Rereading My Childhood – Goosebumps: The Cuckoo Clock of Doom by R. L. Stine

If you could regress to a previous age but still retain all your knowledge, what would you do? Buy up Apple stock before it skyrocketed with the return of Steve Jobs? Save Britney Spears from her exploitative conservatorship? Warn everyone about the pandemic?

You can have as many grand ideas as vast and deep as a certain canyon, but the truth is that unless you’re literally Bill Clinton, you wouldn’t do anything earth shattering. Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. I was eleven. How the hell is an eleven-year-old going to buy stock? And there was no way I could convince my stock-less family to buy a stock that, according to every source at the time, was circling the drain. And about Britney Spears, what was I going to do? Britney Spears doesn’t know me. And as for the pandemic, disease experts were warning us about a pandemic for years and the Orange Menace still gutted the organization responsible for pandemic management right when we needed it the most.

Truthfully, you would try to change something personal. You wouldn’t date that boy with a motorcycle and a tongue piercing. You would make that life-changing move to Sydney instead of putting it off until you couldn’t afford it anymore. You would major in English instead.

In this week’s book, our protagonist has an opportunity to rectify mistakes in his past, but it may be too late to actually fix anything as an existential threat looms over this book. Get ready to contemplate your existence.

Michael hates his little sister, Tara. She’s always playing pranks and getting him into trouble. The Stine Prank-o-Meter starts at “howling outside windows” and ends at “murder.” We’ll see where she falls, but I will tell you right now that one of her “pranks” is definitely a felony of some kind.

Anyways, their father bought a Cuckoo/Grandfather clock. The contraption requires a small fleet of workers to move it, and every hour a yellow bird pops out and squawks out the time. After years of seeing the clock in the window of an antique store, and years of bargaining, Michael’s father finally got it for a song. There’s a flaw in the clock, but even after the kids search the cabinet for scratches and dents, they can’t find it. And the clock accurately relays the time, so the flaw must be incredibly minor. But you know how collectors are. One scratch or missing TY tag and suddenly your understuffed toy is worthless. Yes, that’s the only possible reason.

Besides telling the time, the clock also displays the year, but it only goes to 2000. It either needs a patch like every operating system in 1999, or the clock couldn’t live in a without Beanie Babies. (The owner of Beanie Babies said that he would stop making them in 2000. People were going to retire on that Princess Diana Bear, dammit. However, it was all a publicity stunt and now I can find Beanie Babies at 7-11 between the Monster Energy Drinks and the taquitos of questionable origin.)

Before the day is over, Tara tricks Michael into stepping on gum, smashes his foot, and starts a fight over the family encyclopedia set. However, none of these things are as bad as Tara’s previous exploits.

Michael’s parents threw him a party for his twelfth birthday. They even got him a brand new bike. Before Michael can ride it, Tara climbs on it, tumbles to the floor, and scratches the bike. The parents don’t admonish Tara for tying to mount something that she had no business climbing on. They admonish Michael for being more concerned about the giant gash on his new bike than his sister falling a foot due to her own recklessness. That’s not all. During the birthday party, Tara trips Michael as he’s carrying the cake, ruining his cake and destroying the last thread of dignity he had in front of his crush, Mona. Granted, his dignity was already in dire straits.

A week before, Michael was in a play with Mona. She was on her way over to Michael’s house so they could rehearse. Tara is engaged in some light animal abuse with the family dog while Michael is trying to get his frog costume on. He is in his underwear as he’s trying to get the frog costume zipped. Mona arrives and Tara leads her straight to Michael’s door. She flings open the door and reveals Michael in a vulnerable position. Tara probably committed a felony, but, once again, the parents don’t do anything.

And finally, before that, after basketball practice, one of the other players, a boy with an enlarged pituitary gland, is missing his favorite hat. The boy finds the hat in Michael’s bag. Guess who put it there? The boy pounds Michael so much that his “clothes don’t fit too well.” When Michael doesn’t want to talk to his sister because she is the reason he looks like his just solved The Lament Configuration, he slams the door in her face. His parents punish him for slamming a door.

Back in the present, the cuckoo clock is a tempting tool for revenge.

The yellow bird popped out. I grabbed it in mid-cuckoo. It made short, strangling noises.

I twisted its head around, so it faced backwards. It looked really funny that way.

It finished out its twelve cuckoos, facing the wrong way.I laughed to myself. When Dad saw it, he’d to ballistic!

The cuckoo slid back into its little window, still facing backwards.

This is going to drive Dad insane! I thought wickedly.He’ll be furious at Tara. He’ll explode like a volcano.

Michael’s father does not go Captain Magma on the kids. Instead, Michael wakes up and it’s his birthday!

That’s right – like Marty McFly before him, Michael went back in time. Does he make out with his hot mother? Or at least change his birthday so it goes smoother? He does neither of these things because he’s still confused and his birthday does not change.

The next morning, he still doesn’t figure out what’s going on, but he knows it has something to do with the cuckoo clock. Downstairs in the den, the previous location of the clock, he finds a big pile of nothing. Michael’s father hasn’t purchased the clock yet. In fact, it’s not a week before his birthday – it’s the day Tara put herself on some kind of a watch list.

Michael attempts to prevent the embarrassing situation, but it’s no use. Then he travels to the day Tara implicated him in the theft. Resigned to his fate, he takes his beating. The next morning he goes to school, but he doesn’t recognize anyone in his class. He’s regressed a full grade, which means that in just a few days, he will cease to exist.

The existential threat of unbirth paralyzes me almost every night, but it prompts a seven-year-old Michael to get on a bus and venture to the antique store. Unfortunately, the store is closed for the holiday. Michael doesn’t know how old he’s going to be tomorrow, or if he’ll even exist, so he has to take action now. He picks up a brick, raises it over his head, and someone cock blocks his impending vandalism.

It’s his father, and he takes Michael home.

Now Michael is four-years-old and doesn’t have the same mobility that can get him to the antique store. He does have the mental capacity to recognize his preschool cohort’s annoying behavior. Then he breaks his arm.

He’s suddenly a baby. It’s his last chance. He needs to get to the cuckoo clock. His parents take him for a walk and they happen to pass by the antique store. With his limited power, he gets his parents to enter. While they are engaged in some light banter with the owner, Michael crawls away, finds the cuckoo clock, and waits for it to chime. Just as his parents realize he’s wandered away, the clock begins to chime and the cuckoo clock, with its backwards head, shoots out. He turns the head around and moves the year dial to the year he turned twelve.

A flash of light and he’s standing in the garage in front of a new bike. He asks were Tara is, but his parents have no idea who’s he’s talking about. Her bedroom is just a regular room, not one for a little girl who’s fate is to be on a list of female serial killers.

Michael’s birthday happens without any sibling interference. The cuckoo clock arrives, and, like before, Michael’s father got a great deal on it because of a flaw. Michael scans through the dates. 1988 is missing. The flaw. And 1988 is the year that Tara was born.

This book takes the popular wish of doing your life over and cranks up the crime and dread. Frankly, it’s a bit too much for me. I have enough fear about my existence without Stine coming in to compound that fear with a yellow, mechanical bird and felonies.

That being said, the book itself is pretty good. Tara is an onerous character whose sole existence is to annoy the main character. Normally, that would be problematic. Who wants a villain who is nothing but evil? But it works here, especially with the twist ending. If she had an ounce of likable behavior, the ending would be cruel. Since she’s okay with thievery, assault, and exploitation, maybe the world is better off without her chaos.

For right now, I’m going to be thankful for my existence and the existence of my loved ones. And I’m going to tell my sister that I’m happy that while we had our squabbles, she never destroyed my college prospects. I did that on my own. Now I’m off to find those Beanie Babies that we got from McDonald’s. Move over old Pokemon cards. Our parents said that Pokemon was just a fad. Beanie Babies are going to pay off in a big way.

Rereading My Childhood is written by me – Amy A. Cowan. For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written and to subscribe to my Substack or YouTube, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, visit AmyACowan.com.

Fear Street Sagas #5: The Hidden Evil by R. L. Stine – A Rereading My Childhood Review & Summary

One cannot discuss the horror canon without mentioning The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The story features a new nanny who arrives at an estate that is as ominous as its inhabitants. The novel uses many classic elements of gothic horror fiction – a secluded house, the potential for ghosts, the slow unraveling of the protagonist’s mind, and a devastating third-act culmination.

Like James, R. L. Stine deserves a place in the horror canon. His stories provide an entry point for younger readers, influencing generations to confront what scares them. He might be the best gateway into the genre. Age-appropriate horror. Kids read his books under the covers in the dark of night and at sleepovers with their friends. A cozy introduction to a genre intended to make you uncomfortable.

I would describe this episode’s book as “Baby’s First The Turn of the Screw.” And I mean that without an ounce of sarcasm or condescension. This is a fantastic introduction to gothic horror literature, and I can’t think of a compliment more appropriate than comparing this book to one of the greatest ghost stories in literature.

Just like The Turn of the Screw, The Hidden Evil is written in a frame narrative. Timothy Fier is having a good time with his friends when the subject of ghosts comes up. Timothy is apprehensive about sharing his ghost story because it’s just so damn scary and they won’t have any fingernails by the end of the story. My dire fingernail situation is due to undiagnosed stimming turning into a lifelong habit. But that’s just me, your scary mileage may vary. Either way, Timothy tells us that the story started ten years ago.

Sisters Maggie and Henrietta are watching their father die. Constables show up at the door and arrest Maggie for murder. Their father was poisoned and Maggie is the prime suspect. Henrietta vows to help her sister as Maggie professes her innocence all the way to jail.

Four months later, Maggie is still in jail. She has been tired and found guilty. Her sister, Henrietta, arrives to say her last goodbyes. Unsurprisingly, she has a confession of her own.

Henrietta turned and glanced down the cell-lined hall to make sure no prisoners or guards were in earshot. “I killed Father!”

Maggie tried to speak, but no sound came out. She swallowed hard. “You?”

“Of course. You had young men begging to take you on outings. But I am not as pretty as you. What chance did I have to snare a handsome young man without Father’s inheritance? And dear old Father showed no signs of giving up the ghost.”

“Oh, Henrietta, no,” Maggie cried. “Don’t you know Father would have given you whatever you wanted? I’m sure he planned a sizeable dowry for you.”

“No, Maggie. Father would have given you whatever you wanted. He only cared about you,” Henrietta insisted. “So I sneaked into the house. You and Father were yelling at each other, so of course you did not hear me. I stirred the poison into his wine goblet and planted the rest in your room. Simple.”

The entire family fortune is in Henrietta’s hands, and Maggie will be hanged.

The executioner arrives to collect Maggie. He brings her to a narrow staircase, pulls off his hood, gives her a black dress, and orders her to escape in a carriage. The boy and his mother save Maggie from the gallows, give her money, and tell her to leave town. They saved her because they think Maggie is innocent and Maggie’s family was kind to them when their house burned down. They don’t reappear, so you don’t need to know their names. Mr. Plot Device and Mother We Gotta Keep This Moving.

Maggie starts a new life as Maggie Thompson and takes a job as a governess to two children in an isolated mansion – just like the nameless protagonist of The Turn of the Screw. Also like the novel, the father is often away, leaving the governess with the staff.

Every good gothic estate needs a name and this one is called “Tanglewood.” And every good gothic estate needs staff, each one more suspicious than the last. The Cook is referred to simply as “Cook.” The maid is Mary. Both of these characters serve as the Mrs. Grose of this novel. Maggie confides in these characters so we understand her as a character and they provide Maggie, as well as the reader, with the necessary information in regard to the history of the estate. 

To complete the creepy estate, we have creepy, regency children. Andrew is the first one to approach Maggie. His gregarious nature contrasts with his brother, Garret, who throws a vase at Maggie as she first enters the mansion. Then Garret runs into his room and throws more objects. Maggie tries to console the boy, saying that she’s not trying to replace his dear mother and he must miss her so much. Garret stops her and yells that he hates his mother.

Maggie investigates the previous governesses. Also like Miss Jessel of The Turn of the Screw, the previous governess ran off suddenly. Meanwhile, Garret is continuing his strange child behavior through drawings and randomly yelling. He even leaves a life-sized drawing of birds pecking out Maggie’s eyes in her room.

