**This blog contains adult language.**
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Please be aware that the story WILL be spoiled in every way imaginable. And mocked. Mercilessly.
From the Back of the Book: A stranger in the night...From the minute Jenny accepted the Hagen baby-sitting job, she knew she had made a mistake. First there was the dark and disheveled Hagen house, moaning and groaning with her every step. Then the crank phone calls started. “Hi, Babes. Are you all alone? Company's coming.” When Jenny discovered a creepy neighbor prowling in the backyard and a threatening note in her backpack, she realized this wasn't a harmless game. But who would want to hurt her? What kind of maniac wanted to scare Jenny...to death?
*If that tag line sounds familiar it's because it's ripped off from a song lyric. I pretty much sang it when I read it. Also, I've never heard a house described as 'disheveled' before. Normally that adjective applies to people or clothes or hair.
This book was published in 1989 and it's definitely not my first time reading it. I 100% know who the bad guy is in this book so I won't be making any predictions regarding that. I kind of love the cover. It takes me back to the good old days of Point Horror and curling up with creepy books in my room at night before going to sleep. Not that the good old days of Point Horror were actually good. I just didn't know better back then.
We begin with our protagonist Jenny riding a bus. She's staring out the window and letting her imagination make things more interesting than they really are. She tells us that she does that a lot to make her world less boring.
Girl, same.
Her best friend Laura is riding part way with her and Jenny confides in her how nervous she is about this upcoming babysitting job. It's her first time babysitting for these people and in this neighborhood and her vivid imagination is telling her that all kinds of weird things could happen. Murders, cults, hauntings. I've never related to someone more in my life than I do Jenny right now. My imagination does the same thing to me.
Do you like how I'm referring to my collection of mental illnesses as “imagination” today. 😂😂
Laura changes the subject to her favorite topic – boys. She asks Jenny if she's ever going to go out with Chuck. Jenny likes Chuck but he's the class clown and she's worried that he'd embarrass her in public if they went on a date. Laura thinks his weird sense of humor is one of his best qualities but Jenny gets embarrassed easily and thinks that she'd find Chuck's antics boring after awhile.
Having exhausted the Chuck topic, Laura asks Jenny how she ended up with this Thursday & Saturday babysitting job for strangers. Jenny says she was in the mall and she saw a little boy playing by himself by the fountain. He dropped his truck in the water and started to dive in after it so she rushed to save him. I guess the fountain is deep enough that she was worried he might drown. She managed to get to him before he went in the water and then retrieved his truck for him. Realizing Donny was lost, she sat with him until his frantic parents found him. Mr Hagen asked her on the spot if she'd like a babysitting job which is just irresponsible parenting if you ask me. He doesn't know who this girl is. He hasn't checked references. She could be a serial child killer for all he knows.
Laura gets off on her stop, promising to touch base with Jenny by phone later. Jenny rides to her stop and then runs the three blocks to the Hagen house. She's fifteen minutes late which makes her panic. The house is creepy which makes her panic harder. By the time she rings the bell, she's worked herself up pretty good.
Mr Hagen answers the door and he seems almost as nervous as Jenny. He doesn't let her get a word in edgewise as he starts explaining about them buying the house recently and it needing a lot of work. He tells her the downstairs coat closet is jammed shut so he takes her jacket to a closet upstairs instead. His wife shows up and apologizes for his nervousness. Apparently he's a nervous person in general but it gets worse when they go out.
Donny is watching a movie in the living room and Jenny is shocked at how run down all the furniture is. Mrs Hagen says they inherited the furnishings with the house and they're planning to do a complete renovation as soon as they have the money for it. They give Jenny some rushed instructions and then remind her to keep the doors locked because someone in a ski mask is breaking into houses and beating babysitters up to the point where they have to be hospitalized.
Hmmmm. If I were Jenny, I'd be thinking about a career change.
Things go well and Donny goes to sleep easily leaving Jenny up to her own devices for the rest of the night. The house is old and creaky and all the sounds freak Jenny out. There's an old grandfather clock that makes a hideous ticking noise and she imagines the original owners sitting around the fire in their black clothes and pilgrim hats. How old does she think this stupid clock is???
A shutter bangs around, scaring her and then the chapter ends as the ghost of the clock owner grabs her leg!
{{{Gasp}}}
LOLZ
It's just a cat. Even in books we get jump scared by cats. It's their purpose in life.
