I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. It's the one time of year when everyone lives the way I live all year around. It's the only time I buy decorations for my home (and those decorations are not seasonal, as far as I'm concerned). I even love those Halloween pop-up stores that are usually in an old Circuit City. In Haunted Houses, teenagers jump out at you and it's fun to see a petite girl in a bloody wedding dress freak out a grown-ass man.
But the one thing about Halloween that doesn't excite me is the Halloween Party. I'll always accept an invitation because I usually like the people who pour their time into the party. However, I'm not one to seek out the experience. It's probably because I'm not a big fan of large gatherings (especially right now, as I write this in early July).
I also don't dress up. That's a topic for another time.
A group of teenagers is going to a Halloween Party in the newest entry into my series "Fear Street: Too Many Pranks!"
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Terry and Niki are staring at tombstones, Niki is partially deaf, there's a figure that moves toward them, and it turns out to be some guy named Murphy. End of the first chapter.
Then we go back two weeks because that was such a great opening, and we're introduced to Terry and Niki's friend Trisha, who "has a weight problem." Terry also mentions that his girlfriend, Niki, "wasn't the prettiest girl at Shadyside, or the smartest, but she was definitely the most special." Slam on Niki. Got her. This start is great!
The three get invitations to a Halloween Party featuring "special surprises" courtesy of the most popular new girl in school, Justine. Terry says that Justine is "stacked." This dude is just a big charmer!
We meet Lisa, the school gossip and editor of the newspaper - as if it isn't just four kids copying articles from a service that supplies articles to school newspapers. I'm kidding, that's not true. I was on the school newspaper. There were three of us and I actually wrote the horoscopes.
There's also Ricky, the obnoxious practical joker, the aforementioned Murphy, the school quarterback, Alex, Terry's rival and Niki's ex, and some other names, like Angela or something. There are a total of nine invitees to this party, which Justine says will feature a "rad sound system and . . . excellent dance CDs." And the party is very exclusive - even the boyfriends of names can't attend. Not even the school's anachronistic greasers can attend. I can hardly wait!
Before the party, the invitees split into two groups and start a pranking war. Niki refuses to be on either side. One of the pranks includes the jocks "dissing" "Ricky Schorr with a huge plastic snake that jumped out of his locker." I don't think that is what dissing is but maybe things were different in the early '90s parlance. Or Stine used a slang term he heard in a rap song once and gleaned the meaning. Either way, pranking wars! This party is heating up!
The big day is finally here and the party is looking off the chain! There are decorations, like fake cobwebs and cutouts of witches, a kettle, a fireplace, an old man, and ten teenagers! The old man is Justine's uncle, Philip. The party also features pizza and "exotic food" from Greece, Japan, France, and Mexico - it's not like you can just go to a store and get this stuff! You have to go to the taco stand two blocks away.
