Billy walked into Breeze’s room after dinner to find her standing on a chair, trying to attach one end of a bungee cord to the curtain rod. The other end was already attached to the top of her doorjamb. She was having a hard time, because the cord was already stretched to its limit.

“What’s going on here?” Billy asked.

The sound of his voice so startled Breeze that she let go of the cord. It boomeranged across the room, making a snapping sound as it sailed through the air, and just missed Billy’s nose by the length of a pencil eraser.

“Whoa,” he said, as he dropped to the rug. “Watch what you’re doing, Breeze. That’s a dangerous weapon you’ve got there. What are you doing with it, anyway?”

“I’m creating a boundary line.”

“With a bungee cord?”

“It’s not finished, doofus. I’m going to string the bungee across my room, then hang a sheet over it. You will stay on your side of the sheet at all times and can only cross over to my side of the room if you say the secret password.”

“Okay, this is ridiculous, but I’ll play along. What is it?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Breeze got off the chair and retrieved the other end of the bungee. This time, she successfully hooked it onto the curtain rod. Then she went to the linen closet and brought back two sheets with pink ballerina mice dancing all over them.

“You’re putting those up?” Billy commented. “I can’t look at pink mice all night.”

“These were my favorite sheets when I was your age. Seven.”

“You really know how to hurt a guy, hitting him with a marshmallow like that.”

Breeze didn’t answer. She was already busy throwing the sheets over the bungee cord and making sure they touched the floor so Billy couldn’t see a thing on her side. The Hoove, who had just woken up from his long nap, stuck his head through the closet keyhole and surveyed the scene.

“Is she serious?” he said to Billy. “Because if she is, she is seriously misguided. Hoover Porterhouse the Third does not stick to anyone’s boundaries but his own. And certainly not those established by girls with blue streaks in their hair.”

“Seems to me the Higher-Ups have another opinion about you and boundaries,” Billy whispered.

“Those don’t count,” the Hoove said. “They’re just temporary until I show them who’s boss.”

Suddenly, a clap of thunder boomed so loud it made the windows rattle.

“Where did that come from?” Breeze shrieked. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

Billy looked over at the Hoove.

“I think the Higher-Ups are talking to you, buddy. You might want to show a little respect.”

When the sheets were hung to Breeze’s satisfaction, she pushed them aside to enter Billy’s side of the room.

“These are my conditions,” she began, clearing her throat as if she were an actress on a stage. “First, this is my room and you touch nothing in it, especially my guitar. It’s the instrument by which I express my soul and no one handles it but me.”

“Maybe someone should tell her that her soul is out of tune,” the Hoove commented.

“Second, you are to breathe as little air in here as possible. I would appreciate you exhaling in the direction of the door. I don’t want my room polluted by your pizza breath.”

“Breeze, I haven’t had pizza in a week,” Billy protested.

“You wouldn’t know it from the pepperoni and garlic aroma that follows you like a cloud.”

“Billy Boy,” the Hoove said, floating completely out of the closet and coming right up to him. “You’re not going to take this abuse, are you? Because this girl is really razzing my berries.”

“Furthermore,” Breeze continued, “there’s no eating or drinking in my room. So tell me now where you’re hiding the orange juice.”

“I don’t have any, Breeze. Honest.”

“It smells like you brought the orange tree from the front yard in here.”

Billy had no good answer for Breeze’s complaint. He couldn’t tell the truth. The Hoove always smelled like oranges, because when the property had been the Porterhouse ranchero, he’d spent lots of time wandering around their orange groves. And when he got riled up, his odor got even more intense and tangy.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Billy said. “You can conduct a search of my person if you like, and I promise you won’t find an orange or a grapefruit or any other fruit known to mankind. So is that your third condition … no eating or drinking?”

“No, that’s a subsection B footnote,” Breeze answered. “My actual third condition is that you can only be in here when you’re asleep. No hanging out in an awake state.”

This did it for the Hoove. He had reached his limit of taking orders from Breeze. He felt like he was on the verge of exploding.

“I can’t take this anymore,” he said to Billy. “She is not the boss of us. So stand back and observe as a master rule breaker moves her precious guitar and hangs it from the light fixtures. Let’s see how she likes them apples.”

