The Manny Files book1 (2 page)

I waited for Lulu to have a fit.

She did.

Lulu put her hands on her hips and huffed, “I bet he doesn’t know how to brush hair or paint fingernails.”

I whispered the word “bladder,” and she ran screaming from the room. Then I danced around in circles like a circus monkey, until I
realized everybody was watching me.

Mom wrote down her cell phone number for the manny and said that she’d be back early in the afternoon. I hugged her around the waist as hard as I could to show how appreciative I was. She started walking out the door while I was still clinging to her. I finally let go as she entered the garage. Actually, she had to pry me off.

The manny picked Belly up and we waved good-bye to Mom through the kitchen window. Instead of watching Mom drive away, Belly stared at the manny while she waved.

“Let’s color!” the manny screamed like he was five years old. Belly jumped because it had scared her, but then she started laughing and grabbed the manny’s cheeks and squeezed them until he looked like a puffer fish.

I bet the manny was an artist and he’d come to teach me abstract expressionism. I don’t know what that is exactly, but Mom likes it. Or maybe he’d pretend to be my butler, and I could call him Jeeves and he could bring me milk and Oreos. Or he spoke six languages and knew lots of famous people, like Donald Trump or Weird Al Yankovic.

The manny sat down on the floor, cleaned up Belly’s mess, and began coloring with me. He colored a lot of things red. He said his favorite
color was red because he got a present once that was inside a red Saks Fifth Avenue box. I’ve never been to Saks Fifth Avenue, but I think red is my favorite color too. The manny was really good at staying in the lines. I watched his hands while he colored. He didn’t have any dirt underneath his fingernails. I bet he gets manicures like the movie stars do.

The manny let Belly color the top of his head yellow. It looked like he was wearing a cheese pancake.

When I needed a different crayon, I said, “Hey, cheese head, could you please pass me the purple?”

“Crazy cheese head,” said Belly, and then she laughed and rolled around on the ground like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

The manny laughed so hard that he snorted.

When we were done coloring, the manny pulled mixing bowls out of the cabinet and let Belly and me make potions. Belly loves to mix different things together. Vinegar and Gummy Bears. Ranch dressing and sugar. Olive oil and flour. She calls them potions. I like making potions too, but I pretend that I’m just helping Belly.

Lulu says that I’m too old to make potions. I wish I could make a disappearing potion.

While Belly and I mixed up a maple syrup and rainbow sprinkles potion, India and the manny made us a surprise lunch. They told us not to look in the kitchen, but Belly and I peeked anyway. The manny and India were using microwave-popcorn bags on their heads like chef hats. Lulu was sitting at the kitchen table listening to her headset and scribbling something into a three-ring binder. She looked up every once in a while and rolled her eyes in disgust at India and the manny.

“You’re going to get butter in your hair,” Lulu grumbled.

“I don’t have any hair,” said the manny.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Lulu snarled, and turned up the volume on her headset, so that even we could hear Celine Dion belting out the
Titanic
theme song.

When we fight in the car, Mom pretends that she’s Celine Dion. She moves her head around and pounds on her chest and wails to the tune of the
Titanic
song, “Near. Far. No fighting in the car.” It makes us stop fighting and start laughing, except for Lulu. She always yells, “Don’t make fun of Celine.” She calls her by her first name like they’re friends.

The manny threw an old sheet over the kitchen table, and I ran to get a flashlight from
underneath my bed. The manny served us lunch underneath the table, and we could see only by flashlight. It was like eating in a tent. Each of our plates had a peanut butter and banana sandwich cut into fourths, sliced carrots with ranch dressing, and a handful of popcorn. The manny even brought Housman’s food bowl underneath there so that he could eat with us. We sat close together underneath the table so Lulu wouldn’t kick any of us. Lulu ate her lunch sitting at the table and pretended to be swinging her legs to her music, but I think she was trying to hit us. She screamed and took her lunch into the other room when Belly stuck a cold carrot between her toes. We all laughed, but not out loud. We covered our mouths and shook-laughed, the same way Grandma did during Belly’s nursery school fall pageant. The children sang “This Little Light of Mine,” and Belly held her dress above her head every time they sang, “Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine.” Grandma had to leave the auditorium, but we could still hear her laughing from our seats.