Jenny goes up to check on Donny but he's still sound asleep so she goes downstairs to the kitchen. It's the only room in the house that's been remodeled and isn't creepy so she considers just staying in there for the rest of the night. In the end, she goes back to the living room because she'll be able to hear Donny better from there if he needs anything. She can't seem to settle down with the TV or a book so she starts to explore the room. She's over by the fireplace when she hears footsteps coming towards her. She freezes like a deer in the headlights as the footsteps come close.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
It's Donny. He says he's thirsty and asks for a glass of milk. Jenny is happy to have some company for a little while so she lets him drink his milk downstairs. Afterwards, she takes him back upstairs and tucks him in. He asks for a story so she makes one up and then she leaves him to go to sleep again. Before she can even get downstairs she hears someone knocking on the door. She's convinced it's a very polite burglar but decides to open the door anyway.
Why?
I don't open the door unless I know who is there. Especially at night when I'm essentially home alone.
It makes even less sense for her to open it when you consider there's a person out there beating up babysitters.
There's a small, stocky man on the doorstep. He identifies himself as Willers, the next-door neighbor. He says he saw someone prowling around in the backyard and asks if he can come inside and look around. Jenny is smart enough to say 'no' to that and he doesn't press the matter. He tells her that he'll be keeping an eye on the house and then he leaves. Jenny feels like it was a threat.
She sets down on the couch and then suddenly someone grabs her shoulder.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
It's Donny again. He's thirsty again.
Suddenly we skip to the next evening. Jenny is having pizza with Laura and filling her in on the babysitting job. Laura asks her if she's going to keep working for the Hagen's and Jenny says she is. They're paying her five whole dollars an hour (honestly that was a high rate for babysitting jobs back then) and Donny is a good kid even if he seems to like scaring her. Mr Hagen is a nervous wreck. He drove Jenny home the night before and spent the entire ride asking her over and over if everything went well. She figures all the money is worth the creepy house, weird father and spooky kid.
Chuck suddenly pulls himself out from under their table. Apparently he was there the entire time but I call #bullshit. There's no way one of them didn't kick him before now. He sits by Jenny and puts his arm around her shoulder. She removes it but he puts it back. I've decided I don't like Chuck. He doesn't respect physical boundaries.
Laura takes off, leaving Jenny and Chuck alone. She asks him to sit on the other side of the booth so they can talk. He jokes around so much she isn't sure when to take him seriously so when he says he's from Mars, she thinks he's being dumb. It turns out it's the name of an actual town that he's from. He's only been in town for a couple of weeks but she's surprised by how many people he knows in the pizza place.
Chuck asks her out for Saturday night but she tells him she has to babysit. He says he'll just come over after the kid is asleep but she tells him 'no'. He pretends not to hear her and keeps saying he'll be over Saturday night. I REALLY don't like Chuck. NO MEANS NO, ASSHOLE!
Jenny arrives late on Saturday too. This time the bus had a flat tire so they had to wait for a second bus to come and pick them all up. Mr Hagen tells her she really should leave earlier and I don't blame him. She's worked there two nights and she's been late both times. As a parent who needed to be somewhere, this would be really annoying. Mrs Hagen pulls Jenny aside and confides that her husband has been really nervous and agitated lately so if anything goes wrong, she'd appreciate it if Jenny told her instead of Mr Hagen.
Tonight, Mr Hagen is convinced that Donny is coming down with something because he looks a little pale but Mrs Hagen dismisses his concerns. They leave and Donny immediately asks Jenny to play hide-and-seek. She tells him 'no' but just like every other male in this book, he doesn't accept it and pesters her until she gives in. This sets a horrible precedent, Jenny. If you give in once, he'll assume you'll always give in and he'll test your limits every single time. You set yourself up for a hard road.
Donny hides and Jenny counts to 100. The house is big and full of places to hide so she can't find him right away. She keeps hearing creaking noises and assumes it's him but he's never where she expects him to be. She starts to get really scared and yells out that she gives up and he wins. He still doesn't appear. The more time passes, the more freaked out she gets that something might have happened to him. She keeps thinking she hears someone walking around the house but she can't find anyone. Finally Donny jumps out of the ironing board cabinet and scares the piss out of her.
It takes Jenny forever to get Donny calmed down and into bed. As soon as she gets downstairs, the phone rings. She picks it up but there's just breathing on the other line. She assumes it's Donny because there's two lines in the house, so she goes upstairs to check. Sure enough, he's holding the phone in his hands. She yells at him and it scares him so much he starts to cry. He denies making the call, saying the phone woke him up so he picked up to listen. She believes him and puts him back to bed.
