Homework

the long version

"Mina Pereira longs for conventional childhood, and it's no wonder - born with protrusions at the top of her head that betray her every emotion, she feels like an outcast. These barometric antennae, wired to her brain, stand straight up with excitement or droop with humiliation. What makes things worse, she has to suffer the indulgences granted her sisters: obnoxiously precocious Deepa, who has read all of Dostoevsky by the time she is eight years old, and Shanti, who is painfully normal beyond reproach. When an illness leaves Mina's mother barren and literally roosting in trees, madness descends in full force upon the Pereira family. As their house falls into chaotic disrepair, Mina's father, in an effort to maintain some order, retreats to his basement workshop. Ultimately, he too succumbs to the insanity, tinkering one time too many with disastrous consequences for everyone."--BOOK JACKET.