by Nelson ft. Amanda
Give Yourself Goosebumps offered readers an experience they didn’t know they wanted but couldn’t possibly pass up: the opportunity to live a Goosebumps story! This spinoff choose-your-adventure series gave YOU, yes you, the chance to encounter purple peanut butter, beastly babysitters, and knights in screaming armor who can’t wait for you to make a bad choice!
Amanda and I will read each book separately and report back with all the grisly, gruesome, and grimy details of our adventures.
Premise:
It’s summer vacation, and that means one thing: it’s time for the annual family trip to WoodsWorld – a cabin community deep, deep in the woods. Right next to Deep Woods Lake. Because we’re deep, deep in the woods. Ordinarily, this is the highlight of your year, but, for some reason, your parents decided to ruin the vacation by bringing their best friends, the Morrises, along for the trip. That means you get to hang out with undisputed king of nerds, Todd. He collects pewter figures and brings a tin box full of them everywhere he goes. You hate Todd because you aren’t a nerd. You don’t care for pewter figurines because you’re too cool for that, and you just know that all the other kids at WoodsWorld are going to hate him. They might even think you’re a nerd by association, and you can’t have that. Especially not when the big Kid’s Only Campfire is tonight! Only the coolest kids go to the Kid’s Only Campfire.
Todd falls victim to the Jess, Buck, and Sharky Murphy the minute he gets out of the car. The Murphy brothers are the bullying redheads of WoodsWorld. Guess why they call him Sharky? ‘Cause “getting into a fight with Sharky is like trying to survive a shark attack.” The other two brothers don’t have cool names. Or serve any real purpose to the story. The Murphys steal the tin of precious pewters and run off, and it’s up to you to try and get it back. You head to the big campfire just in time to for Sharky’s spooooky story about the Wolves of WoodsWorld. You’ve got to be careful when the full moon is out because the kid you thought was your friend might just be a hungry werewolf! After the story, you overhear the Murphys discussing their super cool “bury a box of pewter figures in the woods” prank. You’ve got the info you need, but it’s getting late, and there’s a full moon. Are you going to risk the impending werewolf threat and search tonight, or wait until tomorrow?!
Nelson’s Story:
It’s a werewolf book, so I figured I better go all in and not risk Stine making fun of my cowardice before turning me into a bird. The first thing I discovered was a poem taped to a rock warning me that I only had until midnight to find the stolen figures. Did the Murphy brothers leave this for me? They didn’t exactly seem like fans of poetry, but how else would they know I was out looking for my nerdy friend’s nerdy box of nerdiness? Anyway, Todd immediately appeared and joined the search, and we wandered into a cave. We could hear horrible howling and growling and other wolf noises coming from deep inside, so we decided to make like trees and get out of there. Unfortunately, this was when I learned the horrible secret of WoodsWorld: the light of the full moon has the power to transform anyone into a werewolf…..even Todd! Or was he a werewolf the whole time? The book doesn’t say.
I managed to tackle Todd and drive him back into the shadows before he went full-wolf on me, but the horrible howling we’d heard in the cave was getting closer and closer. What could I do? How would we survive? Thanks to correctly answering a question about The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, I realized that the best solution to being howled at is howling right back. And running. And falling into a bottomless pit while a pack of werewolves closed in on us.
As Todd and I came to terms with an eternity of plummeting into darkness, we managed to be rescued by a friendly pterodactyl. They’re the dolphins of bottomless pits. The Jurassic hero dropped us off on a ledge and flew away, and, before we had a chance to process what just happened, we found ourselves facing a big elevator operated by a guy who started to turn into a werewolf the second we got on-board. I had one shot to press one of the two elevator buttons: STOP or GO? I figured I might as well press GO and keep up with the adventurous choices because, hey, maybe I’d get to see a T-Rex.
This choice brought my wacky adventure to a pretty satisfactory conclusion. The book complimented my bravery in the face of unyielding horror before revealing that the button I’d pressed was a button on my alarm clock! It was alllllll a dream. My parents and I were headed to WoodsWorld that morning….without Todd! Hooray! Instead of learning a valuable lesson about how nerdy kids are people too, I got to have an awesome vacation without poor Todd and his pewter figures getting in the way.
Amanda’s Story:
I decided to wait until the morning to look for Todd’s box, but, of course, the werewolves sent a rock through our window with a poem attached. If we didn’t look for the box tonight, it’d be too late.
We met up with Lauren Woods. Her parents own WoodsWorld – which means that WoodsWorld is in the woods and owned by the Woods family. Neat. It didn’t take long for Lauren to stumble over some piles of freshly dug dirt. We realized that someone recently buried something, so we dug up two boxes that looked a lot like Todd’s. They weren’t his, but they did seem interesting. One was labeled “SUPER-STRENGTH BOX” and the other “SMARTS BOX.” Before we had a chance to look inside, a werewolf burst through a wall of bushes, and I only had time to open one. Super-strength seemed helpful in this case.
The box was full of “ordinary-looking Oat O’s cereal.” I ate a handful and developed some serious muscle mass that ripped my shirt. I was able to lift the werewolf with one finger and send him flying somewhere far away into the woods. Unfortunately, a troll showed up, and I no longer trust trolls. So, there’s no way this was going to be a good thing.
He let us know that he was the Master of the Boxes, and that I was now his slave. I tried to hit him with a branch, but he turned me back to my normal size and ordered me back to my cabin. Todd begged me not to leave them, but the troll started mocking him and being silly by changing sizes and jumping around. Little did he know that I was only pretending to head back to the cabin. I’d secretly stuffed the off-brand Cheerios in my ears, so I couldn’t hear my troll master’s orders. I managed to trap him in a box by taking advantage of his size-changing.
Then, the Murphys appeared, and I offered them some of my cereal. They were super excited to accept the cereal since it was “free.” I don’t think I’d be too willing to take someone’s random Night Cheerios, but I too enjoy free stuff. They packed on their muscle, and Sharky hoisted Todd up in the air. I told the bullies that they could have Todd and the super cereal. Sharky put Todd down as I handed over the box, and the three of us got out there.
From a distance, we could hear the troll asking the Murphy’s where they buried Todd’s pewter figures. He wanted to be the master of Todd’s box, too. Jeez. It turned out that the Murphy’s didn’t bury the pewter figures. They’d stashed them in a tree! The troll shrank the brothers and made his way up the tree to get Todd’s tin, but we managed to shake the box loose before he could get it. Todd grabbed the box, and we ran back to our cabin…knowing full well that troll would be coming for us.
After the disappointing Dr. Eeek affair, Night in Werewolf Woods was absolutely reinvigorating. The fact that a story promising lycanthropic lunacy managed to work in underground dinosaurs and a troll who loves boxes is a testament to how much fun these books can be. And we both made it through the whole thing without being transformed into anything. That’s a big win.
Doubtfire 