Plaid skirts and other things

The other night in an orgy of reading I finished Countdown by Deborah Wiles, a story of the way friendships shift and change set in the 13 days of the Cuban Missile crisis.  Man, did that book take me back!!  My Dad was all ready to dig a bomb shelter in the hillside below our house.  For at least a year, a water line with a spigot at the end stuck out of the hillside.  Then, he settled with storing cans of food in the basement, in the room we called the "dark room" because it was the only room that didn't have some kind of window in it.  I still have dreams about the basement in the years before all the rooms were separated by walls.  Some dreams are ominous, just the way a "dark rooooooom" sounds.

BTW, Countdown is an excellent study of many of the changes that were taking place in the USA at that time - not just the very frightening possibility of nuclear conflict, but background on Civil Rights Movements, non-violent protest, the songwriters that made their mark on society.  Every chapter offers a mini-history lesson through news clips, photos and lyrics.  And it's a compelling read, best of all.  I wanted to know how it would all end.

Then, because I hadn't read enough I devoured Ally Carter's Only the Good Spy Young, the fourth Gallagher girls novel.   Cammie is in London under the careful eye of her roommate, Bex's, MI6 operative parents when she is accosted by the man who may have tried to kill or kidnap her in Book 3. (I forget which - kill or kidnap.) Joe Solomon used to be the Covert Operations teacher at Gallagher Academy, the posh boarding school for girls that is really a training ground for the next generation of undercover agents and government or corporate spies.  Oh, and Zach shows up just before Cammie is grabbed by Joe.  But Cammie gets away and she and her roommates head back to school to find that things have changed - A LOT.  For one thing, the headmistress, Cammie's Mom, is not there.  For another, the CoveOps teacher is none other than the MI6 agent who questioned Cammie after the almost-snatch.  And for a third thing, Cammie can't shake Joe Solomon's suggestion that she "follow the pigeons" whatever that means.  Oh, and then there's Zach, again.  I L-O-V-E these books.  They move so quickly.  The teen characters are so likeable and so clever and ingenious.  And the whole series has moved from being a quick funny, mildly romantic romp to a more sinister, more - but not too - realistic and absorbing suspense.  Carter keeps the tone light with Cammie's notebook entries and some smart-mouth banter but she doesn't completely sugarcoat the realities of espionage and warfare.

Now, the cover of the Gallagher girl books all feature girls whose faces we can't see wearing the obligatory plaid skirt private school uniform.  A very cute, pink and dark green plaid skit, it looks like, with a dark v-neck sweater with the Gallagher crest and a white oxford cloth shirt, untucked, high socks and, are those boots?  I think so.

Well, both of these books reminded me of my private school education and believe me, we did not wear cute plaid skirts.  Not even in high school.  In grade school, we wore heavy woolen jumpers with rounded necklines that went up so high, and armholes that were so small, that the jumpers needed both a long back zipper and a side zipper to allow us to put them on.  Oh, and there was the highly attractive two-button belt.  We wore these itchy things over beige blouses with peter pan collars.  Very generous Peter Pan collars, so generous that they mimicked the bibs our teachers, Sisters of St. Joseph, wore.  The short sleeve blouses had very odd puffed sleeves with pleated cuffs.  I preferred the long sleeved blouses, of course.

We didn't have gym in grade school but in high school our gym uniforms...I'm sorry the memory is too traumatic.  I can't go on.  The jumpers in high school were less fitted but even more ugly if that is possible.  Then in Junior and Senior year we were given the option of wearing a seersucker yellow and white striped shirtwaist dress in the Spring.  With hems BELOW the knees.

A teacher from my alma mater recently asked me if I could find some old uniforms for a display.  I did ask around.  No one SAVED those things.  We donated them back for students who couldn't buy new ones.  Or, I suspect, had secret burning ceremonies after graduation if we were lucky enough to be the youngest girl in the family to attend that school.  I was not one of those lucky ones, alas.

Tonight's assignment is to read, A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner.  I have not read the others in this series but I think I will survive.  So far the writing is very good.

I need to tell you about Thomas and the Dragon Queen by Shutta Crum, too.  That will be in the next post.  Good night.  I have pages to read before I sleep, pages to read before I sleep.  (Sorry, Robert Frost!)