SOLVED. Vintage YA: sister/brother siblings being moved xcountry to airforce base with father they did not know. [s]

[Jen]

YA 30-35 years ago. Young teen brother and sister, her name was Pat or Patricia. The story was told from her POV, they were driving across country to possibly California, because the father they did not really know, who was driving them in the convertible, was AirForce and they were heading to on base housing. The kids tried to speak in code to each other in Pig Latin, but the father laughed and answered in same. She described her new room as gleaming maple furniture, blue carpet, and she went "missing", when she turned up, the people from the base looking for her make remarks about how terrible she was and she should be punished but he just took her back to their assigned housing and she learned to trust her father.

Ring a bell? Was one of these Scholastic cheap paperbacks we could order in the classroom for reading time.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Remember the cover? Author male or female?

Is there a mother in the family?

[Jen]

I don't remember. Mother was either dead or this was a change of custody probably. No memory of cover.

[Jen]

Bump. Cover was blue, girl was in pink, and the car was a convertible I think.

[Jen]

The girl did not run away she was with some other teens on the military base but never told her father where she was going.

[Kris]

Crossing Over by Sandra Love?
"When Megan, thirteen, and Kevin, ten, go to spend a school year with their divorced father, now a teacher at a military school, they find life a bit different than with their easygoing mother."

"A New Adventure" (1981) by Mary Ann Hoffman?
"Madeline is upset at the prospect of moving to a strange place, but her father reminds her that moving around the world is part of a Navy family's life."
http://www.worldcat.org/title/new-adv...

Jen, are the kids parents divorced?

[Jen]

Thank you for posting suggestions but neither book is the one I am looking for. I don't recalll if it is divorce or death of the mother. I am leaning toward divorce and out of the blue the kids are suddenly spending time with a dad they don't know.

[Ayshe]

Patricia's Secret? I find no mentions of brother, though.

[Jen]

THAT'S IT!!!! Thank you, Ayshe! However did you locate it?

[Ayshe]

You're welcome! I can't remember how I located it now, it must have been worldcat.org search or google one.