The Goosebumps book about living scarecrows.
Every year, Jodie and Mark visit their grandparents on their farm. But this year, something's wrong. Grandpa Kurt and Grandma Miriam seem so tired and worn out, and the single scarecrow has been replaced with twelve evil-looking ones... and it looks like they're coming to life.
It was adapted into the fourteenth episode of the second season of the 1995 TV series. It was also adapted into an installment of the Goosebumps Graphix series, included in the Creepy Creatures collection.
It was reissued in the Classic Goosebumps line in 2010 as a companion novel to Weirdo Halloween.
The book provides examples of:
- Animate Inanimate Object: The scarecrows, which were brought to life by magic. In the last chapter, Stanley ends up animating a taxidermied bear in the living room as well.
- Arc Words: "The book says so." This is what Stanley says in response to his strange actions, observations, and behaviors. He is referring to the book of superstitions that he has been reading quite recently. It also refers to how he is using the book to create magic.
- Bat Scare: Briefly occurs at the barn when Jodie is preparing Mark in his scarecrow outfit at night for their prank towards Sticks. Although a bit startled, they don't pay it much mind.
- Bears Are Bad News: One of the items in the farmhouse is a large taxidermied grizzly bear, which Grandpa Kurt says was a killer, having mauled two hunters before he shot it. In the last scene, it comes back to life and approaches Jodie menacingly, indicating that Stanley had animated it for some reason.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject:
- On their first lunch whilst Jodie and Mark are visiting, Grandma Miriam brings up how Stanley would want to show the children the scarecrows. Grandpa Kurt then clears his throat and asks Mark if he's still taking guitar lessons. Jodie clearly has the feeling that he's doing this trope.
- Also, when walking to the farm pond for fishing, Stanley keeps going on and on about superstitions from the book he's reading. Mark chimes in to discuss more about it with him. But Jodie invokes this trope by saying that she can hear the creek.
- Chekhov's Gun: While looking around the barn, Jodie briefly sees a pile of bare torches on the grassy floor. These are what Sticks later use to get rid of the scarecrows.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Stanley, the superstitious, mentally ill farmhand. Deconstructed in that it makes him the villain character of the story, as he creates the eponymous evil scarecrows. And then he ends up causing even MORE trouble by not letting go of his fascination, see Exact Words below.
- Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: Jodie wakes up to one after the Nightmare Sequence she had last night.
- Counting Sheep: Jodie is in bed at night and tries this trope to get to sleep. It didn't work, so she instead tries counting cows like the ones that are outside as viewed from her window. She counted until a hundred twelve before she decided that wasn't working, either.
- A Dog Named "Dog": The town that Jodie's grandparents live in is so small that it doesn't even have a name. Its' citizens simply call it Town.
- Don't Wake the Sleeper: Upon their first witnessing of the scarecrows animating, Mark suggests that they wake their grandparents up and tell them about it. But Jodie protests that they shouldn't do that, and instead wait until the morning when they're awake to tell them.
- Exact Words: A dark example. After the scarecrows that he had brought to life had been destroyed, Stanley says that he will never bring any scarecrows to life again, and he won't even read the part about scarecrows in the spellbook. But the next day, Jodie sees Stanley reading from the spellbook, murmuring to himself. She then notices the stuffed bear in the living room suddenly animate itself, and she realizes with horror that Stanley is reading aloud a spell from the book, just not the one involving scarecrows.
- Face Framed in Shadow: Sticks has this appearance when confronting Jodie inside the dark barn when he catches her investigating.
- Going in Circles: Invoked by Stanley. As he's bringing Jodie and Mark to the creek, he takes a shortcut with them that involves circling around the barn, and Jodie tells him that they're actually going around in circles. Stanley replies that they have to do that in order to bring them good luck for their fishing, which was part of his superstition. Jodie tries to tell him that he's being silly, but stops herself, as he seemed so serious about it. Besides, she and Mark needed the exercise.
- Hand Rubbing: After their first night's sleep at their grandparents' place, Jodie and Mark are at the kitchen table eagerly awaiting Grandma Miriam's delicious chocolate chip pancakes, and they do this trope to indicate their excitement. Jodie even compares it to them doing it "like cartoon characters do." But they are massively disappointed when Miriam doesn't give them pancakes, but bowls of cornflakes instead.
- Hope Spot: When Stanley sees a scarecrow lying on the ground, he is convinced that they are alive (which they actually were), and brings out the book of superstitions to cast a spell, but Sticks convinces him that everything is fine and he should put the book away. Just as Stanley is relieved and does so, Mark shows up in his scarecrow costume, which makes Stanley run away in fear and cast a spell which attracts the rest of the scarecrows toward them.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Mild versions. When Jodie and Mark ask Grandpa Kurt for a scary story, he claims he can't tell scary stories because he doesn't really know any, or has just run out. The real reason, of course, is that Stanley doesn't like them and Grandpa Kurt is trying to keep him happy.
