Gooseblog: Goosebumps #32: The Barking Ghost

And we have now officially entered the latter half of the original 62 Goosebumps books. After all the mayhem we've endured within the first 31 books, the remaining batch are just as bizarre. And we kick it off with a book that R.L Stine himself said that he wasn't a fan of. So yeah, coming in strong. It's The Barking Ghost AKA Grab Bag.

COVER STORY

This cover is fine. Nothing outstanding, but fine. I do think the dog looks menacing and scary, but I don't know why, but it also kind of looks a bit goofy. Maybe it's the eyes being kind of off, or the big cranium with the beady face. I mean, I think this cover did creep me out as a kid, but looking at it now makes me think that it feels like a rush job. I guess though if you want to sell a book called "The Barking Ghost", it still does a fine enough job then. Otherwise, it's okay at best.

STORY

Cooper Holmes is our story's protagonist. He's a full on scaredy cat, frightened of everything. It doesn't help matters that his family have just moved into a new house (though not a dead house) deep in the woods of Maine. Well, no wonder he's paranoid, he's in a Stephen King book! After being frightened by a bunny rabbit (Well I said he was a scaredy cat), he goes to the bathroom to towel off his fear sweat and thinks about his massive snow dome collection and how his OCD demanded he have his room exactly like it was in the old house. He thinks he sees something threatening outside, so he opens his window and tosses a ball at it, only to realize he just saved his family from a deadly garden hose. Hoo god, this kid is a loser.

But his paranoia is made no better by his bully of an older brother Mickey. Who loves to play games like "hide under his brother's bed and scare him... BY STRANGLING HIM WITH HIS TWO BARE HANDS!!!" And he does this knowing that Cooper bruises easily, even leaving red marks around his neck. Well, of all the things I thought I'd come back to, I didn't think attempted murder by chapter 3. The parents break up the kids arguing, and say they both were to blame. Yes, blame Cooper for having such a supple, stranglable neck. Goosebumps parents, how I've missed you! Cooper tries to go back to sleep, but begins to hear barking noises. It sounds too real to be Mickey, in fact it sounds like two dogs, so he looks out the window. However, he doesn't see anything. 

The next day, "Super Cooper" decides that he'll venture into the woods to see if he can find the dogs he heard the other night. However, in his search, he doesn't find any sign of dogs being in the area. No paw prints, no dog poop, nothing. He searches for so long that he ends up lost in the forest. And, to remind you that this kid is scared of everything, he gets scared by a falling leaf. But then a redheaded girl sneaks up behind Cooper and gives him a fright. Her name is Margaret Ferguson, or as she's normally called, Fergie. *checks calendar* 2018. I guess a "my humps" joke would be considered too dated, even for myself. Fergie seems to be hiding something, unwilling to talk about how long she's been around, and also mentioning that she knows about the dogs that Cooper's been on about.

She runs off and Cooper catches up, trying to get an answer about the dogs, but she acts as if she never said anything, trying to change the subject. She gets serious and tells Cooper to tell his parents to leave at once. The woods are haunted and they're all in grave danger. As Cooper heads home, he sees a pair of black Labrador Retrievers start to chase him. When he gets home to tell his dad, he sees that the dogs are nowhere to be seen. He tries to get his dad to move them back to Boston, but of course, the dad just thinks he's getting all worked up. Cooper sees the dogs again for a brief second, but now thinks that this whole thing is just his imagination on overdrive. That night, he thinks he hears dogs in the house, but gets greeted by Mickey, who just picks on him some more, thinking that this whole thing is just so Cooper can go back home to be with his old friends.

The next day, Fergie shows up and confesses to Cooper that the whole dog thing was Mickey's idea. That he told her to get Cooper frightened and paranoid. However, when Cooper asks about her mentioning dogs, she still claims to not remember saying anything about them. He uses this to actually get a scare in on Fergie. But before he can celebrate, he sees Mickey all bloodied up, collapsing in a heap. However, surprise! It's another prank. Granted, tamer than trying to strangle him in his sleep, but a prank nonetheless. Cooper, finally sick of all this, actually attacks Mickey, biting him in the arm and sending him in retreat. As Fergie leaves, Cooper looks at the stream close to him and sees what appears to be a dog's reflection, but no dog to be seen.

