NNtG: Ghosts of Fear Street #30: I Was a Sixth-Grade Zombie

Back to kid-friendly Shadyside we go for this edition of Not Necessarily the Goose. Hey, another book about sixth-grade zombies. Though we're talking less dead kids and more mind controlled ones. We're also in the latter end of the Ghosts of Fear Street books, meaning we finally talk about the CG covers. So lots to talk about outside of the book itself. Speaking of, is the book itself any good? That's what we have to discover when we talk about I Was a Sixth-Grade Zombie.

So yeah. We finally talk about these covers. I was going to technically start with the first book to use them, #28's Hide and Shriek II, but since I have a physical copy of this book, eh, why not? Again, this will be more of a confusing thing if you're, you know, reading these chronologically with the book releases. So, what happened here? Well, as far as I can gather, Ghosts of Fear Street was going to keep going with the regular covers done by Mark Garro, but things seemed to suddenly shift. Ghosts of Fear Street changed publishers. 

Originally with Minstrel Books, the series ended up working with Gold Key, who I mostly know as a publisher of old comic books, usually based around popular licenses. With that shift came a new artist, this being "Happy Boy Pat" who provided new cover art using CGI, which was at the start of its boom in popularity. Unfortunately, the truth is that CG is a medium that's always advancing and evolving and work of that variety is going to look wickedly dated super quick. And that's the case with these later Ghosts books. It's not anyone's fault, not the artist's who put in the work to still offer unique art, it's just never going to have the staying power of a more traditional illustrated work.

Now we can talk about this cover. It doesn't help that this cover does look the most dated of the covers for this era. Designs are more rigid and blocky, lacking in detail and looking more mannequin-like than what we'd usually get. But I do like the concept of this strange gray hulking man in a pink jumpsuit chasing after these shocked kids. It's ultimately just fine. 

Now in the midst of the shift, Mark Garro was still commissioned to do cover art for books #29, #30 and #31. And his take isn't too bad. The goofy swirl eyes kind of work in a "silly but unsettling way", the right kind of  creepy for a kids horror cover. And we have our classic "shocked kid face" looking more confused than normal. Definitely a better cover than what we got if I were to judge the two. And given this IS my blog, I'm more than in my right to. I'm not on trial here... am I?

Valerie Martin and her friend Mark Meyers are big time fans of a paranormal investigation show called Strange Cases. In fact, they're not the only ones as pretty much every kid at Shadyside Middle School is. And as such they formed a club to watch the show every week. However, for some odd reason, none of the other kids have shown up for the weekly watch party except Valerie and Mark. They call the houses of the other kids, A.J. Hilton, Elaine Costello and Steve Hickock, but learn they're at something called the "M-W Club." Turns out these are school clubs held my the newest teacher at Shadyside, Mr. Hool, described as tall, always cold, and who holds two clubs. M-W, or Monday to Wednesday, and the Two T's club, Tuesday and Thursday. To which Mr. Hool refers to as being a way to reach one's full brain potential and be the best student possible, which makes me think oh no, these kids are getting slugs in their brains.

But Val and Mark have so far said T.S. to M-W T-T. The two head out and soon find something strange. A gray, almost see-through building where some of the kids are going in, including Ginger Park, who apparently bad mouthed Mr. Hool, so this can double count as a club and a detention I guess? Val and Mark try to get in, but are shooed by the guard for not having a key card to get in. They also notice what appears to be a force field over the building. A cop stops the two kids and tells them that the building is totally just a chemical plant. Nothing more, nothing less. Pay no mind to the children walking into said chemical plant. But the next day, as Mr. Hool tells the kids to write essays on good manners, Val and Mark talk with the kids, and they all say it's just a chess club in a very "I was at the flower shop" way. Yep, gettin' drunk at the ol' flower shop.

