You Can't Scare Me!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Author | R. L. Stine |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Goosebumps |
| Genre(s) | Horror fiction, Children's literature |
| Publisher | Scholastic |
| Released | January 1994 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 120 p. |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-590-49450-3 |
| Preceded by | The Werewolf Of Fever Swamp |
| Followed by | One Day At Horrorland |
You Can't Scare Me! is the fifteenth book in R. L. Stine's popular Goosebumps series of scary stories for young people.
The book revolves around four sixth-grade kids who are attempting to frighten, or otherwise embarrass, a cute and popular girl by the name of Courtney. These four kids include Hat, a slightly immature boy who always wears a cap; Charlene, who owns a lovable dog called Buttercup; Molly, who looks and acts much like Charlene, except for her glasses and braces; and finally Eddie--who, despite the fact that he scares easily himself, becomes the subtle leader of their rather short-sighted efforts to scare Courtney. This is partly out of bitterness from being teased so much for his distinctive appearance (red hair, freckles, and his two front teeth sticking out...whereas Courtney looks basically perfect), but mainly because Courtney and her friend Denise humiliated him and his friends on a school field trip.
[edit] Overview
In general, the plot is slightly more detailed and realistic than that of most Goosebumps books. Aside from Stine's usual "shock" endings to most of the chapters, the dialog is fairly plausible, and so are the repeated failures of Eddie and his friends. All of their attempts to show up Courtney somehow lead to her embarrassing them instead. Molly sneaks an extremely realistic rubber snake into Courtney's lunch bag, but she ends up heroically stomping it in half as all the other kids cheer her on. Eddie and Hat steal a tarantula from the school science lab to drop on Courtney's head from the balcony of the gym, but it lands in Molly's hair instead. They all take Charlene's dog, who growls ferociously when she whistles a certain way, into the woods to frighten Courtney (and Denise) at a tree house; the dog takes off after a squirrel and everyone gets lost trying to find him. Eddie is nearly attacked by another dog, but Hat finds him in time to scare it away. They finally leave the forest only to find Courtney waiting for them with Buttercup, and the strange dog, sitting peacefully at her side.
Just when Eddie and his friends are about to give up, Eddie believes he has a foolproof plan to scare Courtney: the Mud Monsters. According to the town legend from over a hundred years ago, the first settlers in the area lived in a swamp along Muddy Creek. The townspeople refused to help them when a rainstorm and a giant mudslide buried and drowned them; therefore, once a year when the moon is full, they rise up from the mud as zombies to seek revenge on the townspeople. Nobody in town seriously believes the legend. But Eddie convinces his older brother Kevin, who has just filmed an amateur horror movie about the monsters, to show up at the swamp one night in costume with two of his friends and scare the daylights out of Courtney and Denise. However, even this plan fails when the real Mud Monsters rise out of the creek and come after them. All of the kids run and manage to escape. Afterwards, Courtney constantly brags about having seen real live monsters. Eddie, Hat, Molly, and Charlene want to embarrass her more than ever, but ironically, their experiences have left them too scared to try anything else.
This Goosebumps story is unique in that it is written from Eddie's point of view, in a situation where he and his friends might normally be the antagonists. As a pretty and popular girl, Courtney can be quite annoying and smug at times, but not so much that the reader will necessarily support Eddie and his friends. For one thing, it's a four-against-one affair, and their multiple failures make them look at least somewhat incompetent. Courtney is, for the most part, blissfully unaware of their nefarious plans and still consistently outwits them just by being herself. And, in truth, Courtney's rivals seem as vindictive and careless as she is conceited. In that sense, "You Can't Scare Me!" may be viewed as a startlingly accurate portrayal of what many children in their age group are really like; the kids are noticeably detached from their parents (who are hardly mentioned in the story), their resentment of Courtney feels increasingly misdirected as the story goes on, and they rarely stop to think about the consequences of their actions. Because of this, one could argue that the Mud Monsters themselves are the real protagonists for scaring everyone straight.
[edit] Notes
--Many of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books have featured aliens, monsters, ghosts, and other sinister characters or objects. This is one of the few entries in the series that is firmly rooted in the real world (until the ending), where the scariest things in the kids' lives are usually other kids (not to mention unappealing animals).
--Although the details of the story are rather vague, we know that it takes place in southern California, probably in a rather small town near a wooded area. The events above happen in April or May.
--Although he is one of the goofiest characters in the story, Hat is actually more courageous than any of his friends. We see quite a few examples of this as the plot develops.
--Stories of this caliber would become rarer as the Goosebumps series progressed; the characters and their personalities became less complex and believable in many of the later books.
[edit] Source
Stine, Robert Lawrence. Goosebumps # 15: You Can't Scare Me!. 1994, Scholastic Inc.
