Goosebumps #42: Egg Monsters from Mars

 Blurb
When Dana Johnson has to take part in an egg hunt for his little sister brandy's birthday, he's not very keen. He'd rather be studying insects through his microscope.
But then he finds The Egg. It's not like a normal egg, though. It's huge and green, it's covered with strange veins and it's warm. Where on earth could it have come from? And exactly what is going to happen when it hatches?

Plot
We open with our narrator, Dana Johnson, complaining about his little sister, Brandy, who always gets what she wants from Mum and Dad. This makes no sense, since most bias towards children goes away once they hit double digits, and Brandy is celebrating her 10th birthday at the start of the book. Dana claims that if Brandy wanted a red, white, and blue ostrich, then dad would be out in the garage, painting an ostrich. I only brought that up because it was incredibly funny, and I need more than 3 jokes that aren't just me being cynical. Dana apparently has a keen interest in science, and presents it in a good way, so I like him. Anyway, Brandy wants an egg hunt for her birthday. With actual eggs, not chocolate ones. I don't actually think I've heard of a worse party since Oliver Cromwell's Christmas bash on a specially constructed nude beach in Siberia. And somehow her entire class is coming. Judging by that, their average day must have about the capacity for excitement of a cyber-converted Kevin Costner.

Dana's going to take part in the egg hunt as well. Yeesh, Mum, did Dana murder the queen(*Jeremy Corbyn pats Dana on the back*)or something equally as bad to deserve that? Dana's best friend, who will prove to be only in the story for padding, Anne Gravel, is also going to join in, because her Mum is good friends with Dana's. No-one really cares, let's get on with the egg hunt. (OK, thinking about it, no-one really cares about that either) All the kids, Dana and Anne get ready to go look for the eggs. In an effort to liven up this boredom-fest, Anne bets Dana 5 bucks that she can get more eggs than him, and Dana agrees. Despite the fact that $5 can't really get you much other than a couple kit-kats, Dana agrees, because, let's face it, anything gets more exciting when there's money on the table. However, as Dana's busy picking up eggs (it's a good job that this lasts less than a page), there's a scream. Apparently, the eggs weren't hard-boiled. Yeah. Mum somehow didn't have the time to hard-boil a bunch of eggs. I'm pretty sure that with Anne's mum's help, they could've done it even faster. Tumblr's textposters only dream of being that good at procrastinating. An egg fight breaks out, and Dana grabs another egg to throw at Anne, who's already belted him with 2 eggs, and is aiming with her 3rd. However, the egg he comes across is... odd, to say the least. It's much larger than your average chicken egg, and it's green. There's probably some ham nearby as well; at least Sam-I-Am will get a nice dinner. Dana grabs the egg to show to Anne, but trips over the dog. Reader beware, you're in for a scare. He shows it to Anne, and she proceeds to lob it at a bunch of Brandy's friends. As you do with a large, mysterious egg. Luckily, the girls catch and chuck it back, Dana catching it. Go join the school rugby team already, Dana.

Mum and Dad break up the egg fight as Dana takes the big egg inside. Brandy blames Mum, because she forgot to hard-boil the eggs. Mum immediately shuts up, presumably because she's realised "Wait, she's right. I'm a moron."They go to visit their expendable grandparents who are as pointless as a sundial in a room full of clocks. I really don't care. That night, Dana goes to bed, only to notice the egg throbbing like it's alive. I've got to say, this is a very elaborate anti-abortion campaign. He tries to show Brandy and his parents, but they act like they'd rather set every individual hair on their body on fire rather than discuss eggs. The next morning, the egg hatches , and from it emerges the carbonara sauce at the Pioneer Centre a mass of scrambled eggs. (That's a joke for my readers who go to my concert band.) Since his parents and Brandy are out not dealing with scrambled eggs from planet Zog, Dana decides to put the creature in a shoebox and take it to Anne's. Dana, being a smart man for once, realises that he shouldn't pick up the scrambled eggs (I really need to stop calling it that),and tries to pick it up with a glove. Unfortunately, he drops it and picks it up with his bare hand. Luckily, there's no noticeable effects on him, so he dumps it in the box and heads off to Casa de Padding.

Dana and I will give you 3 guesses as to what Anne's having for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, of course. Dana, as he's trying to show Anne and her mum the egg creature, he trips and it lands it Anne's bowl, who says that he's ruined her breakfast. Just put some brown sauce on it, it'll be fine. Her mum dumps it down the drain, but he manages to save it. Yaay. Wow, this scene has more padding than an insane asylum that was built to house the entire population of China. Dana and Anne go outside, and he shows her the egg creature. She suggests that Dana takes it to the nearby science lab. Maybe it's because I live in a boring neighbourhood or something, but I'm pretty sure most neighbourhoods don't have science labs in them.

So, Dana takes the egg creature down to the lab. Somehow, despite the fact that Dana is the smartest protagonist that I've talked about so far, he doesn't realise that the place is closed on weekends like a normal establishment until he gets there. Distraught, he turns around, only to bump into the managing scientist who is there, for some reason, by the name of Dr Gray. Dana explains what happens, and Dr Gray invites him inside.