As soon as she gets back downstairs, the phone rings again. She considers not picking it up but worries it will wake Donny up again so she eventually answers it. A voice on the other line calls her “Babes” and asks if she's home alone. The person tells her not to worry because she'll have company soon and then hangs up. Jenny is terrified.
Main character receives a creepy, anonymous phone call? Check.
Jenny runs down her list of suspects and it's pretty short. She considers a random person from school, Chuck and the neighbor Willers. She's leaning the most toward Willers and decides to call the police to report the call. It's probably the smart thing to do given that there have been several attacks on babysitters but she talks herself out of it because “people don't call the police in real life”.
What?
She tells herself that the police won't believe her anyway. The phone rings again but this time it's Mr Hagen calling to check on Donny. She reassures him that everything is fine but he frets a bit. She finally manages to get him off the phone and then starts wandering around the house again. There's a lot of family pictures around and she picks one up, realizing that the child in the picture isn't Donny but a little girl who looks a lot like him. She immediately assumes that Donny had a sister who died and decides that's why Mr Hagen is so nervous. It could have been their niece instead of their child – I know plenty of cousins who look like siblings – but Jenny is sure of her version of the story.
The house starts to feel stuffy, so Jenny goes over to a window. She doesn't actually open it but she stares outside and that seems to make her feel better. She sees a bunch of squirrels holding hands and dancing around the yard but it turns out to be leaves blowing in the wind. Then she sees a tree stump that turns out to be a car with a person inside. She suddenly remembers the voice on the phone promising her that company would be coming soon and she steps away from the window.
We skip to the next morning. Jenny's mom mentions that Chuck called the house the night before to get the number and address for the Hagen's. For some reason, Jenny's mother gave him the information despite the fact that she'd never met him, Jenny had never mentioned him and for all she knew, he was the babysitter beater. Either Jenny's mom is a complete idiot or Stine didn't think this one all the way through. There's no way a responsible adult would hand over that information to someone she didn't know when the safety of her daughter and another child was at risk.
Jenny wonders if Chuck was the mystery caller and the person sitting in the car outside the Hagen house the night before. She doesn't think he would scare her on purpose but she isn't sure. She decides to give him the benefit of the doubt. Jenny tells her mom she's thinking of quitting her babysitting job but doesn't tell her why. Her mom doesn't like the idea of her quitting and encourages her to stick it out for awhile longer.
Jenny goes to the mall with Laura and runs into Chuck. At first, Chuck won't look at Jenny which leads her to assume that he's definitely guilty of scaring her the night before. However, it turns out he feels bad about his behavior at the pizza place. He asks if she wants to go to a movie and she says 'no' but he again pesters her until she gives in. This is so problematic.
We skip to Thursday. As I predicted, Jenny is having HUGE trouble with Donny because he doesn't respect her 'no'. (((Does anyone???))) Since she taught him that she'll eventually give in, he tests her over and over and over. The kid is awful no matter how cute Jenny thinks he is with his white blonde hair and his big blue eyes. After a very obnoxious couple of pages, she finally gets him to go to bed.
Downstairs, she has a Coke and thinks about Chuck for awhile. She's fallen for him pretty hard despite the fact that he never listens to her, doesn't respect her boundaries and acts like a general idiot most of the time. The phone rings and she assumes it's him but it's the bad guy again. He basically repeats the first call – calling her 'Babes', asking if she's alone and promising he'll be there soon.
This time Jenny decides to report the call to the police. She dials the operator to get the number....
….was that even still a thing in 1989? I mean, I guess I remember talking to an operator when I was trying to make a collect call but I never dialed one for a phone number. That's what information was for. Anyway, the operator gives her the number and she reports the phone calls to Officer Mertz. He tells her there really isn't anything he can do but in light of the babysitter attacks, he gives her the number for the investigator on the case, Ferris.
Jenny doesn't call Ferris but she feels better having his number in case something else happens. She goes upstairs to check on Chuck and then comes back down to finish her Coke. She's finally relaxing when someone starts knocking on the door. For some dumbass reason, she goes and looks out. A monster is looking back at her.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
It's just Chuck wearing a mask because it's funny to scare girls who are babysitting when there's a babysitter attacker on the lose.
