The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps Triple Header Book 2

Last year for this blog, I covered Goosebumps Triple Header, a triple short story book. And it was... a book. I mean, it had some neat ideas like a ghost granny, a game show for monsters, and sponge alien children, but nothing that really felt all that amazing. Like rough drafts that never felt fully finished. Well, it's time for the second helping. Will we get a better hat trick? Let's find out with Goosebumps Triple Header: Book 2.

COVER STORY

We return to the previous motif from book 1 as the cover features three header monster, Lefty, Righty and Slim. Only now we need to up the gross out factor, of course. It is our second helping after all. I mean, it's fine, good gruesome detail on the bugs and dead rats, the monster looks creepy. It's serviceable. I do like the hologram on the top that shows the three headed monster turn into R.L. Stine, the scariest monster of them all.

TALE #1: GHOUL SCHOOL

Liam Erdman enters his new classroom, Room 5, and already has a sense that things here are a bit off. One chubby kid has green, bulging eyes, a girl is drooling, another girl is chewing on a ruler, and another is literally licking the walls. But at least his teacher, Ms. Barker seems normal. The other kids introduce themselves. Bernard is the big eye boy, Rachel is the drooler, Susan is the wall licker an Helga is the ruler chewer. Okay, so they're not the god damned Burger King Kids Club. After math, which involves Bernard eating a piece of chalk, lunchtime arrives. However, Liam's hunger is lost after seeing his class act like maniacs and eat food off the floor. Even worse, Helga tries to eat his arms.

Panicked, Liam runs back to his class and tells Ms. Barker what's going on. That all the kids are monsters. She says that he should know all this, since his parents signed him up to a ghoul school. This shocks Liam since he's no ghoul. No siree. He's gonna live to be 103. Ms. Barker warns Liam to not let the other kids know because they might not take it too well. He tries to show no fear at the playground, but when he sees all the kids staring at him, he goes back to Room 5, only to see his teacher eating a ham sandwich. No, wait, it's a HAND sandwich. Turns out that Ms. Barker is a monster too.

With no way out, Liam decides that he'll continue to bluff as hard as he can. The day continues with a science class on rabies and an art class with blood red paint. Not sure if it was hyper realistic though. Also Stine references How to Eat Fried Worms, but just so the monsters can talk about how hungry for worms it makes them. Eventually, Liam returns home and tries to ask his parents what the hell they were thinking sending him to a school for monsters. But Liam has the truest monsters of all, Goosebumps parents. They dismiss his issues as being over imaginative and that he should just show his new classmates some manners. But Mr. Erdman does give Liam a panic button that he can use in case he gets scared. But only for an emergency that Mr. Erdman can't specify on right now because Goosebumps parents... I mean because plot convenience.

Liam returns to school the next day with his button in his pocket. The kids pressure him to eat dirt, but he refuses. However, they then tell him to transform into his extreme form, but he doesn't. The kids begin to assume that he's not a monster and plan to eat him, when another girl named Marnie grabs him and drags him off, with the other monsters following. They advance on them, but Marnie tells the others that Liam can only transform during a full moon. So that gives Liam a day of life back at least as the full moon is tomorrow. It seems that Marnie is trying to help Liam out. After school, they head to her house, overseeing a grocery store. She hands him some Halloween costume supplies and tells him to wear some to hopefully fool the others.

The night approaches and the kids are at the playground, ready to see Liam's transformation. He tries to do so by slipping off to quickly change, but he screws up his costume, meaning the kids all know the truth. They begin to transform, Rachel becoming a giant mouthed, long limb tentacle thing. Bernard's eyes glow orange and his hands get webbed. Susan literally turns into a giant tongue, while Helga turns into a giant flying bug of some sort. Liam fears his death, but remembers the button. He presses it, but nothing happens. The kids begin to attack and eat him...

TWIST ENDING

When suddenly they hear police sirens. Cops arrive at the playground with dart guns that they use to shoot the kids. Mr. Erdman tells Liam the truth. He is the chief of P.U.M.S, the Police Undercover Monster Squad. The button was actually a microphone. Liam going to the school was actually part of an undercover sting. They take the four kids, but Liam tells his dad that Marnie isn't one of them, so they leave her be. Later however, Marnie swats a fly on her arm and eats it. Liam realizes that she's a monster. She un-sheaths her fangs and tells Liam that she likes to bite.

