I’m watching Mrs. Brown.
She’s wearing a silk frock. I like the feel of silk.

Mrs. Brown never gets older. She looks exactly like a girl I used to know, called Sarika.. Sarika and I were at school together, when I went to regular school. Sarika didn’t have a father. She had never seen him. But she had a mother. She fell down the stairs one day and broke her head. The teacher came and saw her and screamed. The other teachers took her away.
The next day she came and told us that Sarika had gone home to her father. I think she was lying, because I went to her house the week after and no one was there, not even her father. I think she just died.

I am sitting with my crayons. It makes Doctor Mitra happy to see me with crayons. But I have found a way to divide a line into three equal parts with a compass. The math teacher once told me that it couldn’t be done without a scale. It’s called trisection.
I want to write a paper on it and send it to a journal. You first have to draw one of those four-sided things on the paper, with equal sides, at right angles to each other. I have forgotten the word for it, and I can’t write the paper until I remember. Mrs. Brown says it is called a sesquimaux, but I’m not sure I believe her. I think Mrs. Brown wants to kill me.

Today I met Doctor Mitra again. He said he would tell me a story, and then ask me a question. He always asks me silly questions. He once brought many faces drawn on paper and asked me how the faces looked. I knew two, no three, no I think it was two: happy, and sad. I thought four of the others were sad also, but it wasn’t right. They think I can’t tell when I’m wrong, but I can. Their shoulders drop a little, and Mrs. Brown laughs at me.

Today there was another doctor with him. I had seen him once before. I call him the nice doctor.
Doctor Mitra said that there is a funeral of a man. His two daughters are there. The younger daughter looks at a man, and she likes him, and wants to meet him, and maybe later marry him. Three weeks later there is another funeral: the older sister’s, because the younger sister killed her.
Doctor Mitra asked me why the younger sister killed her. I was wondering if the three weeks had any significance. I asked. The nice doctor said that it was just a random time, of no particular importance. It was perfectly obvious, then. The man the younger sister liked came to funerals. So if there was another funeral, then maybe he would come, again. So to cause a funeral she had to kill her sister.

I think that was the wrong answer because Mrs. Brown laughed again. I wonder why Mrs. Brown is called Mrs. Brown, because she is only six years old.
I asked the nice doctor if my answer was all right. He said that there was something in my head which was not like other people’s heads. Other people would have said that maybe the younger sister thought the man liked the older sister, and killed him out of jealousy. But I think that is foolish. In the story they never said that the older sister liked the man, or vice versa.

The nice doctor patted me on the shoulder and said that it didn’t matter, but I think it did. Doctor Mitra told me to go, and I left. The nice doctor has a mole on his chin. I think it has become bigger than when I last saw it. Maybe Mrs. Brown is making it get bigger, and it will get bigger and bigger until it takes over his head. And then Mrs. Brown will make him into a puppet, and use him to kill me. A puppet is a bad thing to be, it is made out of plastic. Or wood.

Mrs. Brown is gardening now. She is digging, and I think she may be cutting off the heads of earthworms. That is a bad thing to do; my mother told me that years ago. If I hide behind the curtain now, Mrs. Brown won’t be able to see me.

Now I’m watching Mrs. Brown.