NNtG: Bone Chillers #21: The Dog Ate My Homework

It's time for another dive into the briny depths of Bone Chillers, a book series that I've yet to find a book I hate. And we're talking about lies and tall tales in this edition, which oddly I've been covering more lately with the blog than usual. But will these tall tales result in a good story for us, the readers? Well I hope so, otherwise you're not a good tall tale teller. It's time for The Dog Ate My Homework.

So, this is another image I had to take myself to show off the cover as versions online are low quality. And if I have to sacrifice Jacobus art for the sake of an ugly Jpeg that looks like it was uploaded in 1997, then you can see why. This cover is silly. I've never realized it until now but while Tim's art is always excellent, his monster dogs almost always look goofy. This one in particular. It ends up looking more like some weird bear monster thing than a dog. But it's still creepy enough. I like the transparent touch as well, selling the concept that this is something being manifested by Azie while she's coming up with it. Nice and goofy, and super effective. I like.

Azalea "Azie" Appleton is a compulsive liar. She just can't stop herself, and it's been getting her in trouble, namely when she returns home with a note from her principal saying she was in trouble for yet again lying. She gets grounded for three weeks, yet still plays the victim here. Namely in that she can't hang out with her friends, twin brothers Tyler and Josh Calloway. She goes online to check if the twins are home (complete with mentions of dial-up internet because this is a 1997 book after all) but finds a banner ad for a chat room, which okay, that could lead to some too-real horror given chat rooms at the time. But she finds one in particular that catches her eye. The Liar's Club. 

Given that she knows the score that if she types her name she could get caught red-handed in her peerless pursuit of perjury, Azie uses the username of Flower Child. She's greeted by the System Greeter who says that they can help Azie be a better liar. All she has to do is use "The dog ate it" in conversation the next day and it will work. And if she does it, the System Greeter will teach her how to make a Liar's Club of her very own. Of course, just lying isn't enough to make this work, she has to say "shsgic" before making the lie and it will work for her. Of course, this being in text, she doesn't know how to even pronounce shsgic, but when she tells Tyler and Josh, they just say that she should say it multiple different ways and surely one of them will work. You know, for compulsive liars they have their bases covered.

At school, Azie tries the lie on her teacher, Mr. Popoff, by saying that her dog ate her homework. She  then says the word multiple ways and sure enough it works better than even Azie thought as a giant Great Dane shows up and eats her homework. So now Azie and the twins have their proof that the spell works. But Azie realizes that the word might not work again so they go to the chat room and speak with System Greeter again. She lies to the System Greeter which causes an instant shutdown of her computer. When she turns it back on, the System Greeter's pissed, warning her to never lie to them again. Well that's concerning, but of course we're too early in the book and the three are too excited to care that much. 

Josh and Tyler want to try next and go by the aliases of Double and Trouble. The System Greeter says it's their turn next to prove they are a true force of forgery. They're tasked with lying in Mr. Popoff's class that there's going to be free pizza at the cafeteria. Time passes and no pizza is to be found. As the twins are about to be in trouble, Azie utters the word shsgic in multiple ways again and sure enough, the pizza arrives from somewhere called S.G. Pizza, which Azie realizes must be from System Greeter. The three talk again with System Greeter who congratulates them on proving they can lie with the greatest of ease. Now they're free to use the magic however they want. Lie as much as they want and it'll all come true. One condition however: If they get in trouble, they have to return to the chat if they need help. Azie doesn't like the sound of that, but what could possibly go bad here? They're just lying for fun, it's not like it's going to escalate or anything. I mean, be a boring book if it didn't.

The twins use the powers to make themselves rich. Of course, this can't be done by interacting just with Liar's Club members given, you know, they're in on the grift and all. So they talk with other people and use the lie and presto! Wads of green. And heaps of trouble as a group of leather clad punks show up, including a girl in a purple mohawk. They threaten the kids when suddenly Tyler calls them pigs and uses the magic word, which turns the punks into pigs. They try to reverse the spell, but it doesn't work. The pigs then attack the three and eat their money. Which feels like a perfect political cartoon right there. Azie, Tyler and Josh talk with the System Greeter who reveals that it was their doing. Also, it can't be reversed because reversing a lie would be telling the truth, and that's just the equivalent of saying a slur at the Liar's Club. 

