NNtG: Spinetinglers #10: The Dead Kid Did It

It's time to open up another Spinetinglers. We've had an interesting batch of books so far. A few I like, a few I didn't. This time we're dealing with a dead kid. Not just that but a dead kid who's a bit of a prankster. Did this predict Dead Bart? Probably not, but I can't say I'm not intrigued. Let's find out why The Dead Kid Did It. 

Oh gee, I have absolutely no idea who could have illustrated this cover. That's sarcasm, just as a head up. This might be the most Tim Jacobus cover ever. The checkerboard ceiling, the massive warped angle, the design of the kid in general. If his feet weren't obscured I'm certain he's have Chuck Taylor's on. The cover also weirdly feels like an alternate of the cover for The Haunted School. Books and papers spilling out of a locker with a creepy being inside. Weirdly also feels like a flip with the lockers being green and the ceiling having red, where it's vice versa for Haunted School. This book predates Haunted School by at least over a year, so maybe Tim just went back to the well for the Goosebumps cover? Wouldn't surprise me. Either way, it's a great cover. 

Dunning Healy's having a hard time. He just moved to town and is going to Wilson Elementary. Everything should be fine, except there's a dead kid in his locker. And when he tries to tell his class, they all laugh at him, thinking he's playing practical jokes. Before class, Dunning had pulled out his book for free reading, but instead got grabbed by the dead kid. He also brought a horror book for free reading that he has to do an oral report on, so that doesn't quite help his cause. However, one person seems to believe him. One of his classmates, Kim Barstow, had his locker last year and it was also filled with a dead kid who may or may not have did it. Dunning waits for Kim as she does a makeup test, so he worries about going back to the locker. But then he gets a thought. Maybe he did make it up, or it's all a prank on the new kid. Kim put a poster in his locker to scare him. It's totally not him in a massive state of denial, certainly. He's also mad that his father had to take this job since Mr. Hooper died.

After some fifth graders mock him for his claims of a Dead Kid, they're chased off by some teachers. Dunning decides to open his locker, but is again grabbed and soon shoved out. Kim finally shows up to confirm his dilemma. He's got a dead kid in that locker. He calls his mom about going to Kim's, but she's concerned since I guess the Healy parents don't approve of Dunning associating with people who don't share the same values they do, which Dunning equates to them thinking he'll befriend a drug dealer, but like, that sounds way worse than just "friends with a drug dealer" to me. Kim talks with Dunning, mentioning that she's moved plenty of times. When she got the locker, the same thing was going on with some dead kid grabbing at her. She never told anyone about it, and any not-so-subtle attempt to prove it to others didn't work. The dead kid didn't want to do it to a large audience. She managed to get a new locker by telling the principal it sticks a lot and that did the trick. 

So, why are sixth-graders even assigned lockers? The principal, Mr. Crabtree, used to be the junior high principal and felt that lockers were a good way to prep kids for junior high. And Dunning can't leave his stuff in class since there's locker checks. The school paid for those lockers and Mr. Crabtree's going to ensure they get used, dammit. But conveniently there's a PTA meeting later that night and Kim has an idea. Head to the meeting, wait until everyone's gone and the school is locked, then check the locker to see where the Dead Kid is coming from. What's on the other side? They wait it out and head to the locker. Sure enough, they open the back of the locker and find a large hole and a stench that smells like death. So with a path to head through, they make their search. Down inside the hole an open casket and the dead kid, Jonathan, who doesn't attack them, instead he asks for their help. 

See, Jonathan's been dead for fifty years and for those fifty years he's been asking for someone to help him, but nobody responded. That is until Mr. Crabtree set up the lockers, giving him a way to tunnel from his burial site and out to the school itself. And what he needs help with is moving his casket. See, the school was built over the old cemetery and all of the corpses were moved to the new one which, Jesus that sounds like a horror of every caliber. Jonathan had spent the night of the move haunting and when he got back, his casket was the only one not moved, meaning he's been stuck in the school for fifty years and unable to actually rest in peace. Why not move it himself? Well, for some reason he can't actually move it himself. They need the living to help them out. But the casket is under the middle of the school, meaning that they have to dig inside the school and pull the casket out with ropes. 

