NNtG: Graveyard School #03: The Headless Bicycle Rider

It's time to ride once again into Graveyard School. We haven't covered enough of this series yet, but it's definitely one I've been itching to get back into. And I think this book might be the one to give it a head start. Or maybe not since we have no head to speak of. At least not for our monster. Though, once you have a skeleton on a skateboard it's tricky to follow up. But can this one ride to glory? Let's see with The Headless Bicycle Rider.

Yep. That bicycle rider sure is headless. I really like this cover. There's not much to it, but in terms of being a decent horror cover, it does what it needs to do. Give us a headless bicycle rider like the title suggests. I also like point of view, giving off that vibe like the bike is floating above the viewer, adding to the ghostly feel. Add in some decent fog and creepy trees and you have the recipe for another really good cover. Solid Stuff. Also I can write my own scary report card! That's a big selling point for some reason!

Jason Dunbar is a jerk. Well, he's captain of the football team, class president and the most popular kid in school, but he's also very much a jerk. Case and point as a new kid has joined Grove Hill named Algernon Green, or Algie Green. He looks very much like your typical Poindexter archetype, which makes him an easy mark for Jason, much to the annoyance of Kirstin Bjorg, who is captain of the soccer team and one of the few kids who doesn't take Jason's crap. Jason offers Algie his seat in the cafeteria and then shoves it away before Algie has a chance to sit down. So he ends up sitting alone embarrassed and frustrated. It turns out that Algie's been to a lot of schools and a lot of towns but never really had friends. And now he has to deal with Jason and his friends, but is going to find a way to get them to stop bullying him. And I know it's a me thing, but in 1994 this just makes you think "Oh there's going to be some spooky revenge stuff" but in a post-damn near weekly school shootings situation that becomes less fun.

Algie returns home as his mother tries to encourage him, saying he has a good head on his shoulders. Then he goes upstairs and uses a computer mouse with his foot. Reader beware, ewwww. The next day after noticing the principal, Dr. Morthouse, acting weird, Algie is stopped by Kirstin and the others, which includes Jaws, Skate, Vickie, Stacey, Park and the other characters we've met so far in this series. They all get along well with Algie noting that he has a paper route and that Stacey could help him out since she's a dog walker. After that, Algie opens his locker and is attacked by a fake rat, which gets him laughed at again. It was the work of Jason and his friend Craig, but Kirsten calls him out for pulling another prank. Which means Pro: Algie may have friends after all, and Con: Jason's going to make this a hell of a lot more worse now. Later, after more derision from others, Algie meets other characters we've met before, like the snobby Polly Hannah, who isn't mean to Algie but because she's snobby I think she wasn't that bothered about Jason's prank either.

After his afterschool paper route, Algie returns home and finds a letter addressed to him. From someone named K. Bates on Seven Mile Hollow Road. He's to deliver the paper there at exactly 4:45 PM every weekday and warns him to not be late. Algie finds it odd, but when he notices a wad of bills in the envelope, he decides this is a perfect job for him. Park and Kristin tell Algie that this is actually a bad idea as Mr. Bates is supposedly an ax murderer. So now Algie's worried and, after Jason throws a basketball at his face, he's not also got broken glasses. Right now the ax murderer paper route seems more safe. And the Ax Murderer's full name is Norman Ba-No, I mean KORMAN Bates. Korman Bates. That's right. Totally original creation. Like Ricky Rouse and Monald Muck. Of course nobody has seen Korman actually commit any ax murders, but the rumors persist. As do the rumors that the road to Seven Mile Hollow Road is haunted with his victims, with one ghost in particular screaming that they want their head back. So yeah. Algie now feels super screwed. But we're just at page 29 so he's going to play skeptic for a bit.

Algie heads to Mr. Bates' house and, as it looks, it's pretty frightening. He sees something that looks like someone with a giant head rolling to its side and an evil grin on his face. Before he can tell if it's man or scarecrow, he gets attacked by a crow and makes his leave after dropping off the paper. At the school library the next day, he gets confronted by Jason who tells him that he's running once again for class president and he would appreciate Algie's vote. Algie realizes that Jason will likely kill him should he not vote for him, and after Jason leaves, he takes the book he was reading and puts Jason's name under a picture of a caveman. Librarians beware, you're in for vandalized books. But things are going to get worse for him as Kirsten is running as well and wants Algie to be her campaign manager. 

