Stay Out Of The Basement

The second novel of R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series, it was among the titles later re-released after the series ended.

[edit] Plot

Dr. Brewer has been acting strangely, spending nearly all his time in the basement of his house, working on his plant experiments. He's warned his children, Margaret and Casey Brewer, to stay out... but they sneak in and catch a glimpse of the gigantic plants. They begin to worry even more when Margaret finds that her father has been eating plant food, sleeping on a layer of dirt and bleeding green blood. After his baseball cap is knocked off to reveal leaves growing from his head, Dr. Brewer explains that he's working with genetic engineering, in order to create a plant/animal hybrid.

Eventually Margaret and Casey return to the basement and find another Dr. Brewer tied up in the closet. This leads to a final showdown, in which the siblings and their mother learn the truth: Dr. Brewer had accidentally begun making plants that were part human, and the "Dr. Brewer" they've been living with for some time is actually a nearly perfect plant/human clone of the real Dr. Brewer. The clone, along with most of the plants, are destroyed by the real Dr. Brewer, while a few of the normal plants are moved into the garden. In the final twist, one of these plants speaks to Margaret, claiming that it is the real Dr. Brewer, but this development is left hanging.

[edit] Television Episode

"Stay Out of the Basement" was adapted as a two-part episode of the TV series, which was later released on VHS.

[edit] See Also

List of Goosebumps books