Literature / Bone Chillers

Bone Chillers is a series of middle grade horror novellas by Betsy Haynes. It is among the earlier of many series in the 90s that were inspired by Goosebumps. It lasted for 23 entries from 1994 to 1998, although there was one more planned that was not released in America. While Haynes fully wrote the first 10 books, the rest, except for one, were done by various ghostwriters. A notable aspect is that the covers were painted by Tim Jacobus, who also drew the covers for Goosebumps itself.

The series was successful enough to get a TV series loosely based on it on ABC in 1996. The series only lasted 13 episodes.

The first four entries were re-released for the Amazon Kindle in 2016, while the rest remain out of print.

The series consists of the following:

• #01: Beware the Shopping Mall
• #02: Little Pet Shop of Horrors
• #03: Back to School
• #04: Frankenturkey
• #05: Strange Brew
• #06: Teacher Creature
• #07: Frankenturkey II
• #08: Welcome to Alien Inn
• #09: Attack of the Killer Ants
• #10: Slime Time
• #11: Toilet Terror^note Ghostwritten by Elizabeth Winfrey.
• #12: Night of the Living Clay^note First of two ghostwritten by David Bergantino.
• #13: The Thing Under the Bed^note First of two ghostwritten by Daniel Ehrenhaft.
• #14: A Terminal Case of the Uglies^note Second of two ghostwritten by David Bergantino.
• #15: Tiki Doll of Doom^note Ghostwritten by Michael Burgan.
• #16: Queen of the Gargoyles^note First of two ghostwritten by Gene Hult.
• #17: Why I Quit the Baby-Sitter's Club^note Ghostwritten by an unknown author; mistakenly credited to David Bergantino.
• #18: [e-mail] Ghostwritten by Sherry Shahan.
• #19: Night Squawker^note Ghostwritten by Dahlia Kosinski.
• #20: Scare Bear^note Second of two ghostwritten by Gene Hult.
• #21: The Dog Ate My Homework^note The only book after the first ten to actually be written by Haynes.
• #22: Killer Clown of Kings County^note Second of two ghostwritten by Daniel Ehrenhaft.
• #23: Romeo and Ghouliette^note Ghostwritten by Ryan Chipman.
• #24: Here Comes Sandy Claws ^note Only released in France.

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The books and the series provide examples of:

In general

• Covers Always Lie: Both the front and back covers are prone to this, especially the latter. (See individual folders for specific examples.)
• The Fat Episode: Happens in two different books.
  • Frankenturkey II: Kyle Duggan gets bewitched by Frankenturkey so his parents want to eat him for Thanksgiving, at which point he gleefully allows them to fatten him up for the slaughter.
  • Romeo and Ghouliette: Fitz is targeted by Julie Tchort so her family can eat him to sustain their immortality, wherein she spends weeks gifting him with baked goods and candy to make him big enough for her and her parents.

#01: Beware the Shopping Mall

• And I Must Scream: The plot involves ghosts draining the life out of kids and turning them into mannequins, left frozen and unable to interact with the world around them, when the process is done.
• Covers Always Lie: The cover art depicting shoppers as animated skeletons isn't in the book. Perhaps Tim Jacobus took a page out of Eddie Rosebloom' style (of Shivers (M. D. Spenser) fame) with the random skeleton motifs.
• Deadly Gaze: By staring into people's eyes, the villains can drain their life energies, which turns them into mannequins.
• Indian Burial Ground: Variant — no Native Americans are involved, but the plot revolves around a shopping mall built over Mournful Swamp where three teenagers died a long time ago. The mall's construction disturbed their graves, causing them to haunt first the construction site (resulting in mysterious happenings, like a truck that seemed to drive itself and killed one worker, and pieces of large equipment disappearing) and then the mall itself, culminating in a crack opening up in the floor of the mall basement — right over the Mournful Swamp ravine where the teens died. Their angry spirits take the opportunity to return as ghosts and attempt to steal the life force of other teens in the mall in order to restore their own lives out of jealousy over their former friends having had the opportunity to live out their own lifespans while they died.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: After everyone is restored to normal, none of the teens-turned-mannequins remember anything that happened to them.
• The Mall: The plot revolves around a group of teenagers hanging out in the recently-built Wonderland Mall, which turns out to be haunted after it was built over a swamp where three teenagers died long ago.
• No Name Given: The antagonistic ghosts never have their names revealed.
• No Ontological Inertia: After the ghosts are defeated, all their life-draining effects wear off, and their victims are restored to flesh (and without any memories of what happened to them, to boot).
• Offscreen Teleportation: Robin and her friends keep spotting familiar faces among the employees, but can't figure out how they're getting around so quickly, and the people in question claim they've been where they are for some time. The trio — a blonde girl in a miniskirt, a girl with a black French braid and a boy with dark wavy hair — turn out to be the ghosts of three teenagers who died in the swamp the mall was built over.
• Rapid Aging: In the climax, Robin manages to lure the ghosts far enough away from their graves and the life force they've stored up, causing them to rapidly age and ultimately disintegrate when they can't get back inside in time.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The boy ghost has blood-red eyes, which outright glow when he tries to drain Robin's life energy.
• Sacrificial Revival Spell: The three ghosts haunting Wonderland Mall intend to invoke this by draining the life force from other teenagers in order to restore themselves to life while leaving their victims turned into mannequins.
• Taken for Granite: Taken for plastic, actually — the evil ghosts transform their victims into plastic mannequins while draining their life energies.
• Teens Are Monsters: The villains are a trio of dead teenagers who drowned in the swamp the titular shopping mall was built over, and are now trying to steal the life energy from the mall attendees in order to bring themselves back to life.
• Vengeful Ghost: The villains of the book are a trio of ghosts who are effectively seeking revenge on the living in general (and one of them outright says "Revenge" when asked why they're doing this) — they grew angry and bitter after seeing their friends have a chance to live and grow up when they couldn't. Feeling this wasn't fair, they're now seeking to regain physical bodies so they can have a second chance at life and force other teenagers to go through the same suffering they did.
• Wax Museum Morgue: Early on, Robin Fagin discovers a mannequin in a swimwear store's front display that looks disturbingly like one of her friends. Then she sees what looks like a mannequin with a living head inside a dressing room before a sales clerk closes the door. Robin soon learns that all the kids in the mall are having their life force sucked out of them and being turned into mannequins by three ghosts, who died in the swamp the mall was built over; when the mall's construction disturbed their graves, they decided to come back to life by draining the life energies from young people.

#02: Little Pet Shop of Horrors

• Bad People Abuse Animals: David's father is easily angered and ends up at least threatening to hurt his dog Cassie, who he does not know is a girl trapped as a dog, multiple times.
• Forced Transformation: The plot revolves around a pet shop full of pets that are actually kids who were forcibly turned into animals by the owner Mr. Willard. The protagonist gets turned into a dog by him.
• Here We Go Again!: The book concludes with Cassie having finally gotten a dog of her own, from the "Custom Pets" shop... whom she's pretty sure is her friend Suki Chen.
• In-Series Nickname: Cassidy Cavanaugh goes by "Cassie" most of the time.
• Karma Houdini: Cassie turns back to normal but Mr. Willard isn't seen receiving any punishment for turning her and several other children into pets, in fact the book ends with the revelation that he's turned Cassie's friend Suki into a pet as well.
• The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Brought up in the very first chapter, as Cassie and Suki spot the Custom Pets shop in a lot that was empty just a week ago, yet looks like it's been there for ages.
• Magic Potion: It's not clear if it is magic (or just science), but Mr. Willard gives kids a pink beverage that turns them into an animal to create his "custom pets". A second drink of it turns them back.
• Malicious Misnaming: Some of the kids in the neighborhood (primarily David Ferrante) like to tease Cassie by calling her "Hopalong Cassidy", and just as cruelly call her friend Suki "Suki-Pukey".
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: When Cassidy turns back to human, she finds herself naked. Her clothes turn up in a box in the back room, along with the clothes of other people Mr. Willard has transformed.
• Shout-Out: The title is a pun on Little Shop of Horrors.
• Something Only They Would Say: Comes up in the final scene — Suki Chen is known for her somersaults. At the end of the book Cassie gets a pet dog, which stands up and does a somersault, causing her to realize it's a transformed Suki.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Cassie escapes but since she has no direct evidence of Mr. Willard's wrongdoing and her story is so wild, no one would believe what he's doing to kids in the city.

