed their strong bond that blossomed before her eyes, she was inspired to write this one. This is a tribute to all uncles and nephews who share that special bond. Lori lives in Austintown, Ohio, with her husband, Rick. She enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with her family.

Book preview

Lucky’s Tree

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Shukrije Pllana

Illustrated by: Marvin Paracuelles

Copyright © 2013 by Shukrije Pllana.

Library of Congress Control Number:    2013908899

ISBN:                Hardcover                          978-1-4836-4160-7

                          Softcover                            978-1-4836-4159-1

                          Ebook                                 978-1-4836-4161-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 09/18/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

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CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Afterword

This book is dedicated to my granddaughter Bora and to all my future grandchildren. It is my gift to tell them how much my husband and I love them. Through this book, they will learn that their parents will do anything in the world to keep them healthy and safe just as most of the parents will do for their children. Most importantly they will learn the value of PEACE. Our world depends on our children. God bless all the children in the world and may God grant them PEACE in their mind.

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It happened in one of the villages of Kosova during the troubles of 1999. The territory of Kosova was one of the countries in the Balkan Peninsula, in the region of southeastern Europe. Kosova has been populated with Albanians since who knows when. My grandpa used to tell me that we were living in this place Den-Baba-Den, which means that the people who lived in most areas of this region were here a long, long time ago. Those people were called Dardane. Dardanet were one of the largest tribes of Illyrians. According to the archeologists and many others who studied the ancient history of the Balkans, there were three different populations who lived in the Balkans; Illyrians, Greeks and Thracians. Illyrians lived in the western area of the Balkans since the Stone Age. They were the oldest people living in the Balkan Peninsula. Throughout history there were many fights about the land among the different populations. Illyrians were attacked by foreign powers such as the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires, and others.

When the Slavic people came from the Carpathian Mountains, north-east of Europe, they gradually pushed the Illyrians further to the south and occupied their land. This happened over and over throughout our history. Unfortunately, as the centuries passed, Albanians, descendants of Illyrians, who speak the same language and have the same culture and traditions, were not able to live together. New political borders in some countries in the Balkan Peninsula were so strong that not even a bird could fly through them. Brothers and sisters and very close families whose destiny kept them geographically close, were so separated that they did not see or hear from each other for decades.

Albanians were not treated as equals by the other nationalities. They were never able to advance culturally or politically. There were constant ongoing attempts of ethnic cleansing and discrimination against them. In Kosova, Albanians were violated psychologically and physically. They did not dare speak up when something was not going right for them. If they did speak up, they would disappear during the night or end up in jail.

Ethnic Albanians studied in foreign languages as they were not allowed to use their mother tongue outside of their own homes. Kosova was the most undeveloped territory in the surrounding area. This situation was not because Albanians were ludicrous or sluggish and didn’t want to work, but it was imposed by others. Fortunately, things gradually changed. The University of Prishtina was established in 1970. Albanians were blissful about it, but there were still so many other things that went wrong and pushed them to raise their voices for democracy and equity. There were times when young students went into the streets and quietly, without any intention to harm anyone or damage anything, called for freedom and democracy. Instead of getting a positive response from the government, they got bullets. The great leader of the Kosovars, Mr. Rugova, whose only mission was to find a peaceful solution to the issue, asked the students not to go into the streets. The time will come, he declared, and things will change for good, we just need to remain patient. Rugova called on ethnic Albanians to be patient in their struggle for freedom so more lives would not be lost. The years passed but the situation remained the same or got even worse. The tiny seed of discontent which was filled by discrimination, fear and uncertainty that enlarged over the years among the nationalities of this part of Europe, finally burst in 1990 when the collapse of the communist era started.

Today Kosova is an independent country populated with ninety-two percent Albanians and the rest are Serbs, Turks and Romas.

March 24, 1999

Seven… eight… nine… ten… ready or not here I come. I don’t even have to look for you. Lucky will find you even without me. I was talking and walking. Lucky, my lovely dog was walking right beside me. Loli usually hid behind bushes and sometimes went up in the tree, but now she had changed her hiding spots. She found places where I would have to spend more time trying to find her, or sometimes I would not even find her.

It was very quiet. The sky was bright and clear. I was playing hide-and-seek in our backyard with my younger sisters Loli and Lisa. It was Wednesday and we were supposed to be in school but our parents did not let us go. Mom told us to keep our voices down when we heard a few fast military airplanes fly over our house.

