On Sunday, Lulu met three different dogs at three different houses, all in Lulu’s neighborhood. Her mom went with her to every house, waiting outside on the sidewalk—just as she always did on Halloween—in case the people inside were witches or ogres. None of them were.

The first dog Lulu met was an enormous, bigheaded, bad-breathed brute named Brutus, who circled around her snarling and sniffing and sniffing and snarling and sniffing while Lulu waved her hand in a cautious hello.

“He’s deciding whether he likes you,” said Brutus’s owner, who looked amazingly like Brutus. “We’ll know that he does if he starts thumping his tail.”

Lulu quit waving her hand and started saying, “Nice Brutus. Nice Brutus,” though she didn’t think that Brutus was nice at all. And after he had finally stopped with the circling and sniffing and snarling, and sat himself down in front of her, and glared at her out of his beady bright-red eyes, Lulu quit saying “Nice Brutus” and glared right back. And a little while later, having decided they’d never be New Best Friends, Lulu announced, “Well, I’ll be leaving now.”

But as Lulu started to leave, Brutus jumped up, ran over, and knocked her flat down on the rug, then proceeded to lick her face and thump his tail. Brutus’s owner pumped one fist in the air and announced approvingly, “He likes you. Brutus likes you. He really likes you. And believe me, this is a dog that doesn’t like everyone.”

“And believe me,” said Lulu, standing up and wiping globs of dog-slobber off her face, “I am a girl who also doesn’t like everyone.”

She was about to add that Brutus was among the everyones she didn’t like when his owner said, “You’re hired. You’re hired. You’re definitely hired. And furthermore, because Brutus is on the large side, I’m going to pay you fifty cents extra a day.”

(On the LARGE side? Brutus was GIGANTIC—a mountain, a whale, an SUV of a dog!)

Still, two dollars and fifty cents and then another fifty cents made three whole dollars every single day, which meant that every five days Lulu would earn, well—after she figured out what she would earn, she decided that this was an offer she couldn’t refuse. And so she nodded and said okay when Brutus’s owner said to her, “See you Monday morning—six thirty sharp.”