COYOTE IN MANHATTAN

Coyote in Manhattan = insurrection in Harlem, consternation on Fifth Avenue and headaches for the Board of Health. Dark-skinned daydreamer and "high school freshman-to-be" Tenny Harkness releases him as her "beautiful deed," hoping also to gain entrance to the tightly organized teenage "Street Family." (Rather than appreciating the beauty of the deed, they admire her bravado—but that comes later.) She is immediately suspected by Health Inspector Cardy Evans, who's been warned of the arrival of a germ-carrying coyote, but she doesn't squeal. Tako, the coyote, isn't quite as discreet though he has a preternatural sense of who's on his side and a positive genius for urinanlysis (a waste basket smell is "a message from a pampered and neurotic dog," another sample says the poorch is irritated with its owner). Surveying Central Park (map provided), he is seen (in the formal garden) and heard (howling at a Philharmonic Concert); the searchers close in but Tako has friends besides Tenny: he's the underdog's underdog. He is not, however, an acceptable consort for a champion shepherd and her irate owner Frederick Wortman ("destined to inherit a chain of national hardware stores") points the pursuers toward Tako's den. A last-minute carlift by Tenny and Puerto Rican pal Jose (who gives up a chance to "get away from 109th Street and all the poverty") takes him to the Adirondacks and a new lease on life—a fittingly unlikely ending to a preposterous story.