“No! You can’t do that!” Billy said in a loud voice.

“Can’t do what?” Breeze answered. “Let me remind you, youngster, that this is my room and I can do whatever I please, which includes demanding that you turn your ears off when I’m on the phone.”

As Breeze went on to explain the dos and don’ts of living in her room, the Hoove drifted over to her guitar, lifted it off its stand, and, flying up to the light fixture on the ceiling, hung the guitar from its tie-dyed strap. It seemed to be floating in midair.

“Hey, music babe,” the Hoove called out. “Take a gander at this. It’s a doozy.”

Of course, Breeze couldn’t hear the Hoove or see what he had done, but Billy could. As he looked in shock at the guitar hanging from the ceiling, his mouth flew open in horror. Seeing his reaction, Breeze turned around and gasped when she saw that her beloved instrument had been moved.

“What part of ‘don’t touch it’ do you not understand?” she screamed directly into Billy’s face. And without waiting for an answer, she jumped on her bed and reached up to take her guitar down, cradling it in her arms like a baby.

“That’s it,” she said to Billy. “You haven’t even been in my room for six minutes and already you have broken my most important rule. I am declaring an end to room sharing right here, right now.”

She put her guitar back on its stand, then stomped over to the futon. She bent down and grabbed hold of the mattress. Yanking it with all her might, she dragged it through her door and into the hallway, letting it plop down against the wall. Billy followed her out into the hall.

“Say hello to your new guest quarters,” she said.

“I can’t sleep out here, and you know it.”

Without a word, Breeze marched back into her room and answered him by slamming the door so hard that it created enough wind to mess up Billy’s hair. The Hoove floated through the door, holding his sides and laughing up a storm.

“Did you see the look on her face?” he howled. “We showed her a thing or two.”

“And what exactly did we show her, Hoove? That I get to sleep in the hall?”

“Oh, come on, it was worth it. We didn’t let her push us around. I feel very good about that and you should, too.”

“What should I feel good about? That I’m sleeping in the hall? That I get to go to school tomorrow wiped out, with dark circles under my eyes?”

“You are missing the point, William. We took care of business. Who cares if you miss one night of sleep?”

“I care. I happen to have a math quiz tomorrow that I was hoping to do well on.”

“The problem with you, Billy Boy, is that you’re so responsible. Who cares about a math quiz? You’ve got to lighten up a little.”

“The problem with you, Hoove, is that you’re not responsible enough! If you looked up Hoover Porterhouse the Third in the dictionary, it would say irresponsible.”

“I disagree with your definition. I think it would say handsome. Or dashing. Or both.”

“No wonder the Higher-Ups are flunking you in Responsibility.”

“This conversation has taken a boring turn.” The Hoove yawned. “So if you’ll excuse me, I will retire and snooze it up on the ceiling-fan blade.”

“Oh, sure, you can sleep anywhere,” Billy said to the Hoove. “But not me. I’m going to fail my math quiz. I have to listen to the toilet flush all night. And all because of you. You and your lack of responsibility are driving me crazy.”

“Let me remind you, William, that you’re not a perfect peach, either.”

The Hoove floated up to the ceiling and stretched himself out on a blade of the hall ceiling fan. He put his hands behind his head, let out a loud yawn, and said, “Hey, this is a first for me. In all my ninety-nine years, I’ve never slept on a fan. And you know what … it’s kind of cozy up here.”

Down below, Billy paced back and forth in the little aisle that was left between the futon and the wall. He was furious at the Hoove. He dropped to his knees on the futon and pounded the mattress with all his might.

“Hey, do you mind keeping it down?” the Hoove called out. “Some of us have to get our beauty rest.”

“I swear, Hoove, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to figure out some way to stuff responsibility down your nonexistent throat.”

“You do that, buddy. In the meantime, I’m going to get some shut-eye. Though it’d be a lot easier if I had eyelids.”

The Hoove guffawed at his own joke, then fell immediately asleep.

Not Billy. He paced back and forth, trying to figure out how to teach a ghost to be responsible. By the time the sun came up, he still hadn’t found an answer.