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could store the veena, he said, ‘Your veena will be safe. You have my word.’”
    â€œSo?” Mrs. Krishnan said, dipping a piece of dosa in sambar.
    â€œDon’t you see? He said veena . But that was before we started talking about it in the kitchen. How could he know what was inside the case when it was closed?”
    â€œMaybe he’s seen one before,” Mrs. Krishnan said.
    â€œNo—it’s a custom-made case. Nobody would know what was inside.”
    â€œWhere is Neela’s veena?” asked four-year-old Sree.
    â€œIt’s taking a nap,” their mother said. “Just like you did before dinner.” She pushed back a lock of his lanky, black hair that had fallen over his eyes. He was perpetually in need of a haircut because he was scared of the barber, and it was impossible for Mrs. Krishnan to cut his hair unless she had a whole bag of lollipops to bribe him with.
    â€œVeenas don’t sleep,” he said.
    Neela remembered something else. “And there was that teakettle.”
    â€œWhat teakettle?” Mr. Krishnan asked.
    â€œThe teakettle with a dragon on it. Hal used it to make my cocoa.”
    Sree stared at his plate and bowl. “There’s a fly in my sambar.”
    Their mother sighed. “No there isn’t, Sree.”
    â€œDon’t you see?” Neela said impatiently. “The teakettle had a dragon on it…My veena has a dragon, too.”
    â€œSomebody stepped on the veena,” Sree tried again.
    â€œBut maybe Hal didn’t take your veena,” Mr. Krishnan countered. “Maybe the janitor stored it somewhere.”
    â€œNeela stepped on it,” Sree persisted.
    â€œNobody stepped on the veena,” Mr. Krishnan said. “Eat your sambar, Sree.”
    â€œI’m done,” Neela announced. Why didn’t she see the connection before? She jumped from the table.
    â€œYou didn’t finish your plate,” her mother called after her.
    But Neela was already halfway to the study, her thoughts leaping ahead. A dragon teakettle. A dragon veena. Maybe she could find something that connected the teakettle with the veena if she searched the Internet. And what had Hal called the dragon? A why-something.
    Twenty minutes went by, and while she found pictures of veenas with dragons and dragons on teakettles, nowhere could she find anything that linked the two together. She stared at the computer screen. She had reached a dead end.
    Her mother called her from the kitchen. When Neela got there, her mother held a small brass plate with a tiny piece of camphor on it. Sree was standing next to her, watching. Neela groaned. “Oh, Mom. Not that.”
    Sree widened his eyes. “What? What?”
    â€œIt won’t hurt anyone,” Mrs. Krishnan said. She said it lightly, but there was a frown on her face as if there was something else on her mind.
    Sree jumped up and down. “What?”
    Mrs. Krishnan lit the camphor and it burst immediately into bright bluish-orange flames. A sweet, acrid smell filled the room. “Drishti,” she said.
    In front of Neela, Mrs. Krishnan moved the plate with the dancing camphor flames in two circles, one clockwise and one counterclockwise.
    â€œWhat’s drishti?” Sree asked.
    â€œWhen you drop dead because somebody wishes it,” Neela said.
    â€œWho’s dead?” he wailed.
    Neela’s mother glared at her. “No one, Sree. Drishti is a word for bad luck. I just performed an aarti on Neela, in case someone wished her bad luck today.”
    Neela watched her mother. “How is that supposed to bring my veena back?” she asked skeptically.
    By now the camphor had burned out, leaving a black, sooty residue on the plate. With an index finger, Mrs. Krishnan smeared a dot of the inky soot on Neela’s forehead, and then Sree’s. “When I was growing up, we always did this if we needed to ward off the evil eye.”
    â€œWhy