So far every ten or so books you'll find one book that people remember, but likely overlook because of the cover. For 1-10 it was Let's Get Invisible! For 11-20 it was Piano Lessons Can Be Murder. And for the twenties, it's easily our next book. One that I recall really loving the last time I went through it. Can lightning strike twice? Let's raise the curtain on Phantom of the Auditorium.
PHANTOM OF THE AUDITORIUM
COVER STORY
Going back to the books I mentioned earlier, the reason that said books don't get the fond fanfare as others is because of the mediocre cover, and sadly this one is no exception. The colors are nice, blending the pink of the curtain with the dark purple of the phantom. And the glowing green is a nice touch. But that's about all I can really praise as the phantom himself is really mediocre looking. Yeah, this one super didn't scare me. But thankfully the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" exists for a reason.
LIGHTS...CURTAIN...PHANTOM?
Brooke's best friend, Zeke, has been given the lead role in the school play, The Phantom. Zeke's totally into it. He loves dressing up in the grotesque phantom costume. And scaring the other members of the cast. Brooke thinks Zeke is getting a little too into it.
But then really scary things start happening. A message appears on the scenery: "The Phantom Strikes!" A stage light comes crashing down.
Is someone trying to ruin the play?
Or is there really a phantom living under the stage?
STORY
We open the book with protagonist, Brooke Rodgers, telling us everything that's going to go down in this book. Well, not everything, but the general skeleton of this phantom tale. Her friend, Zeke Matthews, is a massive prankster, but ultimately a good kid. The two check out the cast list for the upcoming school play, The Phantom. And after a joke from Zeke making Brooke think she's suspended, they see that they got the starring roles as Esmeralda and the phantom. Her understudy, seventh-grader Tina Powell, is less thrilled.
While at rehearsal, the kids pressure their director, Ms. Walker into telling them about the history of the phantom. Seventy two years ago, when the school first opened, one of the students, a young boy, found the script for The Phantom and suggested the school use it as their performance for their school play. However, on the night of the performance, the boy disappeared and all that could be heard was his scream an hour later. And the school never performed that play again, until now that is. Seventy two years is long enough to move on, right? Even when Tina says that there's stories that the play is cursed.
Zeke takes this opportunity to scare everyone in the phantom costume. After that, they soon see that the stage has a trapdoor which was installed back during the original performance. Ms. Walker tells the kids not to mess with the trapdoor, which means Zeke and Brooke end up messing with it after everyone leaves. However, upon activating it, they fall further down than expected, deep into the catacombs of the school. After some trial and error, they manage to raise up the trapdoor, only to run into a strange old man with a scar on his face. He introduces himself as Emile, the night janitor. He warns the kids not to mess with the trapdoor again, with Zeke joking that maybe he's the phantom.
The next day, a new kid arrives in school named Brian Colson. After Brooke tells him he could audition for the play, she opens her locker only to see one of Zeke's monster masks and a written warning saying "STAY AWAY FROM MY HOME SWEET HOME!" Brooke tells Zeke about it, but he swears that he had nothing to do with it. She doesn't believe him due to his history so far in this book being the "lovable" prank boy. At rehearsal, the lights suddenly go out momentarily and the kids see the phantom in the catwalk, who then leaps down the trapdoor and disappears. Everyone thinks it's Zeke (though Brooke is having some doubts), but when he shows back up, he again claims he's innocent.
Another phantom attack happens (although none of them are the falling stage light so the back cover misleads). This time, the phantom rises from the trapdoor and stares at Brooke, telling her to stay away from his home, then runs off again. Zeke shows up and gets blamed again. As the kids leave, they ask about Emile the night janitor, only to learn there's no night janitor named Emile. This leads Brooke and Zeke to believe maybe the phantom is Emile. But despite being a short man, he's not exactly the shape of a 12 year old boy. But their curiosity leads Brooke, Zeke and Brian to sneak into the school at night to get an answer. But what they find is another warning written in red paint all over the set. And unfortunately for Zeke, the red paint is found in his locker. This leads him to be kicked off the play and grounded. He can't even use his VCR. Ah, now that's the bad nostalgia vibe I needed.
