The Secret School

Ida lives in Elk Valley, a narrow glen based on the Yampa Valley in northern Colorado. Toward the southern end of this vale is the real-life ski resort town of Steamboat Springs, where Ida would attend high school. The northern end, where she lives, is a “small north-south valley […]. To the east low hills gave way to higher ground, woods, and mountains. West it was much the same” (3).

The ranges above Ida’s home are part of the vast Rocky Mountains, which angle across the western US from Canada to New Mexico. Ida’s valley is narrow, less than two miles wide. When she first learns that her school will be closed, Ida feels trapped in the confined place where she lives: “The surrounding peaks felt like a cage” (14). The valley thus symbolizes her fear of becoming trapped forever in a narrow, cloying life.

Ida drives herself and Felix to school in “her family’s battered Model T Ford” (1). Model Ts were the first mass-produced cars; hers might date as far back as 1908, the first year they were built. Though the car introduced the brake and clutch pedals to the world, the accelerator was attached to the steering wheel.