<center> <font size="+1">HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PHINEAS L. MACGUIRE,</font> <P> BOY-SCIENTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE, AKA MAC: </center> <P> 1. He's allergic to purple, telephone calls, and girls, and can prove it. <P> 2. He's probably the world's expert on mold, including which has the highest stink potential. <P> 3. He does not have a best friend. He does, however, have an un-best friend, who he does not -- repeat, <I>not</i> -- want to upgrade to best-friend status. <P> But disaster strikes when his teacher pairs Mac and his un-best friend together for the upcoming science fair. Worse, this un-best friend wants the project to be on dinosaurs, which is <I>so</i> third grade. Worse still, it seems as though everyone else in his class finds the un-best friend as unlikable as Mac does. But, being a boy-scientist, once Mac notices this, he just might have to do some investigating. <P> This very funny young middle-grade novel includes tantalizingly grue- some experiments for exploding your own volcanoes and imploding marshmallows.