NNtG: Bone Chillers #17: Why I Quit the Baby-Sitters Club

No, that title is not any admission when it comes to my output of BSC blogs (I swear I'll try to have the next one done soon), but rather the interesting title of the Bone Chillers book we're covering today. It's been over a year since I've covered anything Betsy Haynes related (even if this is actually written by David Bergantino). We have monster babies to deal with this time. So by the end of the book we can see why our protagonist would want to quit. Is this book as easy as taking candy from a baby, or a rude rugrat? Let's find out Why I Quit the Baby-Sitters Club.

This is a great cover. Plenty of Jacobus staples from the ooze to the creepy hand to the weird looking doll to the lush, lush oh-so-lush Jacobus trees. If you want a cover about a monster baby, it's hard to think of one that lands better in terms of being enticing. Though, like I said with Scare Bear, there's just this weird feeling to some of Tim's outside Goosebumps works of this era, as much like how Scare Bear feels like it would have been a cover for the Tales to Give You Goosebumps story "Mr. Teddy", this feels like it would have been the cover for "Strained Peas" were it an actual book. I'm certain it's all highly coincidental, but just a neat thing to think about with covers like this. Great stuff.

Rosie Johansen starts the story by being annoyed by her best friend Amber Slade and her twin brothers Lyle and Kyle. They continue to call her chicken on account of her not wanting to go into Boneyard Woods, named that for the discovery of human bones in the forest about fifty years prior. And despite being her friend and all, even Amber is taunting Rosie to go in. I guess it's true, bros before... Rosie tries to back out more, given her bike's got a flat, but the others suggest taking her sister Judy's new super expensive, I'm sure isn't totally going to be broken on a ride in the woods mountain bike. Rosie does just that and the foursome look around the woods for a bit. They hear a monstrous roar and make a run for it, with Rosie crashing into a tree and wrecking Judy's bike. 

So now Rosie is in serious trouble. Given her parents are buying Judy a new bike, that means that Rosie has to pay them back for the damages. But she doesn't know how. Amber suggests that Rosie could take up a baby-sitting job. I mean, she might handle babies better than she does bikes. Rosie isn't thrilled, but she's also without any alternatives. Amber suggests that Rosie babysits for the Pendred family who just moved into town. The father, Solomon, is a doctor, and the baby might be a girl, Amber doesn't know, for reasons that we're not going to explain on page twelve of this 102 page book. After getting awful hand-me-downs from Judy on account of being unable to actually buy clothes for a while given the debt and all, Rosie takes calls Dr. Pendred who speaks in a slow, creepy voice. He accepts Rosie's offer to baby-sit, saying he'll pick her up after dark and she'll be there past midnight.

Rosie is picked up by Dr. Pendred in his car, which is a hearse, so that's concerning. When she arrives, she sees that both Dr. and Mrs. Maudie Pendred are elderly, very elderly. They tell Rosie that the baby is sleeping and shouldn't be a problem all night, so you should definitely not go into the room to check on her. After the Pendreds leave, Rosie checks around the house, noting it looks very old, and that it's odd that there are no pictures of the baby around, rather a statue of a dachshund hound. But her concerns disappear when she sees their fridge is stocked full of junk food which she's been given permission to eat. After eating, she begins to worry if the baby needs anything, but decides not to. She then hears a strange sound outside. She thinks it's Lyle and Kyle, but when she checks, there's nobody around. The Pendreds arrive home after midnight and it seems everything went well with whatever they went out for. They give her a hundred bucks and bring her home in their hearse which definitely smells more corpse-y. 

The next day, Rosie asks Amber if Lyle and Kyle were there the previous night, to which she says that she did, so that makes Rosie think the noises were them and certainly no monsters or babies, or baby monsters. Rosie baby-sits the following Saturday. She wants to see the baby, but again Mrs. Pendred says that it's best no to disturb her. She needs her sleep after the big meal she had. After the Pendreds leave, Rosie is about to open the door to the baby's room, only to be scared by a sound at the front door. It's Amber, who wants to see what's up in this totally normal baby-sitting job. They resume opening the door to the baby's room, but it's locked. This causes them to panic, so they go to see if there's a window to the room that they can access. They peer inside and it mostly looks normal, save for the crib, which is way larger than a normal crib. This book would be better if we learn the baby is, like, Baby Huey or something. And that is one hell of a dated reference. 

