THE WICKED PIGEON LADIES IN THE GARDEN

Give me back my bracelet,"" intones eldest Messerman sister, sometimes pigeon, Ingrid, and you know that the leprechaun in the tangled garden isn't pretending: Maureen Swanson had better watch out. You know too that you've got ahold of a ghost story, and happily this one doesn't dissolve into a dream--although rebellious Maureen does find herself back in the sisters' childhood; and it doesn't turn into a lesson--although she does assume responsibility for their fate, the first responsibility she's ever accepted. But mostly this is Maureen, the scourge of the neighborhood, vs. the pigeon ladies who are ""fancy dressers, high flyers, smooth talkers and hard haters,"" and if Maureen's a little slow to catch on for a while, the danger of vanishing forever triggers a fight to the let's-UNpretend finish. The pigeon ladies leave to do their worst elsewhere, Maureen is a little better, closing but not strangling a quick-witted, sharp-tongued entertainment.