Which two traits can you infer about Mira in this excerpt from “Games at Twilight” by Anita Desai? The children, too, felt released. They too began tumbling, shoving, pushing against each other, frantic to start. Start what? Start their business. The business of the children’s day which is—play.

“Let’s play hide-and-seek.”
“Who’ll be It?”
“You be It.”
“Why should I? You be——”
“You’re the eldest——”
“That doesn’t mean——”

The shoves became harder. Some kicked out. The motherly Mira intervened. She pulled the boys roughly apart. There was a tearing sound of cloth, but it was lost in the heavy panting and angry grumbling, and no one paid attention to the small sleeve hanging loosely off a shoulder.

“Make a circle, make a circle!” she shouted, firmly pulling and pushing till a kind of vague circle was formed. “Now clap!” she roared, and, clapping, they all chanted in melancholy unison: “Dip, dip, dip—my blue ship——” and every now and then one or the other saw he was safe by the way his hands fell at the crucial moment—palm on palm, or back of hand on palm—and dropped out of the circle with a yell and a jump of relief and jubilation.