We stayed underneath the table all afternoon, painting pictures with watercolors. India painted a butterfly. Belly painted shapes, but they looked more like blobs. Then she fell asleep in the manny’s kindergarten-style lap. The
manny and I painted portraits of each other. He was easy to paint. His head was just a circle with little ears on the sides. His portrait of me made me look really strong and muscular. He even put a superhero cape on me.

We were still underneath the table when Mom came home. She pretended she couldn’t find us. We huddled close together like she was an escaped convict who had broken into our house and was looking for us. Lulu, who had spent the entire afternoon in the living room listening to her headset and writing in her binder, stomped across the kitchen floor in her bare feet and ripped the sheet off of the table to reveal the four of us huddled together. We screamed at the top of our lungs, and so did Mom. Lulu screamed too, but it wasn’t out of fun. It was more like the “Aaargh!” that Charlie Brown screams every time Lucy pulls away the football in the “Peanuts” comic strip in the Sunday paper.

Lulu put her arms straight to her sides and marched toward her room. She was trying to be so dramatic that she accidentally dropped her binder, and papers flew everywhere. She scrambled for them, but I picked one up and saw that she had been making a numbered list. Number one said, “It’s a health code violation to let children eat on the floor.” She snatched
the paper from my hands, glared at me, and huffed into her room.

India told me that when I was really little, Lulu had gotten a nanny named Amy fired by telling Mom and Dad that she didn’t think I liked her because I cried every time Amy came over and Mom and Dad left. India said the truth was that Amy wouldn’t let Lulu watch
Jeopardy
until all of her homework was done. It made Lulu mad.

“Did I cry when she came over and Mom and Dad left?” I asked India.

“Of course you did, you were two years old. You cried when anyone left. You even cried when Housman went outside to pee.”

“I did not,” I argued.

“You did too,” said India. “It’s documented in one of our family photo albums.” She ran over to the bookshelves, pulled down a burgundy photo album, and began flipping through it. She stopped and pulled out a picture of me when I was two years old, standing and crying by the back door. On the other side of the glass was Housman, peeing in the yard. India’s story was true. I hoped her story about Lulu’s getting a nanny fired wasn’t true.

At five o’clock, after we’d made s’mores in the fireplace, it was time for the manny to leave. Mom asked us to go play in our rooms so that
she could talk to him privately. Ms. Grant has spoken to me privately at school. It means you’re in trouble. India took Belly into the bathroom to wash the paint off her face. I pretended to leave but hid behind the couch to see if Mom was going to make the manny write sentences:
I will not let Belly color my head yellow.
One time when Ms. Grant spoke to me privately, she made me write “I will not comb my hair during class” on a piece of paper twenty-five times. I thought it was fun. I didn’t tell Ms. Grant, but I like to practice my handwriting.

Instead of making him write sentences, Mom told the manny that she would like to hire him as our nanny. I let out a “whoopee” and then remembered that I was hiding. I growled a little and barked so that they would think that it was Housman. Mom and the manny kept talking. The manny told Mom that he never really stayed in one place for very long because he loved adventures. I bet he’s been bungee jumping and skinny-dipping. Those are two things that I’m not adventurous enough to do. I guess Lulu won’t have to work too hard to get him to leave. She hates adventure. She won’t even let Dad push her on the swings. The manny also told Mom that he understood if she found a nanny who could commit for a longer time.

Mom said, “I’ll keep an eye out, but for now I think that it would be great to have you working with the children.” Then he and Mom began to talk about pay and schedules.

Now the manny comes to our house every day of the week, except for Saturdays and Sundays. He said that Saturdays and Sundays are the days that he works as a fashion runway model in Paris. Lulu said that he was kidding and that he probably just does his laundry and dishes on the weekend like everybody else.

Lulu tries her hardest not to smile or laugh when the manny is around. She usually just sits and writes in her three-ring binder. She told India that she is keeping a log of all of the things the manny does that she thinks are going to scar us for life. She said that either she’ll use it now to reason with Mom and Dad, or she’ll use it later in therapy.

She calls it “The Manny Files.” I saw the title page, and the words were written really big like in one of Dad’s important documents.