While Garret is being creepy, Andrew is giving extensive estate tours and asking to go to the circus. The tour brings her to a hall of portraits, the stables, and the hedge maze. All this while Garret stares at them from the shadows.

Maggie wants to get help with Garret so she enters the library, the exclusive domain of Mr. Melbourne. She doesn’t find the man, but she does find a silver key. Garret finds her with the key and yells that his mother won’t like it, to which Maggie tells him that his mother is dead.

“Do not say that!” Garret screamed. “Never say that! Mother can hear you! She can hear everything!”

…

“You must know she is in the house!” Garret screamed. “Do you not hear her crying every night?”

That night, crying wakes Maggie and her investigation into the sound brings her to the tower. Instead of a ghost, she finds Andrew. He says that the locked door was his mother’s Sick Room, where she spent her last days. 

Maggie returns to bed after tucking in Andrew. However, she does not go back to sleep. She finds the body of the cat that she spent six seconds with and a note that says that “curiosity killed the cat.” I guess it’s better than a horse’s head, but still traumatizing.

She buries the cat and as she passes by a window, she sees the ghost of Mrs. Melbourne. She flees from the window but runs right into the absent Mr. Melbourne. They spend some time near the fire and just as quickly as two pages, she has a crush. At the end of the conversation, Mr. Melbourne insists she stays away from the tower. 

The next day, Mr. Melbourne is actually around and takes them for a horse ride. Then the horses escape and flames consume the stable. Thank you for the fun equine day, Mr. Melbourne. 

If that wasn’t enough, Maggie falls into a well. She manages to get herself out. She suspects that Garret pushed her in after she found his ring near the well. She shows the ring to Andrew and he bursts out.

“That’s where he killed her. That’s where Garret killed our mother!” Andrew cried.

Andrew claims that Garret pushed their mother into the well. She got out, but she was very ill. She spent her remaining days in the tower room. Every night she cries because she wants revenge on Garret but she’s trapped in the tower.

Oh yeah, Mary is dead. Maggie finds Garret holding a knife over her dead body. Maggie runs to the tower room while Garret chases after her yelling, “Wait! You don’t understand!” She reaches the tower room and unlocks the door with the key she found in the library. She pleads with the ghost to help her. Instead, the ghost says that Maggie can never have her husband and chokes her.

Suddenly, we’re back with Timothy in 1858. Mrs. Fier wanders in and sends the 19th-century teens into conniptions. She leaves and Timothy returns to his story while watching a figure who is sitting in the shadows.

Even though Maggie basically accused him of murder, Garret comes to her rescue, interrupting the ghostly choking. She runs away, breaks her leg, and enters the hedge maze. Someone pushes her into the dirt. It’s Andrew.

“Mother and I do not like people trying to take her place,” he said sweetly. “You made Mother and me very, very angry.”

It runs out that Andrew killed the other governesses for his ghost mother, including the maid, and he tricked Garret into picking up the knife. Then he slashes at Maggie.

As he gets ready to strike the killing blow, Garret shoots Andrew with a musket. Maggie confirms Andrew’s death because it’ll take Garret ten minutes to get off another shot. That’s not explicitly stated in the book, but I’m assuming since it’s 1847. With the death of her beloved Andrew, the ghost fades away. Maggie apologizes to Garret, Mr. Melbourne and Maggie marry, and the three of them rebuild their lives in Boston, not too far from the storyteller.

Oh, and remember Maggie’s sister from the beginning? The one who framed her for murder? Well, she killed her new husband and confessed to murdering her father. Maggie doesn’t have to hide anymore.

Fast forward to 1858, Timothy concludes his story, and his guests leave – except for the figure in the corner.

How much more frightened would they be if they knew that I changed the name of the family from Fier to Melbourne when I told the tale. If they knew I changed my own name to Garret. And gave my stepmother the name Maggie.

From the shadows, Andrew appears and lunges at Timothy!

While the ending of The Turn of the Screw is less sensational and more ambiguous, The Hidden Evil is a solid introduction to gothic horror. It features a governess, a mysterious master of the house, a beautiful yet bleak estate, creepy children, and, most importantly, the ghosts of the past. 

But even if the story wasn’t reminiscent of The Turn of the Screw, I would still enjoy this book. It’s creepy, it keeps moving forward, and the mystery behind the ghost in the tower was interesting. The frame narrative was a little contrived, but I have a soft spot for this kind of storytelling, and, honestly, it’s contrived in The Turn of the Screw, also. And finally, there were no slave-owning protagonists, a criticism I can’t say for every book in the Fear Street Sagas series. This one gives me all the fun and costumes of the period without any questionable location choices.Rereading My Childhood is written by me – Amy A. Cowan. For a list of every _Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps,_ and _Fear Street_ book review I have written or subscribe to the Substack, go to http://RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, visit http://AmyACowan.com.

Rereading My Childhood – Goosebumps: Go Eat Worms! by R. L. Stine

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It seems that many of my peers have failed to move past eighth grade. Like many people, I went through a true crime phase while acclimating to different classrooms for different subjects. I read about Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia, and even put the Cecil Hotel on my bucket list. I entertained the idea of joining the FBI to hunt down serial killers. But like many of my obsessions, only pieces have remained. I still love Silence of the Lambs and read the occasional true crime book. And my true crime reading has ventured outside of serial killers – just one-time murderers also.

Now there is a certain group of people who buy memorabilia with Pogo the Clown and Dahmer. Recent streaming series exacerbate this unhealthy obsession, and actors are awarded for their glorification of serial killers. Gacy and Dahmer existed, but, more importantly, their victims existed. Their families still exist, and they see the disgusting hero worship of sociopaths. These sociopaths destroyed their lives and Karen is over here calling for more gore in the Netflix Dahmer series.

Though to be fair, I do collect serial killer memorabilia, but Hannibal Lecter is actually Anthony Hopkins – Oscar Award Winning Actor. Jason Voorhees is fictional and so are his victims. What I’m proposing is that the hero worship for real murderers should be transferred to movie monsters whose victims don’t have families you can run into at Wal-Mart. The only reason anyone would be upset if you go to the murder site of Crispin Glover’s character in Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter is because it’s a sound stage in California and they have to film a segment of The Kelly Clarkson Show. 

To the people who troll Etsy for a bracelet modeled after Ed Gein’s nipple belt, I’d like to introduce you to a fake child sociopath you can worship instead.

Todd Barstow likes worms in the same way a serial killer likes victims – he likes to keep them in a small habitat of his choosing and do macabre experiments with them. And like any murderer still on the loose, he’s hunting for more.

His best friend, Danny Fletcher, helps him get more worms. A school-wide science fair is coming up and Todd’s project is about worms. He built them a replica of a house with the side cut out so you can see worm families go from room to room. Again, I don’t understand these science fair projects. What is the question being answered? How little effort can I put into the project and still get a C?

Danny’s project is no better. It’s a model of the solar system. What’s the question? What does the solar system look like without any consideration for scale? 

Todd’s sister, Regina, and her best friend, Beth, are also participating in the science fair. They’re making a papier-mâché robin. Are birds made out of pulp and glue? Only this project can answer the tough questions!

Anyway, while Todd and Danny dig up more victims, the ground begins to shake! It’s a quake!

Todd and Danny run into the lunchroom, proving that they don’t live near the San Andreas Fault. No one felt the earthquake – it was localized entirely at Todd’s worm-hunting spot. Everyone laughs at them, and then Regina tells Todd to go eat worms, giving us a book title. Todd does not eat worms but instead puts a worm in Regina’s soup. 

Later, Todd and Danny see another student, Patrick MacKay, digging up worms in Todd’s special spot. They confront him and it turns out Patrick is also doing a science fair project on worms that isn’t actually a science fair project. It’s pretty much the exact same project, only with a larger habitat.

Then there’s another earthquake that only they can feel. Once again, no one believes them.

Todd can’t believe that Patrick did the same project and he wants to sabotage it, instead of, you know, just working hard on his project so it’s better. This is the first in Todd’s psychotic behavior. Regina tells him where Patrick lives and, once again, Todd enlists Danny in his extreme actions. They literally break into Patrick’s huge house – not even a dog attack can deter them. Then they rummage through the kitchen and find a ghoul sitting by the window.

The duo bolt from the house and return home. Todd overhears Regina speaking with Beth. Regina gave him the wrong address on purpose! 

“I sent them to the old Fosgate mansion,” Regina told Beth. She laughed. “Yeah. Right. That old deserted mansion where those kids had that Halloween party. Yeah. You know. They left that dummy with the weird mask in the window.”

Instead of letting it go and getting into vintage cartoons, Todd vows revenge on his sister. And he has the perfect opportunity at the science fair.

Patrick’s project is a huge worm skyscraper. The teachers put the two next to each other, beckoning comparison. The judges barely speak to Todd about his worm house. However, they ask Patrick a bunch of questions about the worm skyscraper, including, “How many worms are there in total?” and “Can worms survive in a real skyscraper?” Bitch, what do you think? Do you think it’s a real skyscraper? Where’d the school get these judges? The Facebook Marketplace? Where psychological professionals can hire bikini girls to trick stupid lifeguards?

Meanwhile, with Danny’s planet project, Pluto has been popped and the rings of Saturn have fallen off.

When the judges get to Regina’s project, they open the mouth of the sculpture and worms pour out to Todd’s sociopathic delight. Who cares how his sister feels? The only thing that matters is his happiness. Todd doesn’t feel any remorse – not even for a second. He is happy he ruined the project his sister worked hard on.

In the end, after the Facebook judges deliberate, the grand-prize winner is Danny and his Balloon Solar System. He successfully proved that Pluto can deflate, which is why it isn’t a planet anymore. Todd can’t be happy for anyone, so when his friend flashes a thumbs-up, Todd turns his back to him.  Then Regina tackles Todd into the worm skyscraper and they tumble into another display.

“No!” a girl screamed. “That’s Liquids and Gases! Look out – it’s Liquids and Gases!”

Just a random girl expressing disdain for the most hated heel duo in ‘90s wrestling. They’re fighting The Road Warriors at Wrestlemania.

Luckily, no one is hurt when Liquids and Gases combine. The only casualties are a few worms. Todd doesn’t seem to care – he thinks it’s kind of funny.

A few days later, Todd wants to make amends with Regina and Beth, but even his attempts at human decency are a horror show. He invites them to his room and cuts a worm in half. 

All three of them stared at the tabletop as the two worm halves wriggled off in different directions.

“See?” Todd cried, laughing. “Now there are two of them!”

“Sick. Really sick,” his sister muttered.

“That’s really gross, Todd,” Beth agreed, shaking her head.

“But wouldn’t it be cool if people could do that?” Todd exclaimed. “You know. Your bottom half goes to school, and your top half stays home and watches TV!”

“Hey! Look at that!” Regina cried suddenly. She pointed to the glass worm tank.

“Huh? What?” Todd demanded, lowering his eyes to the worms.

“Those worms – they were watching you!” Regina exclaimed. “See? They’re sort of staring at you.”

I’m sure they don’t enjoy watching arthropod Saw. 

The next morning, Mrs. Barstow wakes up Todd personally because they can’t afford a second clock radio and they need to save up money for Todd’s impending legal tribulations. Then she worries if he’s “a grunge” because he wears a hat. Yes. Kurt Cobain was famous for wearing baseball caps. Eddie Vedder can’t leave without his bowler.

Anyway, Todd puts on his cap and it’s filled with worms, and they fall all over him. He accuses Regina of the least effective shower, but she insists she didn’t do it. Todd also finds a worm in his milk. Again, he accuses Regina, and, again, she insists she didn’t do it.

At school, Todd laughs at a kid who falls out of their chair and hits their head. Then he almost eats a worm that is in his sandwich. Todd thinks that maybe Patrick is perpetrating these worm attacks, but it turns out Patrick is just creating his own comic strip called “THE ADVENTURES OF TODD THE WORM.” Finally, Todd’s school notebook is inundated with worms. Despite all these events, Todd continues to dig for worms in his special spot.

Lastly, Todd’s bed contains worms. Once again, he blames Regina, but his mother informs him that Regina is at a sleepover. Todd makes a plea to the worms.