Amber leaves and Rosie again checks the fridge for food. She then finds a bowl filled with what she thinks is rice, only it's actually a bowl of maggots. So hey, hope you weren't eating tapioca pudding while reading this. Rosie decides that a maggot bowl is the ultimate deal breaker and she's done baby-sitting, but when the Pendreds return, Mrs. Pendred asks for her to baby-sit the next night since it's a matter of life and death. She asks about the door being locked, but they say it must have been Rosie turning the door the wrong way. Rosie is freaked out, also noticing mud on Mrs. Pendred's shoes, but ultimately agrees to the job. The next night comes and the Pendreds rush out, once again locking the baby's room door on Rosie, so she still can't see what's actually in that room. She goes to get a drink of water and thinks she sees a grape in the sink, only it's an eyeball. A popped out eyeball. Well that answers it. The Pendreds are big fans of that one Vader/Stan Hansen match. And there's my one wrestling reference.

Freaked out at the sight of an eyeball, Rosie drops it to the ground and rolls under the door to the basement. She checks down in the basement. No plant dads there, but it definitely looks like some sort of lab constructed by Dr. Pendred. After getting a call from Mrs. Pendred, and still freaked out, Rosie calls Amber about everything, when she begins to hear noises coming from the baby's room, as if it's choking on something. Probably choking on all this padding. The noises get more strange and almost animal-like. Rosie searches the house ands finds the key to open the door, but also finds a book in the desk in the Pendred's basement lab. It's Dr. Pendred's journal with a recent entry. It says that Rosie is a bright child and will soon find out what's going on. They'll have to move again, but until then they'll continue their nightly missions to feed their child. That every night they search the dead for the formula for precious life. Rosie hears more noises in the room, but continues to read the book from the beginning.

In 1949, Solomon and Maudie's precious one was playing outside, chasing a kitten when she ended up in the street and ran over by a car. She was barely alive, with the doctors saying there was likely no chance they'd be able to save her. The baby continued to live, but wouldn't eat. They would find the kitten not long after, dead. Somewhere a young boy named Bob Stine was really happy all of a sudden. However, when he saw the baby react to the dead cat, it struck Dr. Pendred with an idea. He noticed that the animal had enzymes on it that would be able to keep the baby alive. So, yeah. That baby's eating roadkill. The formula for precious life is dead animal carcasses. For forty years the Pendreds kept their daughter alive, still forever as a toddler. But the effects of eating the carcasses has turned the baby monstrous, disfigured creature with a huge appetite. This takes us to 1996, AKA the present in terms of this book. The baby has become more ravenous and if not attended to by Solomon or Maudie, she will break out of its room and eat whoever she can find until satisfied. They figured that if they hire a baby-sitter, they can go out to find more food for their baby while the baby can eat the baby-sitter. If the authorities search, they'll use a note to cover their tracks, as Maudie is great at copying handwriting, saying the baby-sitter ran away. Then they'll escape somewhere else before the feds arrive.

As Rosie freaks out over the realization that she's lunch for an undead monster baby, she hears the beastly sounds in the room above the basement, now saying that it's hungry. She grabs a letter opener and returns up the stairs. But she also realizes she's screwed. Not just because of the baby, but because the Pendreds will know that she knows and they have their plan in place. Either way, she's baby food. She thinks to call 911, because you know they'll believe a kid's cries over a monster baby, but a convenient storm hits, causing the phone lines to go dead. And if that's not enough, she comes face to deformed face with the baby. Short and squat, with greenish-brown furry skin, fangs, claws, a snout and looking more animal than human. Rosie grabs the letter opener, then notices that it has "Dr. Solomon Pendred, DVM" engraved on it. She then sees the dachshund statue again and puts two and two together. DVM stands for Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Their baby isn't a human baby. It was NEVER a human baby. It was their dog!

Rosie rushes out of the house with the dog chasing after her. She trips over a root, giving the dog enough time to catch up. She tries to calm it down, but that doesn't work. So she recovers in time and continues to run. She finds the hearse and the Pendreds... or should I say, the Pendred's CORPSES! It appears that Dr. Pendred had fallen asleep at the wheel, causing the car to lose control and crash into a telephone pole, totaling it and killing both Pendreds instantly. So now Rosie is doubly screwed. Now there's no one to control the beast. Speaking of which, the dog returns, ready to pounce on Rosie. But Rosie notices the power line on the ground. So she lures the dog to come at her by using a dead rat from the hearse. The dog goes for it, but gets electrocuted by the power line, killing it instantly. 