The phantom attacks do seem to stop with Zeke gone, that is until Ms. Walker's scripts get glued together. Boy, the phantom's running out of clever scares here. Brooke and Brian head to Zeke's house to visit, only for Zeke's dog to start barking angrily at Brian. Hmmmm. We'll talk about that in the conclusion. Despite the whole grounded thing, Zeke still wants one more trip to the auditorium to see who really is framing him. They enter the catacombs to search but find nothing. As they're about to go back up, they see the trapdoor rising, trapping them inside. The three continue their search until they find a small room where someone has been living in. And recently too as Brian notes that the cereal hasn't gotten soggy yet. Truly the greatest line in Goosebumps since "Are there any more potatoes?"
And then these kids become morons. They get locked in and they can't push the door open, only for Brooke to remember, they have to pull the door open. Okay, now that's just padding and you know it, Jovial Bob. They soon run into Emile, and he's not in a good mood. He admits that he was the one who sent the warnings, to keep people away from finding his home underneath the school. His father worked there as a Janitor when he was young and showed him the school catacombs. When he lost his home, he snuck back into the school and lived under the auditorium, moonlighting as a night janitor to keep his cover. The kids say that means he's the phantom, but Emile is confused. He never even heard of the phantom. The kids run off and make their escape. They find Zeke's parents, who believe him about Emile. When cops arrive however, Emile and his belongings are gone. The status of the cereal consistency remains uncertain.
Zeke is brought back into the performance and it seems that no more hiccups occur, so the big performance arrives. However, during the performance, Brooke sees another boy dressed as the phantom, but she can tell it's not Zeke. He tells her of the incident seventy two years prior. About the boy who died. Brooke manages to pull off the mask, but the boy recoils in horror and soon falls into the trapdoor, disappearing in the process. The crowd applaud such a brilliant performance.
TWIST ENDING
Brooke and Zeke check the trapdoor once more for any sign of the phantom, but not a trace. The two head to Brooke's locker, but see it's already opened. Inside is a yearbook from seventy two years prior. There's a page inside mentioning the play. And the picture of the boy who played the phantom. The boy who died that night. Brian Colson.
CONCLUSION
Second time reading this book and my feelings remain the same. This is one of my favorite Goosebumps books. I think why I like it so much is that it's probably Stine's best built mystery. A solid enough whodunnit with enough possible suspects to make you wonder who the phantom really could be. They make it obvious it's not Zeke, but leave things ambiguous enough that maybe it really is him. There's a reason for Tina Powell as she wants Brooke to quit the play, constantly taunting her and telling her she must be sick with all that sneezing going on (because Brooke has allergies). There's enough reason for it to be Emile, with how he makes his entrance in the book to his ultimate reveal as the culprit of the sabotages, but not the actual phantom.
And then there's Brian Colson, who doesn't get much to do in the story to the point you tend to forget he exists. The book even adds the bit with Zeke's dog barking, which may be superfluous to most readers, but if you've followed some of the books, particularly Welcome to Dead House and Ghost Beach, you'll know that there is established lore that has dogs always sense the presence of death. It actually helps to make the twist hit just a little better at the end. Even things like the cereal bit actually work in building the mystery. This is a Goosebumps book with an actually well paced mystery and a solid whodunnit story. My god, it's like R.L. Stine actually cared about a book he was writing instead of making a padded mess to make monthly quota.
Pacing is solid too. It doesn't feel like it spins its wheels too much. Save for that really dumb door bit. I still have no idea what that was about other than obvious padding. Scares are minimal, but the actual mystery and the overall feel of the story make that a non-issue. In fact, aside from the ghost stuff, the book stays pretty grounded in reality, which proves that the slice of life style Goosebumps book really can work if Stine has an idea for it. And Stine's ghost stuff is usually consistently good, or at least passable and this one is definitely highly ranked in that category. In the end, yeah, this one's one of the best and highly recommended. Consider me a fan...tom. Hey, my end lines can't all be winners.
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