#03: Back to School

• And I Must Scream: The students and teachers of Maple Grove Middle School are tricked into eating delicious food made with bugs as part of a grotesque experiment. Insect larva start to incubate inside them and the unborn bugs gradually take over the host bodies, forcing them to say and do things they don't want to do while trapped inside their minds.
• Berserk Button: Miss Larva completely loses her mind whenever anyone mentions "mustard", snapping at Fitz's friend Brian for asking if there's mustard for his meal. Turns out it's because she's a bug-monster masquerading as a human being, and mustard is a sort of Weaksauce Weakness to her.
  Larva: [snapping at a surprised Brian] MUSTARD!!! How dare you ask for mustard? I never allow mustard in my cafeteria... it's terrible for food!
• Big Eater: Students and teachers who consumed Miss Larva's cooking will eat a lot. Fitz was aghast at his skinny bestie, Brian, wolfing down five pieces of chicken and six breadrolls, and going back for more. Then again, they're feeding the developing insect larva implanted inside their bodies thanks to the lunchlady spiking the food.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: The lunches served by new lunch-lady Miss Larva start off normal (lasagna, spaghetti, etc.) but gradually develop into really weird stuff like fried brains pudding. That the school simply gobbles down without any questions.
• Body Horror: The students and teachers start developing obscene tumor-like lumps on their skin's surface after consuming the new lunch-lady's food, with an extended scene of Fitz observing an egg-sized growth on his chest and later seeing his friend Sarah walking around with another huge tumor protruding off her nape. It's the sacs where the insect larva are developing inside their bodies.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: In the final confrontation when Fitz, Brian and Lexi are the only characters not completely controlled by Miss Larva's, uhm, larva. As they're facing the evil lunch-lady in the kitchen Fitz unexpectedly sees squeeze bottles of mustard in the shelves, which Larva somehow never bothered to dispose off despite mustard being her main weakness. Take a wild guess as to how Fitz and friends eventually defeat Larva.
• Chekhov's Gun: The very first lunch in the book establishes that Miss Webb dislikes mustard. Later it turns out it's because she's a bug-woman, and the bugs are weak to mustard.
• Evil Old Folks: Miss Larva the elderly lunch-lady could easily pass off as anyone's kindly grandmother, what with her curly white hair and smiling wrinkled face. She's actually a giant insect-monster hiding in human skin and intends to take over the school by spiking the food with her larva.
• Fighting Your Friend: Fitz has to fight his longtime bestie, Brian, when the larva inside Brian starts taking control, giving Brian a bloody nose in order to make him snap out of it.
• Food Chains: Miss Webb is the new school cook who serves extremely delicious and addictive food. It's eventually revealed that she's a giant insect who puts larvae in her food for the school children to eat, incubating in the hosts' bodies until they're ready to burst out once they've served their purpose. She's only stopped by the efforts of Fitz, Brian (both whom were infected with the larvae), and Lexi who was allergic to anything besides specially prepared lunches.
• Foreshadowing: The book isn't particularly subtle with the foreshadowing of Miss Larva's true persona, what with her blatant obsession with insects in the first chapter and protagonist Fitz calling her "Buggy" behind her back. The second chapter alone has Fitz freaking out at Larva's plastic necklace adorned by bugs (which he's mistaken for the real deal), noticing a certain plastic, bug-eyed glassy look in Miss Larva's eyes and Larva losing her temper when Fitz squashes a cockroach, affectionately calling the dead roach "her pet Gregory" and scolding Fitz as a "murderer". Turns out Miss Larva is a giant insect-monster underneath her human disguise, but who would've thought?
• Impossibly Delicious Food: Miss Larva Webb, the new lunch-lady, whose cooking is so wonderfully aromatic and mouth-watering it entrances the whole school to gorge themselves silly on her meals, to the point where Fitz gets assaulted by his best friend, Brian, for insulting Larva's cooking. Turns out the food was spiked by insect larva capable of controlling humans, and the lunch-lady is an insectoid monster who wants to take over the school.
• I Never Told You My Name: While interacting with Miss Larva early on, Fitz tried getting along with the lunch-lady until Larva refers to him by the full name. He then brings it up with Brian later on, realizing something's amiss.
  Fitz: How'd Miss Bug-Larva know my full name was Fitzgerald Traflon the Third?
• In-Series Nickname: The protagonist is named Fitzgerald, but everyone calls him "Fitz" for convenience's sake.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Miss Larva introduces herself as a former entomologist-turned-lunch-lady, and to bond with the school faculty she then shows off her prized bug collection, including a tarantula-centipede (basically a long arthropod with furry legs), a spider-butterfly (eight-legged and has wings), a wasp-grasshopper (it jumps and stings) and other critters. The students react with equal amounts of fascination and revulsion.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Fitz realizes something's amiss when Brian, his bestie for years, screams at him over the relatively trivial matter of Fitz speaking ill of the lunchlady. There's also the nicest teacher, Mrs. Dewbery, acting hostile and screaming at her class, and Fitz's usually-decent and gentle classmate Sarah who had a secret crush on Fitz suddenly losing interest in him before joining the school in making fun of Fitz, and later cheering Fitz to beat up Brian. Turns out most of the students and teachers have been infected with larva the lunch-lady had secretly planted in their meals.
• Shown Their Work: At first it may seem odd that the weakness of the evil bug people is mustard. However, this is because mustard has a chemical that is toxic to bugs in real life.
• Species Surname: The kindly lunch-lady, Miss Larva Webb, is an evil insect-person who wants to infect the entire school with cafeteria food spiked with insect larvae.
• Tuckerization: Betsy Haynes dedicated the book to the "real" Miss Buggy Webb, her seventh-grade science teacher, whom the book's Big Bad is named after. It does question whether Haynes truly held her teacher in high regard or not, considering the character in question is a deformed insect-monster masquerading as human.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Fitz manages to rid himself of the larva growing within by squeezing mustard down his throat, which makes him vomit on-page — and writer Betsy Haynes doesn't shy away in describing the vomit's contents, namely loads and loads of larva belonging to different insects and in several colors. Luckily this helps him break out of Miss Larva's control, and later Brian and Lexi drink bottles of mustard to force themselves into throwing up the larva as well. The story ends with the trio getting ready to make the whole school throw up...

#04: Frankenturkey

• A Boy and His X: This is basically "Two kids and their turkey," as the Duggan children bond with the innocent Gobble-de-Gook and try to save him from being killed and eaten.
• Covers Always Lie: The back blurb claims that the protagonists want to celebrate like the Pilgrims. In the book, it's their parents who want to do this while the kids have no interest.
• Lack of Empathy: The Duggan parents are completely oblivious to how horrified Kyle and Annie react when they explain their plans to kill and eat their turkey on Thanksgiving, even after the kids had bonded with the poor bird and named him "Gobble-de-Gook".
• Reformed Bully: The bullies eventually turn around and help out the protagonists, even sharing Thanksgiving dinner with them in the end.
• Thanksgiving Episode: In which two kids inadvertently bring a fake turkey to life, only for it to be evil.
• Thanksgiving Turkey: The plot revolves around Kyle and Annie having become attached to a live turkey their parents brought home and intended to cook for Thanksgiving. Their attempt to protect him by replacing him with a fake results in the creation of the evil Frankenturkey.