“Listen, guys, I’m really sorry,” Todd said, speaking softly. He didn’t want his voice to carry upstairs. If his mom or dad heard him talking to the worms, they’d know he was totally Looney Tunes.

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” he told them. “I mean, about cutting that one in half. It will never happen again. I promise.”

He takes a bath and worms pour out of the faucets! Not really. He imagined them, but he still thinks he needs to get to the bottom of the worm mystery – and he has a plan. Don’t get too excited. The plan is to watch the worms all night.

We are not subjected to pages of worm activities because his father finds him obsessing over the worms immediately. His father orders Todd to give up the worms and return them to the garden. Honestly, it’s probably best for everyone – including the worms.

After all that, Todd overhears Regina talking to Beth. It turns out that Regina put the worms in Todd’s food, notebook, and bed. Once again, instead of letting it go and getting into model cars, Todd vows the ultimate revenge.

Todd goes back to his spot to dig for more worms with Danny. Suddenly, there’s another earthquake and the ground opens up.

And as the ground shook and the rumbling rose to a roar, Todd and Danny both realized that they were gaping in horror at a giant worm.

A worm as thick as a tree trunk.

The worm attacks Todd. Instead of letting Todd go with the worm and befriending Patrick, Danny saves Todd with an assist from Regina and Beth’s science project bird. They scare the mother worm back into the ground with the fake bird. The next day, Todd dumps all his worms in the garden and gets a new hobby.

What’s his new hobby, you may ask? Model trains? Power Rangers? K-pop photocards? It’s none of those. He gets into butterflies.

Oh, that’s nice. Well, not really. Todd is still a walking red flag. He traps butterflies, kills them with chloroform, and then pins them to a board. It’s not a hobby for Todd unless something dies.

Then, one night, Todd gazed up from his work table – and uttered a horrified cry as he saw the big creature fluttering toward him.

An enormous butterfly.

As big as a bedsheet!

Carrying an enormous silver pin.

“What are you going to do?” Todd cried.

Get ‘em, Mothra!

We all knew the kid who enjoyed cutting worms in half and burning ants with a magnifying glass, and we stayed the fuck away from him. Todd’s behavior is horrific even for a kid. And it’s not just his behavior with animals. Patrick is perfectly nice to him and he still holds a ludicrous amount of animosity toward him. Regina is his family and he has little to no regard for her feelings. Not even his friends are free from his ire. Instead of being happy for his friend for winning the science fair, he chooses to literally turn his back on his friend. Todd is a villain.

But he isn’t real. He’s a character in a Goosebumps book. There’s no issue if someone wants a duo of bracelets with worms and TODD BARSTOW emblazoned on them. So please, true crime girlies whose tattoos pay homage to society’s greatest monsters, switch to this fictional character. Just think – this kid is bound for a permanent address at a federal correctional facility by the time he’s 35. You can pretend to be his one and only pen pal, instead of one of many.

And stop going to crime sites. Go to a fucked up museum instead. 
Rereading My Childhood is written by me, Amy A. Cowan. For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written and to subscribe to my Substack, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, visit AmyACowan.com.

Rereading My Childhood – Fear Street: The Bad Girl

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I was a studious kid. I showed up on time, I did the assignments, I turned in homework, and I was always prepared. Teachers loved me. I was not “a bad girl” in any sense. 

On the other hand, I didn’t do any extracurriculars. I had no “school spirit.” I ditched assemblies. I didn’t listen to school administrators and when they threatened to take away things like “Senior Sunrise” from me, I replied, “So I can keep ignoring you?” Another time, an administrator threatened to keep me from being in the senior class photo because I was loitering outside a classroom waiting for my friend. Oh no, now I won’t be photographed during the phase of my life in which the mere mention of a camera sent me running away. Don’t threaten me with a good time. To every teacher, I was the perfect student – ready to learn and attentive. To every administrator, I was an unpunishable slacker who tore school spirit signs and thought the leadership class was a waste of everyone’s time.

But I never cheated on my non-existent boyfriend, which seems to be the only prerequisite for being a “bad girl” in Shadyside. Also murder.

Our high school protagonists and delinquents are Dawn and Jan. Dawn narrates the book and is cheating on her boring boyfriend. Jan has a car and likes to annoy animals. They both have an Evian addiction.

Evian count: 1

While the girls gossip, their classmate, the teacher’s pet Cindy, chides them for using the lab to ditch study hall, a class that doesn’t exist. So they dump some chemicals like formaldehyde and sulfuric acid, which are just sitting around in this unattended science lab, in Cindy’s science project. It explodes, leaving behind a black formula with tiny golden crystals. Dawn and Jan swipe the formula as the science teacher, Ms. Philbin, bursts in and asks about the smoke. Ms. Philbin reprimands the girls. In turn, the girls blame Cindy for their admonishment.

Evian count: 2

Later while the class is preparing for frog dissection, Dawn’s boring boyfriend Clint asks her if they’re still going out and he cuts her with a scalpel. It was an accident, but Clint should probably have his very sharp blade taken away if he can’t control his dumb arms. However, Ms. Philbin is unfazed, tells them to stop screwing around, and that they should get to slicing and dicing their froggy victims. Somebody just knifed another student and Ms. Philbin is treating them as if they were drinking from the emergency eye wash station (which I regularly did in middle school; I think everyone has done this at least once).

Evian count: 3

Back to cutting open a frog, the girls name it Spot because of its distinctive markings. 

Evian count: 4

Then they drop a bit of the formula they made in the science lab into the frog’s mouth. When they look away, the frog is gone! So they get another one and cut that one open instead. 

Evian count: 5

Dawn’s bag moves on its own! It’s Spot! Alive and well. Ms. Philbin orders the girls to put the frog back into the frog terrarium and stop messing around. Wait a second. Ms. Philbin has a frog terrarium in a classroom where students dissect frogs. That’s sadistic and Ms. Philbin is fucked up.

After class, Dawn is at her locker and her secret paramour, Will, comes up and asks when he can see her again. They flirt for a little and then he leaves, pretending to throw an invisible football. You’ll have to excuse Will – he is a frequent user of the now-defunct Yahoo Answers service.

Even though she’s supposed to be a bad girl, Dawn has a job at the animal shelter after school. Her boss is leaving early, so she’s responsible enough to be left alone. Her behavior fails to live up to the title. She’s not perfect, but I would classify her as your average teenager who hasn’t outgrown their middle school obnoxiousness.

The only questionable thing she does is open the door for Jan, but who hasn’t wanted to have their best friend keep them company at their job?

Anyway, the girls bring a dead dog back to life with the formula. See, it’s not a no-kill animal shelter, and there’s a fresh kill. The dog comes back to life and now they have this zombie dog. They load him into Jan’s car to take home until they figure out what to do with it, but there’s a car tailing them.

It’s a girl from school and that’s her dog in the car. She thought the dog was dead. She took it to the shelter to be put down because the dog was sick, but here he is, completely healthy. She assumes the shelter didn’t kill her dog. Instead, they cured him with special secret drugs, didn’t tell the owners, and then sent him home with the teenager whose friend has a car. Logistics aside, the girl is ecstatic and I’m sure there will be no repercussions whatsoever.

Jan drops off Dawn and as Dawn walks up to her porch, Clint materializes from amongst the bushes. He asks her if she went out with Will Dunmore, and she lies. I do not understand her reluctance to break up with him. She doesn’t seem to like him. He wants monogamy but she clearly doesn’t. Their values don’t align. Also, it’s a stupid high school romance. It’s not like they share an IRA. The biggest thing they share is their locker, and that can be easily rectified.

The next day at school, Jan and Dawn discover that Spot, the frog they brought back to life and then deposited into the frog terrarium, is now twice his size and he seems to have eaten the other frogs.

Also, Ms. Philbrin reminds the class of their field trip to Fear Lake next Saturday. It will be an ordinary field trip and nothing strange will happen. Except maybe someone might be late for the bus! Wouldn’t that be a wild occurrence? Can you imagine?

Clint asks Dawn out to the movies to see Scream III. I mention the movie only because this book came out before Scream 3. So is R. L. Stine psychic? Or did he just guess there would be a sequel in a popular franchise? It does bother me that Stine’s Scream uses Roman numerals as if they would switch from Arabic numbers.

Dawn blows off Clint in favor of going to some random other character’s party. Even Cindy the teacher’s pet makes an appearance at the party, wearing some unflattering clothes that Dawn thinks are hilarious. However, sinister machinations set off a series of deadly events.

“I have to tell you a little secret,” Carl continued. “Not only am I thrilled to be seen with a hot babe . . . I’m twenty-five dollars richer, too!”

He burst out laughing. His cousin slapped money into his hand.

The whole room whooped.

“What?” Cindy gasped. Her face grew even redder. “Someone paid you to . . . to . . .”

“What do you think?” Carl howled. “That I invited you here to impress my friends? Yeah, right.”

I watched Cindy’s face fall. Her shoulders trembled and her lips quivered as the other kids hooted and whistled. I had to look away. I felt so embarrassed for her.

Carl turned and poured himself a Coke.

Cindy stared at him, blinking back her tears. Then, with a cry, she ran to the front door. The door slammed hard behind her.

“What a loser!” Eric laughed. “Wow. I didn’t think Carl would have the nerve to actually do it.”

Poor Cindy, I thought. How could these guys be so cruel?

Oh, now you have empathy. 

Also, what, exactly, was the bet? “I bet you wouldn’t invite this one girl to a party that already has a lot of people.” “Yeah, bro, that would be a crazy thing to do.”

Jan and Dawn leave the party under the ruse of getting more ice and chips. Unfortunately, it’s raining and visibility is low. The girls hit someone. I’ll give you one guess who it is.

Cindy is dead. 

And the girls get the brilliant idea to bring her back to life with their formula. When Cindy wakes up, they tell her that they had found her on the side of the road unconscious and that they have nothing to do with it and are completely innocent. Cindy appears to believe them and they drive her home, but there’s a lingering doubt. After all, when Cindy woke up, she did try to strangle Dawn.

After they drop her off, Dawn and Jan return to the party. They don’t want to raise any suspicions. Dawn goes outside with a boy we never see again. As they flirt outside, Clint appears from the bushes. They get into a fight because of, you know, the cheating. First the murder and now this. Gee, Dawn is having a humdinger of a weekend!

The next school day, Clint is flirting with a new blonde girl. Wait! That’s not a new girl! That’s Cindy! She went to a hairdresser and then bought new clothes. Clothes that fit her. Dawn’s bad weekend is now a bad week.

Evian count: 6

The school’s dance theme is moon and stars, and for a pair of bad girls, they’re very involved in school activities. They even help with decorations. While the girls are on a high ladder, someone turns off the lights and then knocks the ladder from under them. The girls hang onto the catwalk as a teacher helps them down. The bad luck continues at Jan’s place, where they find her room thrashed. Just bad luck all around, I guess. 

The girls speculate that Cindy, the girl they ran over and brought back to life, hates them and is threatening them. They confront Cindy at school. Cindy gets mad and bends a metal bar in a U-shape like she’s the Incredible Hulk. Later, Cindy is sitting with Dawn’s bush-born ex-boyfriend. Also, the zombie cannibal frog in the terrarium explodes.

Evian count: 7

Things are getting out of hand, so the girls tell Ms. Philbin what’s been happening – except the murder part.

“This is serious. Very serious,” Ms. Philbin said in a low voice. She bit her lip. “I’m afraid I’ll have to turn you in. This really is a matter for the FBI.”

This looks like a job for the rarely-used Zombie Crimes Division of the FBI. Right next to the X-Files. Ms. Philbin is kidding of course. She thinks the girls made up the story to get out of doing their science project.

Instead of doing their science project (or just making Cindy, the frog, and the dog their science project), the girls traipse around the mall. Cindy tries to run them over in the parking lot. And then Dawn gets a phone call from Cindy telling them that she won’t forget what they’ve done and that she knows where they live – including where Clint lives. Dawn and Jan rush to Clint’s house.

Like every house in Shadyside, the door is wide open so protagonists can find bodies, and this situation is no exception. Clint is dead. Back to his ancestral shrubbery, he goes. The bad luck just keeps getting worse!

