Mehitabel considers her doodles. She makes a few dots, and a circle, and underlines a sequence of consonants.

"If I pretended you got a doctor to fix me even though I'm not broken," she says, "Mommy and Daddy would be happy about that, but they shouldn't be. If you pretend I am very sick and that I died - then they will be sad about it, but they should be."

She sighs, and pokes along all the lines in her chart, re-checking.

"When I fix it they can find out I'm alive, right?"