R.L.
Stine
Scholastic,
1991
Genre: Horror
Description
The
book opens with Jenny telling the entire back story from the first book to her
psychiatrist, Dr. Schindler. We learn that she and Chuck are no longer dating
because she just couldn't deal with his constant laughing and joking around and
that Chuck was very upset about the breakup. She knows that Mr. Hagen's death
was not her fault because he was crazy and tried to kill her, but she still has
this knowledge that somehow she was responsible for his death and Donny no
longer has a father because of her. After his death there were no more attacks
on babysitters and no more calls or threats. Donny and his mother moved away.
Jenny started having very vivid nightmares. In most of them she dreams of Mr.
Hagen crawling out of the rock quarry all mangled and bloody.
Jenny’s
experiencing some major anxiety right now as she has been asked by the Wexner
family to babysit their son Eli and she doesn’t know if she’s ready to be
babysitting again. She knows that she could use the money for school and the
Wexner's seem like nice people. They only live a few blocks from her house and Eli
is ten so he probably wouldn't be that much trouble. They want her to babysit
for two days a week and two nights. Jenny decides that she should probably take
the job as she needs the money and they could possibly help her get over her
fear.
As she
leaves the doctor’s she is confronted by Chuck. Jenny's mom told him where he could
find her. He wants to talk because they never really got to talk after what
happened. Jenny tells him that they did a ton of talking and that she doesn't
want to talk anymore and doesn't want him following her anywhere. Chuck says
that he doesn't want to lose her. She tells him that she's not the same person.
He can't accept that. Jenny's bus comes and she jumps on hearing Chuck
threatening and cursing her.
Later,
Jenny finds herself at the rock quarry. She doesn't know what brought her back
there to the scene of all the horror. She sees two hands emerge from the pit.
It is Mr. Hagen: “Part of the flesh of his face had been torn away, revealing
curved bone under his cheeks. The rest of his flesh hung loosely about his
fixed grin.” She screams and is woken up by her mother—it was only another
nightmare. Her mom comforts her telling her that “nothing like that will ever
happen to you again.” (We all know how that is totally true comforting words, right? Ha!)
Jenny
accepts the job at the Wexner's house. She likes that their house looks well
cared for and inviting unlike the horror mansion that was the Hagen's house. Rena
is an artist while Mr. Wexner is a short, slightly built man. Eli is a
mechanical genius and is not too modest. Rena tells Jenny not to let Eli walk
all over her and to be firm but not too firm with him since he's very
emotional. Jenny notices that Rena appears to be very nervous. She goes
upstairs to find Eli. He's in his room seated at a long white counter which is
filled with tons of electronic equipment and tools. He's busily typing away at
a computer. Eli tells her that he does not need a babysitter. To try and
emphasize this he tells her that he built his computer from scratch. He tells
her that he is a mechanical genius with an IQ of 180 and asks her what her IQ
is and has trouble believing that she doesn't know.
Soon Jenny
is back in Dr. Schindler's office. Eli's only friends are three tarantulas. She
scared of spiders and when Eli scared her with them he was laughing to the
point of hysterics. She says the look on Eli's face was just evil. Eli never
apologized and Jenny has this horrible feeling that he wanted to hurt her, but
Dr. Schindler asks if she doesn’t think she’s not reading too much into it.
Jenny
is no longer friends with Laura. Claire and Rick are Jenny's new friends that
she made after the horrifying events. She had known Claire since elementary
school but they had never been close. Rick had been a longtime buddy of
Claire's and now they are a trio. Jenny goes to the pizza oven a restaurant at
the mall to meet up with them. When Claire and Rick head back to work, Jenny
wanders around the mall. She wanders into a music store and looks around for a
while before noticing a boy watching her. He is sort of tough looking with
short, spiky blond hair, so light it is almost platinum. He is wearing black
jeans and an Aerosmith T-shirt. She notices that he's staring at her. He starts
to come near her and she notices the scar along the bottom of his chin. She
gets trapped against the back wall of the aisle with nowhere to run.
It
turns out the boy only wants to hand her a small envelope that she dropped it.