- Intimidation Demonstration: Essentially what the villain of the book is revealed to have done. He demonstrated his magic by animating the titular walking scarecrows and only put them back to sleep if his employers agreed to do what he wants.
- I Warned You: Sticks says this Jodie about the scarecrows being alive after he saves her from one that was attacking her.
- I Was Quite a Looker: In the present day, Grandpa Kurt has a very lined face. But according to his wife, back in his youth, he was handsome "like a movie star", and Jodie can see traces of that when looking into his sparkling blue eyes
- Kill It with Fire: How the scarecrows are finally beaten — their creator's son has been keeping a stash of torches on hand just in case, and uses them to burn the scarecrows to ashes.
- Lazy Bum: Jodie's eleven-year-old brother Mark, who will do anything to avoid exercise or any kind of physical activity. Jodie later notes that fishing is one of his favorite sports because he doesn't have to move too much while doing it.
- Look Behind You: Sticks tells Mark that there's something on his back, and told him to turn around. Mark does so, and Sticks takes the opportunity to slip a worm down his back, causing Mark to run screaming all the way back to the farmhouse.
- Lost in the Maize: Of course, considering that this story takes place on a farm with wide cornfields around, this trope occurs. It happens when Jodie gets lost trying to find her way.
- Missing Mom: Stanley has a son named Sticks, but no mention of him having a wife is ever made.
- Never Trust a Title: The Scarecrows seem to be able to walk whenever they want, midnight doesn't really play into it that much. Then again, this is a case of Title Drop.
- Nightmare Sequence: Jodie has one partway through the book where she finds her grandparents have been turned into scarecrows. She is very relieved to find it was just a bad dream.
- Not Me This Time: Sticks may be delighted whenever he can to prank Jodie and Mark, but when the scarecrows appear to be showing up in different places, he swears that he had nothing to do with that. He turns out to be right.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: When Stanley's sixteen-year-old son is introduced, Jodie notes that he has long, skinny arms and legs, hence his nickname "Sticks". His real name is never given at any point in the book.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Because Grandpa Kurt has stopped telling his scary stories at night and Grandma Miriam has stopped making her pancakes, both of which Jodie and Mark remember and are very fond of, they each immediately realize that something is wrong. That's because Stanley has blackmailed them to stop doing those activities.
- Repeat After Me: As part of a Chekhov's Gag and Plot Allergy, Jodie was sneezing throughout the trip because she was allergic to much material around the farm. And when she, her family, Sticks, and Stanley were getting surrounded by scarecrows that were about to kill them, Jodie sneezes when one brushes its' straw hand at her. The sneeze startles Mark, who jumps backward in shock. To their astonishment, the rest of the scarecrows copy him. Because he was dressed as a scarecrow, the living ones mistake Mark as their leader and copy his movements for a bit. But when Mark eventually pulls off his scarecrow head, the other scarecrows do the same, but this is when the ruse breaks and they stop copying his movements. Fortunately, by this time, Sticks had come with the torches to burn the scarecrows.
- Scarecrow Solution: Late in the book, Jodie gets Mark to dress up as a scarecrow in order to scare Sticks, whom they believe has been pulling the same prank on them repeatedly. It backfires, because Stanley sees Mark in his costume and thinks he's one of the twelve real scarecrows, whom he promptly brings back to life so he can properly de-animate them this time.
- Scary Scarecrows: Jodie and Mark's grandparents used to have one normal scarecrow, but when they arrive, they find it's been replaced with twelve creepy-looking ones that are eventually revealed to have been animated by magic... and the de-animation spell didn't put them all back to sleep like it was supposed to.
- Sinister Scraping Sound: Jodie hears this constantly throughout the book, which are most likely coming from the animated scarecrows.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: When Jodie cracks and finally tells her grandparents about the random scarecrow occurrences around the farm, she talks about it as if Sticks was doing these as pranks, which is what she believed at the time. Her grandparents, (whom really know that Stanley actually brought them to life), go along with this notion to appease her.
- Take That!: When first arriving at his grandparents' place, Mark asks Grandpa Kurt if they got cable TV yet. He replies no, but they still have three channels, and asks how many more does he need. Mark rolls his eyes and replies not MTV.
- Talk About the Weather: Whilst Jodie and Mark are getting in his truck to go to their grandparents' place, Stanley casually mentions that it's going to get pretty hot today, unless it cools down. Jodie notes in her narration that it was "a typical Stanley weather report."
- Title Drop: Stanley name-drops the book's title a few times in the first chapter's last few sentences. And another time the next chapter.Stanley: "The scarecrow walks at midnight... the book says so."