In fact, Elaine is so spaced out that she easily gives Valerie her key card, allowing Mark and herself to sneak into the building as the Thursday kids are arriving. Inside is strange and silvery with weird plants on the walls, oval doors with no knobs and a strange slippery yellow carpet. Before they can process much of this, they get caught by a kid named Trevor Dean, who isn't a part of these clubs, but is also trying to see what's going on. They find a series of conveyor belts dumping strange pieces of metal into bins. Mark and Trevor are concerned, but Valerie is brave, AKA a moron, as she reaches into the bin of metal parts which latch to her arm like a glove. A glove that then wraps around her arm like strange silvery ribbons while the metal pieces in the bin form a tower. Her "glove" forms buttons, which when pressed, falls off her. So that happened. But regardless, Val and the others continue on. 

They find a room filled with a strange music playing in the background. The kids from school are there, and they aren't playing any chess. Not even Virtual Chess, which if Stine actually wrote this, you know he'd find a way to insert it. Instead, a woman in pink coveralls is instructing the kids to sit, stay, shake and lay down, like they were dogs or something. All while using soft voices and speaking some words backwards like "Down lie" for lay down. One kid named Benjy burps and is dragged off by three large guards. That's enough for Valerie, Trevor and Mark who make a run for it. They knock over a flower pot and almost get caught, but manage to escape the building. Which is good for now. Bad news is they're definitely going to have to go back there. I mean duh. We're not even halfway through the book. Be anticlimactic not to.

At school the next day, Valerie finds Benjy and asks what's up with the club, to which he says it's a video game club. Yep, gettin' drunk at the ol' video game club. But it's enough for Valerie to realize what's up. The kids are being brainwashed. Like they're zombies in a school grade level, probably the sixth. In fact, in Mr. Hool's class, the Two T's kids are sitting with each other and the M-W kids with themselves. And each have an alibi as to what the clubs actually are. But enough with that, it's movie time. The new Destructor movie starring Hans Heller. But when Val, Mark and Trevor head there, they see no other kids there. Then Valerie suddenly finds herself walking towards the balcony, about to leap off.

She's saved by Trevor in time, but as the kids leave the theatre, they begin to realize that they've been brainwashed too. The commands all work on them. They THEN realize that they know of the M-W and the Two T clubs... what about Friday? To which they then see they have cards for the building. They've been a part of whatever's going on after all. Valerie tries to tell her parents, but she can't even mutter anything other than it's a chess club and she loves it. So it's clear that whatever is going on has full control over her brain. Why can she talk with Mark and Trevor? Well, since they're brainwashed, they all are connected to whatever the thing controlling them is. The kids are left stymied over why they've become baby's first Manchurian Candidates.

At school the next day, Mr. Hool holds an assembly to present the winner of the essay contest with a trip to Neverland, which I hope that's not the Neverland I'm thinking of. Mark wins the contest. But we can't focus on that, instead it's back to the building to see what's up. Mark thinks maybe playing the music backwards could fix it given it could be subliminal messages causing the hypnosis. While in the building the kids find a strange room with a clear metallic tube inside. And in that tube is a tall woman with white hair, which is enough for the kids to make a run out of the building once again. But never mind all that, Mark's going to Neverland with nine other kids who won the contest. Valerie is jealous given there's this cool ride called Deathwatch where you go on a coaster up a large spiral and at the peak of the ride are talking vultures who tell you to jump to your doom. And then Valerie realizes that "Oh crap, Mark and nine other kids are going to actually do just that."

But that's actually not the climax here obviously, instead Valerie and Trevor find Mr. Hool leading Mark and the others into the building and into the tube. Before she can do anything about that, she gets caught and forced to listen to the music. She wakes up home like nothing's happened. She calls Trevor, only to get the voice of the woman who was making the orders early on. It's enough to snap her back and Valerie returns to the building again and this time go through the tube. Things look the same at first on the other side, but things start to get much weirder. She's never been here before. There's no Hulkamaniacs here! She runs into more people in colored coveralls and a short-haired woman greets her as an honored guest. She speaks in the jumbled speak the others do. She also hands Valerie an umbrella because the UV of the sun is super damaging here... FIVE HUNDRED YEARS IN THE FUTURE!!! Wait, what?