I hate everyone.
Jenny opens the door pissed and she only gets madder when Chuck can't seem to stop laughing. She tells him to get the fuck out of there but he gives her puppy dog eyes and shivers in the cold. For some reason she decides to let him in the house. Naturally Donny wakes up and comes downstairs. He's super interested in Chuck's mask and asks to try it on. Jenny tells him to go back to bed but he ignores her because he doesn't respect her authority at all. Chuck puts the mask on Donny and he runs to check it out in the mirror. The mask is huge and he can't really see so he crashes and bangs into the end table.
Jenny finally regains a tiny molecule of control and convinces Donny to go back to bed. He's definitely going to tell his parents about Chuck and Jenny's going to get into so much trouble. Not only that, but the crash into the end table probably left some kind of bruise. Mr Hagen isn't going to like that much.
Donny asks Chuck to tuck him in and Chuck agrees. Jenny thinks he's really good with the kid but she's still pretty mad at him for scaring her. When he comes back downstairs, he squeezes into the chair with her despite her telling him to get up and move off her. He kisses her and she “gives in”.
I hate this book. Stine. Seriously. What the fuck, dude?
Jenny stops kissing him long enough to ask if he's the one who called the house. He turns red and says it was him. Before she can yell at him, there's a giant crash. Jenny thinks it came from upstairs but Chuck insists it came from the backyard. She goes up to check on Donny while he goes to check on the sound.
Jenny doesn't find anything amiss upstairs so she comes back down. Chuck was smart and merely looked out the windows rather than going outside. He might survive a slasher movie. Jenny, however, will not because she grabs a flashlight and goes stomping outside to figure out where the sound came from. She sees a man over by the trashcans and yells at him to identify himself because that always works out so well in the horror movies. This time it works. Willers steps into the light of her flashlight and identifies himself.
Willers says he saw a prowler and he came over to investigate. The noise was him tripping over the pile of firewood beside the garage. I think the noise was him going through the trash cans but Jenny doesn't put two and two together. She's highly suspicious of Willers but doesn't want to call the police again. She's afraid the Hagens will think she's a baby if she calls the cops. She's such an idiot.
When she gets back inside, she confronts Chuck about the phone call. He admits to being the breather on the first call she got. He says he called to talk to her but panicked and couldn't actually speak. He denies making the “Babes” phone calls. Jenny isn't sure she believes him but she decides to make out with him a bunch anyway.
Sigh.
The Hagens come home early and almost catch Jenny and Chuck making out. He takes off just in time. Mr Hagen is nervous. He had a bad feeling that something awful happened to Donny and he made his wife leave their party early. She's irritated with him but Jenny pretends not to notice. I've been babysitting a time or two when the parents start fighting and it's hella awkward. Mr Hagen mentions seeing a car out front and Jenny lies and says she doesn't know anything about it. I don't know why she didn't just tell the truth. Donny is definitely going to bust her.
On the way home, Mr Hagen tells Jenny that he doesn't approve of his babysitters having guests over because it takes their attention away from the child. He tells her that they had another child once and Jenny waits for him to tell her more but he doesn't. He stays silent the rest of the way to Jenny's house.
We skip to the next day. Jenny's class is playing volleyball in gym and she ends up getting the wind knocked out of her. Back in the locker room, she finds a note in her bag.
“Hi, Babes. All alone in that big old house? Don't worry, company's coming.”
Jenny immediately assumes that Chuck left it.
I can't figure out why she didn't find the note before. It would lead you to think that someone put it in there while she was in class but that doesn't make sense. How would they get into her locker? So it must have been left before but she's just finding it now?
DO BETTER, STINE!
We skip ahead to Saturday night. When Jenny gets off the bus, she immediately runs into Willers. Willers tries to talk to her but Jenny runs from him. When Mr Hagen lets her in, he asks her why she's out of breath. She says that their neighbor startled her. Mr Hagen says they don't have any neighbors and they don't know anyone named Willers. He's pretty freaked out by the entire thing and wants to cancel plans for that evening but his wife insists they go out. He makes Jenny promise to call the police at the slightest sign of trouble and then they leave.