Evian count: 8

Golly gee, it’s a tough time for Dawn. Murder is treated like a zit before the senior sunrise that I didn’t want to go to. My cavalier attitude is appropriate.

Evian count: 9

Cindy, on the other hand, is looking more beautiful and confident. Jan and Dawn try to get Cindy to admit that she killed Clint, but Cindy laughs at them. Then she threatens to tell the police how they ran her over and tried to kill her.

After the freakout, Dawn says,

“We killed Cindy once. Now we have to kill her again.”

That’s definitely the line in the trailer just before the title and the end of the old ‘70s song done in a minor key. 

During the field trip to Fear Lake, Dawn and Jan follow Cindy to a secluded area, konk her on the noggin, and push her into the lake. Now that that’s done, the girls can go on, living their lives, knowing that they murdered someone.

Evian count: 10

But no, they can’t. Ms. Philbin asks where Cindy is while the kids are getting on the bus. Then Cindy just shows up as if nothing happened. She’s soaking wet, but she’s on the bus and ready to leave.

Then the girls see Cindy walking down the street, so they run her over. Tears of joy are cried by all.

Evian count: 11

But no, Cindy shows up to science class the next day. This girl is harder to kill than Rasputin.

Anyway, remember the dog that they brought back to life? Well, the owner tells Dawn and Jan that the dog just exploded after the owner’s father teased it. Dawn and Jan think they have the key to finally killing the girl they’ve killed three times.

The girls invite Cindy over and they ask her about Clint. Cindy killed him because he was only using her to make Dawn jealous. I don’t know what she expected, but fine. Then the girls lay into Cindy. They call her a loser and no one will want to have anything to do with Cindy when they find out she’s “the walking dead.” Cindy lunges at Dawn, strangling her until finally, Cindy suffers the same fate as the frog and the dog.

Her face changed right in front of me. A twisted mask of rage. Her skin purple. Her eyes bulging from the sockets. Her lips peeled back from her teeth, exposing a black and bloated tongue.

I screamed.

And Cindy’s neck snapped.

Her head flopped down to one side. Her whole body twitched. And twitched.

Then she collapsed.

On top of me.

It’s finally over.

Although, not really. Cindy asks for mercy. She asks for more of the formula. She promises to leave the girls alone if they give her more formula. They offer her some water instead.

Evian count: 12

Dawn and Jan take pity on Cindy. They attempt to find the formula in Jan’s room, but it’s missing! Where is it?

Evian count: 13

They return to Cindy, but she’s dead. 

Final Evian count: 14

While the girls were too late, they still haven’t heard the last of Cindy. She left them a hastily written note.

Dear Jan and Dawn,

I stole the formula when I trashed Jan’s room. But I don’t want to live anymore. Not like this. The formula turned me into a monster.

YOU turned me into a monster.

Don’t worry. The formula is safe. I hid it while you were upstairs. I hid it in the best place I could think of.

I poured it into your bottle of Evian.

See you soon!

Love, Cindy

I guess it’s time to switch to Dasani.

So who is the titular “Bad Girl” in this book? Is it Dawn, who goes on tame dates with simple boys instead of her half-shrub boyfriend? Is it Jan, whose personality traits are “annoys frogs” and “drives a car?” Could it be Cindy? A source of derision amongst her peers who is humiliated multiple times. Could her treatment lead her to murder and psychotic behavior?

No. The “Bad Girl” is none of these characters. The true bad girl is Evian. In the worst instance of product placement, the bottle of water is everywhere. She’s present for every instance of bad behavior, from innocuous teasing, to frog cannibalism, and, finally, to premeditated murder. In the end, she’s the source of Dawn and Jan’s eventual doom. If the girls ditched the disposable plastic for tap water and one of those tumblers I see people make on TikTok, maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Or the title really does just refer to Cindy, who dyes her hair and flirts with boys and that makes her a bad girl. Sure, Cindy murdered someone, but who hasn’t in Shadyside? Seriously. Instead of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, everyone plays the Six Degrees of Attempted Murder. Either way, dying your hair and flirting does not a bad girl make. The murder, though, yeah, that would be a big no-no.Rereading My Childhood is written by me, Amy A. Cowan. For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written and to subscribe to my Substack, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, visit AmyACowan.com.

Goosebumps: The Headless Ghost by R. L. Stine – A Rereading My Childhood Book Review & Summary

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One of the many reasons I love The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland is the lore. There’s the Stretching room at the beginning, and after you board the Doom Buggy, you see the Endless Hallway. There’s a row of rattling doors. Madame Leota’s Seance Room. The Ballroom. The Bride’s Attic. The Graveyard. Each room’s lore is a puzzle piece for an overarching story known collectively as The Haunted Mansion.

That’s kind of the theme of this week’s book. A pair of best friends may be the protagonists, but the house is the real main character. It has secrets, history, and a cast of wacky characters. Just like The Haunted Mansion.

Stephanie and Duane haunt their neighborhood. No, they’re not the titular headless ghosts. They’re just some little jerks who run around at night throwing fake spiders and howling outside people’s windows.

And I love them.

They have such a great friendship based on mutual respect and similar senses of humor. He likes her costumes. She likes his jokes. This is the most balanced relationship I’ve seen so far in a Stine novel. But not everything is rosy.

Stephanie is growing tired of scaring everyone in the neighborhood. She needs a challenge. She needs a change of venue. She needs Hill House.

No, I’m not talking about either the Shirley Jackson house or the Netflix series. Neither one of those houses offer tours. This Hill House has guided tours. Stephanie and Duane have been on the house tour so many times that they have a favorite guide, Otto, and they have each stop memorized, including the story of the headless ghost.

Basically, a sea captain left his wife back at the house, but he never returned – at least – he never returned alive! See, he was lost at sea and his wife waited for him, but she gave up and left. He returned as a ghost and kept calling for his wife, but she never returned. Many years later, another family moved in with a son named Andrew. Andrew was a real jerk and he tormented the sea captain, so the sea captain pulled off Andrew’s head and hid it somewhere in the bowels of the house.

That was more gruesome than I expected in a Goosebumps book.

Anyway, Stephanie wants that head, and they’re willing to sneak away from the tour to get it.

And that’s exactly what the kids do. Eventually. The tour mostly consists of teenagers and the tour guide for the night is the aforementioned favorite, Otto. He brings them to the room that once belonged to a young girl named Hannah:

“After her brother was killed, Hannah went crazy,” Otto told us in a hushed voice. “All day long, for eighty years, she sat in her rocking chair over there in the corner. And she played with her dolls. She never left her room. Ever.”

He pointed to a worn rocking chair. “Hannah died there. An old lady surrounded by her dolls.”

That’s how I want to go – only with books. An old lady surrounded by her books. And her k-pop photo cards.

Duane sees a kid staring at them from the bottom of the stairs. Before Duane can confront the kid, Stephanie grabs his arm and leads him away from the group. It’s time to search for that head!

I didn’t think the chances were too good. How do you find a hundred-year-old head? And what if you do find it?

Duane has a point.

They enter the Green Room, which is so named because the wallpaper contains green vines. Clearly, the owners weren’t thinking about the resale value of the house, otherwise, they should have chosen a neutral color like white or beige. It’s like these people were thinking about living in the house instead of selling it in a few years at a 300% markup. 

Anyway, the kids continue through the house and into Andrew’s room. The toys in the room are covered in dust, but Duane can make out something in the shadows. Wedged between the wall and the door is a sphere with two holes. They’ve done it! They’ve found the head!

Just kidding. It’s a bowling ball. 

The kids sneak past a “NO VISITORS” sign and climb up to the third floor. They don’t find a ghost head, but they do find a bunch of cats. No furniture and all cats. And cobwebs. Grabby cobwebs.

Eventually, they hear voices. Raucous voices just beyond a door. Voices that indicate life – or, more appropriately – the afterlife. They open the door and find absolutely nothing. Well, that’s not true. They find disappointment. And then Otto finds them. Apparently, Otto and the other guide, Edna, have been looking for Duane and Stephanie. The kids lie and say they got lost, so Otto ushers them back to the tour group.

The kids go outside and hear a voice ask if they’ve found their head. Instead of a headless ghost, they find a headfull kid making a little joke. It’s the kid Duane saw at the bottom of the stairs. His name is Seth and he’s visiting from out of town. He also knows how to get the ghosts to emerge. Is it sympathetic vibrations with the assistance of Madame Leota? No. It’s coming back after Hill House closes for the night.

After closing, Stephanie and Duane meet up with Seth and they sneak into the house through the kitchen and find a dumbwaiter. Seth warns them that they shouldn’t play around with the archaic contraption. A boy named Jeremy once climbed into the dumbwaiter and he didn’t come back out. Well, most of him didn’t come back out.

“There were three covered bowls on the shelf. The kids lifted the lid off the first bowl. Inside was Jeremy’s heart, still beating.

“They opened the second bowl. Inside were Jeremy’s eyes, still staring in horror. And they opened the third bowl. And saw Jeremy’s teeth, still chattering.”

It’s like that game with the peeled grapes, but terrifying instead. This book is scarier than the other Goosebumps books, how did Stine get away with some of this stuff? Don’t get it twisted – I love it. I think most kids are tough and really love horror –  I know I did. Even as an adult, I’m having a blast with this book.

And it’s about to get more treacherous for Stephanie and Duane. Seth has a confession. Seth isn’t Seth. Seth is actually Andrew, and he has some sinister intentions.

“I have to return this head, Duane,” he said calmly, coldly. “So I’m going to take yours.”

The kids run away as Andrew/Seth screams that he’s going to take their heads. They find a secret passage and escape down a long tunnel, descending farther into the bowels of the mansion. Andrew/Seth is on their trail, determined to get ahead of them.

After some running and, eventually, ladder-climbing, the kids find a hidden room. Within this hidden room, is the missing head. Andrew/Seth catches up, and Duane and Stephanie offer the head to their chaser. Andrew/Seth sees something behind the kids and screams. Duane and Stephanie turn around. It’s a figure that they can see through – and it’s missing its head!

The ghost turned to us – to Stephanie and me. And the lips moved in a silent “Thank you.”

And then the ghost leaves, presumably with a new look to show the other ghosts like he just dropped his life savings on a Burberry Peacoat. It looks great, but it was a lot of hassle.

Who is the ghost impersonator who chased them through a tunnel? Well, that’s Otto’s nephew, who is visiting, so Seth wasn’t lying about that part. And speaking of Otto, he finds the kids and he, once again, escorts them out of Hill House.

After a night of ghost hunting to make Zak Bagans jealous, Stephanie and Duane stop scaring kids in the neighborhood. Stephanie becomes a theater kid and Duane joins the basketball team, but they remain good friends.

The two have a wonderful scare-less winter, but something calls them back to Hill House. For old time’s sake, the duo return to the house. Edna and Otto are working and the duo gives the kids the full tour. Maybe it wasn’t only the house that gave Stephanie and Duane joy – it was also their favorite tour guides who gave voices to the voiceless residents of the house.

They leave the house, this time on their own without needing an escort or anything. A police officer asks them what they’re doing in that abandoned house as Hill House went out of business three months ago.

In the soft light, I saw Otto and Edna. They floated in front of the window. I could see right through them, as if they were made of gauze.

This one was oddly beautiful. Goosebumps usually ends on an abrupt note, much like this essay series, with an added ludicrous twist. Not this book. This is about a house with a tome of stories contained within it. The house was beloved before it was an attraction, while it was an attraction, and after it ceased to be an attraction. Why else would the ghosts stay up on the third floor for eternity? Why else would Otto and Edna stay in the house? Why else would Stephanie and Duane take the tour again even though they’ve solved the mysteries of the house?

And frankly, I loved this book. Stephanie and Duane’s relationship is solid and even though they were terrorizing the neighborhood, it’s relatively innocent stuff. Howling outside of people’s windows is ranked innocuous on the litany of Stine pranks. There were also some genuinely scary stories about the house – both the psychological kind like the woman so depressed she lived in a single room filled with dolls for the rest of her life and the physical kind like the kid who climbed into a dumbwaiter. 

Finally, the twist was sweet. Edna and Otto deserve to be in a place that makes them happy, and it seems that Hill House is that place. We should all be so lucky to find a place that we love and that will have us for eternity.