#05: Strange Brew

• Alliterative Name: It was mentioned only once, but Tori's (non-imaginary) bestie is named Heather Hartner.
• Everyone Has Standards: While Tori can be reckless several times in the book, she draws a line when people start getting hurt and is horrified when Celeste manipulates her into becoming an arsonist and destroying the school. Cue Tori rejecting Celeste, and Celeste reacting in the worst possible way.
• Invisible to Normals: Celeste, being Tori's childhood imaginary friend, could only be seen by her and nobody else... until the climax, when Celeste eventually decides to reveal herself in order to kill off Heather and claim Tori for herself permanently.
• If I Can't Have You…: Tori's not-so-imaginary childhood friend Celeste, who's revealed to be a powerful, malevolent spirit who's determined to have Tori for herself, alone. She eventually decides to kill Heather to make sure it passes.
• Imaginary Enemy: The book's Big Bad turns out to be Tori's neglected imaginary friend, Celeste, who wants to stay in her life by any means necessary.
• In-Series Nickname: "Tori" is this for the main character — her full name is Victoria, used only once in the entire story.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Tori's childhood imaginary bestie, Celeste, turns out to be real. And is the mastermind behind the mysterious notebook's spells. Who wants to return to Tori's life before claiming her permanently.
• Numerological Motif: Celeste's first spell — a rain-creation incantation — uses this motif, with ingredients ranging from "1 cauldron, 2 smooth stones, 3 dead lightning bugs... 6 spider legs, 7 pinches of red pepper" and eventually "11 toenail clippings, 12 horsefly wings, 13 cups of scummy pond water".
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Tori's bestie, Heather, thinks that the various accidents around the school are caused by Tori using the mysterious notebook's spells on purpose, and swears not to have anything to do with Tori anymore after the school principal is hospitalized, despite Tori's insistence. Near the story's conclusion, Tori tries to stop the out-of-control Celeste from killing Heather, and eventually the two friends reconcile just in time to overpower and destroy Celeste.
• The Power of Friendship: What eventually takes down Celeste, in the story's Darkest Hour; Tori and Heather decide to embrace each other as best friends who will stick together no matter what happens, just as Celeste is about to kill them both. Their friendship is enough to overpower Celeste's magic, and they manage to make Celeste shrink away for good.
• Reality Warper: Celeste in a nutshell. From creating rain to making an entire cafeteria vomit uncontrollably, summoning bubbles from nowhere flooding Tori's class, making the hated school Principal sneeze (to the point where he's admitted to the ER)... in the final confrontation, realizing Tori won't allow Celeste to kill Heather, an enraged Celeste turns her shoelaces into gigantic snakes and orders them to devour everyone.
• Shout-Out: Celeste's finally revealing herself to Tori, and using her magic so Tori can fly side-by-side with her, appears to be borrowed from the part in Superman: The Movie when Supes somehow made Lois float with him as they explore the skies. Tori even quotes the famous Superman line, albeit altered:
  I'm a bird! I'm a plane! I'm supergirl!
• Sneeze Interruption: After the incident with the classroom bubbles, the stern school Principal Doursley decides to interrogate the entire class, one-by-one, attempting to find out what's actually going on. When it's Tori's turn, Celeste makes her magic work, with Principal Doursley sneezing uncontrollably every time he tries questioning Tori. It was funny at first, until Tori learns later that Principal Doursley needed to be hospitalized due to the sneezing fit.
• Tuckerization: Strange Brew is dedicated to "my friend Tori Pando and her brother Max". That's the name of the protagonist and her brother, so it's likely they were named after them.
• Vomit Chain Reaction: Celeste's second spell after the rain incident? After Tori was made fun of in the cafeteria, she sees a new spell in the mysterious notebook, a "barfing curse" that requires a brown paper bag holding a rotten potato. Tori tries it out, and cue everyone in the cafeteria puking up their meals.
• Voodoo Doll: Celeste turns out to have voodoo dolls of Tori and Heather, using Tori's doll to restrain her and demanding for Tori to break Heather's doll and end their friendship for good. When Tori refuses, Celeste decides to take matters in her own hands, and the dolls promptly disappear.
• When It Rains, It Pours: Tori decides to randomly experiment with the first spell she found in a mysterious notebook, one which summons rain, and the resulting deluge is so heavy it drenches Tori and Heather within seconds. When it finally stops, a weather broadcast reports "ten inches of rain in fifteen minutes" before showing news footage of streets, businesses, and communities nationwide affected by the flooding. Then again, said rain was created by Celeste's dark magic.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The story's antagonist, Celeste, used to be Tori's childhood imaginary bestie (only to be not-so-imaginary), becoming lonely after Tori outgrew the needs of having imaginary friends, and only wants to have Tori back at all cost. But when her Yandere persona peers through, Celeste proceeds to manipulate Tori, resulting in an entire cafeteria getting sick, the principal hospitalized, the school's destruction, and finally an enraged Celeste deciding to kill Tori's bestie Heather so nobody else but Celeste can have Tori.

#06: Teacher Creature

• Always a Bigger Fish: In the climax, as the protagonists are being pursued by Mr. Batrachian, the rest of the swamp (which was likewise mutated) comes to attack him... and it's implied that one of the alligators ate him.
• Anthropomorphic Transformation: As a result of the hurricane, a normal swamp toad is turned into a mostly human-looking being, who adapted the name Mr. Batrachian and becomes the main villain of the book.
• Evil Teacher: Mr. Batrachian, a toad mutated into a humanoid shape, poses as a substitute teacher with the intention of cooking and eating some of his students.
• Frog Men: Close enough, the teacher Mr. Batrachian is a toad-man masquerading as human.
• Meaningful Name: The villain, Mr. Batrachian, is essentially a humanoid toad... and as pointed out in the story, his surname is the Latin word for an order of amphibians without tails (essentially, all frogs and toads).
• Mutants: Mr. Batrachian, the antagonist of the book, started out as a toad but mutated into a mostly human-looking being as a result of the hurricane. Late in the book, it turns out the storm affected other plants and animals in the swamp he came from as well.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: During the class's first trip into the Everglades, Joey gets chased by an alligator, but soon finds he has bigger problems as he sees Mr. Batrachian eating a live raccoon (and hints that he may have eaten the alligator soon afterward). Mr. Batrachian is later implied to have been eaten by another alligator.
• Sssssnake Talk: Mr. Batrachian is a toad, not a snake, but he hisses all of his "s"s.
• To Serve Man: The titular teacher is often seen reading a book called Preparing Children, which is assumed to be a psychology book. It turns out it's actually a cookbook, and Mr. Batrachian is out to cook and eat some of his students (and actually did eat their previous teacher).
• When Trees Attack: In the climax, a number of mutated swamp creatures come to attack Mr. Batrachian (himself a mutant toad), including walking mangrove trees and a mobile strangler fig.

#07: Frankenturkey II

• Be Careful What You Wish For: Midway through the book, Mr. Duggan loses his job. He ruefully mentions how often he's wished he didn't have to go to work, with no one (not even Kyle and Annie) realizing Frankenturkey made it happen.
• Big Eater: Kyle Duggan becomes this due to an unintentional wish about him being fattened up and eaten for Thanksgiving. Kyle eagerly devours any kind of food he can get his hands on with excitement at the thought of having his head chopped off by his own parents.
• Bittersweet Ending: The book has the Duggans defeat Frankenturkey for good but Gobble-de-Gook gives up his life to do so.
• Came Back Wrong: Annie wishes their dead pet turkey back to life, but he returns as a rotting corpse. To make matters worse, it turns out to be Frankenturkey possessing his body, since it was Frankenturkey's wishbone she used.
• Fattening the Victim: The plot involves Annie accidentally wishing for her unfeeling brother Kyle to be fattened up and eaten for Thanksgiving. Annie is horrified when her parents begin to actually fatten him up, and is even more so terrified that Kyle is okay with this and eager to have his head chopped off.
• Happy Ending Override: The kids spent most of Frankenturkey trying to prevent the turkey Gobble-de-Gook from being the family dinner, and they succeed. The sequel, set a year later, reveals the turkey died six months prior.
• I'm a Humanitarian: An errant wish turns Annie Duggan's parents into this, as they plan to fatten up, cook and eat her brother Kyle for Thanksgiving (with Kyle being excited for it to happen).
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Frankenturkey uses Gobble-de-Gook's body to come back. It turns out Gobble's mind is still in there, and Annie pleads with Gobble to fight back. This works.
• Jackass Genie: Frankenturkey returns from the dead as one thanks to Annie using his wishbone to try and revive Gobble-De-Gook.
• Only Sane Man: Annie becomes this after Frankenturkey influences her into wishing Kyle would be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. She's horrified as her parents start fattening up Kyle, with Kyle enjoying it, and admonish her for not realizing "They have to make sacrifices." Annie discovers Jake is also this when it turns out his parents have been brainwashed by the wish as well. She figures Frankenturkey deliberately ensured they wouldn't fall under the wish's sway to torture them.
• The Power of Love: Annie's love for Gobble-de-Gook is what protects her from Frankenturkey's spell.
• Temporary Bulk Change: Kyle Duggan's fattened up to the point of obesity by his parents thanks to a wish cast by the evil bird for him to be served as Thanksgiving dinner. Once Frankenturkey's been exorcised, all his wishes are undone and Kyle's reverted to his previous size with no memory of what his parents were going to do to him.
• Thanksgiving Episode: As with the first book, the sequel is set around Thanksgiving.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Kyle's got a noticeably nastier side to him than he did in the first book. It's initially attributed to him being affected by Gobble-de-Gook's death, which Annie calls him out on. Unfortunately, he gets nastier after his mother says "I wish you'd understand" when she explains they're going to eat the new turkey for Thanksgiving since Mr. Duggan lost his job. Kyle starts eagerly looking forward to it and gloats towards a horrified Annie.