Rosie's mom finds her. Amber's there as well. They see the sight of the crashed hearse and the corpse of the dog. They head home with Rosie telling Amber everything. She then remembers that she got 300 dollars from the Pendreds. She decides to give only one hundred to her parents, even if it won't cover the mountain bike. She then plans to go to the nearby animal shelter and give the other 200 to help the animals there get better treatment than the Pendreds dog did.

Yep. I loved this book. It may honestly be in contention for not just my favorite Bone Chillers book, but in my favorite list of every book I've blogged. Practically everything about it works perfectly. The pacing (even if it does feel a tad padded in parts, but not to the level of a Stine work), the horror, the mystery and the climax. Honestly, it's one of the best mysteries I've ever seen for any of these kids horrors. Granted, you could start to figure it out with how the baby is constantly referred to never as their child, but as their "precious one", how the book mentions the dog statue early on, and things like the giant cage or how this started by it chasing after a cat and the driver not caring about running over a dog. But the pacing and how well structured the book is allows for everything to be revealed at just the right points in time that even if you guessed it first, you'll still be wowed by it. Granted, the monster dog suddenly learning how to say "Hungry" is a bit odd, as if the book for a second was hoping to just have it be a zombie baby. But I can also allow it since it's a dog that's been around for almost 50 years and became more monstrous and seemingly more sentient over time. I could buy it saying "Hungry" just as much as I could buy that being what Rosie thinks she hears out her fear at that point in time.

Rosie is a likeable protagonist. You understand her plight, needing to pay for her sister's bike and everything involving the mystery of the story. The book starts with her being more of a cowardly character, but she sort of becomes braver by surviving the horror. Amber works as the best friend of the story, though I do wonder if her no longer taking the Pendred job was because she was suspicious, we never really get an answer either way. Kyle and Lyle are our Superfluous Clays of the book. Here in the inciting incident and then disappearing into the ether. Honestly, if it was just Amber daring Rosie into the woods nothing would have changed. The dog is a great monster villain. You get enough time to build to its reveal and enough time in the story for it to feel like a threat. To feel like something that could have killed Rosie. But at the same time, you can feel bad for it. It should have died decades ago. And prolonging its life made it more feral and uncontrollable. But still an animal that didn't deserve the fate it got. And in other cases, you'd probably be mad we didn't get a zombie baby but a dog instead, but honestly, I feel it served the book greatly and didn't feel like a bait-and-switch.

The Pendreds are great villains. There's a freaky vibe to them, not just because they've spent their lives caring for a monster dog, but just how they act in general. They also still feel sympathetic. You can understand why this is all happening given that Solomon was a vet and this was their dog. He wasn't willing to let an animal die. However, he chose the most unethical means to maintain their dog's survival that it does feel a bit like an attempt at playing god gone wrong. In this case trying to deny the death that the animal clearly needed. So to have both of them die in the story, and not even fully off screen, we see their corpses, in what is described as a very gruesome death via car crash, it genuinely feels like one of the most shocking things any of these books have ever given us. And I know this is Bone Chillers and there have been some super fucked up Bone Chillers, but this feels like something a Shivers book would do. That "you want horror, you're gonna get horror" feel that you don't get enough of in these kids horror books. Even the way the dog is killed is super dark and so not like many of these books. Props to David Bergantino. He went out of his way to make this one of the darker and more action packed books that we've seen. It's something I wish we got more of. 

Bone Chillers continues to be the book series that surprises me. It often feels more daring when it comes to shocking horror stories for kids. Ones that tow the line between dark and disturbing and still fun and engaging. And this might be my favorite book of them all as it does all of that very well. Perhaps formulaic for most, but for me, who loves when books get a chance to have fun with its concept, I'll gladly take that formula if the direction leads me to something memorable. Honestly, it's been a while since I've had this much fun with a book, so thanks Bone Chillers. Oh baby, was this one incredible. Why I Quit the Baby-Sitters Club gets an A+.