Goosebumps #11: The Haunted Mask

Blurb
Carly Beth wants a special mask for Halloween. A mask so ugly - so hideous - that even her best friends are creeped out by it.

Now Carly Beth has found her special mask - and it's perfect! Everything she hoped it would be, and more...

Maybe too much more. Because even though Halloween is over, Carly Beth is still wearing that special mask...

Plot
Our story begins with our heroes, Carly Beth Caldwell and Sabrina Mason, at lunch in school. And, because Jamie Oliver worked on this or something, the food is terrible. They're discussing what to be for Halloween, but the conversation immediately veers to discussing whether or not Carly Beth actually is a big scaredy-cat. Carly Beth of course denies it, but Sabrina points out that the previous week, when Carly Beth was at Sabrina's, she thought the attic was haunted because she heard footsteps coming from there. However, it turned out to be Chuck and Steve. (We'll get to them in a minute). Sabrina  then concludes her point, saying that she's scared of everything. After whining for a second, Carly Beth goes back to thinking about what she's going to be for Halloween, before she hears a crash and screams. But it turns out it was just a guy dropping a plate on the floor. Then, something grabs her shoulder, but it's actually jsut Chuck and Steve. They are apparently friends with Carly Beth, which makes no sense seeing as they are always playing pranks on each other. It's like Superman and Lex Luthor being friends, it makes no sense. To make up for her, Chuck gives Carly Beth a sandwich, which actually has a worm in it. Chuck says it's not a real worm, but it actually is. Carly Beth runs out of the room, annoyed as all hell.

At home, Carly Beth finds that her mum has made a sculpture of her head out of plaster-of-paris, which ends up being one of the most convenient things in the goosebumps-verse. After Carly Beth is scared by the head (well, from what we've seen of her so far, are you honestly surprised?), her mother tells her to go upstairs and check out her duck costume. Wait, what? Hang on, let me read that again...

"You saw a duck costume at the shopping centre, remember?" Mrs Caldwell carefully placed the sculpted head on the mantlepiece. "The one one with all the feathers and everything. You thought it would be funny to be a duck this Halloween, so I made you a duck costume."

Wow, ok, they're really not kidding. Wait, I'm pretty sure that Halloween is supposed to be scary. Seriously, guys, Halloween is meant to be scary! That's the point! You can't just dress up as superman and expect me to think that you're scary! How did she actually come up with the idea of being a duck for Halloween! Anyway, Carly Beth goes upstairs to check out the duck costume (Why did it have to be in this book?), but it comes alive and starts attacking her. Maybe the plot of The Haunted Mask Lives was the haunted mask getting a body at last and battling the duck costume in a fight to the death, while Chuck and Steve get mildly injured in the process. Except it's actually Noah, Carly Beth's younger, much more annoying younger brother. She kicks him out of her room, and then Sabrina calls her up. Carly Beth is immediately terrified that refrigerators are going to try and take over Earth when Sabrina tells her to chase after hers.Actually, Sabrina's calling to talk about heir science project, which makes Bradley Wormser's giant ivy plants look like research about changing elements into other elements - a model of the solar system made out of ping pong balls. (Keep it together, Charlie. You already did the rant in Monster Blood for Breakfast, for god's sake.)

Later, they are at the science fair. Sabrina admits that their project is pretty lame. Especially compared to everything else: there's one guy who built a flipping computer from scratch. Bloody hell. Then Steve loudly shouts that his tarantula has escaped. "Can you hear me, the incredibly scare-able girl who I'm always playing tricks on? I said my incredibly scary, falslely-believed-to-be dangerous pet has escaped! It is now possible that it will head towards you! Chuck, can you pass me my megaphone?" Then Carly Beth feels something pinch her leg, and starts thrashing around, destroying her "project", but it turns out it was just Chuck. Carly Beth runs out of the room crying, mentally swearing revenge upon Chuck and Steve, who presumably ended up with intense detention for the rest of their days. Finally, I hate them!