#08: Welcome to Alien Inn

• Aliens Are Bastards: A race of aliens called the Plyomiths has exhausted the resources of their world, so they decide to infiltrate ours by sending their spaceship into Vermont, disguise it as an inn, and abduct humans to perform a Kill and Replace.
• Alien Invasion: The slow variety; the Plyomiths perform an A Lien Abduction on earthlings who checked into their inn, pull a Kill and Replace, and have their members infiltrate human society in increasing numbers.
• Alliterative Name: The book's protagonist is named Matt Meyers.
• All Up to You: Matt's parents, sisters and pet Dalmatian have fallen under alien control, and it's up to him to sabotage the Plyomith Blemowac and release his family.
• Double Take: Matt does this when seeing his (normally-serious) father reading a magazine upside-down (the book even use the words, "Matt did a quick double-take") and realizes his father is Not Himself.
• Dramatic Irony: Matt manages to save his parents, sisters, and the world by destroying the Blemowac, forcing the Plyomiths to retreat. His family then regains their memories, realize they're still stuck in the middle of nowhere, and as Matt and his siblings complain about the snow their father reminds them there are "more important things in life"... oblivious to the fact that they'd been an inch away from being wiped out by hostile aliens if not for their son.
• Empty Shell: Humans subjected to having their memories drained by the Blemowac computer becomes these; while capable of speech and basic actions, they start acting like Cloudcuckoolanders. Like reading books upside down, for starters...
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The titular location is an inn owned by a hostile alien race intending to perform a Kill and Replace on unwary earthlings.
• Hologram: The Plyomith aliens arrive on earth with alien holographic technology, which they used to disguise their spaceship as an inn. They use the same tech to create a fake blizzard to trick humans into entering their inn.
• Inn of No Return: Goes without saying, as the titular inn is owned by hostile aliens who have no qualms draining the minds of humans who checked in before disposing their bodies.
• Invading Refugees: Bart, while on a Motive Rant aimed at Matt, reveals that the Plyomith aliens had exhausted the resources of their planet, which is why they chose to send their ships to other worlds. Deciding earth is perfect, they then set up a base to abduct humans by disguising their spaceship into an inn.
• Keystone Army: Matt somehow manages to end the Plyomith invasion by destroying their Blemowac central computer, which causes his amnesiac parents and sisters to regain their memories, besides the entirety of Snowed Inn imploding.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": The Meyers' pet Dalmatian is named "Dotti". Dots, get it?
• Out-of-Character Alert: Matt's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Meyers — the former is a workaholic, the latter is obsessed with education and her children getting perfect attendance. So when Mr. Meyers comments they can stay in Snowed Inn while Mrs. Meyers tells Matt "it's alright to skip school", Matt realize something's amiss...
• Pretend to Be Brainwashed: Matt attempts this after his parents were mindwiped by the Plyomith aliens, and witnessing his sisters subjected to the same fate, by sticking two blue bandages on the back of his hands and trying to sneak around the inn for a way to escape. It doesn't work — Bart catches him, and calls Matt an "inferior human" for trying to outsmart the aliens.
• Puny Earthlings: The Plyomith aliens don't hold humans in high regards — the moment Bart reveals his true colours when confronted by Matt, Bart outright calls Matt and the human race "puny" and "inferior".
• Rather Inn-Accessible: Snowed Inn is an inn appearing in the middle of a snowstorm, in the Vermont wintery wasteland. Then again, it's an alien ship disguised as an inn, where the front — as well as the storm itself — is a hologram meant to trick humans into entering.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Snowed Inn's manager is named Mr. Rogers (he's even dressed in a cardigan sweater and greets the Meyers with a "Welcome to my Neighborhood.") while the kids in Snowed Inn are named Bart, Lisa and Maggie. They're later revealed to be hostile Plyomith aliens who have been observing human pop culture for a long time, using earth's icons as their aliases.
• Some Kind Of Forcefield: Snowed Inn is concealed in a force-field powered by the Plyomith Blemowac, which Matt finds out after trying to flee with Dotti... before hitting an invisible wall. And then Bart catches up behind.
• Spotting the Thread: Matt realize his parents are behaving... weird. And upon closer inspection, realize they have small, blue, square-shaped patches on the back of their hands. To conceal where the Plyomith aliens inserted their mindwipe devices, of course.
• Starfish Aliens: The Plyomiths appear to be these, if the front cover depicting an octopus-like alien with three eyes and bird-like feet is accurate. The book doesn't go into details on what the Plyomiths physically look like (other than "big and hideous-looking"), though it's likely Tim Jacobus started work with only a title without knowing what the plot's about.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: The Plyomith aliens do this to humans they abducted before running their minds through the Blemowac computer. Matt managed to hide from Bart and the other aliens by sneaking into the aliens' underground lab... and sees his sisters Ashlee and Julie being subjected to mind-wipe.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Plyomiths can shapeshift into humans. Their true form looks hideous, if the cover art by Tim Jacobus is any indication.

#09: Attack of the Killer Ants

• Alternate Company Equivalent: Incidentally, the book can be seen as one to "The Spider Kingdom" from Shivers (M. D. Spenser), another Goosebumps-knockoff from the 90s. Two bullies (and a victim) are dragged underground by giant insects (ants instead of spiders) who wants the bullies to pay for squashing bugs, realize the insects are feeding them to be devoured, and must figure a way out. In this case though one of the main characters is a Big Brother Bully (none of the characters in "Spider" are related) and the giant ants aren't sentient, unlike the spiders.
• Big Brother Bully: Ryan is this to Raymond, constantly making fun of the latter and occasionally beating Raymond up. When Raymond — who owns an ant farm — tells Ryan off for stomping on ants during a picnic, Ryan deliberately kicks up an anthill to make Raymond upset.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Alex and Ryan go on an ant-killing spree during a picnic. And then they're dragged underground — alongside Ryan's brother, Raymond — by vicious giant ants.
• Book Ends: The story begins with the trio at a picnic, where Ryan and Alex stomping on red ants gets themselves into trouble when giant red ants attacks. At the end of the story, Ryan, Alex and Raymond have escaped the red ants only to notice a trail of black ants in their way. They proceed to step carefully around the black ants to avoid killing any.
• Bully and Wimp Pairing: Downplayed, there are moments where Ryan plays rough with his supposed "bestie", Alex, but he tends to be more physical with his scrawny younger brother Raymond.

#10: Slime Time

• Blob Monster: One made of "snot", when the protagonist sneezed and the resulting mucus takes a mind of its own.

