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his brainstorming group with no sign of any storm whatsoever in his brain. Not even a raindrop of a thought. Suddenly, he smelled orange juice and felt a cold presence next to him. He looked up and saw Hoover Porterhouse standing on Mr. Wallwetter’s desk, snapping his suspenders and doing the craziest dance he had ever seen.
    â€œTell them you can turkey trot with a ghost,” he said. “Now that’s a winning demonstration if I ever heard one.”
    Billy’s stomach sank to the soles of his feet. This was not good. He was trying to fit in, to overcome his fears. And now here was the Hoove interfering again. The last thing he needed was a turkey-trotting ghost whispering in his ear. But making the Hoove understand that would be about as easy as balancing a tow truck on his little finger while singing opera in Italian.
    In other words, impossible.

It was South of the Border night in the Broccoli-Fielding household. Billy’s new stepfather, Bennett Fielding, loved to cook and always had a theme for each meal. In the three weeks since Billy and his mom had moved in with Bennett and Breeze, they had already visited Italy via Bennett’s lasagna, Japan through his chicken teriyaki, and Greece in the form of stuffed grape leaves and flaming fried cheese. The Greek night got a little out of control when the flaming cheese attacked the paper napkins and Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding had to douse the whole table with a pitcher of water. The family promptly traveled back from Greece to Jack in the Box for double cheeseburgers, which weren’t as festive but were at least dry.
    Billy had come home from school that day very tired after attending baseball practice. He was scorekeeper and never got to play, but sitting in the dugout and concentrating on each player’s statistics had worn him out. He was in his room taking a pre-dinner nap when the door flew open and Bennett came dancing in. He was wearing a sombrero and shaking his hips in a very alarming way.
    â€œ Hola , Bill,” he said. “Come into the kitchen where there is hot salsa to dip a chip in and hotter music to shake your body to.”
    Billy shook his head. He really liked Bennett most of the time, but right now he wasn’t in the mood to travel to Mexico.
    â€œI’ll be there in a while, Bennett.”
    â€œNo, no, señor. We need you now. There are ripe avocados calling your name, just waiting to be smushed up into guacamole.”
    Bennett danced over to Billy’s bed and extended a hand.
    â€œCome on, muchacho,” he said. “Everybody helps.”
    With a sigh, Billy got up and followed Bennett into the kitchen. The table had been set using a colorful Mexican blanket as a tablecloth. Billy’s mom was frying taco shells, and Breeze was browning the taco meat in a skillet. Bennett did a peculiar cha-cha over to the pan and took a sniff.
    â€œNo onions?” he asked. “You can’t have taco meat without onions.”
    â€œI gave up on chopping them,” Breeze said. “They made me cry, which made my mascara run, which is totally unacceptable.”
    â€œWhere are the onion goggles?” Bennett asked, opening the drawer where he kept kitchen tools like lemon zesters and cherry pitters and hard-boiled-egg slicers.
    â€œI don’t know how to break this to you, Dad, but I did us both a favor and tossed those puppies out before we moved.”
    â€œYou tossed out the onion goggles? Breeze, they’re crucial. Why would you do that?”
    â€œThree reasons, Dad. One, they smell like feet. Two, they made me look like an alien. And three, they were completely fogged up with onion fumes.”
    Bennett looked like he had lost his best friend. Billy knew the feeling. Before they moved, his mom had tossed out his collection of used chopsticks from his favorite Chinese restaurants, and he still missed them.
    â€œSorry about your goggles, Bennett,” he said.
    â€œI’ll get