The fifties have been an interesting collection of books. Probably the most varied in the whole gamut of Goosebumps. Or at the very least since the original ten. We've had creeps, fake snowdads, chicken children, a secret sequel to Camp Nightmare, R.L. Stine's inner monologue about life as a writer, and scariest of all, a genuinely charming story about a boy who can fly. I mean, how can you top that? This book might have a few answers. It's The Haunted School AKA move over Bendy and the Ink Machine!
COVER STORY
I like this cover. Yes, it has the culprits of a lot of later Tim works, warping, pinks, checker tile, a converse sneaker, even a random skull head on the locker (looks like Curly). But what you may not even notice at first, but sticks with you when you see them is the eyes in the locker, staring at you. Add in the strange, colorless ephemera pouring out of the locker. It's engaging, genuinely creepy, and leaves you without much answer as to what this book is about.
STORY
We open The Haunted School with our protagonist Tommy Frazer falling off a ladder. It's here where my inner wrestling fan would remark about how you learn to fall off a twenty foot ladder, but you get the picture. He was up on the ladder setting up decorations for the upcoming school dance. The only reason Tommy joined the dance decorations committee was to make new friends. You see, Tommy's dad recently remarried and the family moved to Bell Valley. Great, now I've shifted from thinking about wrestling to thinking about Animal Crossing. Tommy started at Bell Valley Middle School only a few weeks prior, and spent the first couple weeks being very lonely until he decided to volunteer for dance decorations committee in hopes of rectifying this loneliness issue.
He has managed to make two friends from this experience. Ben Jackson, the comic relief of the book (as in almost everything he says is a comedic response), and Thalia Harpert-Rodis, a blonde girl who wears a disturbing amount of makeup. To the point that other kids in school constantly pick on her for doing so. After our exposition dump, we learn that the committee needs some red paint for their banner, so Tommy offers to go up to the third floor to get it. In his haste, he collides into a girl with white-blond hair and cold, gray eyes. He makes it to the art room, but thinks he hears voices inside. When he opens the door however, there's nothing. He does see a janitor busy cleaning while smoking a cigar and a skeleton grinning at him from the science lab. Tommy grabs the paint cans and runs off, only to end up lost.
Tommy spots a narrow doorway and looks inside. He swears that he sees kids in there. But on closer inspection, they look to be statues of kids, wearing clothing from what has to be decades prior. And sure enough, Tommy sees a sign in the room that says "CLASS OF 1947". Mrs. Borden, the head of the committee sneaks up on Tommy, wondering why he's in this room. He inquires about the statues to which she tells him that these statues were made to represent the first class of this school. Mysteriously, all twenty five of the kids vanished without a trace. Tommy returns to the gym to see Thalia and Ben unconscious on the floor! Oh wait, it's just them screwing with him, saying they fell asleep waiting. Ben leaves for the day, while Tommy tells Thalia of his run-in with the girl in the hallway. We learn that girl is Greta, a girl who wears all black and is bad news according to Thalia. When Tommy mentions hearing voices, this causes Thalia to panic and leave in a hurry.
We see not too long after that Greta is bad news as she picks on Thalia, playing keep away with her makeup. Tommy comes to her aid and everything calms down, but he then starts hearing the sounds of a girl crying for help. The committee gets the gym ready for the dance, complete with big banners. Leave it to Greta to spoil than fun by tearing one apart with a guitar. Undaunted, Tommy and Ben go to find more supplies to fix the mess. In their search however, they spot a strange gray elevator. Ben isn't too fond of taking a ride on an old elevator, but Tommy's far too curious and drags him inside. However, they end up trapped inside, and soon discover that the elevator doesn't go up and down... it goes sideways!
The elevator doors eventually open to a strange gray classroom, Before they can get their bearings, a girl about their age appears from behind a book case wearing old clothing and having pale gray skin. More kids show up, their skin also gray. In fact, everything, including the kids are black and white. They attack Ben and Tommy, tearing at their clothes. Tommy manages to get them to calm down and explain what's going on, while Ben still thinks this is all a joke. One of the boys introduces himself as Seth, and his other gray friends are Mona, Eloise, Mary and Eddie. They tell Tommy and Ben that they were students of the first class of Bell Valley Middle School. The class of 1947 that we saw earlier in statue form. On class photo day, the kids lined up, ready to take their photo from the town photographer named Mr. Chameleon. A cruel looking man that hated children.