#11: Toilet Terror

• Accidental Truth: Early in the story, Ellie's bragging of her chemical research (after flushing a failed experiment into the toilet) leads to her mother commenting "someday Ellie would make a monster". Cue Ellie's experiments causing a chemical reaction with Hans' dead goldfish...
• Alliterative Name: Larry Lobo, the plumber who's supposedly a "specialist in dealing with the supernatural".
• "Be Quiet!" Nudge: After the pool incident, Ellie and Hans' parents return home and the siblings decide to keep silent about the Spike incident. In the following family dinner, Ellie does a soft kick on Hans' shin under the table a few times when Hans nearly spills the beans.
• Big Sister Instinct: Despite Ellie and Hans spending much of the story bickering and verbally fighting with each other, Ellie genuinely loves her kid brother. While searching the sewers under their house with Larry and Andy to locate clues for Spike's whereabouts, the trio come to a conclusion that Spike "isn't around and terrorizing somebody else". And then Ellie realized Hans is still alone in the house and sprints all the way back, arriving in time and rushing into the toilet to save Hans who's stuck in a shower stall filling with water.
• Came Back Wrong: An unintentional example, when Ellie disposes her failed chemistry experiment — supposedly a prototype Elixir of Life — into the toilet, the same day after her kid brother Han's dead goldfish, Spike was flushed down the same bowl. Somehow this causes a chemical reaction that revives Spike, but turns it into a mindless, rampaging monster.
• Child Prodigy: Ellie's already a brilliant inventor and chemist prodigy, though she's closer to being a Ditzy Genius. Her experiments on creating an immortality serum somehow work, in the worst possible way where her failed prototype turns out to be useful in creating monsters; later she hot-wires batteries to ordinary hair dryers making them shoot superheated air as a weapon against Spike in a final confrontation, only for Ellie's own dryer to malfunction in the last second.
• Covers Always Lie: According to the summary on the back, Ellie dumped her chemicals down the toilet, and then her brother Hans flushed his dead fish Spike a little while later. In-story, it's the other way around.
• Drowning Pit: Hans, attempting to escape from Spike, locks himself into a shower stall. And thanks to the monster's rampage in the pipes causing every faucet and showerhead to flow like crazy, said stall is filling with water, nearly overflowing above the boy's head if Ellie didn't make it in time and save her brother.
• Here We Go Again!: The book ends with Ellie learning that her mom flushed some of her chemicals that had gone bad, along with another dead fish, and a few days later seeing Larry's van down the street, whereupon she realizes that Spike II has come back just like first one, only he's in a different house this time.
• Kissing In A Tree: Ellie's kid brother Hans makes fun of her relationship with her crush, Andy, using this song.
  "Ellie and Andy sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Ellie has this reaction when the monster, Spike, nearly kills her brother, and later her as well as Ellie is going for a swim. When Hans and Andy save Ellie by dragging her out the pool, Ellie's rage takes over her fears and she immediately grabs the pool cleaner, using it to attack Spike just as the monster is surfacing. She manages to impale the monster with the cleaner's snapped tip, resulting in Spike sinking underwater as blood spreads over the surface, but Spike is later revealed to be Not Quite Dead.
• Nightmare Sequence: Two from Ellie, the first being a Dreaming of Things to Come when Ellie sees herself becoming the youngest Nobel Prize recipient for inventing an immortality serum... only for a gigantic aquatic monster to suddenly attack and devour her. She gets another nightmare where she becomes Han's new pet goldfish (being in written media, the nightmare scenes are written in italics).
• Toilet Horror: The book revolves around a kid who flushes his dead fish Spike down the toilet, along with some chemicals that cause it to mutate into a monster that can go through the pipes.
• Too Dumb to Live: A day after Hans was nearly killed by Spike in their toilet, if not for Ellie and Andy's timely arrival and the revelation that there's a water-based monster hiding inside their pipes, likely watching their every move? Ellie then decides to calm herself by going for a swim. To nobody's surprise, it turns out Spike can travel from the toilet's pipes to the pools, and nearly kills Ellie in a later attack, though to Ellie's credit she did lampshade how dumb her decision is afterwards.
• Who You Gonna Call?: After discovering Spike has returned as a monster, the kids call Larry, a plumber who specializes in paranormal problems, for help.

#12: Night of the Living Clay

• Big Sister Bully: Protagonist Tasha isn't the nicest elder sister in these books. Right in the opening chapter she's threatening to beat up her brother, Cory, for annoying her — despite Cory having a bad cold at the time!
• Big Word Shout: Tasha lets out one of these at Cory after realizing her prized ballerina sculpture, which she made for her parents' wedding anniversary, has been shattered, under the impression that her brother broke it. This was before the siblings realized the Creepy Clay sculptures are alive and attacking everything.
  "Coooooooooorrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!"
• Bubblegum Popping: Tasha's friend Wanda has a habit of chewing and blowing bubblegum while conversing. Her introduction is in a phone conversation with Tasha, and Tasha can hear the bubblegum popping from her side of the phone.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The entire story takes place within the span of one afternoon. Not at night though, oddly enough (despite the title).
• The Power of Hate: Cory tries reasoning that this is why the Creepy Clay sculptures try attacking everything around them by default, since he made his sculptures while being angry at his sister Tasha. Tasha then tries sculpting a new ballerina figure with some leftover Creepy Clay while calming her mind, but her clay ballerina goes crazy and attacks her as well.
• Here We Go Again!: Tasha and Cory barely survive the animated Creepy Clay creatures' assault, but defeat them all eventually. And then their father returns, with a pack of "SUPER CREEPY" Clay, and the siblings notice their father already made another clay monster with multiple heads and limbs... the story abruptly ends with Tasha and Cory looking at each other and gulping to anticipate the worst.
• Kill It with Water: As the monsters in the story are made of clay, they're vulnerable to water (obviously). Tasha and Cory spend most of the story fleeing the Creepy Clay monsters until they're forced to hide in their basement, but then Tasha noticed the garden hose and gets a "Eureka!" Moment.
• Living Statue: Living "Clay" sculptures, who run amok trying to attack Tasha and Cory. And have the ability to enlarge themselves and grow extra-sharp fangs and teeth...
• Riddle for the Ages: Unlike other books where the threat-of-the-week has a backstory of sorts, there's zero explanation provided for the Creepy Clay's origins — how does the Creepy Clay work, where did it come from, why did it come to life, and why is the clay hostile by default, etc.
• Scary Scorpions: After receiving the Creepy Clay, Cory makes a bunch of sculptures, one of them a scorpion. Which comes to life, grows giant-sized and corners both Tasha and Cory in the kitchen.
• Tempting Fate: An animated Creepy Clay alien attacks Tasha with a flung knife. It missed, but then Tasha just had to say it...
  "Well, at least it only knows how to throw one utensil at a time."
  [cue an onslaught of flung knives, silverware, and assorted utensils from the Creepy Clay alien, forcing Tasha and Cory to flee like crazy while crawling on all fours]
• Terror-dactyl: While all the Creepy Clay sculptures are alive and hostile, Cory's clay pterodactyl serves as one of the greater threats, swooping around everywhere trying to kill Tasha and Cory. It's also the most recurring clay enemy in the story.
• Villainous Rescue: The Creepy Clay ballerina made by Tasha is about to attack its creator, only for the Creepy Clay snake Cory made earlier to attack and devour it from behind. Cue the siblings making a run for it before the snake can chase after them.

#13: The Thing Under the Bed

• Big Eater: Otis eats more than his entire family combined, and still has room for snacks after dinner. His bad habit of dumping waste and leftovers under his bed kicks off the story's plot.
• Cassandra Truth: Otis' attempts at telling his family, teachers and friends that "something" lives under his bed and is devouring his books is predictably met with ridicule, with his bestie Tony making fun of Otis. The jokes stop when the giant worm residing under the bed reveals itself to devour Otis and Tony.
• Character Development: By the end of the story, Otis has stopped being a Big Eater and a messy kid, both bad habits he had for two years. It takes nearly getting chomped by a worm-monster for the aesop to kick in though.
• Coincidental Broadcast: The final chapter, after the worm-thing is destroyed and Otis and Tony have finished the painstaking task of cleaning up the colossal mess in Otis' house caused by the monster. Then comes a news broadcast revealing the Mad Scientist who created the worm-thing to be still at large. And turns out to have adopted a fake alias as Balderon Halloran, the janitor at Otis' school. Cue Otis making an epic Jaw Drop before turning off the television.
• Covers Always Lie: Downplayed with the cover art, which does sell the story's premise well enough (there's a monster living under the messy protagonist's bed). However Otis' bed on the cover art appears to be regular-sized instead of a king-sized four-poster water-bed, and Tim Jacobus' illustration of the monster appears reptilian or serpentine while in the book it's a giant worm.
• Deer in the Headlights: Otis seeing the giant worm-monster emerging and finally making its full appearance, with Otis terrified as if his body had turned to stone. He can only stare agape at the monster in his bedroom, but then his friend Tony shouting his name snaps him out of it.
• It Came from the Fridge: Or Under the Bed. Otis' water-bed used to belong to a Mad Scientist whose experiments — notably some modified worm-like critters — escaped and clung underneath the bottom. Otis recklessly dumping garbage below the bed unintentionally fed the creature until it grows large enough and goes on a rampage.
• Gigantic Adults, Tiny Babies: The worm-thing hiding under Otis' bed used to be microscopic as a newborn. Feeding it enough trash for two years allows it to grow gigantic, and even expand to become as large as the room it's in as it chases Otis and Tony to chomp them down.
• Kill It with Water: The worm-monster's sole weakness is water, which somehow dissolves and shrinks it. Otis and Tony manage to lure the creature into Otis' kitchen using food, with the wet floor forcing the monster into the sink. Eventually said monster becomes small enough for Otis to kill it with the sink's waste disposal.
• Mad Scientist: A biologist named Dr. Harold Ezekiel Balderon who dabbled with experimenting on worms, and is the ex-owner of Otis' bed. Now Otis knows why there's something living under his bed and feasting on his discarded trash... worst of all, said Mad Biologist turns out to be the janitor at Otis and Tony's school.
• Non-Malicious Monster: The worm-thing, terrifying as it is, is just an animal behaving according to instincts and wanted to feed. Otis, the Big Eater he is, even feels sorry for the worm before killing it.
• The Pig-Pen: The protagonist Otis is a ridiculously filthy boy whose bedroom is cluttered with trash, besides constantly sneaking snacks to be eaten in his bedroom and dumping leftover wrappers under his large water-bed for two years. Unfortunately, there's something lurking beneath where he slept.
• Poor Communication Kills: When Otis' parents won his water-bed two years ago, said bed comes with a folded note which the parents simply left aside before giving their son the bed. Turns out the note was a warning written by the Mad Scientist who used to own the bed, warning the new owners he spilled a little "something" from his lab...
• Space Whale Aesop: Lampshaded by Otis himself at the story's ending. He did barely survive a giant worm-monster residing under his bed who attempted devouring him after all.
  Never accept a water bed from a crazed biologist.
• Trail of Bread Crumbs: Otis and Tony — the latter finally believing Otis' claims that there's a monster underneath the bed — uses a trail of leftover food to lure the worm-creature into the open. Otis even references "just like Hansel and Gretel" while discussing his idea.

