Last post, in true Choose Your Own Adventure fashion, we achieved a good ending where we saved the world, albeit in a mildly anticlimactic kind of way that makes us immediately wonder, huh, so, how did we not get any of the better endings?
In our final annual Goosebumps post of 2020, this is the question we ask ourselves: what were the other ways this story could have gone? Or, as Ariel pitched it to me over Discord, “what if we do Animal House cards?” Which I had to ask her to clarify.
Ariel and I have combed through the rest of the book, and together we bring you: what else could have gone wrong?
What If We Didn’t Think We Got The Right Grandma At The Train Station?
“What other decisions? Didn’t you guys die immediately every time you made basically any decision ever?” Yeah, this is what I thought when we got to our first good ending. Where on earth were the other branching paths??
Turns out the first decision that determines our fate/narrative was when, post-EMPLEH, we saw a woman who also looked just like our grandma on the train who was being kidnapped on the train, which Ariel decided not to worry about. But if we instead abandoned grandma #1 and leapt aboard the train as it left the station…
Everyone stares at you as you enter the car. You nervously run a hand through your hair. You try to act as if jumping between the cars of a moving train is the most natural thing in the world.
You have a feeling you’re not very convincing.
AND THEN WE GET A NEW CHOICE! It’s a whole other world over here!
Obviously, it’s too complicated to summarize this whole other series of branching paths in this one post, so this brings us to the true, more realistic Choose Your Own Adventure experience: flipping through the book all out of order to see what the other endings were.
What If We Actually Managed To Competently Capture Alien-Grandma?
Alternatively, if you decide to spy on her in the garden, we discover 1) that grandma is an alien (again) and 2) that Sophie has a dark sense of humor.
“I know what we have to do!” Sophie says. “We have to capture your grandma. Then we’ll torture her until she spills her guts!” […]
“Sophie!” You stare at your friend.
She grins. “Just kidding. About the torture part. But I do think we should capture your grandma.”
Don’t fuck with Sophie, y’all.
Sophie suggests we “knock her out and lock her up” (Sophie was really holding out on us in our timeline), which we actually manage to do (I know), then a few more things happen… once of which is that I can decide to deal with the threat of the eggs by putting them in the fridge, then we… all call it a day and go to sleep? Apparently just leaving tied-up not-grandma in the garage. Sure.
But, alas, we wake up and my parents are back and making scrambled eggs for breakfast. You can guess where this is going.
“Mom?” you ask. “Where did you get the eggs?”
You aren’t happy when you hear the answer.
“From the refrigerator, silly,” she tells you. She scoops up another forkful. “Did you buy them? They weren’t there when we left.” […]
Your stomach does a flip-flop.
You’ve been eating the alien eggs!
Have you ever heard the expression, “You’re are what you eat?” You’re about to find out how true it really is!
Why did I jump to that conclusion? This would be like if I ate Taco Bell and decided that the only explanation for why I felt bad afterwards was because I was turning into a crunchwrap.
Also, this is the only ending where I stop to think, huh, that woman being kidnapped on the train must have been my real grandma, who is still out there in peril and forgotten… whoops.
What If Alien-Grandma Is Not An Imposter, But Is Actually Your Real Grandma?
A truly incredible ending happens if you tie up grandma and decide to call the authorities where, actually, everything is just a big misunderstanding.
you glance out the window — and notice someone sneaking around your garage! […] You charge through the door. And gasp.
Grandma has transformed!
She’s covered in green scales and has sprouted seven arms and three heads. All three heads are smiling into the intruder’s video camera.
“What’s going on?” you demand.
“I’m interviewing your grandma,” the guy explains. […]
all of Grandma’s heads laugh. “Everyone knows you’ve got to come to Earth to get your big break!” she explains.
Everything is a big misunderstanding. The eggs? Grandma’s lunch! The fight on the train? Staged for television! Your humanity?
“Are you saying that I’m an alien like you?” […]
You notice Andrew and Sophie hanging back in the doorway. Their eyes are wide open, staring at you. “It’s a lie!” you wail at them.
“Cookie! How can you say that? Of course it’s true.” Grandma holds out her seven arms to hug you.
Again, no idea if this is considered a “good” ending or not, but it is unquestionably the best ending (according to Matthew, who, by the nature of this blog, no longer understands what “good” means on a conceptual level).
What Happens If You Ask Grandma “What’s Up?”
Incredibly, even the book thinks this is a dumb move, and won’t even let you make it.
You must not read these books very often.
Otherwise you would know better.
Do you actually think that Grandma will tell you why she has boxes of hands and feet? Why she has a mask that could pass for your mom? What the deal is with the rose garden and the meteors? […]
Very, very quickly and very, very quietly turn back to PAGE 127. And make a different choice.
What Happens If You Tell Andrew’s Parents Your Grandma is an Alien Plotting a Hostile Takeover of the Planet?
This one might actually be the scariest ending. After you and your friends rush over to Andrew’s house to enlist his parents in your valiant quest to stop the aliens, things take a disturbing turn.
You don’t like the way they’re all smiling at you. As if they were all in on a big joke.