It was the bill from Dr. Schindler's office. Looking more closely at him, she
discovers he's actually pretty good looking and they strike up a conversation
about music. He tells her that he just moved there a few weeks ago and he will
be starting school in the fall at her high school. He introduces himself as
Cal. She tells him that she's got to get going and he follows her, finally
shyly asking her if she may be like go out Friday night. Jenny wonders if she
should take the chance by going out with him.
When
Jenny arrives on Friday night to babysit Eli, she goes upstairs to find him
watching a horror movie. As the guy on the screen walks into the cabin and gets
his head cut off, Eli starts giggling and laughing out loud. She asks if he
should be watching this and he says it is his room and no one can stop him. He
tells her that he had a bad day and that his parents don't like his pets. She
tries to get him to talk but he refuses and she goes downstairs. She begins
thinking about the fact that she agreed to go to the party on Saturday night
with Cal. She's never done anything like that before and doesn't know a thing
about him but, on the other hand, what does she have to lose. She is startled
by the phone ringing and she picks it up to hear a whisper on the other end
saying, “Hi, babes. I'm back.”
The
line goes dead in her hand. Her nightmare is coming true. The voice sounded
like air—like a voice from beyond the grave. It couldn’t be Mr. Hagen but if it
wasn't him how did the caller know the same exact words that Mr. Hagen said
that terrified Jenny. Suddenly, she's back in her nightmare seeing Mr. Hagen
pull himself out of the quarry: “His head appeared, the skin torn off one side
of his face, pale skeleton showing through from underneath. One eye was
missing, the gaping, empty socket bulging with pulsating veins.”
She
goes to check on Eli and he is watching his tarantulas. He said he turned the
movie off because he didn't want to see the end—he doesn't like it when they
kill the bad guy. Jenny decides that he's definitely twisted. He tells her
about a movie that he saw on TV that had a bunch of giant tarantulas that were
bigger than his house. She asks him what he would do with giant tarantulas and
he says he would have them eat everybody. He doesn't want to go to bed so he
asks if it's okay if he reads instead. It turns out he's reading a Steven King
book. When she asks him why he doesn't read something for kids his age he says
that everything is boring.
As
Jenny walks home she encounters Chuck again. He looks crazed and he refuses to
let her go until she talks to him. He tells her that she was the best thing
that ever happened to him and then she dumped him with no explanation. She
yells at him, saying she went through a nightmare being stalked by a crazy man
that she was responsible for him dying. She needed a complete change. She is still
haunted by everything that happened. Unfortunately Chuck happens to be a
reminder of everything. He gets mad because he believes that he was there for
her when she needed him and she repays him by dumping him. Jenny asks him if he
called her tonight. He says that he did but not at the Wexner's. He called her
house and her mother told him where he could find her. He throws her down onto
the pavement. She's very scared and wonders what happened to the old Chuck who
is lovable and funny. She tells her that she'll be sorry. He then runs away.
Jenny
goes out with Cal
on a date. When she returns home, there is someone in the bushes who runs away.
Cal is pretty
sure it was a burglar. Jenny wonders if it is Chuck. She decides to read in bed
some and falls asleep. She is woken later by her phone ringing and she thinks
it is Eli, who has called her late at night before on his secret phone his
parents don’t know about. She picks it up and tells Eli that she told him
not to call her that late but, of course, a whispered voice replies, “It isn't
Eli. Jenny, I'm back. Are you all alone, babes? Company's coming.” For the
first time, the nightmare is following Jenny—she’s receiving calls at her own
home.
The next day Jenny is at the mall waiting for Cal to meet her. It is
raining hard and as she waits all of the stores go dark and all the cars drive
off leaving her all alone in an unending parking lot. It is getting very late
and she wonders why she agreed to meet him so late at night especially in a
strange meeting place. She realizes that she decided to meet him because she
wanted to see him. She begins to get impatient. She hears someone groan.
Something moves near by: “Then, standing under the yellow light, the cold rain
beginning to fall, standing halfway between the car and clothing bins, she saw
the hand, and then the arm. There was a hand sticking out of the clothing bin.”
