Eunice Gottlieb

Eunice and her best friend Joy (stars of Which Way to the Nearest Wilderness? start a catering business the summer before eighth grade. Eunice needs money to buy deodorant (her mother insists that she smells like any 12-year-old girl should smell), and Joy hopes to take private dance lessons. But a boy named Robert falls for Joy, thereby breaking up the friendship, and Eunice is left to work alone. During a heat wave, she moves the operation into the centrally air-conditioned home of a girl she and Joy previously had scorned. While the best friends eventually patch up their differences, they've both moved beyond the exclusivity that once ruled them. Springstubb's story covers a lot of territory wittily. However, disparate elements seem slapped together, and there are inconsistenciesa 12-year-old, for example, probably wouldn't be in eighth grade. Ages 10-14. (June)