“Fair enough,” said Jasper. “But you should keep this one. I think maybe you broke a world record for lint. Look at it! It’s truly amazing.” She held it out to me.

“Ha,” I said, rubbing the thick square of felt. “It is pretty ridiculous. But if I said anything to my mom, her eyes would get all sad and her forehead would crease, and she’d run her hand through her hair. Then she’d murmur something about trying to do better, and add lint trap to a list somewhere and then lose it. In her purse. And I’d feel guilty. All because of this tiny little thing I said. It isn’t worth it.”

“Isn’t that a Jewish thing, guilt? I’ve read about that.”

“I didn’t think guilt was only Jewish. But how’d you know we were Jewish?”

“You just mentioned Hanukkah, you goof,” she said, punching me lightly on the arm. “But also that doohickey on your door. What’s it called?”

“Oh, the mezuzah, yeah.”

“Yes, the meh-zu-zah,” she said, repeating it carefully after me.

“Anyway, I guess it’s not just Mom’s job to do laundry. I could help too, with the dumb lint trap. I guess we’ve all been pretty lazy . . . lately.”

“For real?” said Jasper, peering around the room. “This does not look like the house of a lazy family. Everything in the kitchen is so shiny and neat.”

“Oh, well, Olga cleans it,” I said. “The kitchen and the bathroom, and the floors and stuff, so things don’t ever get too gross.”

“Wow, you have a maid?” asked Jasper.

“Not a maid exactly,” I explained. “Just a lady who comes and mops and vacuums and stuff. Every couple of weeks.”

“Where I’m from that’s called a maid.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I guess. It’s been a new thing this year. We used to have a chore chart. And mostly we kept up with it. Dad did the bathroom. He called himself King of the Throne.”

Jasper laughed. “That sounds like a dorky TV-show dad thing to say.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “And Mom did the floors, and I did the dishes and . . . well, anyway we divided it all up. But then things changed. . . .”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Just, things changed. Mom and Dad started having trouble keeping up with the house. And I tried to help, some. But then I spilled a bottle of shampoo, and tried to vacuum it up, and it turns out you can’t vacuum up shampoo. Just in case you ever wondered. . . .”

“Uh, yeah,” said Jasper, with a grin. She wasn’t even trying not to laugh at me, but that was okay. The whole thing had been pretty stupid.