Especially since the Disney Cast Members always force me off the Haunted Mansion. Just let me stay in the Doom Buggy and bring me a two-dollar apple every couple of hours. That’s all I ask.

Rereading My Childhood is written by me, Amy A. Cowan. For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written and to subscribe to my Substack, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, visit AmyACowan.com.

Rereading My Childhood – Fear Street: The Boy Next Door by R. L. Stine

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Men are a menace. To everyone – women, children, and other men. The worst ones are entitled men. Men who think they are owed something. They think they are owed something simply for being a man. Because a woman dates them, they are entitled to her body, her time, her expression, and everything about her. And then they wonder why women don’t want to talk to them. They wonder why other men won’t befriend them. Maybe they’ll get over themselves and learn to make real change. Or maybe they buy a gun and shoot people. (I’m not talking about a specific event because there are too many for me to reference as I live in a hellscape known as America.)

It seems that entitled men are the focus of this week’s review. Since this book’s publication, entitled men haven’t gone away. They’ve just gotten more access to like-minded idiots on the internet and firearms. So buckle up and meet one of the worst antagonists in Fear Street.

Like many Fear Street novels, we start with a first-person killer cam. Actually, get used to this killer cam – we’re going to get a lot of it. There is no mystery here. We know who the killer is and we know about his motivations by the third page.

His name is Scott Collins and he’s at his girlfriend’s funeral. He killed her because she started wearing make-up, saying that it was “No way to behave.” Remember this, because it’s his terrible mantra. 

Then we switch to the third person. Crystal and her best friend Lynne are trying on lipsticks and talking about boys. I know this character type. I’m bored of them already.

They hear some commotion outside. There’s a new family moving in next door and they have a hot son – and he’s in the bedroom right next to Crystal’s! They peep at him changing his shirt and they think he saw them. In the same chapter, it switches back to Scott’s first-person perspective. He knows they were staring at him and he’s very angry they were doing it. Not because it’s a clear invasion of his privacy. No. That’s not the issue. The issue is that they were wearing lipstick and low-cut leotards. Yep. I’m very happy we get to spend time in this dingus’s head. I’m being sarcastic if you couldn’t tell.

The next day before school, Crystal is judging her sister, Melinda.

How could she expect to attract a guy’s attention in those awful brown sweaters and sloppy, wrinkled jeans? It’s as if she were terrified of looking good, Crystal thought.

Well, well, well, if it isn’t my old friend Insecurity. First of all, the notion that one must wear revealing clothes to attract boys must have come from boys themselves, because in my experience, any girl can get a boy without much effort. Boys are everywhere and they’re more desperate. And even if they weren’t, dumb boys are useless anyway, and the good ones don’t care what you wear as long as you’re happy. They don’t care if you wear ugly sweaters or short skirts. What matters to a good dude is your happiness.

Anyway, Melinda is another stereotype – the bookworm who only reads old books. Look, I like Pride & Prejudice also, but most of the books I read are contemporary. I believe this stems from both a male author’s lack of knowledge regarding current female authors and the publishing industry’s relegation of female authors to frivolity. Literary fiction written by women is often referred to as “women’s fiction,” a genre that fails to carry the same weight as “literary fiction.” Since modern fiction for women isn’t regarded as serious enough, the girls in these types of books have to read classic literature like Jane Eyre (another book Melinda mentions). See, Melinda is a serious girl who reads serious books, but nothing new because it’s not serious enough, even though there were authors like Joyce Carol Oates, Eve Ensler, and Toni Morrison in the ‘90s, and those are the ones off the top of my head. 

Although, if Melinda was reading The Vagina Monologues, the Karens would clutch their grocery store plastic pearls in abject terror. A story about a girl’s first menstruation is not appropriate, but you know what is appropriate? The story of a man who keeps his ex-wife in the attic while he tries to pick up the tutor.

Anyway, at school, Scott has been spending his time staring at women with so much tension that his head is trying to compress his skull, or so I imagine. At lunch, Lynne drinks diet iced tea (Which doesn’t exist, just don’t add sugar, there, it’s diet.) and invites everyone over to her house. Scott plays with a knife and no one notices. 

Later, Crystal wonders why Scott hasn’t called her, so she commits mail fraud. Not really. The postman just delivered Scott’s mail to her house. There is a brief explanation of how addresses work, a common theme for this essay series/podcast.

She flipped the magazine over. Studied the mailing label.

MR. MICHAEL COLLINS

3618 FEAR STREET

The mailman had made a mistake. Crystal lived at 3616 Fear Street. She was about to toss the magazine on the side table when-

She stopped cold. She checked the mailing label again. The address.

Yeah, it’s for next door. Why would you just toss it to a table if you didn’t know what it was? If there’s a single piece of strange mail, I inspect it like it’s the clue to solving a decades-old murder that will clear my family name.

Crystal uses this as an opportunity to venture over to Scott’s house. Meanwhile, Scott is murdering a dog. It’s unnecessary. We already know that Scott is a bad person. There’s no need to drag a dog into this.

Crystal makes her way next door and finds the door open. She just walks in and someone grabs her from behind! It’s Jake “The Snake” Roberts and HE POWERBOMBS HER THROUGH THE COUCH! Have you ever seen such brutality, Mean Gene?

Just kidding. It’s Jake Roberts, Scott’s new friend and he just engages in general obnoxiousness. After hanging out for a little bit and talking about the weird magazine, Lynne shows up as Rollerblade Barbie – minus the catching your hair on fire.

She wore hot-pink-and-black skating gear, with black tights. The shiny material clung to her skin, showing off her long legs. She strolled into the room as if she owned the place and dropped her Rollerblades on the floor.

She hates to skate! Crystal thought.

Yeah, that’s the problem. Not the fact that neither of them knows anything about this random boy, and they’re already willing to change everything about themselves. It’s the fact that she’s wearing Rollerblading stuff and she doesn’t Rollerblade. 

When they leave, Scott refers to Crystal as “a disease,” which is a very nice thing to say about a human being. A few days later, Lynne actually kisses Scott. He runs to his bathroom, scrubs his mouth, and vows to kill her.

Crystal and Lynne call him and speak to him playfully in a French accent. Scott’s mom is not happy that girls are calling him with accents. I’m not sure if it’s the girls calling him or the French accents. Either way, they have a terse dinner where they chant things like, “No way to behave,” at each other like they’re trying to summon the ghost of Strom Thurmond. Republicans are wild.

Later, after a conversation with her sister, Crystal hops over to Lynne’s house. She finds Lynne’s suicide note that reads, in part

“I only acted wild to cover up my true feelings.” … “I realize now that this is no way to behave-”

Crystal finds her friend slumped over in the garage with the car running. Lynne is dead.

The next few days are hard for Crystal. While grieving, she renews her relationship with Melinda, which is mostly Crystal attempting to turn Melinda into a replacement for Lynne.

Finally, Scott calls Crystal’s house, but he doesn’t call for Crystal. Instead, he asks for Melinda.

Crystal is surprisingly happy for Melinda. She gives Melinda some new outfits to wear so she can attract Scott as if Scott hadn’t already asked Melinda out. Of course, Scott hates the outfits because he’s a misogynist dumbass. 

Eventually, Melinda admits to Scott that Crystal has been dressing Melinda. Scott determines that in order to keep Melinda docile and the perfect Republican wife, he must kill Crystal. 

Strap in, because we’re finally at the climax. The girls work together and even pull an “I’m Melinda,” “No, I’m Melinda” to save themselves. Scott decides to kill both of them.

Do the girls work together like sisters to take down the man who murdered Crystal’s best friend?

Not really. He falls into a hole, giving the girls an opportunity to call the police, and Scott is hauled away to the mental asylum.

A few days later, a new family moves in and both Crystal and Melinda rush to the window to see if there’s a new boy.

What a disappointing book. There are already too many men in the world with Scott’s perspective. They think they have the right to tell people, especially women, what to do, how to act, and what to wear. They’re basically destroying the world right now. I spent the whole book waiting for his great comeuppance. I wanted the girls to work together to defeat the murderer. I wanted them to use his backward beliefs against him. Instead, he falls in a hole. The girls didn’t use their wits. They didn’t even use the hole. He stumbles into the hole like Justin Bieber at one of his concerts.

Maybe I could forgive this book if the female characters weren’t such stereotypes. Crystal and Lynne are obnoxious and boy-obsessed, so much so that they’re willing to abandon their interests and personalities for a boy they don’t even know. This is a common trope, but man, Stine, give them something. A fun quirk. A starring role as the only girl on the basketball team. Anything.

And the character who is supposed to be different, Melinda, is also a broad stereotype. She only reads books from the 19th century and only wears sweaters. Unlike her sister, she does change – into an obnoxious, boy-obsessed clone of her sister. From one stereotype to another. It’s really more of a lateral move.

I know these characters are supposed to be disposable tropes, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have something to latch onto. A couple of the disposable tropes in Halloween Party are a deaf, interesting girlfriend and a thirty-year-old woman who thinks that it’s appropriate to party with teenagers. That book has some other problems, mostly that the other characters are a bunch of forgettable tropes, but it had two interesting characters who carried the book. That proves that these books can be done without relying on one lazy stereotype of a boy attacking some other lazy stereotypes of girls. Here’s to Reva, the sisters from Bad Dreams, and multiple petticoated women of the Sagas series, who keep us from boring tropes. May more of you enter the Fear Street series.

For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, just visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, Amy A. Cowan, visit my website AmyACowan.com or follow my Twitter: amyacowan.

Rereading My Childhood – Goosebumps: Attack of the Jack-o’-Lanterns by R. L. Stine

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The difference between a teenager’s Halloween party and a kid’s Halloween party is the Trick-or-Treat. Usually, a Halloween party for teenagers is an excuse to drink and attempt to engage in an awkward courtship ritual that will haunt them forever. The kid’s Halloween party is supervised and at some point, the kids go as a group and become reverse door-to-door salesmen. The night ends with a sleepover.

At least, that has been my experience. 

Parties and trick-or-treating collide in this years’ Halloween special in R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps: Attack of the Jack-o’-Lanterns. Unlike my Halloweens though, I’m not scared for life – at least not in a physical sense. Some of my costume choices were questionable, though. Like the time I was a “bloodsucker” because I was lacking specific teeth. What is a “bloodsucker”? It is just a vampire without any benefits.

Drew Brockman growls at people. He also has millions of friends that we all meet in the first three pages. I’m kidding. His friends are Walker, Tabby, Lee, Shane, and Shana, and we get them in two pages. Walker is his best friend, Shane and Shana are twins, and Tabby and Lee are the patented Stine not-friends.

Two years prior, Tabby and Lee threw a Halloween party that would have resulted in a lawsuit if there was justice in this world. Basically, two people in ski masks crashed the party through the basement, ordered everyone to the floor, and then forced the party-goers to do push-ups. The result is PTSD for an entire fourth-grade class and a kid who literally growls at people vowing revenge. 

The next year, Drew, Walker, Shane, and Shana have this master plan to scare Tabby and Lee with fake spiders and rubber snakes. However, Tabby and Lee decline their Halloween party invitation, so the kids have to wait another year to enact revenge. 

But this year, they will finally even the score.

Drew, Walker, Tabby, and Lee go trick-or-treating. They go to a house and a kind woman invites them inside. Against their better judgment, the kids enter, only to find a disturbing scene.

The back room was enormous.

And jammed with kids in costumes.

“Whoa!” I cried out, startled. My eyes quickly swept the room.

Most of the kids had taken off their masks. Some of them were crying. Some were red-faced and angry. Several kids sat cross-legged on the floor, their expressions glum.

…

“Yeah. Let us out of here,” Lee insisted.

The old man smiled. The woman stepped up beside him. “You have to stay,” she said. “We like to look at your costumes.”

“You can’t go,” the man added, leaning heavily on his cane. “We have to look at your costumes.” 

“Huh? What are you saying? How long are you going to keep us here?” Tabby cried.

“Forever,” the old couple replied in unison.

Now Walker and Drew have to work with Tabby and Lee to escape these wild people who collect trick-or-treaters, getting closer together and gaining a mutual understanding of one another-

No. It was a daydream. It was Drew’s daydream. He thought it up in between growls.