We need to keep our voices down, I said to my sisters Loli who is eight, and Lisa who is five. Loli insists on playing no matter what while Lisa always agrees with whoever presents the ideas that she likes.

The airplane’s noises were quickly growing louder. We did not pay attention as we were used to those noises. I was walking toward the tree to find Loli when she suddenly jumped from a tree and fell on her knee, which started to bleed a little.

Don’t count this! Go close your eyes again, she cried.

No I will not, it is your turn to close your eyes, I said.

But I just jumped because I was scared from the plane. Didn’t you see how low it was today? I swear I saw the pilot looking down at us.

She did not care about her bleeding knee as much as she wanted me to close my eyes again. My mom called us to go in when more planes polluted the clear sky.

It is almost suppertime, she said to us.

My sisters and I did nothing but sit down on the floor and talked quietly. My daddy turned the radio on. That radio channel became a main part of our daily lives. Every day at the same time this light music would come on before the voices of the broadcasters—one male and one female—would start.

You are listening to the voice of America in Albanian.

My sisters and I became so familiar with the voices of broadcasters that many times we pretended to be them. I don’t know why, but my parents did not watch the news on TV anymore. They only listened to the radio news. We learned lots of new names from the news. The same names were repeated over and over: Rugova, Clinton, Holbrook, Blair, Milosevic. All the news was about these guys. I believe all of them were trying to change one person’s mind. They were trying and trying to convince this one person to stop shooting and killing civilians, but nothing happened. He was given the last ultimatum of twenty-four hours to pull all of his military people and artillery out of Kosova. If he didn’t, then his stores of munitions would be destroyed. The situation became very intense. There was no other alternative left. The NATO-North Atlantic Treaty Organization took charge. This is what the news said that night while my daddy bent down and held his ear right where the sound came from the radio. He didn’t move for half an hour. When the light music came on at the end, my daddy turned off the radio and said to my mom, They are counting hours. I think this is the end for him. He seemed to be happy about the news.

Until I hear it or see it with my eyes, I will not believe it, my mommy said.

You better believe this time, I am telling you. My daddy was very determined.

That night, on March twenty-fourth at eight o’clock, an F-117 Nighthawk took off from the Aviano Airbase in Italy. I remembered this from the news. My dad and I used to watch soccer on TV every night after the main local news was finished. That night we went to sleep early, right when the crazy loud alarm went off. The lights turned off. My daddy took me in his bed while my mom slept with my sisters. My daddy uncovered the bottom part of the windows that were on the opposite side of the bed where we slept, and then laid back on the bed. He pretended that he wanted to sleep, but he did not. That made me very uncomfortable. I had been very sleepy before, but somehow I too became sleepless. I was afraid that if I went to sleep, my daddy would leave and go somewhere.

Our eyes were focused on the window. The sky’s brightness almost made us blind. I thought I could see a thousand miles away through the chest of the universe. My daddy opened the curtains even more. A fire captured the sky while the rocket was coming with the quickness of light. I froze for a moment. My stomach hurt. I wasn’t sure if I needed to go to the washroom. I searched my daddy’s eyes. I couldn’t decipher the expression. I was surprised my daddy let me watch.

The very first missile was cutting the sky. It was dead dark everywhere, but the rocket made the sky very bright and it looked like the whole sky was going to catch on fire. The deep, dark, colorful sky looked red, mixed with yellow and purple.

Magnificent! My daddy was laughing and crying at the same time. He wiped his tears and squeezed my hand. I noticed his goose bumps from the light coming through the window. I didn’t know why he was crying and laughing at the same time.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. The rocket exploded somewhere. We did not know where, but I thought the sky was going to fall over us.

Daddy, how far from our house did that bomb drop? No answer. Hey Daddy, do you know? I waited for his response. Lucky kept jumping from the floor to my bed and down again.

It is far… very far from us my big boy. Look—Lucky is happy too… we are so lucky… we should be happy! he cheered while tears came down his cheeks.

I was kind of scared and started to have mixed emotions too. My daddy hugged me really hard.

No need to worry my big boy… we won… now we won… we are going to be safe. America is helping us. No need to worry my son, go to sleep now.

I had no idea what kind of game was going on or who we were playing with. An unusual thing had happened, but I liked to call