by Nelson
Reader Beware; You’re in for a Scare!
DoubtFire ventures into the terrifying world of zombies, werewolves, egg monsters, and annoying siblings that is GOOSEBUMPS.
The Headless Ghost reminds me a lot of You Can’t Scare Me. The plot is paper thin, and there’s a decided lack of genuine supernatural chicanery. That aside, it’s still a funny, low-stakes story – which is a bit of a relief after spending a whole book with a boy who has been transformed into an elderly man by a haunted mask. The most interesting thing about this one is that it mostly takes place in a place called “Hill House,” which is apparently the real Hill House. Duane, our narrator, proudly informs us that “It’s written up in a lot of books.” Imagine that. Shirley Jackson was writing about a house invented by R.L. Stine!
Duane’s best friend Stephanie gives us our obligatory boy/girl pair. They’re another one of those “we look alike but we’re not related” duos that you can’t help but be suspicious of after A Shocker on Shock Street. These two call themselves “The Twin Terrors of Wheeler Falls” because they roam their neighborhood at night and scare the local kids. They put on masks and stare in people’s windows and make a nightly ritual of throwing rubber spiders on their classmate, Ben Fuller, while he sleeps. You could get away with stuff like back in the glorious and carefree 90s.
The Twin Terrors are obsessed with Hill House. It’s the town’s big tourist attraction, and Duane and Stephanie have taken the tour so many times that the staff lets them in for free. At this point, we get treated to a story within a story within a story when we learn the tragic saga of the sea captain who built Hill House for his new wife before he was lost at sea. His ghost is cursed to roam the home he built but never got to live in in a futile quest for his beloved bride. Then we learn about Andrew, a mean boy who lived in Hill House and encountered the Ghostly Sea Captain who proceeded to pull his head off before disappearing. See, the rules here are that a ghost can only leave the house when it finds a replacement. So the captain is gone, and now Hill House is haunted by a boy who had his head “pulled off” because “pull” isn’t quite as gruesome as “chop” or “severe” or “slice.”
Anyway, Andrew’s doomed to roam the house desperately looking for his lost noggin. And guess what? Duane and Stephanie just so happen to spot a pale, turtleneck-wearing boy hanging around the house on the same night that they’ve decided to sneak away from the tour and try to find the Headless Ghost’s missing head. The kids explore the place for a bit and discover a room filled entirely with cats. This discovery raises the sorts of questions that will keep you up all night – especially since the story doesn’t bother to tell us why a house is haunted by an animal hoarder.
The Twin Terrors get lost and wander around a bit before they’re discovered by their favorite tour guide, Otto. They decide to head back home but bump into the aforementioned pale turtleneck-wearer on the way out. He introduces himself as Seth and convinces Duane and Stephanie to sneak back in and do some more exploring. This opportunity is way too good to pass up, but it doesn’t take too long for Seth to lock the terrorizing tandem in a pantry and reveal that he’s really Andrew and has only “borrowed” the head he’s wearing. It’s time to return the rental, and he’s decided Duane’s head will be a perfect replacement. There’s a trapdoor leading to an underground tunnel, and there’s a chase scene that comes to an abrupt halt when our heroes accidentally discover Andrew’s missing head. This leads to the big twist when the real Andrew shows up, takes his head, and disappears. It turns out that Seth was just a dirty, stinky liar and also Otto’s nephew.
Duane and Stephanie swear off the whole scaring people thing and take a few months off from their Hill House tours. When they decide to hit the place up for old time’s sake, everyone is happy to see them and eager to give them the big tour once again. On the way out, the former Twin Terrors get accosted by some cops who want to know why they’re hanging around that Hill House place ‘cause it went out of business months ago. Otto was a ghost the whole time. What about Seth, you ask? Stop asking that. Don’t worry about Seth. Just be glad that Duane and Stephanie weren’t actually robots.
More cats meowed. Another cat brushed the back of my jeans leg.
“I-I think these cats are lonely,” Stephanie stammered. “Do you think anyone ever comes up here?”
“I don’t care,” I snapped. “All these yellow eyes floating around. I thought… I thought… well… I don’t know what I thought! It’s creepy. Let’s get out of here.”
Doubtfire 