Madina is right.
The first is a figment of her imagination and has just moved to Zagreb "from where she can travel the world wherever her heart desires".
The second is "a symbol of death on the borders and migration routes through Croatia" and grew up far from home "on the longest street in the whole world", in refugee camps and under tents.
These are the main characters of the picture book "Children from Madina Husini's Playground", named after the Afghan six-year-old girl who was killed by a train on the railway line near the border with Serbia, where her family was sent by Croatian police officers, on November 21, 2017.
"This is a picture book that should be read aloud with parents and then talked about," Ena Jurov, illustrator and one of the authors, tells BBC Serbian.
The return of the story of Madina and the refugees to the public, as well as the initiative to name a certain "locality in Zagreb after her", are some of the goals pursued with this edition, says Olja Savičević Ivančević, the author of the picture book text.
"I hope we can achieve something from it, there's already a lot of talk about it."
"Ultimately, it is in itself a monument to that small life that was unfortunately short," the Croatian writer and playwright tells BBC Serbian.
The procedure is launched 2022 by entering the name of Madina Husini into the Fund of Names for naming public areas of the City of Zagreb, and the final decision on the proposal of the "Zagreb - City of Refuge" Initiative will be made by the Assembly of the Croatian capital.
A year earlier, the European Court of Human Rights he ruled that Croatia must pay 40.000 euros in compensation to the family of the murdered girl, who was denied the opportunity to seek asylum by the authorities of this country after crossing the border from Serbia.
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"Everyone jumped - except Madina"
Madina's story begins in the east, in her native Afghanistan, from where her mother, leading her five children, set off on a multi-year journey through Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia towards the European Union.
They spent several months in a refugee camp in Serbia, and one cold November night, the Husini family arrived in Croatia with two smugglers, where they were stopped by the police.
Their asylum request was rejected and they were told to return to Serbia.
Carrying out a so-called pushback, they were driven to the border in a police van where they were told to "follow the rails", the railway line leading from the Croatian town of Tovarnik to Šid.
"We were walking and suddenly we heard the sound of a train. We jumped to the side - everyone except Madina," He said her brother Rašid, in November 2017 in Belgrade.
The girl was hit by a train a few dozen meters away from where the Croatian police officers were standing, according to eyewitness testimony.
"The train stopped, and through the light I saw her lying face down. I went over to her, lifted her head and saw blood," Rashid added.
The body was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Croatia.
The family was not allowed to accompany her, but were sent to Belgrade.
Croatian authorities denied that they had treated the Afghan family harshly, claiming in a statement that border guards on duty saw them only after the accident occurred.
The family received the girl's body a few days later.
"When we saw Madina again, she was in a coffin."
"She was still covered in blood, no one had washed her face," she said her sister Nilab Husini.
She was buried at the end of the Serbian Orthodox cemetery in the border town of Šid, although the family wanted to bury the girl according to Muslim customs.
The body was laid in an unmarked mound, with a pair of wooden sticks driven into the ground.
From comics and initiatives to picture books
Ena Jurov came up with the idea for a picture book about an Afghan girl while wanting to help the initiative to name a public area in Zagreb after Madina Husina.
Having previously drawn a comic about the death of a little Afghan girl, she now wanted to "talk" about her childhood, life on a thousands-kilometer route to a better life, and in migrant centers.
"I want other people to know about these unjust stories, so that children understand what the border is and that they have the privilege of living in Europe relatively safely, while some other children, no different in any way, do not have that right, nor a passport," explains Jurov.
Writer Olja Savičević Ivančević came to the rescue with a story in verse "from the perspective of local children."
Although she has written several novels, poetry collections, and stage adaptations of children's plays, working on a picture book was challenging and different, says the author of several novels and poetry collections.
"I don't know if there is anything more shocking than the death of a child being hidden by state institutions, which are supposed to protect children, not send them to their deaths," says Savičević Ivančević.
Madina is right.
Two parallel plots unfold throughout the picture book - one follows Marina, the other Madina.
Marina moved to the center of the Croatian capital via Split and Berlin, where she immediately met new friends with whom she plays in Ribnjak Park, while the Afghan girl walks "on the road where people and children who are forbidden to travel walk."
"Madina travels towards that playground as a place of freedom, play, and cheerful childhood."
"But it never arrived," says Olja Savičević Ivančević.
Several other characters appear in the picture book - children of different nationalities, relatives, and parents.
And an important place in the story is occupied by the questions "why some children are not allowed to travel, how is it possible that there are people without homes next to so many houses without people, and to whom does this world belong?"
Children ask them to adults, and they don't know how to answer them, the picture book says.
They received details about Madina Husini's life from Marijana Hameršak, a senior research associate at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies in Zagreb, who wrote the final text about the Afghan girl in the picture book.
Public life, libraries and publishing in Serbia
The picture book was recently published, and the fact that it will "enter public life and libraries" makes author Ena Jurov very happy.
"It's important to me that it has an ISBN number (International Standard Book Number), that it goes to the National and University Library of Croatia and is there forever," the illustrator points out.
If this picture book helps people start talking again, not only about Madina but also about other children who are in equal danger, "we have already done something," believes Olja Savičević Ivančević.
An initiative has also been launched with the publisher to distribute the picture book to Zagreb kindergartens, "to children and parents who want it," he says.
And, she says, she would also like the picture book to be published in Serbia.
"It would be ideal if this happened at the border, which also has some symbolism," he concludes.
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