Kim and Dunning leave, both saying "Bro we're totally going to help you with this, don't you worry". Of course, both realize they haven't a hope in hell of convincing Mr. Crabtree or anyone in the school that they need to excavate a casket under the school to satiate a zombie. Dunning doesn't want to keep dealing with this, but Kim tells him to stall and keep Jonathan thinking that they'll help him out for the rest of the school year. Dunning realizes this is a pretty stupid idea so he heads home and continues to wonder what he can do to remedy this. The next day Dunning tries to stall with Jonathan, but the dead kid isn't taking it. He wants his coffin moved ASAP. While this is going down, a girl named Jessica Wipple is noticing that Dunning is talking to his locker, which is very weird. So Dunning goes to tell Mr. Crabtree about it, but he collapses, seemingly having a heart attack. Well that escalated. Dunning tells Jonathan about almost killing the principal and how that he can't help him, but Jonathan promises to make Dunning regret it. 

And that is by sending notes embarrassing Dunning, saying he loves Jessica and that Mr. Crabtree is in a relationship with a teacher, which turns out to be true. Also he's not dead, so it was more of an anxiety attack maybe?  Dunning tells Jonathan that blackmailing won't work because if Dunning gets expelled, there goes his patsy to get him to the cemetery. Jonathan then says he has a plan, but won't tell Dunning just what that is. That plan is revealed the next day as about twenty dead kids leave the cemetery and are now in the school. The school is in chaos, as the dead kids, many who went to the school, are all in league with Jonathan in getting his casket moved. So he could have done this from the beginning? Just go to the cemetery and cause a dead kid revolt? That feels a bit like a massive plot hole right there but okay. Dunning and Kim run into Jonathan who says that his plan will surely work now. So the casket gets moved and it's all over and done, right? Oh right, we're at page 75. Of 150. 

See, it should be easy to just acquiesce to the whims of the dead kids and move Jonathan's casket, but the school board is against it. Not willing to destroy the school on the whims of a bunch of kid corpses. The board says to just let the school kids stay there. And they do. One of the dead girls even becomes a cheerleader which is neat. I guess no discrimination against the dead, though I guess that's mainly out of fear of being haunted for life. Also Dunning is being blamed for all of it, because it's his locker and all. Jonathan tells Dunning that he didn't mean for this to happen and he wants to meet at the football field to settle this. However, when Dunning shows up, the dead body of Mr. Hooper is there instead who tells Dunning that plans have changed... again. See, they were all fine hanging around in the cemetery but now that the dead kids are hanging around, why should they be regular stiffs when they could be working stiffs? The dead want their jobs back, including the one Dunning's dad took. The dead have rights as well. The messaging in this book is interesting, I'll definitely have to get to it in the conclusion. 

Dunning runs home with Mr. Hooper chasing after him. He tells his dad about the dead adults planning to take the jobs, so his dad heads to city counsel. In fact the dead families want their houses back too. It's all getting chaotic, and there's no sign of Jonathan. But Dunning and Kim realize he must have been trapped in his casket. And sure enough, there's a lock on it. I guess the dead CAN manipulate objects but can't move a casket? That plot hole's turning into a plot chasm. They free Jonathan and decide that he should stay with Dunning for a bit until they come up with a plan. They then head out through another exit which wait a second. If there's an alternate path that the dead can take that both Kim and Dunning are able to escape, then why didn't they just do that in the first place? Just find a way to move the casket out that way then take it to the new cemetery? The book tries to make it specific that it has to be through the school and suspended with cables but this all feels very convoluted. 

Dunning and Jonathan arrive at Dunning's house. Jonathan tells Dunning that if they're going to solve this matter, Dunning needs to find four dead kids. Mack James, Latham Edwards, Kathy Hooper and Renee Laging. Dunning and Kim get the kids and head back to Dunning's house. He also realizes that Kathy Hooper is Mr. Hooper's daughter and thus this might be a bad idea. Jonathan tells the kids that he didn't follow proper cemetery etiquette and got his casket stuck under a school. The other kids note that they were enjoying their time amongst the living until the adult dead showed up and tried to take everything back over. Turns out the dead just mostly love being in their caskets and playing cards. I guess you need any distraction while decomposing. But some of the kids don't want to leave given they've grown fond of the playground. that gives Dunning an idea. The dead kids are bored and want to play mostly, so why not move the current playground to the cemetery? That should fix things at least on the kid front. 

