Quite a few kids were spending some of their back-to-school-clothing dollars on a new way to disappear - inside their clothes.

Stephanie Helgeson, assistant manager at Deb Shop in the Kirkwood Mall, was having trouble keeping in stock zip-up hoodies that zip all the way up the hood, completely zipping up the head.

"So you can actually hide in them,"she said with a laugh.

It's not known how long it will take a teacher to figure out that the person who didn't do his or her homework was the zipperhead.

But regardless of effectiveness, the item was going fast enough recently at $29.99 each that, at the time of the interview, Helgeson was out, but had some on order.

Another popular item, the pink-and-brown-checked bermuda shorts, which were particularly popular in the 1950s and '60s, are popular again, although probably pricier this go-round, at $15.99.

Other stores around Bismarck had other hot back-to-school items to report.

Todd Otto, executive team leader of soft lines at Target, said pink camouflage backpacks, at $17.99, sold out quickly. Flip flops were selling fast, and the store had sold out of Target's version of Crocs shoes and wouldn't get any more because the store's snowboot supply is coming in.

At Maurice's, jeans with defects, worn and torn, were selling well, priced at $29 to $26, as were the $68 Silver brand jeans, said Krysten Green, an assistant manager. Younger girls, ages 10 to 15, were big into the black shirts decorated with skulls.

At TJMaxx, in the Pinehurst Square Shopping Center, babydoll tops, gathered at the bodice with ties in back, and hair accessories, headbands of all types, were a couple of the hot-selling items, said Ruth Wald, assistant manager.

Dusty Kerzmann, a digital technology customer specialist at Best Buy, said hot sellers in his high-tech department were laptop computers.

"Laptops are going like hotcakes,"he said. Big sellers were Toshibas and HPs. Another hot item - iPods, particularly iPod Nanos.

At Old Navy, the "waitress look" was hot, which was described as a white crisp shirt and a dark pant. Also popular was clothing that looked like it came out of the movie "Flashdance,"such as the sweatshirts with the cut-out neck. Also popular: the skinny jean, "very, very tapered at the ankle," said an employee who declined to give her name.

Vonnie Tharaldsen, a sales associate at Herberger's, said hot items were anything with the "Hannah Montana" label, and trapeze jackets - little jackets that come to the waist and have two buttons and a little Peter Pan-style collar.

Lori Modin, co-manager of the Wal-Mart at 1400 Skyline Boulevard, said the biggest thing she's noticed is major sales of any clothing connected to Disney's "High School Musical."

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)