BOYS AGAINST GIRLS

The West Virginian Hatford boys still can't get along with their new neighbors, the Malloy girls. Ever since the Malloys rented the Hatfords' best friends' house, the gender feud has raged. This latest series of get-evens centers around the abaguchie, a bigfoot-like beast that roams the area, stealing chickens and other small animals. Nobody has ever gotten a good look at the abaguchie, but enough reputable people have semi-seen it to make it the perfect tool for the four Hatford boys' nefarious plots against the three Malloy girls. Luckily the girls can fend for themselves. First the boys try scaring them, but the girls retaliate in kind. Then the boys trap the youngest Malloy, Caroline, in the storeroom of the local bookstore—they get her down there looking for abaguchie bones—and later in an abaguchie trap. In return, the girls attempt to frighten the boys with fake abaguchie paw prints. Finally, the boys and girls reach a tacit truce during their joint Thanksgiving dinner when they realize that they can have even more fun pooling their resources and directing them outward, rather than at each other. High times and hijinks from Naylor (Alice In-Between, p. 483, etc., The Fear Place, below). (Fiction. 8-12)