Goosebumps #25: A Night in Terror Tower

How descriptive.

Blurb
Sue and her brother, Eddie, are visiting London when they run into a little problem. They can't find their tour group. Still, there's no reason to panic. No way their tour guide would just leave them. All alone. In a gloomy old prison tower. No way they'd get locked inside. After dark. With those eerie sounds. And a strange dark figure who wants them...dead.

Plot 
We open in England's green and pleasant land, or, more specifically, London (though I suppose some of my American readers will have trouble acknowledging that London and England aren't one and the same). Sue and Eddie are on holiday in London, riding double-decker buses, visiting old buildings that no 12 year old would willingly go to, and inexplicably eating burgers instead of going to Borough Market or getting fish and chips. Sue and Eddie go to the Tower of London (careful of Jigsaw Moriarty), and head to Terror Tower. Wait a minute. Terror Tower is a haunted house in Scarborough, not a section of the Tower of London!

Inside the made-up tower (Blackadder season 1 had a more accurate depiction of England) they are shown round the various exhibits, such as empty jail cells and torture chambers. Now, I've never been to the Tower of London, but I'd imagine they don't show you and all the kiddies all the gruesome torture chambers. The tour guide even revels in explaining all the instruments of torture in great detail. This is only cinching a better Tower of London scene than in Minions. Sue wants to take a picture... for some reason... but can't find her disposable camera. Well, bang goes every photo she's taken on this trip. Actually, Eddie's just pinched it. Because he's a pickpocket, you see. (*sigh*) Didn't we do this last week?

Later on in the tour, Eddie and Sue notice a man in black, galaxy defender, following them. The tour guide leads them to a small cell, where he tells them the story all about how 2 kids' lives got finished. These 2 kids in particular were Prince Edward and Princess Susanna of York. Gee, I wonder where this is going? The 2 tween royals were sentenced to death by their uncle, the King... for some reason. Sue tries to listen to the story, but gets distracted by Eddie breaking her camera. No idea what she would've done with the photos, but the breaking of the camera stops her from hearing the end of the story. Sue and Eddie get into a shouting match over the whole broken camera (can I stop talking about it now?), but quickly lose the tour group. How do you get lost in somewhere that doesn't exist?

Sue and Eddie begin to stumble around, hoping to find the tour group. Where are your parents? Suddenly, the man in black, he won't let you remember, shows up. Common sense dictates that if some guy dressed like an even more emo version of Anarky tries to catch you, you should probably run away, so, in a surprising turn of events, Eddie and Sue do just that. Then we get more running away (*groans*), until Sue and Eddie flee into the sewers and escape the magical mystery tour who's coming to take them away. However, then a load of rats show up. Where's Indiana Jones when you need him? The 2 children don't hide under a coffin and swim out under it, but they instead grab onto some incredibly convenient metal rings on the ceiling. Once the ratnami calms down, Eddie and Sue flee the sewers and make it to the car park. The tour bus has left, so the nearby Scottish Security McGuard recommends that they catch a cab, instead of saying that they smell like a sewer.

So, Eddie and Sue get back to the hotel where their parents, who are here on business, are staying. Who just let their kids wander round the most densely populated and largest city in the UK. I'm calling social services, you horrible people. They attempt to pay the taxi driver, but the money their parents have given them was totally worthless. I guess they never got the memo about the old tenners. So, Sue and Eddie pop off to their hotel room to get some more cash (the driver agrees to wait), but the room is empty. (This is definitely one of the better sequences in the book.) In fat, there's no record of it being booked at all. Eddie and Sue go to the reception to make an inquiry about the room, but they can't even seem to remember their last names. Oh no, they're becoming self aware!

Eddie and Sue then quickly have dinner (presumably paying with the old quids), and escape through the kitchen corridors. And the taxi driver never gets paid, either. Suddenly, the man in black, something something something, blocks their path, and forces Eddie to give up 3 white stones, which he had apparently pickpocketed off him earlier. Why? "Oooh, 3 white stones, I think I'll take them, they look cool." The man uses the 3 stones and does magic to teleport them somewhere.

Eddie and Sue wind up in a medieval grog tavern. Oh goodie, more underage drinking! They believe that this is merely a costume party. An incredibly elaborate, spontaneous costume party. They leave, and become separated, when Sue realises that they aren't in the 20th century anymore, let alone Kansas.

Sue bribes a peasant to hide her from the man in black, help I've run out of lyrics to write, using the old money that their parents ave them. I had no idea that the old quids were that old. However, when the man in black, oh sod it, turns up round the peasant's way, the latter hands Sue over. Mainly because this bloke is the Lord High Executioner, and if the peasant didn't turn Sue in, well...

The LHE escorts Sue back to the castle, where she and Eddie meet up again. They are both locked in a cell, whilst the Executioner mocks them with the white stones. After the Executioner leaves, presumably after realising how pointless he's becoming, an old wizard with a beard the length of my usual reviews enters. Aldi brand Gandalf introduces himself as Morgred, the King's magician. Well then where's his top hat? Morgred reveals that Sue and Eddie are actually Princess Susanna and Prince Edward.

Morgred used the white stones to send them into the future to save them from the Executioner, who's working under the orders of the King, and he gave them false memories. But not new parents. Or surnames. Or money. This whole plan's terrible! In fact, Morgred straight up admits that he didn't give them complete memories. Eddie and Sue try to escape the cell, but Morgred freezes them in place. He apologises, saying that if he lets them escape, the King will kill him. Hasn't he already let them escape, though? Suddenly, though, Eddie produces the stones, which he'd pinched off the executioner, and uses the magi words to send them back to the present. (*Back to the Future theme plays*)

They find themselves back in the Scarborough haunted house, Terror Tower, in the present day. A nearby tour group (presumably organized by Exposition Inc.) is being told the end of the story of Prince Edward and Princess Susanna. On the night of their execution, the 2 royals vanished mysteriously.

We just saw it happen! Why do you need to tell us it? Morgred shows up, telling them that he will be their new father, and will be known as Mr Morgan. Why didn't he just do that to begin with? He asks if he could conjure up some food (probably breaking the International Stature of Se crecy, what with there being about 20 people in front of them), but Sue wittily replies that they don't need any more magic, and would instead prefer some burgers. Instead of Borough Market or fish and chips.

Any Questions?
How was the Lord High Executioner able to come to the present? If he used the stones, how did he get them? Didn't Morgred have them?


Easy Get-Out-of-Adventure-Free Card
A lot of this story could've just been avoided if Eddie hadn't smashed Sue's El Cheapo disposable camera.

Conclusion
A Night in Terror Tower is... pretty good. There are some nice sequences, and the Executioner's a pretty good villain until he Banquos out of the story abruptly. However, Morgred is an odd character, and some of the characters have no good motivation. Eddie and Sue are mildly annoying, too. Overall, though, I'll recommend it.

Oh yeah, I upload on Tuesdays now. Hooray?