Anyway, the actual day is here, but there’s a slight kink in their plan – Mother Growl doesn’t think they should go trick-or-treating. Apparently, there are people missing in town.

I took the paper from Mom and stared at the photos of the four people who had disappeared. Three men and one woman.

“The police are warning people to be very careful,” Mom said softly.

Walker walked over and took the newspaper from my hands. He studied the photos for a moment. “Hey – these people are all fat!” he exclaimed.

Now we all clustered around the paper and stared at the gray photos. Walker was right. All four people were very overweight. The first one, a bald man in a bulging turtleneck swather, had at least six chins!

Well, then I guess they deserve to be kidnapped!

But enough of that grown-up stuff – the kids are ready to go trick-or-treating!

Drew and Walker leave. It’s not long before something bites Drew on the shoulder! It’s Todd, one of the boys that home invaded the party from three years before. This kid bites Drew and so Drew growls at him. The older kids run off to bite other trick-or-treaters. There’s a lot of animalistic behavior going on here. 

Eventually, Tabby and Lee show up. The twins are late and Drew is worried about their plan, but Tabby and Lee want candy, so they start knocking on doors. One of the houses gives them apples and Lee yeets it because you shouldn’t take unwrapped gifts from people you don’t know. Or he doesn’t like fruit, I’m not sure.

As they’re hucking fruit, they see two figures emerge from a grey blur.

Over their heads…

They wore pumpkins!

Large, round pumpkins, perfectly balanced on their shoulders.

…

As they slowly turned to face us, their jack-’o-lantern faces came into view.

Eerie, jagged grins cut into their pumpkin heads.

Flashing triangle eyes.

Lit by flames!

Walker and Drew scream, but Tabby and Lee are unphased. In fact, they’re so unphased that after the pumpkin heads (not the movie) beckon the kids to follow them, Tabby and Lee trail behind without much of a second thought. Walker and Drew tag along and Drew has a bad feeling about the be-pumpkined individuals, but at least he isn’t growling.

They pass through a forest and it seems like they’ve been walking for hours. Walker fails to live up to his name and struggles with his shoes. Drew speculates that the missing people followed the pumpkins deep into the woods and he expresses his internal anxiety. Finally, they come out of the forest on the other side and they’re suddenly in a neighborhood. It’s a nice neighborhood and every house has great candy. Soon, the children have had their fill.

They attempt to go home, but the pumpkins are furious. They say that the kids can’t stop.

They both appeared to float up, to rise up over us. The fires raged in their triangle eyes. The heads floated up over the dark, caped bodies.

“You can’t quit! You can’t EVER quit!”

Whenever the kids try to run away, the pumpkins block their path. When the kids have run out of space in their bags, the pumpkins order them to eat. The kids are reaching their breaking point, especially Tabby and Lee. The two attempt to grab the pumpkin head off to reveal the person behind the mask. Tabby and Lee are successful until they realize that the pumpkins were their heads. The pumpkins just laugh and put their heads back on. 

It’s almost midnight and the kids’ parents are going to be worried, but the pumpkins are still going house-to-house. The kids try to get help, but none of the adults will help them, calling them crazy. The pumpkins have been disappearing when the kids try to signal for help and then emerge when the kids try to run away. They go to another house and instead of finding a human – they find a pumpkin adult.

More pumpkin adults appear. They surround the children. They bring out four extra pumpkin heads. They slam one of the heads on top of Tabby. She runs away screaming. Lee tries to fight back, but the pumpkin people get him, too. Then they turn their sights on Walker and Drew.

And they all start laughing.

What is going on?

The two creatures set the empty pumpkin heads down on the ground. And then their own pumpkin heads started to change. The flames died out. The heads began to shrink. And change shape.

A few seconds later, Shane and Shana had their own heads back.

…

“It worked guys!” I exclaimed when we finally stopped celebrating. “It worked! It worked! We really scared Tabby and Lee this time!”

…

“That was so much fun!” Walker exclaimed. “And so easy!”

I stepped up to Shane and Shana and hugged them both. “Of course,” I exclaimed, “it helps to have two aliens from another planet as friends!”

“What the hell?” I exclaimed.

You’d think I’d be used to these kinds of endings by now, but I’m not. Especially when the narrator spends the book expressing to me, the reader, how scared he is through internal dialogue and how those pumpkin kids aren’t Shane and Shana.

It would be one thing if Drew were saying the pumpkins weren’t the twins to Tabby and Lee to keep up the lie but Drew told me, the reader, about his fear. He told me that the twins were missing. He said to me he needed to get home. In the words of Bob’s Burgers, “A lie is not a twist.”

However, maybe I’m looking at this book wrong. Maybe I’m only looking at it with an artificial lens. At the end of the book, as the kids are getting their sweet revenge, the village of aliens were all willing to help. It’s about a community coming together to aid one of its weaker members.

I suddenly had a serious thought. I stopped laughing. “You know, I’ve never seen you two eat,” I told the two aliens. “What do you eat?”

Shana reached out and pinched my arm. “You’re still really bony, Drew, “ she replied. “You’ll find out what Shane and I eat when you fill out a bit.”

“Yeah,” Shane chimed in. “People from our planet only like to eat very plump adults. So you don’t have to worry for now.”

Well, I guess they’ll deserve it when they get older.

The book is not about Halloween revenge. It’s about animals. At its core, human nature is animalistic. Teenagers bite multiple children. Our main character literally growls. They go from house to house hunting for sustenance. Getting revenge on Tabby and Lee plays into pack dynamics. Tabby and Lee are the alphas of the group, but a new leader wants to take over. It’s not a fight in the traditional physical sense, but a fight of courage.

And in the end, as all this happens, there’s a set of aliens who see humans as another animal to use for food. They are keeping the townspeople in their little neighborhoods, or pens, until it’s time for them to graduate from Bovine University.

Or Stine couldn’t think of an ending and he saw an episode of The X-Files and was all, “I’ll just make it aliens.”

For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, just visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, Amy A. Cowan, visit my website AmyACowan.com or follow my Twitter: amyacowan.

Rereading My Childhood – Fear Street: High Tide

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To no one’s surprise, I don’t do beaches. It’s not the water – I love water, as well as the concept of water. It is a necessary part of living, so I like water in that sense. And a peaceful wave crashing on sand in the middle of the night is a wonderful thing. I would prefer to live near the water. Despite that, I don’t do beaches. I don’t do bikinis. I don’t do boys flexing at everyone around them. I don’t do the sun. I don’t do lifeguards. I don’t do sunbathing. My ideal waterline situation involves overcast weather in serenity or a busy port with tourist traps. This is no middle ground.

However, it’s time to pack that tote bag with a sarang, pop on some sunglasses, and strap on sandals because R. L. Stine is taking us to the beach – and all I can sea is blood in the water. 

Our protagonist, Adam, crashes into waves on what Stine calls a “scooter.” I thought they were called “Ski-Doos.” My partner told me that they’re called “Sea-Doos” or “Waverunners,” the generic term is “jetski,” and he’d never heard anyone refer to them as “scooters.” Even that delineation is a matter of some debate, mostly whether or not one stands up or sits down on the watercraft. For this review, I’m going to stick with “jetski,” but keep in mind that Stine calls them scooters like they’re Italian vehicles.

Going back to Adam, he’s on a jetski with his girlfriend, the ludicrously named Mitzi. She falls off the jetski pretty quickly and gets cut. Then Adam falls off the jetski and it cuts his leg. They’re just floating in their own blood and he’s trying to save his girlfriend, but it’s no use – the waves take them. 

Adam jolts awake – it was all a dream. Sort of. His roommate, Ian, suggests he switches psychiatrists. Adam has been seeing a TV psychiatrist named Dr. Thrall since the accident a year before and he is still experiencing nightmares and general jump-scare-related hallucinations. What? You’re telling me that a talk show doctor is not the most scrupulous mental health care professional? The devil you say!

Still, Adam thinks his legs are suddenly gone. It’s another hallucination, of course, and he sees Dr. Thrall. To my surprise, the doctor is not an Orc Shaman from Orgrimmar. He’s a doctor who says weird things like the following:

“You have to listen to your subconscious mind.” He tapped his fingers on the desk and glanced at me sharply. “It may be trying to tell you something. I think there’s something inside your brain struggling to get out.”

I thought Freudian psychiatry was dismissed, but here we are. The Id has something to say, I guess. Adam, drop this guy, but right now, it’s time for work.

We meet Leslie, the girl that Adam is currently courting, to use a parlance contemporary to Freud, since that outdated thinking is present in the novel. And speaking of outdated thinking, we also meet the other lifeguard, Sean.

End of part one. Yes. You heard me. End of part one on page twenty. And we’re switching points-0f-view! 

We switch to Sean, who also sucks, but in a different way. Adam is boring and his only personality trait is that he sees his dead girlfriend everywhere. Sean is one cashier telling him that he has to wear his mask away from being a mass shooter. His favorite hobby is assaulting the girls on the beach, particularly a girl named Alyce. 

“Let go of me, Sean! You really are an animal.”

“You love it!” I insisted. I turned her around and kissed her on the mouth. “You know you love it.”

“I do not love it!” she snarled. She shoved me away and scowled at me.

I reached for her, but she hopped backward. “Oh, you want me to chase you?” I asked.

“Hardly.” She made a disgusted face. “Don’t you get it? I don’t like being grabbed like that.”

“Like what?” I asked, grinning. “You want me to grab you some other way? Show me how, babe!”

Oh, gawd. This guy can’t die fast enough.

I hate to break it to you, but this guy does not die. He is just our red herring. But at least we don’t have to follow him for too long.

Uh-oh. More bad news, we have to follow this guy for a while. And he doesn’t get any better. He doesn’t get any worse, though, but the bar is on the ground with this guy. The bar is so low that we would have to call before we dig if we wanted to raise it because we don’t want to hit a gas line.

Sean pretends there’s a shark in the water just to freak Adam out. (On a side note, if Adam panics when there’s a shark, why is he still a lifeguard?) At this point, Sean spins a tale to Adam. A tale of stalking his girlfriend to find out if she was cheating. He followed her and her date to an amusement park. I imagine the girl and her better, newer boyfriend having a great time on Dumbo the Flying Elephant in one car, and in the next car Adam is looking pissed and staring at them. After she said goodbye for the night, Adam cornered the guy in the woods and beat him. When the guy screamed, Sean just beat him more. Why did Sean tell Adam this story? Because he didn’t like the way that Adam looked at Alyce. 

We switch to Adam and he is chatting with Ian. Remember him? The roommate? Well, Ian is going to go to the beach and scope out hot chicks, whom Adam calls “females” like a damn Ferengi. Anyway, Ian wants to borrow Adam’s jeans for his night out. Ian leaves, but Adam finds Ian dead in his bed! Just kidding – it’s another hallucination. The hallucinations are not already annoying, no. Definitely not. And not they’re over. Adam speaks with Leslie, and then a skull talks to him. Nothing fun, like Skeletor. The skull just screams, and then we’re back with Sean.

Stalker Sean looks for Alyce at her apartment but her roommate says that she’s not there. So Sean skulks around the beach and finds Alyce with some guy. Since he keeps calling the mysterious person “him,” we can safely assume that Stine wants us to think it’s Adam, but we know that it’s someone else.

Sean follows Alyce and the guy who is definitely not Adam (*wink*wink*) as they drive to some date night locations. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Sean loses them at the movies. Sean, you need a hobby. Something that will give you an identity outside of “stalker/angry guy.” Have you tried coin collecting? Maybe you should become an expert on old warships. Or plumbing. People always need someone to plumb something. 

Instead of taking up a productive hobby, Sean beats some random guy in an alley. Leslie happens upon Sean and stops him before he kills the guy. Leslie does not go to the police. Although, what are the police going to do to stop a dude who beats up random people and has a history of violence? They would just hire him.

The next day at work, we’re back with Adam, who is chatting it up with two new girls – Joy and Raina. Also, Sean is acting aggressive and stand-offish with Adam. When Adam goes into the water, a jet ski crashes into him, and Sean does nothing! Don’t worry about our bland protagonist – it’s just another hallucination.

