It's time once again to return to one of Jovial Bob's favorite haunts. That's right, it's good ol' mad science. And since it involves humans turning into beasts, maybe some werewolves? Stine loves him some werewolves. Let's dig into Jekyll and Heidi.
A really nice and busy cover with this one. For starters, we have the beast that makes up our Jekyll half of the title looking nice and hideous, with an a somewhat simian, somewhat piglike face. Not to mention those giant hands. You know what they say about big hands, eh? As for the Heidi of this equation, she has one of the better shocked kid faces I've seen from Tim's work. Then there's all the lab equipment, the shattered bottle with the glass strewn about. It's a busy cover that never feels too cluttered. Good stuff.
Heidi Davidson's life's been hell for a while. Her parents were both killed in a car accident (so, I guess no Because Goosebumps Parents for this one), and now she has to move from Springfield to live in Vermont with her uncle Dr. Palmer Jekyll and his daughter Marianna. She arrives to the bus station where she expects her uncle to show up, but instead gets greeted by a kid about her age named Aaron Freidus. They hit it off pretty well until she mentions her uncle is Dr. Palmer Jekyll. Arron panics, saying that there's been a monster attacking the town at night and the villagers think Jekyll is responsible. Heidi, having read the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde immediately thinks this is some sort of rib on her and thinks he's just trying to get her worried, despite the fact that he is kind of spooked. He points her to Jekyll's mansion and she heads off.
When she arrives, she's greeted rather coldly by Marianna, who much like Aaron seems to be deathly serious in telling her to get away while she still has a chance. Despite that, Heidi enters, meets the maid of the mansion named Sylvia and is shown to her room by Marianna, who then just leaves her rather coldly. Heidi asks about Uncle Jekyll, but Marianna just says he's in his lab working. So, Heidi just up and goes to greet him, and sees that he's turned into a MONSTE-oh wait, he's just in his forties and aged like hell. His hair is white and he looks very skeletal.
Uncle Jekyll and Heidi reminisce for a bit, with Uncle Jekyll hoping her arrival will help Marianna start to relax more. When Heidi mentions Aaron's story about a monster, he starts to get red in the face and yells at her, saying that there's no monster. She runs out of the lab, freaked out by the whole affair. Later on, she looks around the mansion some more until she ends up in a room with the wallpaper torn and shredded, as if some giant animal was trapped in there. Marianna shows up and says that this damage was from their pet cat George, who Uncle Jekyll had to conveniently put to sleep for being too wild. So we're resorting to killing imaginary pets now too, are we Jovial Bob?
The two girls head to dinner with Uncle Jekyll who is in a far more relaxed demeanor. He mentions that the Dr. Jekyll of the story was misunderstood, and how his formula to change one's personality was quite amazing. As he talks about wanting to do the same, Marianna gets more and more annoyed to the point Jekyll eventually quits talking about it. Overall, despite Marianna's coldness, Heidi is more relaxed than she was before. But before she can nod off, she hears shrill screams outside. Sure enough, it's the screams of the villagers as what Aaron had told Heidi seemed to be coming true. Heidi goes to check on Uncle Jekyll, but doesn't find him anywhere. Checking his lab, she comes across some strange green liquid, and a drinking glass that may have contained said liquid.
She runs to the kitchen just in time to see him come in through the door, looking like a mess with his clothes torn. He catches her and says that these were all just caused by him having one hell of a fall down a hill and in no way was he near that completely unrelated state of panic that the town's in. Nope. Not at all. Heidi's suspicions are growing, but she doesn't confront Uncle Jekyll on this just yet. The next day she overhears Marianna saying she wants to leave this place because she's sick of all the lies she has to tell and the fact she can't have any friends. After an awkward breakfast, Heidi tries to talk to Marianna, who is tending to her pet hamster Ernie. Heidi tries to get answers from her about the screaming, but Marianna snaps at her, unknowingly squeezing her hamster to death. Okay, now we go from imaginary pets to real ones. You ain't slick, Bob.