Yesterday Lulu devoted a whole page in “The Manny Files” to inappropriate things that the manny thought were funny, like when he jumped on the trampoline with us. He laughed when I spun so fast that drool came out of my mouth. Drool always comes out of my mouth when we
jump on the trampoline. Usually everyone squeals “Gross” and won’t come near me. They never laugh. The manny even cleaned up my slobber with the bottom of his sock.

Lulu just said, “That’s disgusting,” and scribbled some notes.

The manny can do flips. He said that when he was little, his dad used to take him to the doughnut shop and make him do back handsprings for all of his friends. They always got free doughnuts.

I want to go to a doughnut shop with him.

He taught Lulu how to do a back handspring. She wrote down “Back handspring” in her “Things I Can Do” book, right underneath “Deliver puppies” and “Play the piano.” She told me that the manny really didn’t help her very much, but I could tell that he had by the way he grunted when he spotted her.

Lulu has been taking piano lessons for two years. I’ve never done anything for two years, unless you count wetting the bed. I did that when I was three and four. When I stopped wetting the bed, Dad bought me Egyptian cotton sheets. They were just like the ones at the St. Regis Hotel. I’ve never been to the St. Regis Hotel, but Grandma told me that they serve excellent room-service omelets, and that it’s near Saks Fifth Avenue. The carpets are red.

Lulu has her spring piano recital on Friday. She has been practicing two songs that she has to play solo. At school solo means “all by yourself, without the help of your neighbor.” I learned that when I asked my friend Sarah how to spell the word
committee
during a spelling test.

“Ahem.” Ms. Grant cleared her throat and stared at me from her desk. She asked, “Keats, is there a problem I can help you with?”

I said, “No. I was telling Sarah that I thought the bun in your hair made you look pretty.”

Ms. Grant spoke to me privately after school. She said she was “fixin’” to call my mother and father, but instead she made me write “I will work solo on tests” on a sheet of paper twenty-five times.

One night at dinner Lulu announced that she would have top billing in the program at the piano concert. She said that she wasn’t nervous about being on stage all by herself, but I could tell that she was. When India said, “All by yourself? Nobody else? All eyes on you?” Lulu turned white.

The manny told Lulu to wear lots of feathers and sequins like Liberace. India told me that Liberace is a fancy French cheese that is served with red wine. I guess you wear feathers and sequins when you eat it.

I’m going to order it the next time I’m at a fancy restaurant.

Lulu told the manny to mind his own business. Mom didn’t hear it. If she had, Lulu would have been grounded. We’re not allowed to speak to people (especially adults) the way Lulu spoke to the manny. I wanted to tell on her, but I stopped being a tattletale last year after I told Mom that Dad drank straight out of the milk carton. Dad called me a tattletale for a week.

Instead Mom asked the manny if he wanted to come to the piano recital with the rest of my family. He said that he couldn’t wait to start a standing ovation. Lulu got mad and promised that she would move to Kentucky and change her name to Spatula if the manny embarrassed her.

I hope he does.

The next day I went with the manny to pick up Lulu from her piano lesson. I usually stay in the car when we pick Lulu up from her piano lessons, because the piano teacher’s house smells like cats. She has eight scraggly-looking cats. Some of them are missing clumps of hair. One black-and-white fluffy one raised the hair on its back and hissed at me one time, and Mom had to pick me up to keep me safe.

I didn’t want to miss anything the manny did, so I went in the house this time. I stood right in the doorway and behind the manny. A cinnamon-colored cat rubbed up against my legs, while the black-and-white fluffy one stared at me from the top of the bookshelves. I kept an eye on him because he looked like he might pounce at any moment. The manny asked Lulu’s piano teacher if he could set up a booth after the recital and charge money for Lulu’s autographed sheet music. Lulu rolled her eyes and walked to the car like she was in a huff, but I could see by the
way her hair jiggled that she was pleased with herself. Mom says Lulu’s pleased with herself a lot. The piano teacher giggled and batted her eyelashes at the manny. We left the house just as a catfight was starting in the living room underneath the piano. We could hear the piano teacher trying to break up the fight until we were inside the Eurovan.