Without thinking she thinks that something horrible has happened to Cal and she rushes
towards the bin, grabs the hand, and pulls. “Mr. Hagen grinned at her. One eye
was missing, revealing a dry, empty socket. His skull showed through where
pieces of his cheek and forehead flesh had decayed and fallen off. The stench.
The stench was so strong. The stench swirled around him, swirled around both of
them, holding her, drawing her toward him, not letting her run.” He calls her
name and when he opens his mouth “she could see the gaps in his mouth, the
rotting, black teeth.” He repeats her name and his voice is nothing but dry,
rancid air: “A black bug crawled over his swollen tongue. He repeatedly lifted
his dry lips, but his tongue was dry and caked with dirt.”
Luckily, it was just another nightmare. She woke up
screaming her head off with her mom in her room trying to wake her up. Jenny is
worried because it's kind of the same dream but is now happening in another place
(not the quarry) and it seemed more real. Dr. Schindler asks her why Cal appeared in the
dream. He asks if it's because she might be a little suspicious of Cal. He asks Jenny if
somewhere in her mind she might suspect Cal
of making the phone calls. Dr. Schindler starts talking about her imagination
running wild. Jenny gets angry at his implications that she is imagining the
phone calls. She feels hurt and betrayed and thinks that Dr. Schindler
obviously thinks she's crazy. Dr. Schindler prescribes her a prescription for
sleeping pills.
One night while Jenny is babysitting Eli, Rick and Claire
show up. Jenny doesn't think it's a good idea for them to stay, but they want
to keep her company. Eli demands to know who they are and what they're doing
there. He isn’t very nice to them and wants them to leave because it's his
house. Claire asks if he’d like some M&Ms and he says maybe and she asks if
she can see his room because Jenny told her that he's got a lot of great stuff.
Eli agrees and Claire goes upstairs to his room. Suddenly, Jenny and Rick hear
shouting upstairs. She hears Eli screaming, “I said no.” She hears something
fall down the staircase. It's Claire: “Claire didn't reply. She lay on her
back, her eyes opened wide, her face still locked in an expression of terror,
her neck bent at an odd, unnatural angle.” Jenny looks up at Eli who was
standing at the top of the stairs grinning. Luckily, she just got knocked out
and when she comes to she tells Jenny she didn’t slip—she felt like she was
pushed.
A few days later, Jenny is waiting to meet Cal at his job at the ice cream shop. She
parks her car and waits. She wonders why all of this seems so familiar.
Suddenly, she hears footsteps as if someone is running toward her. She
remembers the dream that occurred in the parking lot. She tries to force herself
to wake up but she can't. Impulsively she decides to turn around and face her
pursuer. She is shocked to find Dr. Schindler holding a brown grocery bag. He
tells her that he can't find his parking spot and asks if she's waiting for
someone. Right then Cal crosses the parking lot coming towards them. Dr.
Schindler sees his car and says good night, apologizing for scaring her. She
and Cal drive to a Wendy's where Jenny tells him the whole entire story of Mr.
Hagen from the beginning. As she was telling him, she realizes suddenly who it
is trying to terrify her.
It has to be Dr. Schindler. Besides Chuck (and now Cal) Dr.
Schindler is the only one who knows everything. While Chuck is angry at her he
really isn’t a bad guy and she believes he would never try to intentionally scare
her. Plus, Dr. Schindler looked very nervous in the mall parking lot earlier.
She is sure he was following her. Cal
isn't ready to believe that her shrink is doing this to her. Why would he want
to frighten her? Jenny gets frustrated. If it isn't Chuck it needs to be Dr.
Schindler; if it isn’t Dr. Schindler it has to be Mr. Hagen and that would mean
Mr. Hagen is still alive. She's going to set a trap for Dr. Schindler and she
asks Cal for
his help.
In her next appointment, she tells Dr. Schindler of her idea
of getting over her fear is to go back to the rock quarry and face the thing
down. She tells him that she's made up her mind and she's going to do it
because she knows it's going to help her—and she's going to do it tonight. Later
that night Cal
picks her up and they drive to the quarry. Jenny is positive that Dr. Schindler
will be there to try and frighten her. With Cal there she thinks that Dr. Schindler will
see that he's been found out and run away. Jenny and Cal get out of the car and
walk around. She notices some piles of gravel that weren't there last fall. She
finds it strange because the place has been deserted for years. She tells Cal to go hide over near
a mound of gravel as she needs to appear alone. Suddenly, a dark figure looms
in front of her and a hoarse whisper voice says, “Jenny, I'm here.” The figure
comes closer and closer until Jenny can see who it is—and it’s not Dr.