Another day comes, and Cooper, having overslept, enters his kitchen. However he sees the two Labs from earlier. He panics, worrying they're going to get him, but they end up stealing his lunch instead. The parents, much like the parents of our last book, think Cooper is losing his mind and suggest sending him to therapy. Like I said, Goosebumps parents are the dirt worst. Later on, Fergie and Cooper try to get revenge on Mickey, but Mickey, being an evil genius, manages to get the better of the two. As the kids leave dejected, they see what appears to be glowing red eyes in the living room. However, when the parents show up, they again are being treated like they're psychotic. Fergie, now believing Cooper's stories about ghost dogs, goes with him to get answers once and for all.

However, it doesn't take too long for the dogs to catch them, and trap the two kids. But the dogs don't attack them. Instead they lead the kids to an old wooden shack. When the kids walk in however, it turns out the shack has no floor, and they fall with a painful thud. The dogs then start to talk, saying that they aren't actually dogs, but humans. Centuries ago, a spell was placed on the two of them that changed them into dogs, but now they have found the perfect bodies to swap with. This shack is actually a "changing room". Before the kids can grasp what's going on however, they suddenly feel strange, and they soon find themselves in their new dog bodies, with their human bodies being controlled by the two "ghosts". I think I see why Stine didn't like this one.

The two kids are at least psychically connected, so they can communicate with each other. Besides that, they're completely canine, right down to the colorblindness. Now, the clear thing they should be doing is trying to figure out what to do to get their bodies back, but of course they use their new forms to scare Mickey, which I guess is warranted at this point. They try to get Cooper's dad's attention, but they just bark like crazy. And, of course, Dad never figures these to be the ghost dogs that his son has been frightened about. Because Goosebumps parents. The kids then try to write a note, despite being dogs, and that being kind of impossible. Then they jump on the dinner table and make a scene, which also doesn't help their cause. So, they finally decide the logical thing is to attack the fake Fergie and Cooper, chasing them back to the changing room. 

TWIST ENDING

The kids manage to tackle the impostors into the changing room, and the swapping happens again. However, when Cooper and Fergie awaken, they still see their bodies leaving. They then realize that the changing worked, but now they've been turned into Chipmunks! Cooper decides that they should just give up and start harvesting acorns instead. Winter's coming soon after all! Wah-wah!

CONCLUSION

I remember listening to an NPR interview with R.L Stine ages ago where he stated that he didn't like this book. That he felt it didn't come off as well as he'd hoped. And I can actually see that in this book's execution. The book seems to want to build to an interesting ghost story, but immediately loses itself by the middle of the book. Then, in an attempt to build some sort of interesting climax to the story, Stine throws in random body swap by the end, and even that doesn't seem to have enough time to leave any real impact. It feels like Stine wrote himself into a corner. He didn't put much thought into the concept of the ghost dogs, and when we get an explanation, it's so rushed that it really doesn't explain anything.

They were enchanted by a spell that turned them into dogs. Why? We're never given any explanation as to what they did to deserve this curse. They've waited centuries to find two kids to swap bodies with? Why did it take that long, and why conveniently Cooper and Fergie? Also, how do they know this changing room even still works if they haven't tested it in centuries? You see what I'm getting at? The moment Stine brings up the changing room, this book falls down a cliff that it never recovers from. He built up all this stuff about ghost dogs, only for it to not matter at all in the end. And I'm sorry, but that's bad writing. The episode at least gives more explanation. The pair were robbers that were killed by dogs and somehow came back from the dead as dogs, looking for bodies to steal. That's something. And the twist is a bit more rewarding with Mickey being turned into the chipmunk instead of Cooper and Fergie, which, after all the torment, at least feels worth it. It's almost like the show, for all the flack it gets, is better at these stories than Stine is. Go fig.

And thus we're left with another grab bag book. However, unlike Piano Lessons Can Be Murder, The Barking Ghost never manages to make anything of lasting quality with the pieces being thrown together. Which is a shame because Stine's best work is usually ghost stories. This ultimately feels like a book that Stine lost total faith in, and by the end just winded up as a lazy throw out. Gotta make monthly quota. In the end, it's not a horrible book, just not a well put together one. The Barking Ghost gets a D.