We are back in Patty and Ginger land. Or as I like to think of it - Ginger and Patty land. Because Patty is a dud and Ginger is everything good about teenage girls.
There is a big dance coming up at the club and Spark Plug has a tux! He hasn't asked Ginger yet, but we are all a-twitter hoping he does.
Patty is now dating Bill Somebody, the BMOC of Cheltham high school. And she is very excited about the extremely skanky dress she purchased for the dance. Her parents, however, are not pleased and even though they won't discipline her, they will fight (An ashtray is smashed!) with her to show their displeasure.
Patty runs away to Ginger's, you know, across the back yard. And she becomes Ginger's problem. There is a lot of Ginger pining for Spark Plug, there is a bit about (fat) Mary Lou conspiring to get a date in spite of her fatness. She is introduced as she is having a second dish of ice cream. Catty, Janet, very catty. Mary Lou also has squinty eyes and is very nosy about other people's business. I am Mary Lou all over.
Maybe this dance is for graduation? Sparky is graduating and he is very disinterested in what that entails. He doesn't want to send his invitations out because he feels like that is just a way to get people from out of town to buy him presents, and he has everything he needs. SO noble.
There is a sweet bit from Ginger's father's perspective about watching his little girl go to her first dance. The sweetness is destroyed by hurricane Patty who is enraged when she learns her mother has altered her dress to make it less skanky. Ginger and Sparky go to the dance, but Patty is nowhere to be found!
It turns out that she has blown off Bill (nice, on the night of his senior prom-like-thing) and is running away to Philadelphia. She gets on the wrong bus , of course, and is terrified in the city. A man actually pulls his car over and asks if she wants a ride! Shocking!
She gets to the hotel Belfort and sticks out like a sore thumb. The clerk can spot a runaway a mile away and he has a daughter Patty's age so he offers to let her snooze on the couch in his office while she waits for her father. She says she missed her flight home from boarding school and her father's coming to buy her some clothes. Her story reeks of BS.
Everyone convenes back at home and the parents start calling hotels. Ginger tells Sparky, "I'm never going to be so stupid again. I'm never going to let Patty put it over on my and make me feel sorry for her. When we get her back, I'm going to tell her the facts of life: parents run the show." Sadly, this is information that Patty will continue to ignore for at least two more books... She also takes the opportunity to tell him that he is taking her to the junior-senior dance. He accuses her of thinking they are going steady and she is as horrified as he is. Going steady is WRONG!!
The Palmers head out to Philly to get Patty.
The next morning Mary Lou calls to interrogate Ginger who doesn't spill the tea. She tells her parents "If anyone asks for me, tell them I've gone off in my space ship." Yes, we are in the space age now!
It turns out that Sparky has an offer on Beauty, his beloved car. He invites Ginger to come out and meet with the guy. Not for her company but because he thinks the guys will try to shake him down for the story of what happened to Patty and he can't be bothered.
SO they are off to the lands of the rich Mr. Clivesdale - who has a MAID! Sparky is talking bugs and motors and Ginger has to explain that bugs is a slang term for germs. Here's a tip Janet - if you have to explain the slang to your audience, it probably isn't worth including.
Sparky takes Mr. C for a drive and Ginger hangs out with Steve. She deconstructs his history a bit - from Patty's steady to Sparky's henchman. He is P&G's age and Ginger thinks that he and Mary Lou are going to be the only ones left in the crowd when Tim and Sparky go to college and Patty is sent to bad-girl boarding school.
Tim joins the conversation and when Ginger rebuffs his talk of Patty he changes the topic to how cool and funny Mary Lou is. Well, all right, Tim! Way to appreciate the fat, funny girl!
On the way home Sparks says he got a prime offer to think about. Ginger is a little sad, things are coming to an end, Beauty and the boys will be gone in the fall. They try to cheer her up with ice cream. Tim intimates that he will be proposing to her in 5 years. Although he also mentions that Spark was named "most likely to succeed" in the yearbook, so it is unlikely that she will choose a rich hottie like Tim when a future world leader will surely someday go through puberty and notice her.
Turns out he has been offered a job taking care of Mr. C's cars down at the shore for the summer. Ginger overhears and is heartbroken,
Next morning Ginger goes to pick up Patty to walk to school. Her parents are fighting about her and she asks Ginger if she is a delinquent. Ginger says, "You don't care how many people you hurt, just as long as you get your own way. But that doesn't make you a delinquent." Just a shitty person...
When Patty asks what makes a delinquent, Ginger has an answer ready. "Skipping school, stealing, lying, and - ewll, smooching with boys. You're awfully boy-crazy, Patty, but you don't - you don't smooch, do you?" Wow, there's a lot to unpack there!
Patty says, "No, Tim kissed me once - sort of, and Bill keeps trying to, but - I don't smooch, Perse, truly I don't." And Ginger buys that line of hooey. It turns out that Patty's parents took her to Bill's to apologize the night before and he was basically like, "I'd love to stay and hear you debase yourself, but I've got a date." And he left. HA!
When they get inside, Ginger runs gossip-blocker for Patty. She's a dear. After school they go to the malt shop. Ginger attempts to teach Patty how to be a decent person but eventually gives up. Mary Lou and Jane show up and Mary Lou tries to get the goss, but Patty shuts her down. She makes it about the dress and they get talking about lipstick, earrings and clothes and ML gives Patty the earrings she just bought as a little "sorry for delighting in your drama" present.
On the way home Patty talks about how she is going to be a good girl now. "You told me that I'm not one of those delinquent girls that you read about in the newspapers - defying their parents, and getting into trouble, and making all the headlines - so I've got to prove it."
Janet says it nicely, "The long, tiring day hadn't been wasted. Patty had come to her senses at last, and Ginger was proud to be the one to see it happen. That she had played a large part in bringing it about didn't enter her mind."
Spark Plug is hanging out near the house and he still has Beauty! Ginger is still pissed that he hasn't said anything about the summer job and basically tells him that she knows, but he is clueless.
Cleaning up from dinner, Sparky talks to his mom as much as his repressed future-engineer soul will let him. He wonders what to do about Ginger being mad. He goes over and of course she forgives him without him even having to say anything. At one point she says, "Oh, Spark Plug, you're always way out in space." Apparently, space was a big deal in 1960.
Sparky asks her to keep an eye on his mom and dad while he's at college. He is a boy who loves his parents, and America. He says, "There's that subject you and I were talking about the other night and never did finish, The American family - parents and kids. I suppose Mom and Dad feel as if they've finished their job on me and have taken me as far as they can, that whatever I am I am, and have grown up to be. Unhuh. That's not true. I'm molded, sure. But you know something? Everybody who has ever figured in my life, will affect my future." And then he offers Tim as a suitor even though "Jealousy had bored into [his] chest for more than 24 hours."
Ginger can't resist bringing up Tim's offhand five-years-from-now proposal. She assures him that she isn't interested in. And he rewards her by telling her that he is going to stay home and work at the bowling ally with someone called Styx. He sounds shady...
Spark makes the interesting observation - "It's queer...that we grown up and get to the age where we hide our feelings." Ginger doesn't comment but ends the book by saying, "Will you give me a ride." But in a completely wholesome, non-smoochy way.
This book had some interesting plot points - Sparky graduating and giving up Beauty and Patty being horrid, but rereading, there is a lot of filler. Still, it is fun to hang with this crowd and look at Janet's ham-handed treatment of juvenile delinquency. I can certainly take three more volumes of these wacky kids.
