It's time to tickle the ivories. R.L Stine has mined book concepts from cameras, mirrors, dummies, mummies, and haunted masks. Can he make pianos scary? It's book #13: Piano Lessons Can Be Murder AKA Bad Touch.
COVER STORY
I'm torn on this cover. It does have a genuinely creepy concept with the severed hands, but everything else kind of seems off. The warped design looks awkward, there's way too much wasted space with the red background, and even the hands look weirdly off somehow. But I guess this is the best way to sell the book instead of spoiling the other big moment in the book, so I guess it works.
STORY
Jerry (Lee Lewis?) and his family have just moved into their new house. Thankfully this one isn't a dead house, despite something inside that may prove otherwise. Jerry is a prankster, often liking to scare his parents, because it seems a trait at this point for kids in Goosebumps to pull stunts like this. Everything seems pretty normal, until Jerry checks out the attic where he spots a piano in pristine condition. That night, Jerry starts to hear the sound of the piano being played, but when he goes to check, he finds nothing. Despite these early concerns, Jerry is still interested in learning how to play. They get piano movers to take it down to the living room, almost killing their cat Bonkers in the process. Jerry is upset the cat wasn't killed because Jovial Bob is an animal hating psychopath.
The next day, Jerry's piano lessons begin as we meet his teacher, a chubby, Santa Claus shaped old man named Dr. Shreek. He seems kindly, offering home lessons first, then inviting Jerry to his piano school if he improves. He also has one particularly creepy tick, he's very fixated on Jerry's hands. But this is still early in the book, so we just shrug that off as a "whatever" type deal. We do see Jerry start to settle down in his new home, making a new friend in a girl named Kim Li Chin, who feels like the first Asian character in these books so far. A welcome change from the token redhead, that's for sure.
Jerry's starting to get creeped out through multiple situations. He has a nightmare about Dr. Shreek forcing him to play faster and faster, and he also still hears the piano playing in the middle of the night. He goes to investigate yet again, but this time he sees a ghost woman playing. Then we get almost a dead house callback with her face melting off her head in grisly detail, revealing a ghostly skull underneath. She warns him to stay away from the piano, which causes him to scream out in fear. However, at this point, since he's been transfixed on this whole ghost piano thing, his parents think he's crazy, and send him to a psychiatrist. Because parents in Goosebumps are always the dirt worst. But then again, we get a chapter end scare where he thinks his bed sheet is the ghost, so maybe they're not wrong.
As the weeks pass, Jerry excels in his piano lessons, to the point that he gets invited to Dr. Shreek's piano school. He can hear the sounds of hundreds of pianos playing, but the building seems empty. He then gets attacked by something, which turns out to be a floor sweeping robot made by the school's maintenance man Mr. Toggle. He meets Toggle, then soon gets to see his many inventions. From self-blowing saxophones, to eye-controlled keyboard hats. He also may have dying children in his cabinet crying for help. This book has gone quickly downhill from general weirdness to full on stranger danger levels. I'd say we're at level orange right now, but that isn't going to last, believe you me.
A few days later, Jerry learns from Kim that there have been many stories about Shreek's school. Stories about monsters, and children who have gone to the school, but never came back. Jerry starts to think there might be some truth to this. He gets yet another visit from the ghost, who confirms to him that the stories are true. This leads again to his parents thinking he's crazy, but still forcing him to go to piano school for his last lesson anyway. They put their money down on this, he's not going to weasel out just because of some ghost stories. Jerry goes to Dr. Shreek's school once more for his lesson, and this is where the stranger danger level is at bright red. Shreek is now even more transfixed on Jerry's hands, grabbing at them, wanting to almost tear them off his arms. He breaks free and runs away with Shreek chasing him. He winds up in a room where he sees pianos playing by the severed hands of children, much like the cover.
It's here where we get our compound twists since this book doesn't really have a twist ending. Jerry gets confronted by Shreek again, but before anything happens, Mr. Toggle arrives and shuts Shreek down. Yes, it turns out that Dr. Shreek was a robot all along. All of the instructors in the school were just robots made by Toggle. Jerry thinks he's safe, but Toggle begins to go after Jerry's hands. Why? Because Toggle was always interested in music and robotics. However, the one thing he's never been able to master is the hands. That's why he needs perfect human hands to play his music. That stranger danger alarm is now blaring "CALL THE COPS!" right now. It's here where the ghost comes to Jerry's aid, summoning the spirits of all of Toggle's victims. They reclaim their hands and drag Toggle away, kicking and screaming, into the darkness. It turns out the ghost was a former victim of Toggle's who was trying to warn Jerry all this time. Jerry manages to escape, and quits playing the piano. He instead takes up baseball, since everyone says that he has great hands. Ba-dum-tish!
CONCLUSION
This one is what I like to call an R.L Stine grab bag book. It's one that usually brings together a ton of different concepts into one story (this case being ghosts, robots, and hand chopping creepers), and places them all into one story, hoping for the best. That's something that usually leads to disaster for Jovial Bob, but in this case, it all kind of works. I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I actually kind of really liked this one. It built up its suspense pretty well, and was paced just fine until the rushed ending. There is a good underlying sense of creepiness throughout this book, from the ghost, to everyone focusing on Jerry's hands, to especially that scene where Jerry hears a person's voice screaming wearily in Toggle's cabinet. If I was a kid reading that part in particular, it would have actually put in some frightening thoughts into my head. A sign that Toggle isn't just some weird adult who wants to make kids his piano playing slaves or something. He literally kidnaps people and chops off their hands, stuffing their bodies somewhere while they bleed to death! If you take away the ghosts and robots, that's some actual realism. Goosebumps, a kids series with magic cameras and monsters and stuff, has a book where the main villain is a serial killer who chops people's hands off for his twisted experiments. Holy Ed Gein, that is some twisted stuff!
For a book about pianos, this one actually does deliver on suspense. And while Stine does like his ass pulls, in this case the ending with Shreek being a robot doesn't come out of left field either since we get enough time with Toggle to realize that he might be the true mastermind behind all of this. It's a rare example of a Goosebumps book that's weak as a concept, but surprisingly works as a story. It also feels more original than most of Stine's book concepts, which earns it points there. I will say Jerry's not the most interesting protagonist, the ending does feel super rushed despite otherwise solid pacing, and I wish that Kim Li Chin actually was more of a character instead of just being used for exposition. but those nitpicks aside, I really can't complain about this one. It's definitely one of Stine's more underrated books. Piano Lessons Can Be Murder gets an A-.
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