“There are aliens trying to take over the world!” you shout. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“We do believe you,” Andrew’s mother says in a soothing tone.
Then she peels off her face!
So do Andrew, Sophie, and Andrew’s dad.
Stine, R. L.. Secret Agent Grandma (Give Yourself Goosebumps #16) (p. 102). Scholastic Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Even more disturbingly, Andrew then reaches into his pocket and places a baby alien on your shoulder. Your last thoughts are inexplicably, “Mom wouldn’t let me get my ear pierced, but I got my way in the — OWWWWWWWW!”
Wow you sure showed mom?
While this ending is my (Ariel’s) favorite by far, it raises the question…do all these endings genuinely take place in different realities? Because in our good ending, Andrew and Sophie are unaffected by the musical destruction we wreak upon the aliens. They also are the ones who are often suggesting we fight the aliens (I mean Sophie was instrumental in the downfall of the aliens.) So by choosing to go talk to Andrew’s parents…did we cause all of these people to become aliens?
Sorry, please me excuse me while I curl up on the fetal position and cry.
What Happens If Chuck and Ginny are Apparently Characters in This Story?
There is an entire reality where Andrew and Sophie (WHO MAY OR MAY NOT BE ALIENS??) are replaced by your other friends Chuck and Ginny who happen to be at the train station for vague reasons that are never fully explained beyond, “Our moms are letting us take the train on our own.” TO WHERE, THOUGH, CHILDREN? TO WHERE?
If you choose to investigate the fight you witnessed between grandma and those mysterious dudes on the train, Chuck and Ginny go along for this adventure with you, and you discover grandma in the baggage room and free her from the power of a strange orange light.
You describe everything that has happened. She clucks and shakes her head. “I was afraid they might be onto me.”
Then Grandma tells you an amazing story.
She’s a secret agent specializing in alien investigations!
Stine, R. L.. Secret Agent Grandma (Give Yourself Goosebumps #16) (p. 28). Scholastic Inc.. Kindle Edition.
After finally learning why this book has “Secret Agent” in the title (NARY A MENTION OF COVERT OPS IN OUR CHOSEN ADVENTURE), Grandma then recruits you to also investigate aliens. The entire plot is more badass than the time Travis got inexplicably recruited by the FBI to wield dual glocks and fight gangsters in Vegas. I will never stop finding reasons to link to that post, never.
Worth noting, if you decline grandma’s invitation to join her in alien investigation, the book is pissed:
That is the Goosebumps equivalent of a mic drop if I’ve ever seen one.
In the strangest turn of events of all time, if you accept grandma’s mission, she explains that every year the aliens have a big meeting on a different planet, and this year it’s on Earth. She needs you to find out what the meeting is about, but when you don some alien disguises and go to check the situation out…
Presumably Evil Alien Grandma is wandering around trying to find your rose garden filled with her alien babies? It was pretty cool of her to blow off this convention and pave her own path.
Have you ever heard the expression, “You’re about to find out how true it really is!”
Is this an expression? Has anyone ever said this? In what way does it relate to the consumption of alien eggs? The true horror of Goosebumps is the likelihood that I will never know
Whoops, this is a typo. Looks like we accidentally published an old draft of the post. It’s updated now! There are better jokes/more logical writing THROUGHOUT!
This year’s Goosebumps might be my favorite just yet, ‘specially with all the bad endings the book kept foisting on us. Really gave me a good laugh or five over breakfast last month. (I will miss that nosy cab driver. Creepy grandma and her rose garden, not so much.)
So, uh, I know y’all probably have tons on your plate already, and sorry if this sounds pushy. But if you do want to take another stab at mocking bad lit, I believe I have a recommendation–possibly a juicy one, too. I’m currently hashing my way through Angelus Mortis, a story that can be summed up as “bland, Bella-like Author Avatar is set up to meet the god of death whose mother reeeeeeaaaaaaaally wants him to marry a womxn because heteronormativity”. Also internalized and external misogyny.
And that’s not getting into the over-the-top purple prose, written like the authors have never heard of Show, Don’t Tell in their lives. Or the blatant fetishism of conventional beauty and the aristocracy, or the misogyny which is also combined with dub-con/rape and stalking (an old classic, ugh). Or even the overall “It’s All About Me” vibe from practically the whole cast…and did I mention the misogyny yet? Because it runs through practically every. single. chapter.
It rather reminds me of some of the other fine tales we’ve read ’round these parts, really. Hell, the main villain himself is so abusive and tripped up on his toxic hypermasculinity that he could give Christian Grey a run for his money. And the love interest? He’s about as compelling as Edward Cullen, and shilled just as aggressively to boot.
The only real catch is that Angelus Mortis is a fanfic, so I dunno if that’s up your alley. Totally understandable if it isn’t; the story knows and panders to its audience, anyway. But considering we’ve read and riffed on the likes of Pamela and ACoTaR, Angelus Mortis seems like it’d fit in here nicely. (I’d dissect it myself, but I lack the writing talent and the analytical chops for a good critique.)
Yeah. That’s all I wanted to say. I’ll be along now–sorry to bother you.