So the kids are still rich because of this and they still have cart blanche to do whatever they want. So Josh thinks the next plan should be to ditch school forever. And they're so rich that Tyler can buy the Dallas Cowboys. He'll just end up getting the Denver Broncos instead though. The kids arrive to school in limos with butlers and everything. They're high on the hog, and I don't mean the ones that were once humans. Suddenly, the Great Dane shows up and bursts into Mr. Popoff's class to eat Azie's homework again. So every lie that's been told keeps happening because they can't reverse it. Also there's more pizza. Oh, and because the three are rich, all the other kids are being greedy and demanding stuff from them. So, Azie decides to get revenge on their greed, and I knew this book was going too well without any gross-out up until now, because Azie tells the kids they're eating their favorite food... puke! Sure enough, the pizzas are covered in puke and the kids eat it up. What fetishist drummed that one up?

The three talk with System Greeter again and the Greeter is happy with all of the mayhem they caused. But next they should go to school the next day and say "termites". Azie questions how to use Termites, but the System Greeter puts up a bunch of angry face emojis (though they just look like :( emojis so that just comes off sillier.) The Greeter says that it's a supreme being and that the kids aren't to question its methods. Azie begins to realize there's nobody else in the Liar's Club chats with the System Greeter, and that things are definitely escalating that maybe they should quit. Of course, Tyler and Josh don't see it that way and think they should at least do the termite one and then they'll TOTALLY be done with this whole ordeal.

The next day at school, Azie uses the word "termites" and sure enough, the school begins to shake. It then starts to collapse as large termites begin to emerge. And they keep getting larger. As everyone escapes the school, Azie and the twins soon see that the termites are all over town. eating through everything in sight. They rush to a department store and use one of the computers to contact the System Greeter, who is delighted. It's free at last and calling itself the Supreme High System Greeter in Command. As in SHGSIC, the magic words. Azie realizes that every time they've used the word, it's been a setup to give the System Greeter more power. 

In fact, the System Greeter is now so powerful it can manipulate things like causing the couch Azie's on to start floating on its own. The kids think they're done for when they run into the remains of the school. In the computer lab, they start to see the computers turn on, the System Greeter taunting them saying that they cannot defeat his logic. But Azie realizes that the System Greeter just made a fatal mistake. She has Josh and Tyler take to the computers and the three each claim that the other is either lying or telling the truth. Given that the System Greeter is a robot essentially, it is unable to process who is the liar and who is the truth teller. The computers begin to blow up, signaling that the System Greeter must have been destroyed. The kids check outside and sure enough everything is back to normal. No termites, no damage to the school, even the punks are fine. But after all of this insanity, Azie's learned to stop lying, so we end on a lesson learned. Hey a morality book that actually makes the moral matter. Now that's scary.

I liked this one. Can't say it was the greatest book ever, but for what it was, it does what it needed to do. A kids horror morality tale about honesty, and how lies can make a situation worse. Though, for a book from 1997 that mentions dial-up and chat rooms, this book kind of aged well given the rampant push in AI in the past few years. Our villain pretty much being what if ChatGPT went rogue and somehow could manipulate the fabric of reality. That's really the only sticking point of the book is that it's confusing how any of this is happening and how this AI can somehow alter reality and I guess control an army of termites. But it's also a kids horror book, so I can't really expect the deepest explanation. It's a very "shut your brain off and let the story ride" type book.

Azie is a decent protagonist. Not the worst kid in the world, just a compulsive liar who can't control herself. And when given the power to go wild with that lying, it almost corrupts her, but she's also the first to realize that this might be going too far. It's really the twins who are more corrupted, but even they see that things go too far. While we don't fully get an answer to what's up with the System Greeter, it still works for an interesting villain. A powerful entity that gains power thanks to those it corrupts. I like how the book structures the conversations as actual chats on a computer, complete with emoticons. Although that also feels like an excuse to pad a paragraph with nothing but :( over and over again. It's also a book that feels like it's trying to stay relevant with the times. And like I said, it kind of does and doesn't do that. It is the oxymoron of books.

The horror element actually works too and is well built up. From the dog to the punk pigs to the puke pizza to finally the all out assault by the giant termites who do feel like a nightmarish threat. I even like the concept of the kids in school being these greedy little shits who just want stuff from Azie, Tyler and Josh. That even them being rich just leads to more sadness. So it ultimately works as two solid morals. You can have too much of a good thing and lying only makes your life worse. Or maybe it's more a message on how capitalism brings out the worst in people. Aww, look at Bone Chillers being a cute little communist. I'm so proud of you.

Another Bone Chillers book I enjoyed. Glad to see this trend continue. It's not the deepest book ever, but it does what you want it to do and does it quite well. A prime example of "less is more" and is definitely worth a recommend. And that's no lie. The Dog Ate My Homework gets an A-.