The Stinal Countdown: The Un-Bumped Six: The 13th Warning

Luck be a lady tonight. Or, perhaps just let luck be on our side. Stine's work does often feel like a game of quality roulette, and you almost always lose. But, so far, the Un-Bumped Six, six standalone Stine books released after the first Goosebumps run ended in 2000, have been at least good enough.to be considered successful. Well, can't say we weren't warned. In fact, this is The 13th Warning.

COVER STORY

This cover is okay. Not the most dynamic, sure the hell not topping The Adventures of Shrinkman, but fine. Hey, it's the Tim Jacobus staple, red Converse sneakers. Some things truly never change. The cat's design is decent, with a decent amount of look to its intense looking face. Not exactly topping Cry of the Cat, but fine enough.

STORY

We get another introduction from Stine, this time talking about how he and his brother Bill were the superstitious types as kids. This includes a rather interesting one from Stine in that he never writes stories about kids set in New York. Which, at least on my end, that story checks out. Though we've had a couple kids from New York ending up elsewhere. He also brings up It Came From Beneath the Sink! as that book also dealt with bad luck via the Grool. He also brings up the history of unlucky numbers like 13 before saying his inspiration came from a black cat named Lucky that his friends owned. Real shame Stine never brought this concept about with Goosebumps as at least these intros make him feel relatable.

Our protagonist is a kid named Joe, but everyone calls him Lucky. His family lineage is interesting to say the least. Twelve brothers and sisters, as well as his parents also have twelve brothers and sisters. Plus he was born on the thirteenth of the month. Sadly, not sure if he was born on the thirteenth month. We need more stories about SMarch kids. Yeah, Lucky definitely fits the bill when it comes to his nicknamesake. But one of his sisters, Lindy, tells him that his thirteenth birthday is coming up and maybe his luck's about to run out.

And Lucky is super excited about his birthday party at the Lucky Duck Diner, which he claims has the best pizza in the world. Lucky drops his book on his dog, Barker, which I'd put mid-tier in dog names. He heads to swim practice before there's a knock at the door. At the door is a creepy couple. A pale, wrinkly man with dark clothes and a woman with orange hair and bulging blue eyes. As well as a black cat. They tell Joe, or Joseph as they call him, that they are from the Superstition Society and are here to warn him about how he's been tempted by the spirits of evil. That he has too many thirteens. Which, like, that's less his fault and more dumb luck. They tell him that his luck is running out before leaving.

Lindy tells Lucky to ignore all of that since the Superstition Society is usually laughed at by everyone anyway. But suddenly Lucky trips over his foot and smashes one of his mom's vases. Mom's mad for a second then just shrugs it off. Lucky heads to swim practice as the coach gives out new jerseys. He gives one to Lucky who again trips and falls into the pool, nearly drowning. But despite that, he still has a strong showing. So the bad luck is starting slow with Lucky still winning out. But as he drives home on his bike, he crashes into a pothole and goes flying. 

Lucky ends up scraping up his arm badly and his bike's destroyed, but Lindy tells him that this is still not any case of bad luck or anything. But Lucky is sensing a pattern here. All of his misfortunes seem to line up with all of his thirteens. He has six so far (his birthdate, being the thirteenth kid, his parents being the thirteenth kids each counting for two more, turning thirteen, as well as being the thirteenth member of the swim team). And he notices their mailbox also lists their address as the thirteenth, so that's seven. Lucky fears that if he encounters six more thirteens, his luck will run out for good. 

At dinner, nobody can find Barker. In the midst of trying to find the dog, Lucky learns that Barker is thirteen years old, giving us number eight. He then gets a call from his coach needing his social security number for the computer system. His dad gets it for him and reads out the numbers, which includes yet another thirteen, taking us to nine. Now even Lindy is suspecting that maybe there's smoke to this superstition fire. They look for Barker some more, then head to bed. However, the dog does return later that night. And then Barker barks thirteen times. Okay Bob, now this is just stretching. But we are now at double digits. 

The day of Lucky's birthday arrives and his teacher, Mrs. Kline, has a special surprise for Lucky and the class. A baker's dozen of doughnuts. Lucky then realizes that, oh crap, a baker's dozen is thirteen. So we're down to two. Later, the science teacher, Mr. Landers, trips on one of Lucky's dropped books and drops an ant farm. Not quite a good Landers there. But the teacher doesn't punish Lucky on account of his birthday. Wow, a real opposite case of characters in this one. Usually everyone's a jerk. At his next class, he gets a pop quiz which gives him the score of, you guessed it, thirteen. So only one more to go. His parents pick him up to go to the party. Lucky says he doesn't want to go and mentions the whole Superstition Society. But they don't believe him because while we can't call them Goosebumps Parents, they're still Goosebumps Parents.

At his party, Lucky counts the candles on his cake. Thirteen. The thirteenth thirteen in this book about thirteen and thirteen-adjacent thirteens. No, wait. Fourteen. One for each year and an extra to grow on. Gotta pad this out a little, I suppose. The party ends and all goes well. That is until a dessert plate falls off the table. A plate that cost thirteen dollars. And now that's our thirteenth thirteen. Lucky is now panicking, wondering what fate is set to befall him. And we go from befalling to befuddling as Lucky ends up in a strange void, darker and slower than normal. Suddenly a cloud turns into a thirteen-armed, bald headed monster that shows up seemingly out of nowhere and starts to attack Lucky. Lucky is about to be eaten by the creature, but comes up with an idea. He smashes another plate. So now it's twenty-six dollars his father owes.

TWIST ENDING

Lucky then tells Lindy what happened, but she is skeptical. Suddenly, the clock strikes twelve. Only it makes thirteen chimes. Suddenly everything goes dark again.

CONCLUSION

The 13th Warning is fine. It's super quick, coming in at just about 60 pages, which makes it less of a chore to read through. Though somehow the book still feels like it has to spin its wheels to get to that thirteenth thirteen. Though some of the ways we get those thirteens are genuinely clever. Although, the book just feels super weird, especially with the monster at the end. I guess we couldn't just have Lucky die since this is a kids book. But the weird monster at the end, despite its interesting description, may be one of the most random creatures Stine's ever given us. 

So, I have my theory on this one. Nothing concrete, but given a couple other stories here are about the same length, methinks that this was a scrapped story for a third Triple Header. There were apparently plans for a Goosebumps Triple Header 3, even with some finished Jacobus art, but those plans never came to fruition, again due to Scholastic and Stine parting ways. But it would very much explain the very roughshod feeling to the whole story. 

Lucky's a fine enough protagonist. Lindy exists, and we get maybe two of the other siblings, but that also comes off as a case of a cool idea on paper not fully getting the chance to be executed properly. A shame for sure, but I guess something had to be sacrificed. I wish we got more on the Superstition Society. It's a cool idea that, again, has no bearing to the story outside the warning. Are they a cult? Are they connected to the strange monster? Did they send the monster to get Lucky or was this a case of them suspecting what's to come? Maybe a scene with Lucky trying to find the society to get answers would have gone a long way to add depth to this story. But, alas, we get what we get. 

So, in the end, this one is an okay book, but our weakest of the Un-Bumped six so far. Though just a sliver weaker than Three Faces of Me. When Stine has a cool idea he can commit to, you get something fun like The Adventures of Shrinkman. When Stine has an idea, but a lack of really neat ways to implement it, then you get The 13th Warning. That's the luck of the draw I suppose. The 13th Warning gets a B-.