CONCLUSION #1

I like this one. It doesn't take forever to get to the point that the school is full of monsters, and the monster kids are given enough detail to make them legitimately creepy. Even if one kid just becomes a giant tongue. Liam's a likable protagonist, Marnie's likable, though her twist is obvious, and speaking of twists, this had a decent enough twist with this whole thing just being a police sting. Not to mention it actually felt perfectly paced. Doubt it would have worked as a full book, but succeeds here. Only issue is this book came out not long after the first Creature Teacher book, and the end twist with Marnie feels very similar to the twist involving Marv. But be that as it may, the story is still worthy of an A-.

TALE #2: THE REVENGE

Amelia is at the muddy playground with her dog Fluffy and her best friend Isaac. Isaac is not only a neat freak, but a major skeptic. The kind that will watch a movie like one of Amelia's favorites, Ghost Patrol, and point out how none of this could be real. When Amelia mentions how her cousin Rachel took her to a psychic named Madam Margo, Isaac guesses that she must have talked about how to make someone fly out of their bodies in a form of astral projection and how it's all BS anyway. The two kids then get accosted by an eighth grade boy named Cory Calder. He's a hulking bully who likes to give people pretty lame insult names like I-Sick and A-Squealia. He blames Amelia for telling the principal that he pulled the fire alarm and is here to get some revenge. What kind of revenge? Well, he grabs Fluffy's ball and throws it in the road, where the dog runs after it and... yup. I should have known. YOU JUST LOOOOOVE KILLING DOGS, DON'T YOU JOVIAL BOB?

Oh wait. Just the ball gets run over. Fluffy's okay. Wow, Stine showed restraint!

Regardless, Amelia and Isaac are pissed. They could, you know, tell Amelia's parents, but even the kids know that this is a Goosebumps story. Instead, the two go to see Madam Margo. But it becomes obvious quick that she is more than likely a phony. But Madam Margo tells Amelia that she can help by giving her the power of astral projection. She can exit her body, but she only has a one hour time limit. Last any longer and she'll stay a spirit. And not like Animorphs where that counter resets, she literally has sixty minutes total of this, which she can use sparingly or all at once. The two kids, Amelia feeling she wasted a hundred dollars, when Cory crashes his bike into Amelia. More pissed than ever, she hopes the power can work as she plans her revenge.

The next day at school, Amelia sees Cory in science class about to dissect a frog. She sneaks into the janitor's closet and activates the astral projection. She is amazed that it can work, then decides to screw with Isaac a bit to test if it works, before heading to Cory. She messes with his frog all Michigan J. like, then heaves it at Mr. Stockwell, Cory's teacher, who is already a hardass. She then puts the frog in Cory's shirt as he begins to panic. Cory gets sent to the principal's office. Amelia is happy as she got the revenge she wanted. All she needs now is to find her body... which is no longer in the janitor's closet. Oh no! Wait, she just went into the wrong closet. She finds her body in the right closet and reenters.

Now, she could, you know, be satisfied with her actions, but she still has 46 minutes left on her astral projection clock to mess with Cory some more. This time, screwing with him during basketball tryouts. Cory doesn't get in the tryouts, and Amelia is happy with her outcome. But then she checks her watch. Before she projected, the watch was at 3:15, the watch is still at 3:15, meaning that she now has no clue how much time she's wasted. She returns to her body and after looking at the clock deduces she only has ten minutes left.

After Cory decides to just punch Isaac in the stomach, Amelia decides she'll use her remaining minutes to haunt Cory in his own bedroom. Fluffy follows Amelia and rests with her still body while she goes into his room and throws books at him. But Cory doesn't move. At first she thinks it's because he's a sound sleeper, but then she sees the truth as Cory shows up behind her. Yes, he's an astral projection too. And that's because Madam Margo is his aunt. He grabs her, intending to keep her trapped in her astral form...

TWIST ENDING

When suddenly Fluffy, now in astral form, attacks him, giving Amelia enough time to return to her body. However, she notices that Fluffy didn't make it back in time. So, in the end, Stine DID get to kill a dog after all. But ghost fluffy now still stays with Amelia and protects her, especially in keeping Cory in line. So, happy ending.

