Steve Boswell will never forget Carly Beth's Halloween mask. It was so gross. So terrifying.
But this year Steve wants to have the scariest costume on the block. So he gets a mask from the same store where Carly Beth got hers. It looks like a creepy old man. With stringy hair. A wrinkled face. And spiders crawling out of the ears!
Steve's definitely got the scariest mask around. Too bad he's starting to feel so old. And so tired. And so evil...
Previously on The Haunted Mask
Timid, easily frightened Carly Beth went to a local mask shop and found an extremely creepy mask to pay back her """"friends"""" Chuck Greene and Steve Boswell for some pranks they pulled on her. 3 bad things followed:
- She blew her entire life savings (of $30) on the mask
- She turned down a perfectly awesome gorilla mask for it that had fur and everything
- The mask fused to her head and made her evil
Plot
So, this time, the book is told from Steve's perspective, just so we can have everything we learnt in the last book re-explained. We open with Steve being made to teach the year 2 football team because he released a squirrel into the girls' changing room. Which are both things that happen. And he has to do it every day. I'm not trying to justify releasing a squirrel into a girls' changing room (nor do I recommend it), but I think this punishment is a tad too large for that sort of thing. The kids are always playing tricks on Steve as well (how the tables have turned), like tricking him into kicking a concrete ball. Where the hell did they get that? In fact, shouldn't they be in a different school to Steve? Why are they all in the same place?
Chuck tells Steve that he should cook up a cunning plan for revenge. Steve somehow doesn't think almost having one's foot broken warrants revenge, but apparently having everything in your bag get covered in feathers and glue is. Yeah, the kids somehow got into his school bag and glued feathers to everything. Whowhatwhenwherewhyhow.
Steve's new cunning plan is to scare the kids on Halloween night, but dressing up as their parents and telling them that he's taking away their TikTok account must wait; Carly Beth and Sabrina are walking around the corner! Since they left all the insects in their lockers, they just go up to them and ask Carly Beth where she got the mask from last year. After they fall for the same plaster-of-paris head-on-a-stick prank as last year. The head doesn't even talk. They then steal the head and start playing catch with it until Carly Beth gives them the address. Why was the second half of this paragraph more about plaster-of-paris heads than it was about the protagonists?
Chuck and Steve arrive at Ye Olde Abandoned Mask Shoppe. Emphasis on 'Abandoned.' Despite all the awesome gorilla masks, the place has shut down. Luckily, there's a basement entrance in the side-alley, so of course it's time for the ol' Goosebumps standby. Once inside the basement, they discover various old masks, such as an awesome gorilla one. Suddenly, the bat-shopkeeper (so called because he's a shopkeeper who dresses like Batman) emerges from the shadows and tries to stop the 2 teens from, y'know, breaking into an old abandoned building (though why he's there is anyone's guess). Chuck and Steve escape, but Steve secretly swipes one of the masks on the way out. Sadly, it isn't a gorilla mask.
So, yeah, Steve's cunning plan for vengeance of Baldrickian proportions is to invite a bunch of 7 year olds out for trick-or-treating at night, in front of an old, allegedly haunted house, and scare them with his spooky scary... old man mask. Yeah. He pulls on the mask and quickly discovers to the shock of basically no-one that the neckline has melted into the shadows. Also, Steve is now growing tired and stuff, despite the fact that he shouldn't be like that until he hits 15. Also also, his voice is that of a tired old man. Yep, Steve hasn't been turned evil - he's been turned elderly. Boy, I hope you've been wearing your brown pants to read this.
Halloween arrives, and Steve sets out to get Carly Beth's aid in removing the mask. After exacting his cunning plan for vengeance on the year ones, of course. Priorities, folks. Imagine how badly this plan could possibly go. Then chuck that down the garbage disposal. The kids aren't even scared when Old Man Steve shows up; they take pity on him and attempt to help him get to Carly Beth's.
Back home, Steve finds that his dog has eaten the cookies already, so his next response is to hug the dog. A lot of people in the fandom are probably screaming at the monitor by now, and honestly, I'm onboard with them for once. Also, hugging the dog fails. I mean, Steve was the one who came up with that plan, so I can't say I'm surprised.
Steve and Carly Beth return to Ye Olde Abandoned Mask Shoppe, where they discover an old man costume that appears to go with Steve's mask. Still better than Polly's princess costume from the reboot. And then the mask floats off of Steve's head and bonds with the costume, which then casually strolls out of the basement.
WHAT.
And, naturally, it's time for the obligatory Haunted Mask twist ending. Chuck jumps out from behind a bush wearing a purple mask, which he's having difficulty removing. And, no, no-one seems to acknowledge the sentient costume that moonwalking off down the road.
Extra Toppings
Carly Beth is in last year's duck costume for Halloween. Can no-one make an effort to be genuinely scary in this book?
Conclusion
The Haunted Mask II is just your traditionally bad Goosebumps book. While the first was a summary of the good and the bad aspects the entire series, this one is basically another one of the classic 'bad' installments like A Shocker on Shock Street or My Hariest Adventure. It doesn't really help that, like, 30% of this book is just repetition of the lore from the first one.
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