Carly Beth sneaks off to a new costume shop that, unlike Carly Beth (or at least her mother), knows Halloween is about spooky stuff. She grabs her life savings... of $30. How, in 11 years, have you only amassed $30?!? I joke about how minors aren't entitled to minimum wage in England, but seriously, when somene only has $30 total, I should question the financial income of this girl. Anyway, when she gets to the shop, it's closed. Typical Sunday opening hours. But the shopkeeper still lets her in, probably because he's had too much experience with customers coming in past hours and doesn't want to start a commotion. Also, he's wearing a big cape, for some reason. Is the twist that the shopkeeper is batman? Of course not, you've probably already figured it out, so bang goes all those sorts of jokes. Carly Beth stumbles around looking for a scary mask (the shopkeeper recommends a gorilla mask, which I would've probably taken. It's got real hair and everything), and eventually comes across a back room, where she finds a bunch of awesome masks. You're cheating yourself, Carly Beth, there's no gorilla masks in there. Just then, the bat-shopkeeper shows up and tells her they're not for sale. What tremendous excuse does he give? They're too scary. Well, 'too scary' doesn't deter me from the prospect of reading Chicken Chicken, so nice try, boyo. He offers Carly Beth the gorilla mask (just bloody take it), but she hands over the money and he finally caves him, warning her that she'll be sorry. On her way out, he asks her if she'd like a bag, despite the fact that she just spent all her money and doesn't even have 5p to purchase one. Maybe this is why she spent so much time working at the daycare.

She decides to test the mask out on Noah. Glad to see he's getting his commupance this early on. Maybe the same will happen to Chuck and Steve. Anyway, the scare works, partially because Carly Beth now has an odd, creepy voice that she can't explain. Somehow, Noah doesn't recognise Carly Beth, despite the fact she's just wearing a mask and has a slightly different voice. Then the mask gets stuck, which apparently scares Noah as well. I'm not sure that this kid's in a position to mock Carly Beth about how scare-able she is. Carly Beth decides to up her scare factor, and thus grabs a broom handle and the plaster-of-paris model of her head. She almost gets caught by her mum, but is saved by a phone call from her dad, who has apparently been on a buisness trip to Chicago this whole time. When she gets to Sabrina's house, she spies what she thinks is Chuck and Steve, despite the fact they haven't been building up anything to scare her in the past 20 seconds. She gives them a good fright, but it's actually just 2 random kids. The kids' mother quite rightfully tells Carly Beth that's she's nuts (although that's probably going to get her arrested), and then they leave, though Carly Beth gets the urge to chase after them. However, she is stopped from probably going to jail or at the very least getting a hefty fine by Sabrina stepping out of her house, dressed as the ol' Halloween standby, a Cat-woman. After some banter about Carly Beth's mask that I really needn't go into here, Sabrina reveals that Chuck and Steve are going to be late because Steve has to take his little sister trick-or-treating first. I'm not sure what Chuck's excuse is, but I'm guessing that they're actually just one person who splits into 2 occasionally, like Station from Bill and Ted 2.

Carly Beth and Sabrina set off trick-or-treating, but at one point, Sabrina starts getting all question-y, to which Carly Beth responds (quite understandably, but that's just me) by getting mad and yelling "Shut up," over and over again, as well as attempting to choke her (slightly less understandable). When she finishes, Sabrina confronts her, but she just worms her way out of it with the ol' "gotcha," excuse, which just works all the time in goosebumps. They stop by the first house, where they are greeted by a woman, and her 2 children, for some reason. OK, time out. I don't hate this book at all, so sorry if it sounds like I hate it. I am just making these comments for comedic value; this is actually one of my favourites. Anyway, the kids are scared by Carly Beth's mask, to which Carly Beth responds by threatening to eat them up. It seems the haunted mask gives you the munchies; maybe if you eat a snickers it'll come off. Afterwards, they go to some more houses, where Sabrina logically does the talking. Someone gives them apples, so Carly Beth chucks it at their house. In fairness, we'd all probably do that, but Sabrina is becoming increasingly worried about Carly Beth. After legging it, Carly Beth decides that they should split up, though that's usually how characters in horror get killed. She comes across 2 boys and scares them, and pinching their sweets. Then she maniacally laughs, like the haunted mask is actually the joker (that would explain bat-shopkeeper, come to think of it).

Carly Beth sets off after Chuck and Steve, who for some reason put no effort into their costumes, despite they should be striving to be as terrifying as possible if they're going to meet Carly Beth. Carly Beth, hiding in a bush, begins to have doubts, because, in my opinion, is it really worth it for Chuck and Steve? I think the Beymer twins might be passing by at some point; wait for them! Aw, who am I kidding, what transpires next is great. She jumps out at the 2, uttering a scream. This absolutely scares the pants off of them. Chuck asks if Carly Beth is actually herself, who gestures to the plaster-of-paris head on the broom, saying that she took Carly Beth's body, and Carly Beth really didn't want to give up her head. I mean, without it she can't go and watch the Lego Ninjago Movie. She proceeds to threaten them, asking them to hand over their sweets or she'll put their heads on the stick. Honestly, I think the Beymers' heads would look better on it. They're obviously confused, so she repeats it. Honestly, this time you're gonna have to read it to believe it.