CONCLUSION #2

The last Goosebumps book I covered before this one was Revenge R Us, which was easily the worst book I've ever read from just how uncomfortable it came off. This story is what I wish that book was. The villain is bad without being sexually abusive, Amelia is more logical on her need for revenge than Wade, and the story ends on a kind of happy note. I liked this one too. The astral projection angle is neat, the protagonist is likable, they give the story just the right amount of suspense and the twist works pretty well too. And I leave it not feeling gross, so this is a win too. I'll give this an A as well. Two for two so far book, can you win the grand prize?

TALE #3: THE MUMMY WITH MY FACE

Our protagonist is Norm Parker. He's eleven, which seems weird given we usually deal in dozens. He and his twelve year old sister Claire have been dragged to Cairo by their parents for a teaching convention, so the kids take a tour of the pyramids. Claire is all into this stuff, while Norm gets bored quickly. Too much sand talk, not enough mummies. So, it's like any other Mummy story we've dealt with. After arguing with Claire over how boring it is, the two kids end up losing the tour group. But they do run into a man named Ari who promises the kids some adventure. I don't like the sound of that for several reasons.

He leads the kids to a pyramid not open to the public yet and tells them of a cursed family of evil sorcerers. When they died, their spirits were forbidden from entering the afterlife. When the last member of the family died, he swore revenge on anyone who dare enter the pyramid. So, you know, good idea to explore this pyramid. They go deep into the tunnels of the pyramid, only for Ari to disappear on them. The kids press on, only to find a room with a sarcophagus. As the kids start to leave, it begins to creak open. They look inside to see a small mummy about the size of a kid. They then notice something strange above the sarcophagus, a picture of Norm's face.

Norm and Claire are panicked and confused when suddenly the mummy begins to exit the sarcophagus. Not only that, but the room locks behind them. They find a lever, which opens a trapdoor beneath them. They end up in another room with another mummy. And another picture. This time of Claire's face. Suddenly all the mummies in the room begin to advance on them while Norm panics, trying to dial his cellphone for help.

TWIST ENDING

And then we learn the truth as the book changes from first person to third person all of a sudden. Ari is watching the kids and the mummies from a television to a man named Dr. Martez, talking about how scared the kids have gotten, even down to using pictures of the kids to scare them further. Suddenly the television shows the mummies gone and the kids on the ground, lifeless. Suddenly the mummies enter the room and advance on the two men. Ari tries to shut them off, but nothing happens. Back in the other room, Norm and Claire wake up after playing dead and make their way out of the pyramid.They get attacked by the mummy, but when Norm uses his cellphone, it malfunctions.

They exit to see Cairo police arresting Ari and Dr. Martez. It turns out this whole thing was a test for Ari's planned MummyLand amusement park. Claire and Norm's parents show up and are relieved that they're safe. Norm mentions how the cell phone trick saved them as they all decide to go back to the real tour.

CONCLUSION #3

This one was okay. I do like that after several stories with supernatural elements we had something a bit more grounded in reality, save for the whole amusement park twist. I actually kind of like how the twist was handled in this one. Not a last chapter twist but a few chapters before, even going so far as to change perspectives. That's actually rather clever. As for the story, it flowed well enough and the ending was interesting in a sort of Scooby Doo sort of way. I guess the moral here is don't talk to strangers because they'll lead you to a poorly thought out amusement park. So, while not a hat trick on A's, this is worthy of a B.

OVERALL CONCLUSION

Triple Header Book 2 is definitely the stronger of the two. The stories are a bit more creative, using some fresher ideas for some of the most well known Stine staples. Ghoul School was the strongest of the three that could have possibly been a full book, but again I doubt it. The Revenge gave me the much needed breath of fresh air after the stench of Revenge R Us, and The Mummy With My Face was one of the better mummy stories. What you get is a better thought out package than the original with three more satisfying tales. You could tell that Stine was starting to put some actual thought into Triple Header...

A third installment was in the works, but much like everything else planned around the early parts of 2000, they were cancelled following Stine's exit from Scholastic. A shame I feel, as I do think Stine was starting to make the series work. Regardless, he still gave us two really odd books. Goosebumps Triple Header Book 2 gets an A-.