"Saraswati, eat your apple."

"No ma, I won't."

"Bad girl."

"I am a good girl, ma. Don't call me a bad girl. I will tell pa."

"I don't care. Tell him. Eat your apple, now."

"If I do, he will spank you, ma. Mind it."

Pramila sat reminiscing about an episode from Sara's childhood. Sara was the quintessential four-year-old – diminutive, cute, charming and impeccably disobedient. She was the sort of child that you would rebuke, only to hold her in a tight embrace the very next moment so her pouting lips wouldn't lead to a spell of unbearable, cacophonous crying.

But this disdainful statement coming from a four-year-old, although it was the same Saraswati, was too much for Pramila to take.

"How dare you..." Pramila raised her hand to whack the girl when Kich entered the scene and promptly intervened.

"She's our only daughter and you have the heart to hit her?" Kich said, his glistening eyes going from white to pink in a flash.

"What if she is our only child? That is not a good enough reason to spare her, that too when she has said something not befitting her age," Pramila was in no mood to give up. She deftly swivelled, rounded Kich and landed a sharp whack on Sara's back. Sara wailed, climbed onto her father's shoulders and wrapped her slender arms around his neck. Pramila cooled down a bit after the next two slaps landed on Kich who put himself on the line to defend Sara like a brave knight defending a young princess from a hungry dire wolf would.

"Ma, do you know why I said I won't eat the apple?" Sara asked her mom after a while and placed her hand on her mother's shoulder. The tenderness of the little child's palm removed the last vestiges of anger from Pramila's mind.

"Tell me, sweetheart."

"Ma'am taught me a rhyme today in school," Sara said and sang 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.'

When she was done, she looked at her mother, her eyes welled up with tears and said, "Pa is a doctor, ma. I don't want to eat an apple that will keep him away from me. That's why I did not eat my apple."

Doctor Kich and Pramila broke into a raucous laughter, scaring little Sara out of her wits. "That's very sweet of you, Saraswati. But this doctor can't be kept away even if you eat an entire apple orchard. So, please eat."

"And why do you keep calling her Saraswati?" Kich asked Pramila. "Sara is short and stylish."

"But Saraswati is beautiful. Anyone who wants to call her Sara can do so outside this house. Now should I ask her to stop eating apples so the doctor can be kept away?" Pramila asked and the two said, "Your wish," instantly.

That was years ago. Today, she isn't the same old little girl that didn't want her father to be kept away. And I am sure she would love to have him around now as much she did as a child, Pramila sat thinking incoherent and random, but perfectly understandable thoughts that agitated mothers usually sit and think.

Meanwhile, Doctor Kich called the police control room to see if there was any news of his incognito daughter. Just when the connection was made and the phone rang twice, Doctor Kich hung up.

What if that devious Kiran is behind this? He shuddered at the very thought of Kiran. God! Hope he doesn't make me rue kicking him out of the house, Doctor Kich prayed earnestly.

Even as the doctor stood praying, his phone rang. "Police control room. What was your call regarding?" an annoyed operator said gruffly.

"Sir, my daughter Saraswati alias Sara is missing," Doctor Kich said and filled the policeman in on all the details.

"Hmm," said the operator. "Only a minute ago, a person named Kiran was caught driving on the wrong side of the road by our law enforcement officer, LEO Burphy. He told the officer that he was looking for his girlfriend Sara as she was not responding to his messages. I can see that you got in touch with us earlier too. We have the Law Enforcement Office looking for your daughter who could also be his girlfriend. Don't worry, sir. We will find her. Kiran is now working closely with Burphy."

Doctor Kich did not know whether to laugh or cry when he heard of Kiran having joined the search party. While he was relieved that the boy wasn't involved, he suddenly had none to suspect, and it drove him mad. A rogue virus was wreaking havoc and he had to finish it off.