Named Eugenia, after Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, the eleven year old narator who has recently had a birthday narates as if writing in a journal her family's involvement with Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky. Her father is a wealthy man who owns the railroad. He and his family like the composer have come from Russia. There her family lived in a 40 room mansion but only on the first floor for the roof had fallen in. Although the story is fictitious it is based on true espisodes in Tchaikovsky's life. He did travel to America and go by train to various cities by train. He did keep a journal. ( )