Um, as the assignment operator (=) associates rightward, the OP can actually get away with this particular case. You will get a warning though:

use strict;
my $test="fleas\n";
my $test="A camel has $test";
print $test;
__END__
"my" variable $test masks earlier declaration in same scope at 244947.
+pl line 5.
A camel has fleas
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CU
Robartes-