While working on the campaign, Algie learns from Park a bit more about Korman Bates, who used to run a motel. I love the blatantness of this, gotta tell you upfront. Anyway, the motel went out of business when Grove Hill built a new road. A person went to the hotel and was never seen again, presumably because Bates cut their head off. But of course that's all speculation and Algie still doesn't buy it. While working on posters, Algie gets caught by Jason who plans to kill him before he can vote for anything. It's stopped by Basement Bart, the caretaker, but it doesn't change the face that eventually Algie's going to have to fight Jason. Algie returns to Seven Mile Hollow Road and soon sees the ghost of a headless being riding a bike. Algie rides off in a panic before he gets caught and returns home. So now he's got the titular character of the book after him, so that doesn't kill him, Jason will first. If it wasn't for bad luck, I guess.

Algie tells the others, but Kirsten isn't as convinced. The others note that it might be the ghost of the person that Bates killed, but why was he on a bike? But that question will be answered later as when Algie gets to school he gets threatened again by Jason. Algie heads to the Bates house again and gets chased by a headless ghost now in a suit. So Kirsten says that she'll go with him next time. At first, however, Algie is alone, but soon Kirsten shows up and the two look around for clues, but can't find any, so no answers yet as to what's going on. The next day, Algie writes a note to Mr. Bates, saying he can't deliver his papers anymore, not saying that it's on account of any possible ghosts sans head. However, when he tries to send the letter, the postal workers say that there's nobody living at the house on Seven Mile Hollow Road. There were two Bates brothers living at the hotel, but one was decapitated with an ax and the other one simply disappeared years ago. 

That night, Algie has a nightmare about the ghost coming to cut his head off. He wakes up and smiles in a sinister way that seems to suggest that he knows what's going on. Kirsten ends up winning class president, so that just makes Jason angrier. But at this point Algie realizes that this next visit to the Bates home will be what finally puts an end to all of his strife. He dresses as the ghost and waits for the headless bike rider to show up. He scares the "ghost" who turns out to be Jason. They argue for a bit when a real headless bike rider shows up with something in a backpack and holding a helmet. The two panic and drive off. They both bury the hatchet, but not an actual hatchet, and drive off.

The ghost laughs and takes out their head from their backpack. Kirsten's head. She laughs a bit more and drives off.

I really liked how this one went down. The inspiration is easy to see as it's a clear reference to the story of Ichabod Crane and Sleepy Hollow. Right down to Jason playing the Brom Bones role. So as far as a modernization of the story goes, it's fine. It even has a decent mystery and a pretty good reveal you wouldn't have immediately guessed, but I did when we got to the meeting with Kirsten in on the road. It does leave with some obvious plot holes though. Why is Kirsten still in school and running for class president? The obvious explanation is that Graveyard School just is used to having ghosts in their alma mater. Ghosts that I guess can play soccer still. Somewhere Debbie Dadey may have went "Shit, why didn't I think of that?" Though Zombies was close enough I guess. There's also the mystery of where the Bates brother ended up, which doesn't get explained as it gets moot. But I guess we can't have an ax murderer in a kids book. Unless they're in a Shivers book I guess.

Algie is a decent protagonist. You feel bad for him throughout the story and the book does a good enough job in building his character. Becoming less of a victim to Jason's antics as the story goes along. He starts to take less of Jason's crap and starts to stand up for himself, which is the kind of character growth that I love to see in these books. Jason works as the main villain. Constantly arrogant, always treating Algie like crap, to the point you want to see him get taken down a peg. Granted, his defeat feels a bit easy, as does the rushed feel of the conclusion, but we at least end the book not so much feeling he's changed, but he'll at least leave Algie be. Kirsten is a solid best friend character who also doubles as our ghost. There are logistic plot holes in making her the main ghost villain, but otherwise she's still a memorable enough character. Not so much the others who only exist to keep with continuity of the world. Characters like Dr. Morthouse, Basement Bart and Assistant Principal Lucre still just exist to be creepy with really no major ties to anything substantial.

I kind of love how blatant this book was with the whole Bates Motel thing. The concept of Korman Bates and how he may have killed his brother before fleeing. And while, yes, I'd have loved at least some explanation to what happened there, I think it still is a solid misdirect. Along the lines of the Marling family from Werewolf Skin. Speaking of Goosebumps, this book predates The Headless Ghost. Both stories have similarities, but both do some things better than the other. Headless Ghost gives us a great creepy atmosphere and stories to build Hill House up. Headless Bicycle Rider does a better job at the slice of life element and making its protagonists likeable enough to want to follow. It even does a better job in the fake out ghost in my opinion. Both have massive pros and cons, but I do think Headless Ghost feels more memorable, which gives it the slight edge.

So this is the first Graveyard School book I liked. There are a lot of flaws to it, plot holes that hurt the product, and it does sort of feel like it just ends. But I like the characters, the slice of life element, the supernatural stuff we do get and it does a decent enough job being a take on an old story while still feeling original in its own right. So a light recommend. Far from a perfect book, but it has its head on straight for the most part. The Headless Bicycle Rider gets a B.