#14: A Terminal Case of the Uglies

• Body Horror:
  • Students who had their photographs taken at Skerry Pictures start displaying all sorts of deformities and mutations all over themselves, ranging from Eric's classmate Billy growing a boil on his forehead that resembles a third eye to Nicole growing scales.
  • It eventually bites Skerry, the story's main villain, in a Hoist by His Own Petard moment; once Eric found out about Skerry's cursed camera that absorbs looks and is stealing appearances of everyone in school, cue Eric, working alongside his usual bullies Jimmy and Leo, to use Skerry's own camera upon himself, causing Skerry to mutate randomly — first growing piles of tumors, then sprouting tentacles, his pores overflowing with yellow ooze as his teeth overgrow and shoot out his mouth, and all that.
• Enemy Mine: Towards the end, Eric and Nicole team up with Eric's regular bullies, Jimmy and Leo, to take down Wendell/ Skerry for good, the bullies restraining the villain as Eric starts taking pictures with Skerry's own camera.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • Eric's bullies, Jimmy and Leo tends to call him the rather unfortunate nickname, "Ear", because of his initials Eric Adam Ross. That and having oversized ears.
  • Also, the owner of Skerry pictures and the book's Hidden Villain, Ignatius Malcolm Skerry.
• Magical Camera: Ignatius Skerry, the book's villain (who turns out to be Wendell himself) invites children to join his talent agency, have their photographs taken, and by some way of enchantment, have the model's looks absorbed and stolen into the camera causing them to sprout deformities overnight.
• No Ontological Inertia: Victims who had their photos taken by Skerry's camera can have their looks restored by breaking the frames where their pictures were kept. While snooping around Skerry's office, Eric stumbles across a room full of framed photographs, recognizes one as his (now-scaly) friend Nicole, and accidentally broke it when he tries investigating. The next morning Nicole's back to normal.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Ignatius Skerry is compared directly with vampires, albeit one who steals another person's looks instead of sucking blood, turning them horribly deformed in the process. And rather than biting victims, Skerry would instead use a cursed camera to absorb his victims' appearances. Luckily, the deformities can be reversed.
• Shout-Out:
  • Wendall meets Eric for the first time and tries luring Eric to join Skerry Pictures by claiming "You know that TV show about the hospital? We got two of those actors their jobs."
• Smooth-Talking Talent Agent: Ignatius Skerry, owner of Skerry Pictures, easily convinces half the school into joining his talent agency.
• Soap Punishment: Referenced, though no cussing is involved. When Eric swears to Wendall he'll pay for breaking the frame, Wendell remarks his mother will have to wash his mouth with soap.
• Title Drop: Eric drops one after destroying Skerry with the villain's own camera.
  "I guess that is what you call a terminal case of the uglies."
• Tuckerization: Writer David Bergantino has said that the protagonist, Eric Adam Ross, is named after his three nephews.

#15: Tiki Doll of Doom

• Terrifying Tiki: The titular artifact is a cursed Tiki Doll necklace and an Artifact of Doom, which the protagonist Lucy receives from her aunt. It starts controlling her life, starting by haunting her dreams before taking over her body.

#16: Queen of the Gargoyles

• All Girls Like Ponies: The horse variant, with Isabella being a fan of horses and wants to spend the weekend at her fellow horse lover friend Janey's ranch, with all the horses she befriended a summer ago and promised to come back to visit. When her parents remark she can go horse-riding in Central Park, Isabella pouts that "those are city horses".
• Big Applesauce: The story is set in a cramped New York apartment, with landmarks including the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building (which Isabella notes, she can see both from her Aunt Bea's penthouse) and Central Park referenced. Later on Isabella complains of the noise late at night, and her Aunt Bea remarks "it's always busy in New York". It's also where a coven of European gargoyles decide to settle in, call it home, and choose a human queen to rule over them.
• Double-Meaning Title: The title refers to two characters, Isabella's Aunt Bea who's the previous human granted the title of being the gargoyles' queen, and later Isabella herself after she acknowledges her fate.
• I Choose to Stay: Isabella discovers that without a human ruler, the gargoyles will revert back to being lifeless statues, and after Aunt Bea relinquishes her title as queen Isabella will be their new ruler. So she decides not to return to her parents and friends, choosing to remain in New York to rule over the gargoyles.
• Ludicrous Precision: Before passing her queenship to Isabella, Aunt Bea mentions the responsibility of the Richmond bloodline as rulers of the gargoyles has been passed down generations for three thousand seven hundred and thirty-one years.
• No Antagonist: There isn't an antagonistic force or "bad guy" character in the entire story. All the gargoyles turns out to be friendly, and only wanted to choose a viable human to be their new queen. There's a brief misunderstanding where Isabella suspects her Aunt Bea is evil and up to no good, but it's cleared up relatively quickly.
• Our Gargoyles Rock: The Gargoyle sculptures in Aunt Bea's apartment comes to life after dawn, and can communicate with the protagonist Isabella. They're a case of Dark Is Not Evil and are entirely benevolent.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Aunt Bea's butler, Jonesy, is a human-gargoyle hybrid with large wings and fangs. While his appearance freaks out Isabella, on the other hand Isabella's parents simply greets him like an old friend, even hugging him ("Hi, Jonesy! Haven't seen you in ages!") to Isabella's confusion. It turns out the parents are already aware that the apartment's gargoyles are alive, and are free to roam around Aunt Bea's floor.