Donny watches a movie until bedtime and then actually goes to sleep without a problem. Jenny's downstairs fretting about Chuck when she hears someone running through the back hall. It's Mr Hagen. He says he returned home because he had a bad hunch that something was terribly wrong. He's all disheveled and Jenny thinks he looks “crazed”. He runs upstairs to check on Donny and then starts screaming that Donny is gone.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
After searching for a panicked few minutes and Mr Hagen screaming over and over that this can't be happening again, they find Donny hiding under the bed. Mr Hagen swoops him up in a huge, dramatic display of relief. A minute or so later, Mrs Hagen comes walking in. She scolds Mr Hagen for leaving the party without telling her and tells Donny to go back to bed.
Jenny is feeling awkward again but Mr Hagen says he'll drive her home. His wife doesn't want him to because he seems much too upset but he insists. He's silent all the way home. When they get to Jenny's house, he apologizes for his odd behavior and then starts to cry. Jenny nopes the fuck right out of the car and goes inside. She's not home for long when Chuck calls. He asks why she's avoiding him and she tells him about the note. He says he didn't leave it and asks if he can come over the next time she babysits. She says no but gives in to his pressure as usual. She tells him she's going to invite Laura too, though. He's disappointed they won't be alone but agrees.
We skip to Thursday. Jenny gets Donny into bed and then Chuck, Laura and Laura's sometimes boyfriend Eugene show up. Laura and Eugene immediately go into the den to make out leaving Jenny and Chuck alone. Chuck begs Jenny to trust him and then the two of them start making out. They lose track of time and suddenly a furious Mr Hagen is standing over them.
Mr Hagen screams and lunges at Jenny and Chuck but his wife holds him back. She orders all of Jenny's friends to go home immediately and tells Jenny that they'll have to talk about this. Chuck is alarmed at Mr Hagen's behavior and offers to drive Jenny home but Mrs Hagen insists that she has to stay so they can discuss what happened. Chuck tells Jenny that he'll be waiting at her house.
The Hagens go up to check on Donny so Jenny goes to get her coat. She's relieved that she's about to get fired. She really hates the job and her mom won't let her quit. In the closet she finds a bunch of newspaper clippings about babysitters. Some are about the attacks in their city but there are others about babysitters kidnapping children, etc. Jenny realizes that Mr Hagen is obsessed with babysitters and it freaks her the fuck out.
How does she know they aren't Mrs Hagen's clippings? I mean, she's right but how does she know she's right? I guess she's decided they're Mr Hagen's because he acts so odd but that's a dangerous assumption.
Jenny's good at dangerous assumptions.
Jenny is so freaked out that she tells Mr Hagen that she'll ride the bus home. He doesn't let her and insists that he drive her home so they can talk. She's nervous but she gets in the car with him. He locks all the doors and immediately starts to drive her out of town. She asks him where they're going but he doesn't really answer. She thinks about jumping from the car but he's going 85.
Mr Hagen reveals that he's been her mystery caller. He tells her that it was the babysitter's fault that his baby daughter died and now Jenny has to die too. He stops the car at the quarry and drags Jenny out, taking her to the edge. It's a long drop down to the rocks below. He says that she can either jump or he'll push her. She pleads with him, reminding him that she's not the one who was babysitting his daughter when she died but he doesn't seem to hear her.
Suddenly Willers appears out of nowhere with a gun and orders Mr Hagen to stop. Jenny is confused by his appearance but Mr Hagen just laughs and lunges for Jenny. She dodges him and he goes sailing over the edge of the quarry. Willers runs to Jenny to make sure she's okay. He tells her that his real name is Ferris and he's the investigator assigned to the babysitter case.
They get into Ferris' car so he can take Jenny home. He tells her that Mr Hagen was the main suspect from the start because two years ago his daughter mysteriously died while in the care of a babysitter. It wasn't the babysitter's fault but he blamed her and beat her up. The court decided he was temporarily insane due to the death of his daughter and they let him off instead of throwing him in jail. As soon as the babysitter attacks started, Ferris was sure it was him and he started staking out the Hagen house.
Ferris takes her home and explains everything to her mom and Chuck who have been anxiously waiting for her. He says he'll pick Jenny up in the morning to come down and make a statement. Jenny decides she isn't going to daydream as much anymore because the real world is exciting enough and the book ends.
This book was never one of my favorites but I didn't realize how problematic it was until I read it this time around. The fact that not a single male character in this book respected the word 'no' is a massive issue. It really made me hate every single one of the side characters, especially Chuck. I wasn't fond of Jenny either because she just let everyone decide things for her. There are a couple of sequels and I'll probably get around to them at some point so be on the lookout.
No comments:
Post a Comment