Dana shows the egg creature to Dr Gray, who reveals to him that there are more of them on this planet. Apparently, he's found loads more of them and rounded them up here in the lab. Apparently, they fell from Earth in a meteor shower from Mars... 2 years ago. Why don't you tell the public this? I mean, you have a ton of scrambled egg creatures from Mars, and you're not going to tell anyone? There is proof of intelligent life sitting in your lab for 2 years, and you're not doing anything with it! Anyway, Dr Gray shows Dana the other egg creatures, who surround. Dana is scared, but Dr G points out that they're just sentient blobs of scrambled eggs, so it's not like they're that deadly. Right, so, we've discovered that there's hundreds of these things, and they're harmless, yet the book's only half-over. Where can we go with this now? Well, Dr Gray locks Dana in with the egg creatures in the freezing cold room he keeps the egg creatures in.

Why? Well, apparently, he can't let anyone know that Earth's been invaded by Martians. Well, that answers my question earlier, but they're not really invading, are they? It's more like an immigration, or at the very least a visit. Also, Dr Gray has to study Dana, in order to gain information about the effects of handling the creatures. Makes sense, but it's still illegal and possibly child abuse. Dr Gray disappears for about 6 seconds, so Dana tries to open the door. However, whaddya know, it's locked. Did Dana really not think that was a possibility? Dana's egg creature starts having a chinwag with the others, and Dana uses this as an opportunity to make himself look good. To a bunch of sentient scrambled eggs from Mars. They seem to chase after him, so Dana backs up against the wall. Actually, they're just forming a triangle, because that's how they communicate with people. Dana makes a circle with his finger, and they too get into the shape of a circle. Dana decides to check himself over in order to make sure that handling the egg creatures aren't affecting him in anyway. He looks down and sees that his leg is turning into scrambled eggs! Except no it isn't, there's just an egg creature on it.

Even Dana calls himself out on how ridiculous this. Dr Gray returns with a bowl of macaroni cheese. Dana complains about it, but eventually caves in and eats it for self-preservation. Within a week, he'll have reverted back to a caveman, and within 2, he'll be a neanderthal, worshiping the eggs as a god. Then, Dana comes up with a plan with more holes in it than a Swiss cheese that's been attacked by a drill-wielding maniac - call his parents. Problem 1: There are no phones in the room. And he can't get out, so he can't get to a phone outside. Problem 2 (and bare in mind that this one is never addressed): What would he tell his parents? "Help, I'm being held hostage in a freezer with a bunch of scrambled egg creatures from Mars!" Yeah, that sounds plausible!

Later, Dana's Dad comes looking for him, since he presumably asked Anne where Dana had gone when he didn't come home. Dr Gray denies Dana being here, having hidden Dana's bike which he rode here on, and Dad is about to leave, when he decides to look for him, since he thinks that Dana could've sneaked in. Dana yells for Dad, but to no avail. Dad leaves, and Dr Gray reveals that the window is both one-way and soundproof. I'm not 100% sure that technology was available in the 90's, but who am I to say? Dr Gray reveals that, tomorrow, he's going to do some tests on Dana. Thinking about it, why not do the tests? I mean, if they come out all right, Dr Gray'll probably let you go. Dana tries to go to sleep, but it's more freezing than a history classroom in Winter at the south pole. Suddenly, the egg creatures all bond together to make a gigantic blanket of scrambled egg goo. Did I actually just type that? The big egg blanket advances on Dana, and crawls over him. He thinks that it's smothering him, but it's actually just acting as a duvet for him. This is really going to mess up his t-shirt with scrambled egg stains (out of context alert).

Dana goes to sleep and wakes the next morning feeling refreshed. However, Dr Gray shows up, and boy, is he mad. He blames Dana for the whole "egg blanket" thing, and how it's ruined his research. How? You've just learned that these creatures can come together like a big eggy megazord! An eggazord, if you will. This sort of thing is an amazing discovery! But, regardless, Dr Gray says that he's going to murder Dana by causing him to freeze to death, and throws the eggazord against the wall. However, before he can kill a 12 year old boy in cold blood (what's with all the cold-blooded murder in these books? This is for children!), the eggazord smothers Dr Gray, allowing Dana to escape. He runs back home and tells his parents what happened. He drags them to the lab, only to find Dr Gray and the eggazord gone, presumably having headed off back to Mars. Since the eggazord's pretty much just a scrambled egg blanket, I'm rather skeptical about that.

Dana and his parents go back home, and a doctor is called to look Dana over. Nothing wrong with Dana is found... or is it? Well, it's not found, I'll give you that. The next day, Dana heads over to Anne's house to tell her his story, but stops and lays a gigantic egg in Anne's front garden. Great Scott, Dana's actually the Wongster!

Any questions?
So, how does Dana end up explaining the egg in Anne's front yard? "Dana, check out that giant egg in my front yard!" "Oh, I already saw that." "When?" "When I laid it."

Conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed Egg Monsters from Mars. I mean, a lot of the books at this point in the series just straight up sucked, so it's a relative masterpiece. I don't really know what I was expecting by the title (certainly not the eggazord, that's for sure), but the direction this ended up going in was well executed, and moved along at a good pace; unlike a lot of these books, there aren't a lot of big scenes where nothing happens. Overall, a definite recommendation from me.