#17: Why I Quit the Baby-Sitter's Club

• Animate Dead: The Pendreds are conducting experiments to revive their beloved dachshund who died in the 60s, but it Came Back Wrong in the worst ways possible.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Rosie, who offered to babysit for the seemingly-normal Pendreds. After all, her ward isn't a human baby, but an animated dachshund puppy Frankensteined together from hundreds of salvaged roadkill for thirty years... and it's very hungry. In fact, it has devoured a few other babysitters before Rosie.
• Canis Major: The Pendred's "baby" used to be a dead dachshund, stitched back to life with hundreds of roadkill — and some babysitters — turning into a vaguely canine-looking giant monster. Who pursues Rosie when she found out the truth in the aftermath.
• Covers Always Lie: Another downplayed example with the cover art, who does sell the premise well enough (a babysitting gig gone wrong because said baby is a monster), however Tim Jacobus' illustration doesn't suggest said baby in question being a canine monstrosity Frankensteined together from roadkill. It might be a Red Herring to preserve the twist.
• Evil Smells Bad: The Pendreds, despite looking like any nice, elderly couple, smell suspiciously awful, as Rosie noted while riding along with them on their hearse. The stench turns out to be decomposing roadkill, because the Pendreds spend their nights collecting animal parts for experiments to keep their pet alive while having babysitters around in case their "baby" is hungry for human flesh.
• Frankenstein's Monster: The Pendred's baby isn't a human baby, but their beloved dachshund puppy who died sometime in the 60s. Dr. Pendred managed to reanimate the puppy, and decides to recreate it using body parts salvaged from roadkill resulting in a grotesque, human-sized mess of a monster.
• High-Voltage Death: Rosie eventually managed to kill the Pendred's "baby" — actually a reanimated dachshund-like monstrosity made of roadkill stitched together — by tricking the creature into jumping through some power lines.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Part of the story is set near the fictional Boneyard Woods, apparently getting its name when some hunters found a gigantic pile of bones in the woods half a century ago. In the present, it's the roaming ground for the Pendred's "baby", a monstrosity made of hundreds of stitched-together roadkill.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: What kicks off the story — Rosie is annoyed by her bestie Amber's younger brothers, Kyle and Lyle, taunting her "chicken" for not daring to ride through Boneyard Woods, a location where a monster supposedly lurks. Rosie accepts their challenge without thinking of the consequences, or that she's riding her sister's expensive mountain bike borrowed without permission. After wrecking the bike, Rosie needs to find a way to make money to pay for the repairs or have her allowance deducted from by her parents; her well-meaning friend Amber then introduces Rosie to a new babysitting gig.
• Oh, Crap!: Rosie is watching television in the Pendred's place when she decides to get a drink, only to realize the drain is stuck. She tries unclogging it, and fishes out an animal eyeball.
• Secret Diary: The Pendreds keep a diary hidden in their laboratory, which Rosie eventually finds after suspecting something's amiss about the baby. And learns the horrible truth that her employers are mad scientists dabbling in experiments to bring back their dead dachshund puppy killed three decades ago, have been keeping it alive with salvaged roadkill parts, and converted it into a horrifying monster who killed a few less fortunate babysitters in the past.
• Shout-Out: The title refers to The Babysitters Club series.
• Supporting the Monster Loved One: The Pendred's baby is their deceased dachshund, who died in an accident three decades ago. They've been keeping it alive via experiments using roadkill ever since, and the occasional unfortunate babysitter.
• Too Good to Be True: Rosie's babysitting assignment for the Pendreds in a nutshell. The baby spends the whole night asleep, she's free to roam around the Pendred mansion, there's plenty of snacks in the fridge and a television boasting 85 channels, and she basically gets paid a hundred bucks each night for chilling out and watching television. She thinks she's got a great deal once she gets used to the creepy atmosphere, until she finds out the truth that the Pendreds are raising a hideous Frankenstein-like monster as their "baby" who had devoured several sitters previously.
• Tuckerization: The book is dedicated to the "real Rosie Johnasen, the world's greatest animal lover". It's MC is named exactly that, and like her inspiration, is an Animal Lover.

#18: [e-mail]

• Haunted Technology: Jason, a budding writer, wrote an online story about a Serial Killer named Blowtorch. Then the fictional murderer gains a life of his own.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Main character Jason is a leapling, born on February 29. Multiple characters, Jason included, mention how Jason's "lucky thirteenth" birthday is in a leap year, so he could celebrate on his actual birthday. Apparently, no one in this book has any idea how a calendar works; a leap year occurs every four years, so a leapling's thirteenth birthday would fall in a common year.

#19: Night Squawker

• Sealed Evil in a Teddy Bear: The main character discovers that his new pet parrot has the power to predict doom and was responsible for the death of his grandfather. In the end the parrot is eaten by a vulture, but the vulture starts to talk, squawk and grow bright blue feathers before dying mysteriously.

#20: Scare Bear

• Antagonist Title: The book's main villain is Tim's childhood teddy bear, gaining a life of its own and going on a murderous rampage.
• Chekhov's Gun: Jane's little brother Ralphie plays with a toy gun capable of shooting pellets (presumably a 90s NERF gun) in a few scenes. In the climax, Tim uses it to defeat Baby Curly.
• Exorcist Head: When Curly's true, evil nature is revealed, Tim comments that "Curly is just a teddy bear, he can't do anything". Curly responds by twisting its own stuffed head a-hundred-eighty twice over, leading to Tim's massive Oh, Crap!.
• If I Can't Have You…: Baby Curly is determined to keep his owner, Tim, permanently, even if it means committing murder. In the climax it's up to Tim to prevent Curly from going after Jane.
• Killer Teddy Bear: Baby Curly, Tim's teddy bear who seemingly tries to help him but tries to kill his "enemies" in the process.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Baby Curly the sentient teddy bear gains life after being struck by lightning (somehow). After Tim disposes pf most of his childhood toys, including Curly (albeit reluctantly) a thunderstorm occurs the following night, with lightning hitting where Tim disposed of Curly earlier. Cue Tim waking up and finding out Curly has escaped.
• Living Toy: Baby Curly is an evil animated teddy bear.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: When Tim's ex-bestie Ross starts getting on his nerves one last time (by stealing his date Jane at the school dance and making fun of him the following day), Baby Curly suggests that Tim get rid of Ross permanently by sabotaging Ross' bicycle. Tim outright refuses since murder is one line he's not going to cross, but Baby Curly does it for Tim anyways.
• Or Was It a Dream?: Early on, Tim assumed him seeing Baby Curly, his childhood teddy bear he'd disposed of, unexpectedly appearing in his bedroom in the dead of night to be part of a bad dream. Turns out it's not.
• Outgrowing the Childish Name: Tim insists that his family call him either "Tim" or "Timothy", deciding "Timmy" is too childish for him. It's literally his first sentence on the first page.
  "I'm twelve. It's ''embarrassing when everybody calls me Timmy. I'm not even answering to anything but Tim."
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Tim delivers a good one before shooting Curly's head off with a toy gun's pellets.
  My name is Tim, and I'm done playing with you!
  [Blee-oop]
• Recursive Canon: While at the library, Tim looks at a number of Bone Chillers books.
• Shout-Out:
  • Some of the books Jane browsed at the library when meeting Tim are Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club novels. Tim prefers to check out Bone Chillers books instead.
  • Tim, like every stereotypical 90s nerd, has a bedroom full of models, with a chapter having him working on a plastic Independence Day alien. Later on the now fully-evil Curly melts a plastic Darth Vader model into a black puddle to intimidate Tim.
  • The final confrontation where Curly gains the ability to walk and inflict physical damage on his victims, and Tim trying to stop Curly from hurting Jane before finally shooting Curly's head off with a kid's pellet gun, is a G-rated homage to the original Child's Play's ending.
• Telepathy: As Baby Curly the teddy bear doesn't have vocal cords, he uses this method to communicate with Tim. Before revealing himself to be alive, Curly mentally communicating with Tim to draw him out makes him think he's losing his mind.
• Teleportation: It turns out Baby Curly has the ability to teleport, the first few instances being treated as Offscreen Teleportation, including Curly's intro by suddenly appearing in Tim's bedroom after being hauled out to the trash. Baby Curly finally teleports onscreen after restraining Tim and taunting that he will get rid of Jane permanently.
• Vengeful Abandoned Toy: Curly, the book's Big Bad, is Tim's childhood teddy bear which Tim decides to dispose of, thinking it's too childish for him to keep toys in his bedroom. But then Curly gains a malevolent mind of his own and insists to return to Tim's life.
• We Used to Be Friends: Tim's main bully is Ross, his ex-friend who stopped hanging out with him since joining some "cool kids" in sixth grade. While Ross never really plays rough with Tim, he does deliberately tries making life difficult for him by hooking up with the girl Tim has a crush on and leading other kids in laughing at Tim for messing up in gym class.

#21: The Dog Ate My Homework

• A Dog Ate My Homework: Fittingly used, given the title. The protagonist gets the power to have their lies come true, so they use this excuse and a dog indeed storms in to eat her homework.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The protagonists gain the power to have their lies come true and aside from this generally not being what they expected, there is one specific example. They make themselves rich but now all their classmates start to only hang around them for their money and start treating them differently.
• Compulsive Liar: The plot revolves around a girl who has a bad habit of telling lies to get out of school work. Eventually she gains the power to have her lies become true and of course this goes wrong.
• Covers Always Lie: Ironically, the blurb for a book about lying does this, although to a lesser extent than some others. It says the protagonist claims that the school is full of termites to get out of a test. In the actual book, she does this but she was asked to by the magic A.I. that gave her powers and it was because she wanted to get rid of school for good. This is also a spoiler as it doesn't happen until the third act.
• Embarrassing First Name: The protagonist is named Azelia, but she thinks having a flower for a name is too "nerdy" so she has her friends call her "Azie".
• Logic Bomb: This is how the magic A.I. is defeated. Azie tells it that it absolutely has to listen to her friends because they're telling the truth, and has them tell it that she is lying. Which Azie then says is absolutely true. Which the friends then say is a lie. The kids go back and forth on this until the program gets too confused, has a total meltdown and gets destroyed.

