\u23f1 ~3 min reading<\/p>\n\n\n
On Tuesday afternoon, a courier rang at Ulyana's door. Ulyana was home alone \u2014 her mother was still at work, and her father would be back in the evening.<\/p>\n\n
In the mirror of the door peephole, Ulyana saw a young man in a yellow jacket, with a tablet and a box. Ulyana opened it.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cDelivery for Yulia?\u201d the courier asked.<\/p>\n\n
"I'm Ulyana," Ulyana said.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Ulyana-Yuliya, \u2014 the courier looked at the tablet. \u2014 Here is your address. Your apartment number. Sign.<\/p>\n\n
Ulyana signed it\u2014carefully, with her signature, which she practiced in the margins of her notebooks. She took the package. The box was not very large, wrapped in floral paper, with a pink ribbon. Ulyana returned to the apartment.<\/p>\n\n
She put it on the table. She looked at it.<\/p>\n\n
The box smelled a little like perfume and a little like something sweet\u2014like chocolate.<\/p>\n\n
Ulyana carefully turned it over. There was a sticker with the address on the side. She read: the house was hers, the entrance was hers, the floor was the third. And she lived on the first.<\/p>\n\n
Apartment number twenty-five. And hers is number seventeen.<\/p>\n\n
The name is "Julia".<\/p>\n\n
Ulyana sat down on a chair. She looked at the box. The courier made a mistake. The floor was the third, not the first. Yulia, not Ulyana.<\/p>\n\n
\u00ab"And I've already signed it," Ulyana thought. "So it's mine now? I signed it.".<\/p>\n\n
She imagined what was inside. Maybe a set of chocolates with a cherry layer\u2014the kind that mom only brings for the holidays. Maybe a pretty hair clip\u2014like her classmate Sofia's, with a mother-of-pearl flower. Maybe perfume in a small pink bottle.<\/p>\n\n
She felt sweet inside. So tempting.<\/p>\n\n
But then she imagined something else.<\/p>\n\n
That Yulia from the third floor. Ulyana hardly knew her - she had only seen her in the elevator: a quiet woman with a black ponytail, in a lilac jacket. Maybe it was her birthday today. Maybe she was waiting for a package. Maybe she was already worried - the courier hadn't come? But in fact, the courier had come - and gave it to Ulyana.<\/p>\n\n
If Yulia comes down, she will ask the concierge - he will say: "I only know that the courier came, gave it to someone from the first floor." And Yulia will not know. And she will walk around sad. And the gift - maybe from her mother, or from her husband, or from a friend - will be at Ulyana's house, someone else's.<\/p>\n\n
Ulyana took the package. She wiped the table and carefully placed it on the nightstand in the entrance hall so as not to forget.<\/p>\n\n
When my mother came home from work, Ulyana showed her.<\/p>\n\n
"Mom. The courier made a mistake. It's not for us.".<\/p>\n\n
Mom read the address. She nodded seriously\u2014and a little proudly.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Let's go and take it together.<\/p>\n\n
They went up to the third floor. The doorbell rang at twenty-five. Yulia answered\u2014really with a black ponytail. She had a phone in her hand, a look of concern on her face.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Yulia, good evening. This is for you, \u2014 said Ulyana. \u2014 The courier gave it to me on the first floor \u2014 he made a mistake. I signed for it because I thought it was mine. And then I checked.<\/p>\n\n
Julia looked at the box. Her eyes became round\u2014and then lit up.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Oh my God, I thought the package was lost! It's from my mother, from Poltava. For my son's birthday. He has a holiday tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n
Yulia hugged Ulyana \u2014 unexpectedly, warmly.<\/p>\n\n
"Thank you, child. Honest.".<\/p>\n\n
When Ulyana and her mother went down the stairs, her mother held her hand. The house smelled of her mother's borscht, and Ulyana felt warm inside.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYou see,\u201d said Mom, \u201cthe best gift is the one you didn\u2019t keep for yourself.\u201d.<\/p>\n\n
Ulyana nodded. Because now she knew: what belongs to someone else is what belongs to someone else, even if she has already signed for it. And the sweetest thing is to return it.<\/p>\n\n\n
\ud83d\udca1 If it's not yours, return it.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n
The courier brought Ulyana a package with a flower wrapper. It turned out to be a gift for her neighbor from the third floor.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":3185,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":""},"class_list":["post-2187","istoriya","type-istoriya","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istoriya\/2187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istoriya"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/istoriya"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}