Adam has a hot date with both Joy and Raina. Oh, I guess Ian is there, too, but the girls are smitten with Adam. Maybe the bikini girls don’t know that there are two dudes. I know that two boring characters can seem like the same guy. Anyway, Leslie sees Adam cavorting with the girls and we get a red herring.

“You hurt me, Adam!” she declared furiously. “And I’m going to find a way to hurt you back!”

I’m not completely sure about his relationship with Leslie. He doesn’t expressly say that they’re dating, but the implication is there. I think that Adam is leading Leslie on, implying they’re in a relationship while keeping it open in case two bikini girls come by and flirt. Then he can have fun with them while keeping Leslie on a leash. I have a low opinion of Adam. Although, not as low as my opinion of Sean.

And speaking of Sean, during lifeguard duty, Sean is still cool towards Adam. His relationship with Sean seems to bother him more than his relationship with Leslie. But it doesn’t matter, it’s the titular high tide, and Joy and Raina are in the water. Adam doesn’t see them resurface. Bust out the slow-motion because it’s Baywatch time!

There’s a lot of swimming. Pages of swimming. Basically what happens is that Adam finds Joy, but she panics and keeps clinging to him. Then he finds Raina, but she’s unconscious. He can’t swim while towing Raina if Joy keeps clawing at him and screaming. He leaves Joy behind because at least she’s conscious and he promises to come back for her. Unfortunately, when he returns, Joy is nowhere to be found and presumed drowned.

We have come to the end of part two. At least Stine waited for seventy pages this time.

Adam wakes up in his bed. Was it a hallucination? Ian informs him that it really happened and Adam should take the day off. But it’s time for Ian to go! He has a hot date again!

Adam wanders around the apartment, “slips a CD in,” and eats cereal. Then he gets a phone call. Someone with a nondescript voice says,

“Adam, you’re going to pay for what you did to me, I promise you. You’re going to pay soon.”

He goes for a walk, but there is no respite.

Her windbreaker flew up behind her, like a cape. In the dark mist, she looked transparent. As if she were part of the shadows, part of the fog. As if I could see right through her.

…

“Adam…” she whispered.

I gasped. She knew my name!

“Adam – you let me drown!”

“NOOOO!” I cried.

Joy! It was Joy floating in the shadows, billowing in the fog.

Her windbreaker/cape fluttering in the fog like a gothic ghost! Nothing says romance like a windbreaker. And like a Victorian ghost of a lover who was wasted away, she disappears. Yet another hallucination. Or was it? The “ghost” left a wet footprint behind.

Adam returns home and goes to sleep. He dreams about Mitzi and the jet ski accident again, although something has changed. This time, someone else is driving the jet ski that ran over Mitzi. When he wakes up, someone is in the room!

It’s just Ian.

Finally, Adam talks with Leslie about what’s been going on and the drowning of the bikini girls. She reveals some startling information.

Leslie bit her bottom lip. “I watched the news last night,” she told me. “They didn’t say anything about a drowning.”

She reached down beside her and slapped a newspaper on the table. “And this is today’s paper. Look.”

Leslie flipped the paper around and showed me the main headline: TOURIST BEACH RENTALS A RECORD HIGH.

The next day, Raina admits that she feels bad and she will explain everything that night. Adam agrees to meet up with her at seven. But before they can meet up, Adam has to go back to his apartment. He finds Sean slashing up his bed. However, Sean is confused – he wanted to slash up Ian’s bed. Unsurprisingly, Ian is the one Alyce is dating and Sean has been icy toward Adam because Sean assumed that Adam would cover for his roommate. It doesn’t excuse Sean’s behavior, and the reason for Sean’s inclusion as a first-person protagonist will stay unexplained. But at least that red herring subplot is solved and we can ignore Sean for the rest of our lives.

Adam meets Raina and suddenly Joy shows up! She’s not dead! Also, not surprising. It was all an act. Joy and Raina pretended to be in peril and Joy pretended to drown. In fact, it was all Dr. Thrall’s idea. This is what happens when you look for your next doctor on TV. Stacey McGill’s parents did the same thing and all it got them was a massive medical bill (I’m assuming), the disapproval of their daughter, and criticism from a random woman from the internet on her goofy podcast and essay series.

“He thinks you buried the memory of what happened last summer deep down in your mind,” Joy explained. “And he wanted to try something really radical to get you to bring the memory up.”

Why are these two girls helping Dr. Thrall or Ian? Do they know the bikini girls? Were the bikini girls hired off the internet? WANTED: hot bikini girls for psychotherapy drowning prank.

Adam runs away to his roommate, who was also in on the “radical” treatment. Then Adam remembers that last summer, it wasn’t him and Mitzi on the jet ski. It was Ian and Mitzi on the jet ski. Ian borrowed his jet ski, Mitzi fell off, and Ian hit Mitzi and Adam in the water. Ian was so distraught that he ran away. When Adam came to, he blamed himself so Ian just let him continue thinking Adam killed his girlfriend.

The two of them fight it out on jet skis in a scene rivaling From Justin to Kelly. Adam comes out on top, of course, and Ian is hauled off in a police vehicle. Finally, Adam gets to spend time with Leslie – at least until she gets killed during a synchronized swimming routine or Adam finds a set of bikini girls who weren’t hired through the Facebook Marketplace.

You would think that the beach is a prime location for murder and horror. Bodies washing up on shore. The sheer amount of people breaking rules at night. The overwhelming depth of the ocean. The creatures that lurk below. The mysteries of the ocean are just a few feet away. But this book is more about Adam’s trauma surrounding the death of his girlfriend. And I would be fine with that. A story about a man dealing with hallucinations and triggers is fine. Sounds like Jacob’s Ladder or Slaughterhouse-Five, so we know that it can make for a good horror story.

What I can’t understand is why he would continue to work at the beach where his girlfriend died? Maybe if there was an indication that he just loves the beach or the ocean so much, that the thought of being away from the water is worse than his PTSD. Even that doesn’t make much sense. There’s just no reason for him to stay on the beach. And the beach doesn’t contribute anything meaningful to the story – the location could be different. Maybe he can’t move out because he doesn’t have enough money to move. Fine. But he can somehow live in a beach house on a lifeguard’s salary. Why is he still a lifeguard? Get a different job. And while you’re at it, a new shrink.

Finally, Sean’s chapters are a huge waste of time. First-person allows us to get inside a character, and I don’t want to be anywhere near Sean let alone inside his damn head. Just make it third-person if we need to have this guy’s perspective. I think he should red herring over there, far far away from me, and stay away from the narrator’s position.

For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, just visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, Amy A. Cowan, visit my website AmyACowan.com or follow my Twitter: amyacowan.

Rereading My Childhood – Fear Street: The Wrong Number

Before cell phones, it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for a friend to call on the family phone and say to you, “Turn on channel eight.” And then you’d just sit there and watch the X-Games together until your father wants to use the phone and frankly, you’ve been on the phone for long enough, young lady, and there are other members of the house who need to use it.

That is all to say that I didn’t spend my phone time pranking. By the time I was a major phone user, caller ID was too prevalent to engage in phone-based pranks. Eventually, call phones became ubiquitous, but I still didn’t feel the need to prank and, besides, caller id came with the phone, right next to Snake.

Caller ID was clearly not a thing in my latest Fear Street book review. The girls in The Wrong Number spend their night calling their classmates and “pranking” them, although the pranks are more breathy talking than “Is your refrigerator running?” Either way, murder happens because that’s what the cover promises.

Immediately, we get a Fear Street trope: a chapter from the perspective of a nameless murderer. This time, the nameless one is someone who has screwed up in the past, but this time, they’re planning a nasty surprise for another nameless someone. After two pages of that, we finally get to meet our protagonists.

Their names are Deena and Jade and, like many Stine BFFs, they are opposites while somehow still being the same. Deena is shy and blonde. Jade is outgoing and brunette. They are both skinny white girls from the suburbs. How do I know they’re skinny? They make fun of the fact that the two fat kids in school are dating each other. Cool start. Wanna go after the poor kid next?

Anyway, Deena just got a brand new phone with all these buttons and Jade calls the next-door neighbor. Jade tells her that the local mall has selected her as the “worst-dressed shopper of the month.” The neighbor recognizes Jade immediately. 

Then Jade calls a random boy from school and tries to seduce him. He doesn’t fall for it either. Finally, Deena gets in on the fun and calls her crush, Rob Morell. While she’s not as breathy as Jade, she does refer to herself as his secret admirer. This time, he falls for it, but really, Deena isn’t joking around, unlike Jade. She doesn’t reveal her true identity, but she promises to call Rob the next day.

And speaking of the next day, Deena’s half-brother Chuck is arriving at the airport to stay with Deena’s family for a few days. He’s been in some trouble and needs a new location. He is also our red herring. You’d think he’d be the creepy one, but the true creeper is Deena.

Her first glimpse of Chuck was promising. She hadn’t seen him since he was about ten, and he’d grown up since then. He was tall now, and his T-shirt and tight jeans showed off the taut muscles of an athlete. His hair was thick and sandy above startlingly blue eyes.

Ew, Deena, that’s your brother. Also, they’re pretty close in age. Did Deena’s dad bone someone else while Deena’s mom was pregnant? Or did Deena’s dad bone someone else while Chuck’s mom was pregnant? The timeline is unclear.

Suddenly, Deena’s dad slams on the brakes! There’s an accident! A car is on fire! A kid screams for his dog! Chuck runs to the car! There’s an explosion! Chuck emerges with the dog! Exciting times are had by all! Deena calls Chuck crazy for rescuing the dog. Man, Shadyside is a dangerous place for dogs. If they’re rescued, the hero is called crazy and their sister questions their sanity. The nice ones are killed off in an attempt to raise stakes, so the only ones left are demonic hell beasts. 

Then we get a free verse from our murderer. 

Okay, okay.

So he was having a little trouble keeping it together.

Bid deal.

He needs to work on it a little before taking it to the open mic.

The girls are back to pranking, which is just Deena calling Rob and flirting with him. Not a super funny prank, but at least they’re not giving the fat kids a hard time. Chuck walks in on them and he wants in. He calls in a bomb threat to the bowling alley. Then he calls their classmate, Bobby, who lives on Fear Street, refers to himself as “The Phantom of Fear Street,” and then says that he has his “evil eye” on Bobby. At least it’s not a bomb threat, I guess. Finally, Chuck coughs and then falls over. Then there’s a chapter break. After that, he gets up and yells, “Booga, Booga.” 

Despite Chuck’s cringy behavior, Jade, Deena, and Chuck grow closer. They eat burgers. They do math homework. They read the newspaper. You know, kid stuff. After the girls tell Chuck about how scary Fear Street is, he decides to cure them of their phobia. He flips through the phone book and calls the first number whose address is listed on Fear Street. A woman answers screaming.

“Please,” the woman begged. “Whoever you are, you’re my only hope! Any minute now he’ll-” But her voice was cut off by a man’s bellow of rage. While the three teens listened, horrified, the speaker phone amplified terror-stricken screams and then the sound of shattering glass.

“Hello? Hello?” Chuck said into the phone.

And then the woman was back. “Please come!” she begged again. “Please help me! You’re my only-” There was the sound of a slap, and then a new, gruff voice came on the line.

“Who is this?” the voice growled.

“What’s going on here?” countered Chuck.

“It’s none of your business,” growled the man. “You’ve got the wrong number, do you understand?”

Then the man hangs up. The kids don’t call the police. Instead, they choose to go to the address they called. Remember when you could just look up someone’s address and phone number in a giant book? What a privacy invasion. Nowadays, it takes several rounds of clicking to find out someone’s phone number, address, social security number, workplace, kids’ names, kids’ schools, favorite ice cream flavor, and credit score.

So the kids drive over to the house. The back door is open, because of course it is, and they find a dead woman. That’s when they finally call 911, but they’re interrupted. A masked man attacks them! He orders the teens to drop the phone, put down the knife, and we get some general chattiness from the killer. The kids get into their car to escape, but the man gets in his car and the chase is on!

“Turn left!” cried Deena. With a protesting squeal the little car turned onto Canyon Drive. The masked man’s headlights were still behind them. “Turn right!” Deena screamed. “Now left!”