"Hand over your bags," Carly Beth insisted coldly. "Or your heads will adorn my stick."

I mean, c'mon, that prose is so purple it's been asked to join the indigo tribe (google it). Then, the best part comes: when Carly Beth lowers the stick menacingly (did I just type that?),  the head on it appears to cry out for help. Oh my god, this is the best scene ever. Carly Beth drops the stick in horror, but Chuck and Steve don't notice; they leg it and drop their sweets. Carly Beth revels in her triumph, before starting to run for no particular reason.

Sabrina catches up with her, and they head back home, having boring discussion that would just make this review even longer, and you're all probably getting tired, so I won't type them out. Back at Sabrina's, they check their hauls (Carly Beth's is massive, of course, since she stole quite a lot), and Sabrina recommends that Carly Beth takes off her mask, since it's probably getting a bit hot under there, and I'm not saying that she's listening to her mixtape under that mask. However, it seems to be stuck. After a chapter of panicking, Sabrina reveals that there's no line between the mask and Carly Beth's neck. In other words, the mask has become her face. This reveal is done brilliantly, so I'm not exactly doing it justice.

Carly Beth runs off in terror and despair, though Sabrina calls after her (because she forgot her coat, not because she's worried). Where she's running to, she doesn't know, but then gets the idea of going back to the shop, figuring that the bat-shopkeeper will know what to do. Wow, that's one of the smartest moves in these books so far. Billy Deep, for example, probably would've started to try getting it off by whacking his head against fire coral. However, when she gets there, it's closed.

Why didn't I wear my mother's duck costume? she asked herself` angrily.

Put that in a frame and stick it in an art gallery next to something by Salvador Dali. Luckily, the bat-shopkeeper is still there, because he knew she'd come back. He tells that he can't get the mask off of her, because it's not a mask at all: it's a face. He showcases the other masks from the back room, calling them "The Unloved." I thought that was my nickname for my Creep from the Deep review. He reveals that these were faces he created in a lab, for some reason, which were apparently beautiful until he took them out of said lab, when they became what Carly Beth sees. He reveals that others have taken the masks before (not sure what happened to them, but I presume they all went to star in Garbage Pail Kids), but he reveals that it can be taken off. He says they can only be taken off once, which doesn't make sense since it's taken off twice in the Horrorland books. Apparently, it can only be removed by a symbol of love, because he made the faces for the care bears. However, he can't be more specific, and the unloved start chasing after Carly Beth, because artificial faces can also fly. I'm pretty sure these guys were designed as My Little Pony villains to begin with.

Carly Beth legs it, but realises that she's got nowhere to run to. All hope seems lost, but then she realises something: the plaster-of-paris head was made by her mum because she loved her. Quickly, she takes off and legs it to the street where she encountered Chuck and Steve. However, she can't find the head, and all hope seems lost as the unloved start closing in. Luckily, she spots the head and puts it on top of her own. OK.... Anyway, everything's dark, and this is a really tense moment. She has no idea if the unloved have caught up to her yet, but eventually she can't take it any longer, and removes the head. Luckily, the unloved are gone, so at least now she doesn't have to get chased around by the masks forever. And, better still, she can take off the mask, so now she doesn't go around looking like (presumably) Kylie Jenner without makeup.

Carly Beth rushes home, happy as me finishing my Monster Blood for Breakfast, but when Noah answers the door, he yells at her, asking her to take off the mask.  Extremely terrified, Carly Beth rushes to a mirror, but it turns out that Noah was just making an unfunny and traumatizing joke. I think the Beymers may have a competitor, but then again, maybe not. Carly Beth's mother shows up, and starts asking Carly Beth some questions, blah blah blah, you all know what's happening next: Noah shows up wearing the mask. "Oh wow, I didn't see that coming," said no-one.

Ridiculous name of the week
Carly Beth, Sabrina, Chuck and Steve go to Walnut Avenue middle school. Wow, can these people go anywhere that has a sensible name? 

Extra toppings
Sabrina's mum makes her throw anything out of her trick or treat haul that isn't wrapped in case someone's poisoned it. And that includes the apple.

Conclusion
The Haunted Mask is one of my favourite goosebumps books. Sure, its got it's flaws... its many, many flaws... but the way it delivers its chilling moments and big reveals is fantastic. Chuck and Steve aren't the Beymer twins, for sure, but seeing them get their commupance is really satisfying, and, I'll be honest, some of their pranks are actually pretty good (I'm of course not including the grabbing of the shoulder at the start). Honestly, if you want a book that pretty much represents the sum total of every goosebumps book ever, this is for you. If you don't, it's probably still for you, so go and read/buy it!