“It’s this big celebration that happens for a girl’s fifteenth birthday,” Fina explains. “There’s a mass and then a big party. Everyone gets dressed up and dances a lot. It’s supposed to mark the transition to womanhood. My grandmother has been planning mine since I was, like, two.”

“Cool,” I say. “I bet my sister would have loved to have one. She made Mom get a room in a fancy hotel so she could have a slumber party for her Sweet Sixteenth.”

“That sounds fun.”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t exactly invited.”

“Well, maybe for your Sweet Sixteenth, you can have a hair-dye party!”

“Not likely. My mom would kill me if I dyed my hair,” I reply, “no matter what age I was.”

“But at least you would be a very stylish corpse.”

We both laugh. Then Fina’s phone chimes.

“Oh, Ruby’s almost here!” she says. “I invited her, too.”

After a minute, there’s a knock on the door, and Fina opens it to reveal Ruby. “Hi, guys,” she says. She wrinkles her nose. “Have you been playing baseball?”

Ms. Ramirez comes out before we can answer and waves hello to Ruby. “Lunch is ready, girls!”

All that spider hunting has made me really hungry, and whatever is cooking in the kitchen smells great.

It turns out that Mr. Ramirez has made enchiladas. Highly delicious enchiladas. Only Mr. Ramirez doesn’t seem to think so. He shakes his head as he bites into his.

“Still not right,” he mumbles. “Darn.”

“All his students love his enchiladas back home,” Fina explains. “But he can’t get the recipe right here.”

“The tomatoes are different!” Mr. Ramirez protests. “Or maybe it’s the peppers.”

“It tastes really good to me, Mr. Ramirez,” I offer.

“Me, too,” says Ruby. Then she turns to Fina. “So, what was it like in LA? Did you know any movie stars?”

“We didn’t actually live in LA,” Fina says. “We were in this college town called Claremont that was like thirty miles from there.”

“And unfortunately, we didn’t know any movie stars,” Ms. Ramirez says.

“But we knew lots of history stars!” Mr. Ramirez adds brightly.

“History stars?” Ruby asks.

“You know, stars of the history world. In fact, last year, I was at a conference with Da—”

Fina elbows him just hard enough that he gets the point and goes back to eating his enchiladas.

“What’s your book about, Mr. Ramirez?” I ask. “Fina said you were writing one.”

“No,” Fina replies. “I said he was supposed to be writing one. But I don’t think watching Netflix all day really counts.”

“Last week, I caught him watching Pretty Little Liars,” Ms. Ramirez says, shaking her head. Ruby and I giggle, and Fina lets out a groan.

“I wanted to know what all the hype was about!” says Mr. Ramirez.

“You are so embarrassing, Dad,” Fina groans.