Rereading My Childhood: Goosebumps

Attack of the Jack-o'-Lanterns

The difference between a teenager's Halloween party and a kid's Halloween party is the Trick-or-Treat. Usually, a Halloween party for teenagers is an excuse to drink and attempt to engage in an awkward courtship ritual that will haunt them forever. The kid's Halloween party is supervised and at some point, the kids go as a group and become reverse door-to-door salesmen. The night ends with a sleepover.

At least, that has been my experience.

Parties and trick-or-treating collide in this years' Halloween special in R. L. Stine's Goosebumps: Attack of the Jack-o'-Lanterns. Unlike my Halloweens though, I'm not scared for life - at least not in a physical sense. Some of my costume choices were questionable, though. Like the time I was a "bloodsucker" because I was lacking specific teeth. What is a "bloodsucker"? It is just a vampire without any benefits.

Drew Brockman growls at people. He also has millions of friends that we all meet in the first three pages. I'm kidding. His friends are Walker, Tabby, Lee, Shane, and Shana, and we get them in two pages. Walker is his best friend, Shane and Shana are twins, and Tabby and Lee are the patented Stine not-friends.

Two years prior, Tabby and Lee threw a Halloween party that would have resulted in a lawsuit if there was justice in this world. Basically, two people in ski masks crashed the party through the basement, ordered everyone to the floor, and then forced the party-goers to do push-ups. The result is PTSD for an entire fourth-grade class and a kid who literally growls at people vowing revenge.

The next year, Drew, Walker, Shane, and Shana have this master plan to scare Tabby and Lee with fake spiders and rubber snakes. However, Tabby and Lee decline their Halloween party invitation, so the kids have to wait another year to enact revenge.

But this year, they will finally even the score.

Drew, Walker, Tabby, and Lee go trick-or-treating. They go to a house and a kind woman invites them inside. Against their better judgment, the kids enter, only to find a disturbing scene.

The back room was enormous.

And jammed with kids in costumes.

"Whoa!" I cried out, startled. My eyes quickly swept the room.

Most of the kids had taken off their masks. Some of them were crying. Some were red-faced and angry. Several kids sat cross-legged on the floor, their expressions glum.

...

"Yeah. Let us out of here," Lee insisted.

The old man smiled. The woman stepped up beside him. "You have to stay," she said. "We like to look at your costumes."

"You can't go," the man added, leaning heavily on his cane. "We have to look at your costumes."

"Huh? What are you saying? How long are you going to keep us here?" Tabby cried.

"Forever," the old couple replied in unison.

Now Walker and Drew have to work with Tabby and Lee to escape these wild people who collect trick-or-treaters, getting closer together and gaining a mutual understanding of one another-

No. It was a daydream. It was Drew's daydream. He thought it up in between growls.

Anyway, the actual day is here, but there's a slight kink in their plan - Mother Growl doesn't think they should go trick-or-treating. Apparently, there are people missing in town.

I took the paper from Mom and stared at the photos of the four people who had disappeared. Three men and one woman.

"The police are warning people to be very careful," Mom said softly.