Heidi is like "to hell with this" and runs away from the house. But as she heads into town, she really begins to see the damage done by the beast. She also sees Aaron being interviewed by a reporter. When Heidi tries to defend her uncle, the townspeople advance on her, believing she's hiding the truth. They ask to see inside the mansion, but she says they can't, then when she gets the chance, she heads back to the mansion. She then sees that a phone's been put in her room. But when she talks to her old friend Patsy about the monster stories, she hears what sounds like breathing coming from the line. Uncle Jekyll is spying.
That night Heidi has a pretty brutal dream about being chased by the beast, to the point that it catches her and drives its fangs into her shoulder. When she wakes up, she's in a panic. She looks to the mansion bookshelf for something to read. Sadly there aren't any horror novellas aimed toward the 8-12 demographic, but there is a secret compartment with some kind of diary that finally confirms Heidi's suspicions. That Uncle Jekyll does indeed know something about the beast. So she decides to finally get the answers she needs by hiding in his lab the next evening. That's where she sees it for herself, Uncle Jekyll creating a formula then drinking it, and his form taking a somewhat monstrous shape. She tries to escape, but he catches her and throws her into her room. Then he resumes his nightly attack on the town. Heidi, with no alternative, escapes her room by more or less falling out the window, yet surviving, and runs into town just as a giant explosion occurs.
In the midst of the fire, she sees the beast who fixes its gaze on her and attacks. But she ends up saved by a baseball bat wielding Aaron, who then gets thrown into the fire. He miraculously survives and distracts the beast long enough for Heidi to escape back to the mansion. She heads back to the lab, and kind of stupidly decides that maybe the only way to fight Uncle Jekyll is to be a beast herself. She goes to drink the formula, only to realize that "oh right, he already drank it". Well that was a pointless cliffhanger, even for Goosebumps standards.
The beast arrives again and is poised to attack Heidi, but out of nowhere Heidi is rescued... by Uncle Jekyll! He wrestles the beast until it starts to transform back into Marianna. So, she was the beast the entire time. Uncle Jekyll says that the reason he tested the formulas was to find a cure for her. Five years ago, he and Marianna had some car problems and she ended up wandering into the forest, where she was bitten by some sort of creature. Safe to say it was likely a werewolf, since this is kind of where this monster angle's been going. As he tries to explain more, they hear the sound of the villagers getting ready to break their door down, ready to kill the beast once and for all.
The villagers break into the house and start to burn it down. Heidi, Marianna and Uncle Jekyll head into the basement where there just so happens to be a conveniently placed tunnel that goes a mile out of town. They start to head though, but there's still ten pages left in the book, so Heidi heads back to the mansion to grab the diary. She manages to get it, but gets caught by the villagers. All seems hopeless, until Aaron manages to save her in time. The two make it into the tunnel, but see no signs of Marianna or Uncle Jekyll. They make it out, just as Heidi sees the mansion in flames.
Heidi stays at Aaron's for a bit as she looks into the diary again, now realizing it belonged to Marianna. She reads the final entry, which mentions that not only did she leave the diary in Heidi's room, but she might have, on a whim, bit Heidi in the shoulder and passed on the curse. Whoopsy Doodle!
This was another one I thought I'd dislike going in and shocker of shockers, it turned out pretty good. Granted, it doesn't really buck many trends that a lot of Goosebumps books, especially these later books, do. But what we get still turns out pretty effective. Even what should have been the obvious misdirect. Heidi is a very likable protagonist. Not overly annoying or dimwitted (well, except for that scene in the lab). The other characters are also fine, and thankfully we're spared any annoying jokesters or bratty younger siblings. The mystery itself is solid, even though again you'd probably expect there to be a misdirect with how much Stine makes Jekyll out to be the obvious culprit only for it to be Marianna. Not to mention the last act of the book is surprisingly awesome with lots of action and suspense. Suspense that gets padded with Heidi going back for the diary, but still works regardless. For one of the more reserved books of the Series 2000 run, this one turned out to be a sleeper hit. Definitely one of the better of this series, at least for me. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it keeps it spinning well enough. Jekyll and Heidi gets an A-.
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