Tag: The Babysitter

My burning questions at the end of Jenny’s second babysitting gig were:

☎️ Does Jenny really need to go through this a third time?

☎️ Is anyone going to buy the poor girl an answering machine so she can screen her phone calls?

☎️ Is Jenny going to finally get a job other than babysitting since it’s not going so well for her?

The answers are maybe, no and yes. I’m pleased to report that Jenny’s latest job is not a babysitting gig! Instead she’s got a summer job at The Doughnut Hole. Great work, Jenny! I would like one of everything please.

Two years after her first brush with death, Jenny is still attending therapy sessions with Dr Schindler. Given the events of the second book I imagine that would have been quite awkward for a while. I’m not entirely sure how well therapy is working for her as Jenny’s still pretty likely to scream at any given moment and her nightmares haven’t let up, but she’s trying and you’ve got to give her credit for that.

Her mother and psychiatrist both agree it would be good for Jenny to have a change of scenery so instead of serving me donuts (like we planned) she’s going to visit her cousin, Debra, over the summer. Jenny’s moody boyfriend, Cal, isn’t so impressed (he must have wanted donuts too). Jenny is pretty good at picking boys that go from easygoing to pouty or angry in an instant.

Debra, whose main interest seems to be tossing her long blonde hair, also needs some assistance in the dating department. Her ex, Don, seems to think it’s entirely acceptable to show up unannounced in her bedroom. Who let him inside the house in the first place? Who knows?!

Of course, Debra has a regular babysitting job and thinks nothing of bringing Jenny along with her.

“Jenny, come on,” Debra urged. “It’ll be fun.”

Does she really not know about her cousin’s babysitting curse?

It turns out that when you have a curse attached to you it follows you, even when you visit your cousin. Only this time it’s Debra who’s getting the creepy phone calls. Maybe the curse is genetic? Or transferrable?

“I just don’t understand why he called you”

It almost sounds like Jenny is jealous of the attention her cousin is getting.

Big spoilers are included in this book for Jenny’s two previous starring roles as Girl Most Likely to Scream so beware of those if you haven’t already experienced those screams.

One thing I have to say about this series: there’s not much of a resolution for anyone. While I’m curious about a couple of characters, there’s one in particular who needs more page time. I would have liked Maggie’s story to have had some kind of ending rather than me wondering if she was ever going to get what was hers, whatever that was.

My main question mark relating to this book is pretty insignificant but it’s bugging me nonetheless: How did Cal know where Debra was babysitting?

The reveal simply didn’t work for me this time. I understand where Stine was going with it and, let’s face it, child me would have had to pick their jaw off the floor. However, adult me needed more depth to the characters and storyline to buy it. It should make for an interesting opener for the fourth book though, where hopefully someone will finally buy this girl an answering machine!

Once Upon a Blurb

Jenny just wants to forget the man who murdered all the baby-sitters. The man who almost murdered her.

He’s dead now.

And Jenny’s gone to visit her cousin Debra.

But Debra has a baby-sitting job. And now she’s getting those phone calls, too. Just like the ones Jenny used to get:

Hi, Babes. I’m back.

Company’s coming …

Welcome to my horror gateway book. It turns out I was an even bigger scaredy-cat as a kid than I thought I was. This book absolutely terrified me, so much so that when the phone rang at night for months afterwards I’d hear in my head,

“Company’s coming.”

If you’re unfamiliar with this book, here are the basics. Jenny has a new babysitting gig for a family she’s only just met. Their house should be featured on a renovation show. The kid Jenny is babysitting, who looks angelic, has interests that range from watching Ghostbusters (awesome choice, kid!) to scaring the babysitter.

There’s a weird neighbour hanging around, threatening phone calls and a babysitter with a big imagination who is fearing the worst. Oh, and let’s not forget the newspaper headline …

THIRD BABYSITTER ATTACK HAS POLICE ON ALERT.

This read was a fun trip down memory lane but the things that scared me as a child seem silly now. I could have sworn that Jenny answered at least another dozen creepy phone calls and I don’t remember it being so obvious who the big bad was.

Note to my kid self: When you’re only introduced to a few male characters, it kinda narrows the field of potential male baddies.

I think as a kid I assumed the bad guy was going to be a stranger, because it was the 80’s and we were Stranger Danger all the way. It never occurred to me that you could actually know a villain so R.L. Stine probably didn’t even need to include any red herrings to fool me.

Jenny, who I can only assume failed Horror 101, does what all good potential victims do when they hear a strange noise in the house.

“Who’s there?”

For most of the book Jenny lets her imagination run wild, gets scared and second guesses pretty much everything. She waits for the final act, when she probably should be paying attention, to let her guard down.

80’s Nostalgia Bonus Points

🎧 Jenny has a Walkman. Cassettes … Those were the days. I loved my Walkman so much, even after I learned that other people could hear me sing while I was using it.
⏰ Laura, Jenny’s friend, wears a Swatch, one of the coolest accessories of my childhood.
📸 Flashcubes are mentioned in a description. I haven’t thought of those in years. It could be my memory deceiving me but I’m almost positive I got a minor burn from one of those.

I probably should apologise to you in advance. There are three more books in this series, I own them all and I just realised that Jenny is in every single one of them. I wonder if she invests in an answering machine. Please don’t tell me she thinks it’s a good idea to babysit again!

“Hello? Anyone there?”

Once Upon a Blurb

From the minute Jenny accepted the Hagen babysitting job, she knew she had made a mistake.

First there was the dark and disheveled Hagen house, moaning and groaning with her every step. Then the crank phone calls started. “Hi, Babes. Are you all alone? Company’s coming.” When Jenny discovered a creepy neighbour prowling in the backyard and a threatening note in her backpack, she realised this wasn’t a harmless game.

But who would want to hurt her? What kind of maniac wanted to scare Jenny … to death?