On Christmas Day 1960, Louise, Linda, and Sandy wake up to find that each of them has only received one present. Their father lets them cry for a while before he springs the surprise: they'll be going to Disneyland that summer in a brand-new trailer. The next month, the girls' school starts air-raid drills, inspiring their father to build a bomb shelter in their backyard. He works on it for a month straight, after which the drills start. Night after night, their father blows a whistle, signaling his wife and children to shut down their house and pile into the bunker. They endure this until, at the end of the school year, he tells them that they will be spending two weeks straight underground. Disneyland isn't happening. Chaos ensues from the very start. Louise gets her first period an hour after her father locks the door. His solution? Tear up a sheet. Their father is very serious about the rules and their strenuous, packed schedule, which he calls The Regime. Only their mother's whiskey, which she slips to them when their father isn't looking, keeps them going. They drink all day long. One day, they play their regularly scheduled cards and board games. Their father is strangely calm—until, when Linda calls him out on misspelling a Scrabble word, he backhands her across the face and kicks the board across the room. Almost as cruel is his total lack of remorse. Needless to say, the rest of their time in the shelter is miserable.