Let's do the time warp again! It's time to watch the clock and keep an eye on the birdie. It's time for The Cuckoo Clock Of Doom AKA R.L Stine writes a decent time travel story.
COVER STORY
STORY
Michael Webster is your average kid that no one understands. But if there's one thing that drives him insane, it's his seven year old little sister Tara. She's not just your average bratty kid, she's the child from hell. Constantly making Michael look bad and ruining all his fun. After she puts gum on his shoe, causing him to track it all over the house (and getting him in trouble for it), they're interrupted by their dad who has brought home an antique cuckoo clock that's been at the local pawn shop for fifteen years. It's old and kind of creepy, with a dial that goes from the year 1000 to 3000. It also has a particularly creepy looking bird for its cuckoo. Dad says that the clock may have magical powers, but everyone just laughs that up.
Tara's reign of terror continues, scaring Michael by jumping out of the door of the cuckoo clock and blaming him for it. She also then breaks his new birthday present of a 21-speed bike. And the parents are THOSE kind of parents. The ones where they never hold the young one responsible for anything. They always blame Michael, even if the evidence proves otherwise. Things ultimately come to a head at Michael's birthday party, where not only does Tara open all his presents, but later trips him, causing him to fall right into his birthday cake. Tara's reign of terror has been going on for a lot longer than his birthday. A week prior, as he waits for his female friends to arrive so they can rehearse the Frog Prince, Michael goes upstairs to get dressed, only for Tara to bring the girls up, getting him caught in his underwear. She even gets him beat up by other kids, putting someone else's hat in his backpack. And yet still, you can't get mad at Tara, she's just a kid.
Michael has had about enough. Just once he wants to get Tara, to finally get her comeuppance. And at this point, even the reader loses that whole "well, she's just a kid" mentality. She's written to be the ultimate hellion. So that night, Michael goes to the cuckoo clock and twists the head of the bird backwards. He can then try to blame Tara for it the next day. However, when he wakes up, everyone is still wishing him a happy birthday, and his party is starting all over again. In fact, everything feels like it's going exactly like the events of yesterday. Michael figures that maybe this means he can avoid being tripped by Tara, but nope. She gets the best of him again, sending him into the cake. He goes to bed, but wakes up in the middle of the night, only to be informed by his parents that his birthday is in two days. So this isn't a Groundhog Day situation, but he is moving backwards through time.
He ends up back in time to the underwear incident, which happens again without fail. He also ends up back in time to the beating. So father time's really being a prick on ol' Michael. Well, maybe not so ol' anymore, as the next day, Michael warps further back in time. Now he's eight years old again, but his 12 year old memories are still intact. And even as a three year old, Tara is still a brat, and the parents still side with her. But Michael's more concerned that if this continues, he'll wind up going so far backwards that he'll cease to exist. The next day, he's back to being seven. And even at TWO, Tara continues to get the best of him. Okay, they set up that Tara is hell, but good lord does Michael have no backbone to let himself get owned by a toddler.
Despite being seven, Michael skips school and rides the bus to the pawn shop. He thinks that if he can twist the cuckoo's head back the right way, he can stop this curse. However, when he arrives, the store is closed for vacation. His dad finds him, furious that he went this far without him, and they go home. Michael is now at the point of depression, realizing that he doesn't have much longer to live, and realizes that he's just gonna get younger with his next sleep. Sure enough, he's five next. Tara's not even born at this point, and when he brings it up to his parents, they shrug it off as an imaginary friend. He also has to endure kindergarten again. I dunno, it's not that bad.
Next day, he's four years old. He gets his ass kicked by his young friends and dared to climb a tree, which he obliges, because despite being 12 in mind, he's still a childish fool. He then falls and breaks his arm. But time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin as Michael wakes up, now in a crib, wearing diapers. He's gone full baby now, and things are looking bleak for his future... past... present? That day, his dad takes him to the antique store. With this being his last chance, Michael looks for the cuckoo clock, but to no avail. Oh wait, never mind, it's in a different area of the shop. Then the book just turns into frigging Rugrats as Michael manages to wander off and push a chair up close to the clock. He climbs up and gets to the cuckoo just as his parents grab him. But right in the nick of time, he twists the bird's head back into its correct position and gets the dial back to the present year.
Michael wakes up the next day, back in his 12 year old body. He sees that everything is back to its correct time. But something seems different. He doesn't see any sign of Tara. When he asks his parents, they have no idea what he's talking about. He looks at the dial of the cuckoo clock, and sees that a year is missing. The year of Tara's birth. Yes somehow through all this, he managed to erase the year of Tara's birth, ultimately changing the future and erasing her from existence. Michael ponders that maybe someday he'll fix it and bring her back. Maybe. Dark ending or happy ending?