The next day, the dead kids disassemble the playground and move it to the cemetery. Which okay, one problem solved. Still 25 pages left to solve anything else. Jonathan doesn't fully think it'll work while Dunning says he'll be glad to no longer have to compete against dead people. Look, I'm downplaying it, but there's a heavy feeling that if "dead people" was something else... I'll get to it in the conclusion. Anyway, Jonathan never factored the adults, who still want their houses and jobs back. He just thought about dead kids. So Dunning has an idea. The playground equipment is one thing, why not have there be houses and jobs at the cemetery for the dead people to live in and work? Hey remember when this was about moving a casket? Well, we're getting to that. The dead kids move the playground equipment overnight. Mr. Crabtree and the school board aren't happy about that and refuse to negotiate. But Dunning says that there may be one way to end all of this. Just move Jonathan's casket to the new cemetery like we could have 70 odd pages ago. And sure enough, they do just that. Jonathan takes Dunning's TV in the process, but it's all taken care of.

It all goes well for the rest of the year. The dead kids are happy with the equipment and the dead adults didn't take over the town as a new town was built for them. A new kid moves into town and soon enough, he says that a dead kid grabbed him from his locker, meaning Jonathan wants something else, I guess?

Boy oh fuckin' boy did I pick a time to read this one. I mean, any time would be bad but right now does not help. Because I'll be up front. If this book replaced the words "dead kids" and "dead adults" with "immigrants" or "foreigners" or "insert race here" this would feel like a much darker book. And that breaks down to really how the dead people are talked about by the living and how the book presents itself as a case of these people entering the town and taking over the jobs, the schools, the homes, the way of life in this town. It's one of those books that balances its context very precariously but did give me this very underlying feeling of xenophobia. And I'm not blaming George Edward Stanley for that. He's our ghostwriter BTW. Wrote a bunch of kids books and American history books. I do think that he didn't have those undertones in mind, but all of it does make for a book that feels like something that becomes a rough sit when you put the current political climate in mind.

As for the book itself, it's a weird one. I liked the premise in the first half of the book. The need to get the casket put in the new cemetery and Jonathan's need to get it done. The latter half is fine as a plot, but also feels like a need to pad this book because the plot of moving a casket doesn't lend itself to 150 pages. And there is this actually good unsettling vibe of the undead just being everywhere, making everything feel like a living nightmare. It just really feels undercooked and falls apart really quick. Because if Jonathan could just leave the cemetery and talk to the dead kids, why did he wait fifty years? Why did all of the pieces only fall into place when Dunning and Kim get involved? In fact, Dunning and Kim don't really feel like they matter to this. Other than trying to create a compromise and inevitably getting the casket moved. 

I also feel the "We need to move the casket this way because cemetery rules or whatever" comes off as too much of a case of padding the plot when, again, Jonathan has a way out that clearly does not need to involve digging through the school. And I know that to be true because when the book could have just gotten the ball rolling, the book stalls on that and goes with the dead people plot. And why did it take this long for the dead people to even consider taking back their lives or lack thereof? It all gets resolved so quickly and so breakneck that I don't really feel like it satisfies anyone. It's why I feel this second half doesn't work for me. It feels like we're tacking on more plot when we really don't need it and giving us a solution that could have solved everything from the start. And for a book that's 150 pages, that's not exactly high praise. 

Dunning is a decent protagonist. You understand his plight and want to at least see him succeed. Kim works as the best friend. Jonathan is an interesting character. A character who went too far in wanting something done, but ultimately isn't evil. Mr. Crabtree could be interesting as an antagonist but doesn't really do enough aside from maybe that weird scene where he almost dies and we just resolve that with no answer. The dead kids mostly exist for the most part and the book tries to go somewhere with Mr. Hooper (Initially called Mr. Hooker for some reason, the hell?) or his daughter being part of the group, but they really don't matter in the end, same with the kids at the meeting. Not Superfluous Clay level, but it could have been like Jonathan, Kim, Dunning and another dead kid and nothing would have really been lost.

Overall, this book isn't the worst book, but it's also very mediocre. It has issues, massive plot holes, and its messaging for the second half could be construed as far, far worse in any other context. But I do like the idea of the dead people in general and I like the main characters enough that I was entertained. I fully admit that my feelings on the context is probably a me thing, but I can't really shake it off. I still give it a recommend, but don't expect a very strong book to read. Spinetinglers remains a weird anomaly with what I'm clearly seeing are some very strange books that I think do try to tell messages, only for them to be muddy in one way or another. Hope that's not the full series, but time will tell. The Dead Kid Did It gets a C.