Olivia Sharp, Agent for Secrets

The Green Toenails Gang by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Mitchell Sharmat, 2005.

Olivia’s best friend, Taffy, who left San Francisco and moved to Carmel just before the beginning of the first book in the series, writes a letter to Olivia and invites her to come for a visit.  In her letter she mentions that there is a club in Carmel that she doesn’t want to join.  Olivia senses that Taffy is upset about something and decides to visit her for the weekend.

When Olivia visits Taffy, Taffy tries to persuade her at first that nothing is bothering her, but Olivia correctly guesses that the club she was talking about is one that refuses to let her in and that she’s upset about it.  Taffy calls the club “stupid,” and Olivia says that “lots of clubs are stupid. Like, if three people have green toenails they form a green toenails club and leave everybody else out.” (I like the way Olivia puts things.)  Taffy is inspired by what Olivia says, and she suggests that they should really form a green toenails club and exclude everyone, including the members of the other club.  Olivia thinks that the idea is interesting, but the problem is that there is only the two of them (three, if they can persuade Olivia’s chauffeur to join them) and that when Olivia goes back to San Francisco, Taffy will be the only member of her club in Carmel.

Olivia questions Taffy about the members of the other club and what they do.  Taffy says that a lot of it is secret, but the members are all girls her neighborhood, and they all wear shirts with their first initials on them.  Olivia and Taffy begin to spy on the girls to learn more about them and to see how they can help Taffy to fit in with their club.

When they see the girls riding bicycles, Olivia thinks that they must be a bicycle club.  She buys Taffy a bicycle and teaches her how to ride it.  Riding a bike works to get the other girls’ attention.  Olivia and Taffy ride their bikes past the other girls and stop to talk to them.  The other girls seem friendly enough, and they invite Taffy to go riding with them later.  However, to Olivia’s surprise, one of the club members calls her later and invites her to join the club, not Taffy.  The girl, Nettie, tells her that they aren’t really a bicycle club and that only members are allowed to know the true purpose of the club and the conditions for joining.  Olivia fits the conditions, but they’ll only explain it to her if she agrees to join.  Nettie also says that they all like Taffy but that they’re “not ready for her” and that they’ll be one step closer to inviting Taffy if Olivia joins.  What is this club really about, and how will Olivia joining help Taffy to join?

I guessed, even before Olivia did, that names are important in the club.  The girls were very interested when Olivia told them her name, and there is a reason why they all wear shirts with their first initials on them.  The five girls in the club are: Jasmine, Katrina, Leah, Millicent, and Nettie.  In order to get Taffy in, Olivia has to point out that Taffy’s last name is Plimpton.  (Get it?)  There, I was a little surprised because I had expected that the name Taffy would turn out to be a nickname and that Olivia would tell them that her real name is Patricia or something.  I had forgotten what Olivia said her last name was.

I thought that Olivia made some good points about the nature of clubs and exclusivity.  The reasons for a lot of exclusive groups are really silly and arbitrary because the main point of those group is just to be exclusive, not to fulfill any other purpose.  That this particular club rides bikes could have been their main purpose, and that would be a purpose that actually involves doing something, but their real requirement for joining is much more arbitrary and is mostly based on random chance, making it very difficult for them to ask new people to join even when they want to invite them.  Taffy would have had exactly the same problem if her name had been Abigail or Wendy.  I’m not really sure what they would have done if she had been Jessica or Linda.  Either they’d have to allow some duplication, or they might say that they couldn’t have her at all.

Olivia says, “I hate clubs. All those secret handshakes and pins and meetings and all that rot.” To Olivia, the whole thing is just silly, and she thinks that they should just be friends with people without all the silly secrecy and ritual.  I liked that stuff more when I was a kid myself, and I remember forming clubs with varying degrees of secrecy with kids in elementary school, but to tell the truth, none of them did very much or lasted very long because they had little other purpose to them besides just being a club and the routine of meetings with all the trappings that annoy Olivia take more effort to maintain than they’re worth. The best solution to having a lasting club would probably be to give the club a purposeful activity or set of activities that all of the members could enjoy and that would allow them to recruit new members easily.  If this club eventually focuses more activities like bicycling, it would be likely to last longer and leave them open to more members than they currently have whenever they want to add them.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.