Ok this was one gruesome story! I don't even know what to think about it other than - so nasty. Evil freaking girls! But girls can be nasty like that can't they - ok perhaps not ponie killing but if we take the story for what it is really worth - this is hazing taken to an extreme isn't it. You have to hurt a friend to be part of the group, why? Because that what the tradition say that we do things. Nobody really understand why the ritual is how it is - but it is. If you want to play with The Other Girls, you have to take part of the ritual. 
 What the story doesn't show is that traditions like this can be challenged and successfully so. Which I think is an interesting choice - but that is probably why it isn't a childrens story. Because it could have been you know - even with the gruesome violence. But I am not sure I think it makes the story more true - lacking the rebellion - because I know from experience that that kind of rituals can be broken. 
 The story was powerful, but I didn't particularly like it. Not because it was nasty but because it felt like the easy story to tell. See how nasty children can be. We should all know this - at least all of us who has experienced bullying. It is not a surprise. To me it didn't show me anything I didn't know. It just had ick factor.