They lose him and Chuck calls 911 a second time, referring to himself once again as “The Phantom of Fear Street.” You know they know which house you call from, right? Like, the 911 people know. But the kids didn’t and they’re surprised when a detective shows up at their door.

Chuck lies and says that they were at home all night and never left. Unfortunately, there’s a witness that places them at the Farberson residence, the scene of the crime, at the time of the murder – Mr. Farberson himself. Of course, that’s not enough to arrest Chuck. However, there is special clay that is only found on Fear Street on Chuck’s vehicle, so this special clay is enough for them to book Chuck. The clay screams with the cursed souls of Fear Street, so it’s very specific. It can be loud, but it’s great for azaleas. 

After Deena and Jade go to the police to tell them the truth, the police refuse to believe the girls, so they have to take matters into their own hands to prove Chuck’s innocence.

Then the girls talk about boys for a few weeks and Bobby, the kid Chuck prank called, threatens Chuck through Deena. Oh, and they also realize that the person in the mask is Mr. Farberson, the husband of the murder victim. Things are moving both slowly and quickly.

The girls go to Mr. Farberson’s office and they dress incognito, which involves a wig and layers. Then they pretend to be from a temp agency and rummage through his office only to find a pamphlet for Buenos Aires. Then they follow him to his old worker’s house and spot a package. Mr. Farberson takes the package and throws it away. The girls go dumpster diving to retrieve the package, hoping it has something to exonerate Chuck, but it contains only a dead cat. Jeez, cats aren’t safe in Shadyside, either.

Meanwhile, Rob winks at Deena from across rooms and speaks in riddles disguised as flirting. I thought Rob and his doublespeak would factor into the plot somehow, but he does not factor at all. I know this because we’re finally at the climax and he hasn’t done anything except showcase his eye problems and Cheshire Cat speech patterns.

The girls break into the Farberson residence, and they find a letter addressed to Mr. Farberson from the late Mrs. Farberson, wherein she tells him that she’s leaving and she’s taking the cat. Sort of.

“‘Dear Stan,’” Deena read. “‘There’s no use arguing anymore. I have made up my mind to leave you, and nothing will change that. I know you can’t make a go of the restaurant. When I gave you the money to buy it I believed that finally you would be successful at something. But once again you are failing.

“‘I refuse to give you any more money. In the last five years you have gone through almost all of my inheritance. I have to save something for myself.

“‘I’ll be by Saturday night to pick up my things. Good-bye, Edna.’”

So he plans to kill her and then run off to Buenos Aires with his secretary. And he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for these meddling kids!

But first, he has to come home, knock out Jade, and then chase Deena through the house while shouting vaguely sexual threats and confessing to the murder of his wife. Eventually, Deena is locked in the same room as Jade. She revives her friend and they jump out the window and into an adjacent tree. Then, Mr. Faberson finds a chainsaw and starts to cut down the tree! Somehow his neighbors just ignore the screaming girls and the sudden lumberjackery, and Mr. Farberson cuts down the tree. It crashes to the ground with the girls in it.

Deena wakes up on the porch surrounded by her family, including Chuck, and the police. Chuck told the police that Deena and Jade are going to break into Mr. Farberson’s house. Also, Detective Frazier says that Mr. Farberson was suspect number one from the beginning, and they kept Chuck in jail so Mr. Farberson wouldn’t think he’s a suspect. But now that Mr. Farberson tried to kill a couple of kids and the police have the evidence they need, Chuck is free to go. 

I feel like there could have been a better way to go about doing this.

Most of the book was about the girls attempting to prove their friend’s innocence, and I liked that specific aspect. However, the fact that it was all a police set-up and the police were already investigating Mr. Farberson makes the girls’ efforts pointless. Compound that on top of Chuck’s incarceration trauma and Deena’s interrogation wherein the police berate her and call her a liar, the police behaved unethically and if there is any justice, the department would have been reprimanded and the family would have grounds for a lawsuit. However, since we live in a semi-police state, this all seems like standard police procedure. Ruin the lives of innocent people in pursuit of a vague idea of justice as administered by the police union.

Are the girls good detectives? Absolutely not. Are the girls competent detectives? It seems they’re more competent than the police department, but those dudes just look for special dirt.

That being said, would I recommend this one? Yeah, sure. It’s entertaining enough if you can look over the fat-shaming that comes out of nowhere and serves no purpose other than to put down some ancillary characters. And if you overlook the police. And if you overlook some plot elements. Basically, other than a few character traits, the treatment of other characters, and the plot, it’s a fine read. 

For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com or follow RereadMyChildhd on Twitter. For more information about me, Amy A. Cowan, visit my website AmyACowan.com or follow my Twitter: amyacowan.

Rereading My Childhood – Goosebumps: A Night in Terror Tower

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Vacation activities for me come in three varieties and none of them are particularly relaxing. I don’t go on vacation to be pampered or sit and watch the sunset. I can do that at home. The first variety is the destination. I’m going to a specific place, like Universal Horror Nights or Disneyland, something I can’t experience anywhere else. The second is the shopping trip. I don’t have a k-pop store or an Ikea or a Daiso, so I drive out to Sacramento to shop (and visit relatives, I guess, but they aren’t a store). The final variety is the educational experience. The museums. The historical sites. I’m here to learn something, dammit, and I’m going to learn, consarnit.

In Goosebumps: A Night in Terror Tower, siblings Sue and Eddie are on a tour through an ancient tower while on vacation in England. It’s mildly educational, but the siblings are going to learn more about themselves than about portculli and barbicans. 

Mr. Starkes, the tour guide for Terror Tower, is a goofy man with a sense of humor closer to Benny Hill than The Thick of It. Terror Tower is named after its previous resident, Sir Thomas Cargill Stuffordshire Tearor the IV. I’m kidding. It’s just called Terror Tower for no actual reason. Prisoners spent the remainder of their lives in this dank castle, and that’s pretty terror-inducing, but I guess these British people weren’t very creative. 

Anyway, this tower tour isn’t the purely educational experience that Hawaiian-shirt-and-cargo-shorts-clad tourists expect. 

I heard several gasps of surprise behind me. Turning back, I saw a large hooded man creep out of the entrance and sneak up behind Mr. Starkes. He wore an ancient-looking green tunic and carried an enormous battle-ax.

An executioner!

He raised the battle-ax behind Mr. Starkes.

“Does anyone here need a very fast haircut?” Mr. Starkes asked casually, without turning around. “This is the castle barber!”

We all laughed. The man in the green executioner’s costume took a quick bow, then disappeared back into the building.

And that’s it for him. Did you think the kids would be running away from the dude on the cover? Well, you’d be wrong. Do you think he’s coming back? You’d still be wrong.

Anyway, the kids listen to Mr. Starkes’s castle facts and they hear about two of the tower’s residents: Princess Sussannah and Prince Edward of York. Just as our protagonists learn of the fates of the royals, Sue drops her camera and the kids can’t hear what Mr. Starkes says. 

Unfortunately, before they could ask for Mr. Starkes to repeat what he said, the tour moves on. Sue and Eddie get distracted, leaving the kids alone, separated from the rest of the group. Great crowd control there, Mr. Starkes. Remind me not to suggest you chaperone a class field trip. 

Suddenly, a failed Las Vegas magician shows up, complete with a wide-brimmed hat and cape. He plays with white stones, threatens the kids, and never answers their questions. Questions like, “Who are you?” and “What do you want with us?”

As David Copperfield over here fiddles with his rocks, the kids run away and attempt to trap him. Each time they try something, the man laughs and says things like, “You can’t escape me!” The kids end up in the sewers, where it seems they are cornered. Eddie attacks the man, stealing the special stones, and the kids run outside. They are out of the tower, but it’s night time and the tour group has left them behind.

“Man? What man?” The night guard eyed us suspiciously.

‘The man in the black cape!” I replied. “And the black hat. He chased us. In the Tower.”

“There’s no man in the tower,” the guard replied, shaking his head. “I told you. I’m the only one here after closing!”

“But he’s in there!” I cried. “He chased us! He was going to hurt us! He was going to hurt us! He chased us through the sewer and the rats-”

“Sewer? What were you two doing in the sewer?” the guard demanded. “We have rules here about where tourists are allowed. If you break the rules, we can’t be responsible.”

Well, he is as helpful as every horror stock character.

The kids hail a cab and head back to the hotel. So we’re out of the tower? I guess I’m the silly one for thinking we’d spend the whole book in the tower. Anyway, the cabbie wants his money, so the kids hand him the money their parents gave them. The man looks at the money and is furious. It’s not British money – it’s just some flat metal coins. The kids promise to pay him once they talk to their parents. The cabbie waits outside as the kids go to their hotel room.

Of course, they can’t get into their hotel room. They talk to the front desk, who asks for their last names.

My name is Sue, I told myself. Sue . . . Sue . . . what?

Shaking, tears running down my cheeks, I grabbed Eddie by the shoulders. “Eddie,” I demanded, “what’s our last name?”

“I – I don’t know!” he sobbed.

“Oh, Eddie!” I pulled my brother close and hugged him. “What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with us?”

To compound on that, they can’t remember their parents. It’s not going great for the kids who happen to also have names close to the doomed royalty in the tower that they were in just moments before. Even though they are confused kids, the hotel staff leaves them alone. The kids venture outside and the guy who revealed the magician’s secrets appears and demands that Eddie returns his balls. Like a maniac, Eddie gives him the stones back because he thinks that the magician will let them go. However, to no one’s surprise, the magician grabs them, plays with his balls, and everything goes black for our protagonist.

Sue wakes up in what she assumes is “the old section of the hotel.” Yes, the necessary “old section” of a hotel. Every Best Western I’ve ever stayed at has the old section next to the continental breakfast. Every old section also comes with a rambling old man, and this book is no exception. 

The old man old mans all over the place, rambling and engaging in general weirdness. The kids escape again because while most magicians are familiar with rope tricks, this magician is only into closeup sleight-of-hand prestidigitation and he didn’t tie up the kids or anything. They follow a cacophony of voices and they crash a party where everyone is dressed up in medieval clothes. Then the guests start screaming when they see the siblings. You kids still haven’t figured it out, yet, huh?

They escape outside and there are no buildings – just fields, chickens, and extras straight from the set of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They try to get help, but through a series of events wherein a random woman betrays them for “the Lord High Executioner,” the kids are back in the tower. Finally, we get an explanation from Morgred, the king’s sorcerer.

“You really are Edward and Susannah,” Morgred replied. “You are the Prince and Princess of York. And you have been ordered to the Tower by your uncle, the king.”

Well, duh. But what’s up with all the time travel?

“I tried to send you as far from the Tower as possible,” Morgred tried to explain again. “I sent you far into the future to start new lives. I wanted you to live there and never return. Never return to face doom in this castle.”

…

Morgred continued his story in a whisper. “When I cast the spell that sent you into the future, the Executioner must have hidden nearby. I used three white stones to cast the spell. Later, he stole the stones and performed the spell himself. He sent himself to the future to bring you back. And as you both know, he caught you and dragged you back here.”

Well, Morgred is there. Can he help the kids?

No. Because he doesn’t want to be tortured.

Then Eddie steals the stones and does the spell for himself and his sister.

The kids are back in the present day with the tour from the beginning. The kids ask what happened to the Prince and Princess. The tour guide lets them know that royal siblings just disappeared and no one knows what happened to them.

Then they turn to their new uncle – Morgred. They didn’t just leave him to be tortured. The spell took him as well. The kids and their uncle continue their lives, presumably in present-day England, eating crumpets, watching Downton Abbey, and voting for Brexit like proper British people.

There’s not much to say about this middle-of-the-road Goosebumps book. The book kept moving and held my interest. It’s fine. It’s neither a classic nor is it one of the worst.

The only real criticism I have is that the title and cover promise more than what the book delivers. It’s not a night and they don’t even spend most of the night in the tower. Also, the kids weren’t running from the hooded badass with an ax. They were running from David Blaine. And David Blaine is not scary, even if he can hang out in an ice block for a really long time, which is somehow a magic trick?

For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com or follow RereadMyChildhd on Twitter. For more information about me, Amy A. Cowan, visit my website AmyACowan.com or follow my Twitter: amyacowan.