Your problem with strict comes from using symrefs for the handle names. Better to make the pipe with lexicals or, better yet, in a hash (untested):

my $pipes = {};
for (qw/ ONE TWO THREE FOUR/) {
    pipe $pipes->{$_}{'FROM_CHILD'}, $pipes->{$_}{'TO_PARENT'};
   #etc
}
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It may be useful to use lexicals for their property of closing handles when they go out of scope:

my $listen = {};
foreach $kid (qw/ ACE DEUCE TREY OOPS/ ) {
    $listen->{$kid} = do {
                        my ($from,$to,$pid);
                        pipe $from, $to;
                        # fork and all, child closes $from,
                        # deletes $listen, does child code and exits.
                        { handle => $from, pid => $pid }
                       };
}
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You might consider using a select loop instead of polling the kids.

As kappa says, this is all dependent on having a recent perl.

After Compline,
Zaxo