Mr. Chameleon took their picture, which somehow warped the class into this strange colorless dimension they dub Grayworld where the kids never age. As if they're forever trapped inside a photograph forever. Well, this premise already works better than the Say Cheese And Die books, I'll give it that. They've been stuck here for fifty years as of this book's original release and let's just say that the years of being ageless, away from their families and devoid of color has broken them them just a teensy bit. Only one kid managed to escape, which Tommy deduces to be Greta since she wears all black and had gray eyes. Meanwhile, Tommy and Ben notice that their hands are starting to lose color as well. They try to open the elevator, but it won't budge. In a panic, they leap out the window, despite the warnings of Seth and the others. Turns out those warnings were justified because despite the kids in the classroom seemingly being able to control themselves, the other kids have gone insane.
The boys run through the strange Grayworld version of Bell Valley, which seems completely deserted. They end up getting lost in the gathering fog, and soon run into more of the class of 1947. The kids circle them, dancing and screaming "Turn, Turn" as they delight in how rapidly Ben and Tommy are turning to gray. The kids grab the boys and drag them to the pit, a colorless mass of liquid atop a hill. While there, they see kids with buckets of colorless liquid that they fill in cups. There's a scene where a girl spits the liquid all over another girl and a boy spits it in the air, wiping it all over themselves. Before the kids get thrown into the pit, Seth and the other kids save them. Tommy uses a lighter he had in his pocket and lights some leaves, creating a bright orange fire which attracts the manic kids long enough for the two boys to make a run for it.
They return to the classroom as Ben and Tommy recoil in horror as they see themselves in the mirror. They're almost totally gray at this point. They're about ready to accept their fate, when the elevator opens again. However, it's not Greta inside, but Thalia. We learn that it was Thalia who was the kid who escaped. It's why she wears all that makeup. Greta was just a red herring. Good one Jovial Bob. How did Thalia escape? She found that the lipstick tube in her bag still had color on it, and akin to something out of Simon and the Land of Chalk Drawings, she drew a window that helped her escape. Tommy suggests doing it again, and she does so, helping get the three of them back to the color world.
TWIST ENDING
But before the kids can celebrate, Mrs. Borden shows up and drags them to the gym for a photo of their work on the dance. They wind up lined up in front of the photographer... Mr. Chameleon! Before Tommy can react, the flashbulb goes off.
CONCLUSION
The Haunted School is a great Goosebumps book. Probably one of Stine's more inspired stories in a while. Tommy is a decent protagonist, though Ben bogs it down by being the chuckle-heavy comic relief. The book is paced well, not taking forever to get us into Grayworld and building up the bizarre nature of this colorless void. The scenes with the manic children are the book's highlights, especially the visuals of the kids spewing the black liquid all over them. It's scary as well as downright sad. These kids were lost from their families for over half a century, stuck in a world without color, gradually losing their sanity until they reached their breaking points. I also like how they use Greta as a red herring, making her look like one of the colorless kids, only to wind up just being a goth kid. That's clever writing, Stine.
Now for my only problem with this book, and that's Mr. Chameleon. I wish we got to know more about this character and his motivations. We're just told that he's cruel and hates children, but we don't know why it's to this point. We don't get any answer as to why he hates them to the point of sending the first class of this middle school to the Grayworld. Better yet, we don't know how he does it. Did he invent the camera like Spidey did with the predicting camera? Is he a wizard? An inventor? He's still there fifty years later, so is he immortal? Also, considering he's the last one around when the class of 1947 vanishes, did no one consider him to be a prime suspect? Wouldn't you think that after this incident, they wouldn't be hiring this guy to do more class photos? Just using him as an excuse to create an explanation for Grayworld and the prime use of a twist ending does feel lazy. The only lazy spot of an otherwise excellent book. This one feels almost close to a classic book from the original twenty with how inspired it feels. We're close to the end of the original 62, maybe Stine's getting his groove back. Maybe. The Haunted School gets an A.
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