BAD, BADDER, BADDEST

Fresh from their debut (Bad Girls, 1996), sixth-graders Mikey and Margalo cement their gloriously improbable friendship in a painful—sometimes side-splitting—effort to save Mikey's parents' marriage. It's far too late, but with the help of her spectacularly devious and manipulative friend, Mikey gives it her best; she cleans her room, goes with her mother to the mall and with her father to play miniature golf, accompanies them to a marriage counselor, and, when all that fails, runs away for a weekend. Meanwhile, she and Margalo meet their match in new classmate Gianette, who passes herself off as a New Orleans witch-in-training and turns out to be not only an expert thief and blackmailer, but part of a "child for hire" welfare fraud scheme as well. Voigt uses nearly every sentence and incident to make a point, but readers will never feel as if they're being lectured, and the complex give-and-take between Mikey and Margalo makes for plenty of funny repartee, as well as insights into themselves, other people, and life in general. A rich, entertaining episode featuring a pair of Voigt's most memorable characters since the Tillermans. (Fiction. 11-13)