#22: Killer Clown of Kings County

• Clownification: Idris the Clown intends to transform protagonist Zeke and all the other kids into another clown like himself, permanently, and Zeke needs to prevent that from happening.
• Monster Clown: Idris the clown crashed Zeke's birthday party, and then things go wrong.

#23: Romeo and Ghouliette

• Adaptational Expansion: Romeo and Ghouliette was a TV episode first and then a book, using the same setting of Smiley Heights and Edgar Allen Poe High with the characters of Fitz, Lexi, Brian, Sarah and Arnie the janitor largely the same. However, the plot expands on Julie Tchort's infatuation with Fitz and features her gradually fattening him up over a few weeks while the school gets ready for their production of Romeo And Juliet.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: The book seems to be one to "Guess Who's Coming for Dinner?" from fellow 90s Goosebumps clone Shivers (M. D. Spenser). A weird, oft-lonely new kid is secretly from a family of cannibals, and invites the protagonist to their house to be their next meal. A hated member of the school faculty (maths teacher, Principal) plays a role in the story as well, there's an uncomfortable cafeteria scene, and the story in both instances concludes with an Ambiguous Ending. They just Gender Flipped the protagonist and the new kid in this one.
• Big Eater: Julie Tchort has a literally monstrous appetite. Sarah's horrified when she realizes the fifty mice Arnie was planning to set free in the town dump were most definitely eaten by Julie.
• Covers Always Lie: The back summary states Lexi is the main character, which is carried over from the episode. However, Sarah is instead the protagonist.
• Fattening the Victim: Julie gives Fritz lots of food so she and her parents can eat him up.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Julie Tchort and her parents are ghouls who keep themselves immortal by fattening up and eating a pure-hearted child every year.
• The Load: Fitz during the end, due to being put in a trance by the Tchorts. Brian complains about having to lug him around to keep him out of danger, which is especially difficult because of how fat Fitz has become thanks to Julie. It only gets worse when Fitz starts acting like he's Romeo, obliviously trying to find his monstrous Juliet.
• Mythology Gag: Tim Jacobus's cover art features Fitz and Julie within a broken TV, as a nod towards the book being an adaption of an episode from the show. Fitz is even drawn to look like John Patrick White, who played him on screen.
• Something We Forgot: After the Tchorts have been locked in the school auditorium, the kids and Arnie start celebrating... until they realize they left Fitz in the gym too.
• Take Our Word for It: Brian gets a good look at the inside of Julie Tchort's freezer, and is only barely able to convey to Sarah that it might've been filled with human bodies.
• Temporary Bulk Change: Fitz is gradually fed up by Julie Tchort so he can be eaten by her family to maintain their immortality. However, the last chapter of the book doesn't specify if enough time had passed for Fitz to lose all the weight he gained.

#24: Here Comes Sandy Claws

• Adults Are Useless: Initially played straight, where the huge lobster-monster pursuing Tricia and Duncan across the beach and the decks of a crowded cruise ship fails to draw any attention from the crew, the parents being oblivious to the dangers present, and the local speed freak somehow being assigned as the ship's navigator. Later averted when Barnabe reveals itself in its monstrous form, where the crew immediately organize mass evacuations and several adult males try barricading the ship and find ways to fight Barnabe. Later on, Duncan's father Mr. Wheeler helps him take down the monster by dropping floodlights into a pool Barnabe is stuck in.
• An Asskicking Christmas: It's about two kids who're fighting against a mutated lobster before it ultimately chases them onto a cruise ship during Christmas vacation.
• Christmas Episode: A Christmas vacation set in sunny Florida aboard a cruise ship. And then the ship's lobster mascot fell into some toxic waste.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Barnabe the giant lobster, who used to be the mascot of a seafood restaurant before being exposed to toxic waste. It returns human-sized, and keeps growing and growing until the climax where it's large enough to take up an entire cruise ship's upper deck.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Played with. When Barnabe goes after Duncan and Tricia, the two try to keep the lobster's attention so it won't go after their grandparents or anyone else in the vicinity.
• High-Voltage Death: In the ending chapters, Barnabe pursues the main characters from underneath a cruise ship to the swimming pool on the deck. Duncan manages to trick Barnabe into entering the evacuated pool, which Duncan and his father drop a set of floodlights into, thus turning the pool into a giant lobster bouillabaisse.
• Homage: While previous books in the series are references to old-timey supernatural horror media or slasher flicks, Sandy Claws, the last published installment, is one to giant monster B-Movies, hitting every cliche along the way (kaiju-sized creatures, mutations caused by toxic chemicals, the festival setting, incompetent authority figures, etc.)
• Ironic Nickname: The local speedster and cruise ship captain, Joe, has the nickname "Slowdown" Joe... and is a speed freak. His moniker actually comes from people around him telling him to "slow down".
• Misplaced Retribution: After Barnabe re-emerges as a man-sized crustacean monster, it immediately targets the main characters, Tricia and Duncan, instead of the restaurant who locked it in an aquarium for nearly half a century. In fact, when further mutated Barnabe inexplicably gains ability of speech, it then taunts Duncan: "Look what you turned me into!"
• Nuclear Mutant: Barnabe the lobster is turned into a giant mutant after being exposed to toxic waste. It seeks revenge for this being allowed to happen.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Barnabe lets out a string of "No-No-NO!" as its Last Words. Yes, the giant lobster-monster can talk.
• Super-Persistent Predator: When revealed to be alive after falling into toxic chemicals, Barnabe spots its first victims, the protagonist siblings Tricia and Duncan, and chases them across the docks and the beach for several chapters before they trick Barnabe back in the water. When re-emerged as a gigantic monster, Barnabe continues its pursuit of the siblings, which eventually seals its fate.
• Talking Animal: Somehow, falling into toxic waste gives Barnabe the ability to speak, besides growing super-sized. Being a 47-year-old animal, it's implied Barnabe already knew English from observing restaurant staff and patrons — it just need the mutation to gain vocal cords.
  "Look what you turned me into! You will pay for this!"
• Tragic Monster: It's hard to blame Barnabe for going on a destructive rampage after being exposed to toxic waste and turning giant-sized, considering it's a lobster who's been trapped in a cramped aquarium for 47 years, in a restaurant where it presumably sees its own kind getting eaten by humans on a regular basis. Duncan even feels sorry for Barnabe once the monster is dead, covering its eyes with lettuce slices.

TV series

• Adaptation Distillation: The TV series utilizes several of the books for episodes, but is largely a separate story with multiple episodes not having anything to do with the books. The four main characters take their names from Back to School (Fitz, Lexi, Brian, and Sarah) but have almost nothing in common with the kids from the book.
• Adaptation Species Change: In the book version of Teacher Creature, the titular teacher starts out as a toad and gets mutated into a human. In the episode, it's the other way around, as he starts as a human and is mutated into a toad-person.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Most episodes of the TV series had a tag featuring Betsy Haynes herself recapping the episode and preaching about the importance of reading and imagination.
• Crusty Caretaker: Arnie is the school's bizarre janitor who lives in the basement. While he does help out the main four kids in his own... eccentric way, it's highly unsure if he's even human, as he's quite literally falling apart.
• Denser and Wackier: The books were goofy but still tried to be horror, just for kids. The TV series is more akin to a live action cartoon, being very over the top and comedic.
• Dogged Nice Girl: In "Substitute Creature", it's established that the English teacher Miss Dewberry has a massive crush on Arnie, who, in Brian's words, "doesn't even know she exists".
• In Name Only: Outside of a few concepts, the TV series is mostly made out of original stories and the few that are from the books are wildly different, with the exception of Back to School which is reasonably faithful.
• What Does She See in Him?: Lexi and Sarah have this thought regarding Miss Dewberry's crush on Arnie.