TURKEYLEGS THOMPSON

Long-legged Turkey, twelve, is avoided by the girls, whom she also avoids, and respected from a distance by the boys at school because one by one she has beaten up each of them. She's been a scrappy loner since her father left home years before and her working mother stuck her with the care of pants-wetting, seven-year-old Brother and younger Laura, Turkey's favorite; and now Turkey is in trouble for skipping school and stealing a bicycle. Things get much worse before they promise to get better--Laura dies suddenly and Turkey is devastated; the crisis triggers the return of heavy-drinking ""Dad"" (now a stranger she refers to in quotes)--but a boy Turkey has met by the riverbank helps her to see that it is possible to pick up the pieces of a shattered life. Turkeylegs in all her fierceness and misery is very real and very strong; she wouldn't put up with a rigged situation or a crocodile tear, and McCord's handling of her story would pass her test.