The Cuckoo Clock Of Doom is a pretty good Goosebumps book. In terms of scares, it's not really full of the standard monster scares, but more a particularly frightening concept of seeing time slip further backwards with your memories intact, reliving horrible days of your life with no way to stop them, and ultimately the fear that you'll soon cease to exist if time continues to slip further and further backwards. That's a helluva freaky concept, I'll give that one to Jovial Bob. The pacing is pretty good, with time going back a day, a couple days, a week, a year, then right down to the wire with Michael ending up as a baby. As for the twist, it's definitely a dark ending, but considering that Tara was written to be just pure evil, with Michael constantly being dunked on by her and blamed for things she did, it does feel a bit cathartic for her to vanish. Also, please don't read that as a sexist thing. If this was a little brother, I think it would be just as cathartic.
For a time travel story, this does work pretty well, and doesn't feel muddled by paradoxes. Well, except for destroying a whole year. In the original print it's 1988 that gets removed from the dial. Damn you Michael, if that means we no longer live in a world with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, MST3K, Garfield And Friends, Beetlejuice, and Chains Of Love by Erasure, then may hell fall upon you! The Cuckoo Clock of Doom gets an A-.
Tara's reign of terror continues, scaring Michael by jumping out of the door of the cuckoo clock and blaming him for it. She also then breaks his new birthday present of a 21-speed bike. And the parents are THOSE kind of parents. The ones where they never hold the young one responsible for anything. They always blame Michael, even if the evidence proves otherwise. Things ultimately come to a head at Michael's birthday party, where not only does Tara open all his presents, but later trips him, causing him to fall right into his birthday cake. Tara's reign of terror has been going on for a lot longer than his birthday. A week prior, as he waits for his female friends to arrive so they can rehearse the Frog Prince, Michael goes upstairs to get dressed, only for Tara to bring the girls up, getting him caught in his underwear. She even gets him beat up by other kids, putting someone else's hat in his backpack. And yet still, you can't get mad at Tara, she's just a kid.
Michael has had about enough. Just once he wants to get Tara, to finally get her comeuppance. And at this point, even the reader loses that whole "well, she's just a kid" mentality. She's written to be the ultimate hellion. So that night, Michael goes to the cuckoo clock and twists the head of the bird backwards. He can then try to blame Tara for it the next day. However, when he wakes up, everyone is still wishing him a happy birthday, and his party is starting all over again. In fact, everything feels like it's going exactly like the events of yesterday. Michael figures that maybe this means he can avoid being tripped by Tara, but nope. She gets the best of him again, sending him into the cake. He goes to bed, but wakes up in the middle of the night, only to be informed by his parents that his birthday is in two days. So this isn't a Groundhog Day situation, but he is moving backwards through time.
He ends up back in time to the underwear incident, which happens again without fail. He also ends up back in time to the beating. So father time's really being a prick on ol' Michael. Well, maybe not so ol' anymore, as the next day, Michael warps further back in time. Now he's eight years old again, but his 12 year old memories are still intact. And even as a three year old, Tara is still a brat, and the parents still side with her. But Michael's more concerned that if this continues, he'll wind up going so far backwards that he'll cease to exist. The next day, he's back to being seven. And even at TWO, Tara continues to get the best of him. Okay, they set up that Tara is hell, but good lord does Michael have no backbone to let himself get owned by a toddler.
Despite being seven, Michael skips school and rides the bus to the pawn shop. He thinks that if he can twist the cuckoo's head back the right way, he can stop this curse. However, when he arrives, the store is closed for vacation. His dad finds him, furious that he went this far without him, and they go home. Michael is now at the point of depression, realizing that he doesn't have much longer to live, and realizes that he's just gonna get younger with his next sleep. Sure enough, he's five next. Tara's not even born at this point, and when he brings it up to his parents, they shrug it off as an imaginary friend. He also has to endure kindergarten again. I dunno, it's not that bad.
Especially if you get to choose the Flintstone phone.
Next day, he's four years old. He gets his ass kicked by his young friends and dared to climb a tree, which he obliges, because despite being 12 in mind, he's still a childish fool. He then falls and breaks his arm. But time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin as Michael wakes up, now in a crib, wearing diapers. He's gone full baby now, and things are looking bleak for his future... past... present? That day, his dad takes him to the antique store. With this being his last chance, Michael looks for the cuckoo clock, but to no avail. Oh wait, never mind, it's in a different area of the shop. Then the book just turns into frigging Rugrats as Michael manages to wander off and push a chair up close to the clock. He climbs up and gets to the cuckoo just as his parents grab him. But right in the nick of time, he twists the bird's head back into its correct position and gets the dial back to the present year.
TWIST ENDING
CONCLUSION
For a time travel story, this does work pretty well, and doesn't feel muddled by paradoxes. Well, except for destroying a whole year. In the original print it's 1988 that gets removed from the dial. Damn you Michael, if that means we no longer live in a world with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, MST3K, Garfield And Friends, Beetlejuice, and Chains Of Love by Erasure, then may hell fall upon you! The Cuckoo Clock of Doom gets an A-.
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