Valerie is taken to a woman who is connected to a computer, similar to how Valerie almost was early on. The woman says that Valerie is to be "packaged' until they can find out what to do with her, which is enough to Val to make a run for it. She runs through the strange future with large, gangly humans in a planet of strange vegetation. Valerie finds Trevor who reveals that, shocker, he's a part of this as well. See, five hundred years is a long enough time for the physical form of the human race to radically change. As did the technology which got smaller and smaller. So small that the people of this time couldn't work it. And their climate control device is impossible for them to use, so they managed time travel to brainwash kids in the past so they could come to the future and operate the machinery. I mean, you could have gone back in time and told them not to screw things up, but it's 2023 and people still scoff at climate change. We're fucked either way. 

They also need, you know, obedient kids who know computers. Trevor mentions they tried Victorian kids, but that didn't pan out. They needed ten kids for the job, but since you have to vet which kids are right for the job, they set the clubs up and weeded them out. Trevor was a part of the job, to check to make sure which kids were right and which weren't. But he did like Valerie and Mark and wish it didn't come to this, but it's too late. Valerie says that it isn't and forces Trevor to direct her to Mark, who is with High Councilor Mooluck at Shadyside Middle School. They head to the school to find Mark. Trevor then says that all they need to do is get Mark to burp to break the spell. Sure enough, Mark manages to burp and it causes the councilor and his wife to faint. 

Mark recovers his memory and the three make a run for it, then realize they need to get the other nine kids as well. Everyone burps and it breaks the spell. Valerie, Mark and the others leave, while Trevor stays in the future. When Valerie returns home, she's scolded by her parents for being late and having bad behavior issues. No more Strange Cases for a month, but Valerie really couldn't give a crap about that anymore. She's lived a strange case.

It's our third and final Nina Kiriki Hoffman book. And I liked both her other books, Body Switchers From Outer Space and Why I'm Not Afraid of Ghosts. Of the two, this definitely feels closer in tone to Body Switchers, for good and bad reasons. Good in that it's another book with a lot of focus on futuristic technology and sci-fi elements. The problem is oh lord is this book rushed feeling. To a breakneck degree in ways. The future stuff feels so thrown in at the final bit of the book that it lacks much time to do much with. But its concept is neat. The remains of a planet whose climate is spinning out of control and whose humanity has transformed and evolved to the point that old tech is unusable to them. It's a neat idea but is so far into the end of the book that it doesn't get a chance to have the punch it should.

And, of course, there's the issue that the book never brings up that really kind of puts a flaw in this plan. And that's that this whole thing screams inevitable time paradox. That by messing with the past, in this case displacing eleven children from a time period, that it would affect the future in some manner. The butterfly effect, essentially. And then there's the other thing and while yes, it's the happy pipe dream that you could warn the past about the dangers ahead of it if it doesn't course correct and they'd actually listen, it at least makes more sense than just mind control. And works better in the context of being a kids book. Also, it's the Back to the Future "Something's gotta be done about your kids" idea that instead of fixing the past, we have to fix the future which isn't even set in stone? I have to say this is the rare case where I wish we pivoted to aliens instead.

Valerie is an okay protagonist. I like that she's more brave and outgoing, even if it leads her to trouble more often than not. But she's loyal to her friends, namely Mark, who doesn't get too much to do other than be the damsel by the end. Trevor being the villain is obvious, but he works as a character who does have moral shades of gray, which is also interesting given he's literally trying to force a way of morality into innocent kids. I do wish Mr. Hool was a character, or the white haired lady, or the computer woman. Like, she comes and goes so fast that it feels like there should have been more ideas put into that. Which again speaks to my problems with this book. A lot of really good ideas with a neat foundation, but way too all over the place and way too rushed about to make anything cool matter.

So, I was underwhelmed. Not the worst book ever, not even the worst Ghosts of Fear Street. But as a book with future concepts, time travel, mind control and the idea of forced politeness, it all feels like window dressing and nothing else. I wish we just went full Perfect School with the idea, even if both would have felt too similar. Welcome to latter era Ghosts of Fear Street. I think we're in for a ride. I Was A Sixth-Grade Zombie gets a B-.