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us clean the house, we had to spend an hour trying to free Housman’s tail from the vacuum cleaner.
    Lulu, India, the manny, and I sat and watched cartoons while we ate bowl after crunchy bowl of Frosted Flakes.
    “
They’re grrrrreat,
” said the manny with milk dripping from his lower lip.
    “
You’re dissgusting!
” mimicked Lulu.
    The manny likes cartoons. I think his favorite is Tweety Bird. He laughs so hard that he snorts whenever Tweety says, “I did! I did! I did taw a puddy tat.” The manny’s head is sort of shaped like Tweety Bird’s. He said, “Thufferin’ thuckatash,” when I pointed it out to him.
    Lulu was in charge of bathrooms and floors.
    India was in charge of dusting and dishes.
    I was in charge of aesthetics, which meant that I had to make the rooms beautiful. I would have to choose the most perfect flower arrangement for the dining-room table and the most interestingart books for the coffee table. The manny told me that aesthetics were very important because they could make our living room—which was usually filled with stuffed animals, plastic groceries from Belly’s toy shopping cart, and scattered puzzle pieces—seem a little more elegant.
    He said, “The person who is in charge of aesthetics needs to be sensitive to both art and beauty.”
    I was born for this role.
    I ran to my room and changed into my T-shirt from the Museum of Modern Art for inspiration, the one that Uncle Max had given me. He calls the Museum of Modern Art “MoMA.” Uncle Max is an oil painter and dreams of having his work hang in MoMA. Right now he hangs his paintings in his basement. They are mostly of naked people reading books. Lulu thinks that he should paint more puppies and horses and things that match people’s couches. She hates naked people.
    India told me that Lulu probably wears her swimsuit in the shower.
    While we each began our assigned jobs, the manny began putting away all the toys that didn’t find their way back into the toy closet while Mom was away. Mom makes us pick up our own toys. We hardly ever get the fun jobs like bathrooms and dishes.
    Belly woke up and walked into the living room wearing nothing but a diaper and carrying her dolly, Tina, which had no head. A few months earlier Belly and Tina were riding in the back of Mom’s Volvo. Belly likes to play with the automatic windows.
    Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
    She lifted Tina’s head up to the window so that Tina could see an airplane that was flying overhead. She decided to let Tina hang in the window for a little bit. She rolled the window up almost all the way, so that Tina hung there with her head on the outside of the car and her body on the inside. Then Belly laughed and pressed the window button up until the window was completely closed and Tina’s head popped off. Mom didn’t even notice until she looked in her rearview mirror and saw Tina’s head bouncing down the road behind the car. Mom spun around and looked into the backseat.
    Belly said, “I’m crazy,” and shrugged her shoulders as if to say,
I can’t help it.
    I think it’s creepy that Belly still carries Tina’s headless body around.
    The manny calls the doll DecapiTina.
    Belly and DecapiTina planted themselves on the couch, snuggled under a blanket, and watched cartoons.
    Whenever we would finish a job, the manny would inspect. He’d cross his arms and say, “Hmmm,” running his finger along surfaces to see if they had been cleaned properly. He thought Lulu did a beautiful job on the bathroom. Everything gleamed like capped teeth. Shiny faucets. Shiny toilet. Shiny floor.
    The manny said, “This bathroom is so clean we could eat right on the floor.”
    We did.
    We had a picnic lunch, complete with fried chicken and lemonade, right on the bathroom floor. Normally Lulu would never eat in the bathroom, but she did because she was pleased with herself. She grinned the same way that she had when she was named Typist of the Year at last year’s awards