Schindler.
The person in front of her is Miss Gurney. She tells Jenny
that she can't have Dr. Schindler. Jenny has lots of boyfriends and has
everything. She has the pretty hair, the nice clothes, and the boyfriends. She
knows everything about Jenny. She's listened to her session tapes and they told
her everything. She says that she has seen how the doctor talks to Jenny while
he barely says a word to her anymore. She used to be his patient but now he
ignores her while Jenny gets all of his attention. She says that she's going to
kill Jenny just like poor Mr. Hagen died. She rushes towards Jenny ready to
push her over the edge when she screams for Cal and he comes running. Startled by the
sound of someone else, Miss Gurney turns to look. Cal sweeps at her but she dives to the
ground and he sails over her, plunging headfirst into the quarry.
Jenny fears that she's killed Cal just like she killed Mr. Hagen. Then
Jenny sees a hand reach over the quarry side. It is exactly like her dream but
the face that emerges is not Mr. Hagen's. It is Cal's. He is soaking wet—the quarry has been
filled with water. Miss Gurney runs at Jenny and they both fall into the water.
Jenny almost drowns. Cal
rescues Jenny and they see all the police cars surrounding the quarry. The
police officers try to fish Miss Gurney out of the water but she's putting up a
fight. Dr. Schindler appears and says he is the one who called the police. He
couldn't find Jenny's tapes this evening and figured it out. He had treated his
secretary for violent, jealous episodes before. She had worked for him for
three years without having an episode. Jenny is safe now.
Thoughts and Nuggets of Wisdom
for Research
The
first thing that will strike readers is that this book is definitely scarier
than the first. While there isn’t much in the way of pure horror, there are
more descriptions of 1980s gore than there were in the first book.
The
book, once again, is heavy on physical descriptions. Dr. Schindler doesn't
really look like a shrink. Jenny thinks that he's too handsome and too tanned.
He has wavy, coppery hair, blonde eyebrows, and “startling” green eyes. Jenny
imagines him as an actor or model. Plus, he seems too young to be a shrink. Dr.
Schindler's secretary is a lady named Miss Gurney. She is a plump middle-aged
woman with gray streaked black hair who dresses conservatively except for her
eyeglasses which are red plastic frames with rhinestones (reminds me of Sally
Jesse Raphael which fits the time period!). She has a husky voice and always comments
on Jenny's pretty clothes or hair. She also likes to tell Jenny what a
wonderful man the doctor is and that she was once a patient of his too.
Jenny’s
two new friends also receive detailed descriptions. Rick is a big, good-looking
jock with curly black hair and a goofy smile. Rick is unserious while Claire is
very serious. Claire is very tall and thin and has straight brown hair she wears
in a braid. She isn’t very pretty and a lot of boys make fun of her because she
is so tall. Jenny likes her because she is so serious.
There
is an interesting relational aspect behind Jenny and her new boyfriend, Cal.
First, she’s pretty callous to break up with Chuck and get together with
another boy shortly thereafter. I get the whole thing behind her being a
totally different person after the nightmare she went through and Chuck being
too painful of a reminder but still does she need to throw herself into another
relationship so quickly? Basically, Jenny’s first date with Cal is by going to a
party. Neither is too impressed with all the couples making out all over the
place, some guys trying to figure out how to work a keg of beer, and the booming
rap music. Cal and Jenny decide to leave. He admits that he's embarrassed
because he wanted to show her a good time and just make a good impression. She
demands that he pulls the car over and she flings herself across the seat onto
him, throwing her arms around his shoulders, kissing him. The narration says,
“He's so . . . needy, Jenny thought, kissing him back, her eyes shut tight.
Maybe that's what we have in common. Maybe that's why I feel so attracted to
him, even though I hardly know anything about him. We're both so needy.”
No comments:
Post a Comment