Garrison Keillor Book

Moral of the Story: Wintertime sucks. Also, what's up with RL Stine and hatchets?

Body Count: 2 (one from the past) - Dara, the hostess, and Barbara, the beach bunny

The Usual Suspect(s): Josh, Ken

The Actual Suspect(s): Jenny

Gaping Plot Holes: None that I could sniff out, but I was genuinely creeped out by this one. It could be that I was reading it at midnight.

Plot: Our fearless (Ha!) narrator is April, with whom RL Stine attempts to write in the first person. His attempt doesn't go very well. What we have in this book is a combination of April Fools' Day and The Shining. Read: a bunch of kids are trapped in one place (in this case, Dara's house surrounded by ski lodges), and one of them (April) starts to lose her mind as a result. For a while I actually thought it would go the way of the classic horror film April Fools' Day, but thankfully it didn't.

Our main players (literally) are Dara, Ken and Jenny, April, Josh, and Tony and Carly Rae. Wait, Carly Rae? What's the Call Me Maybe chick doing in a Fear Street novel? Naturally they have come to Dara's house to have fun and go skiing. However, as the book opens, they haven't seen much snow. It's all been sleet and no powder. Without the ability to ski everyone is getting restless. Dara, cruel and unusual punisher that she is, decides on a game of Truth or Dare. SHE doesn't have to answer any truth questions, however, because SHE'S the hostess. Well, the game kicks off with questions asked and answered. One person completes a dare. Then it's April's turn again. Dara asks her what a secret is that she knows but wishes she didn't know. She immediately blurts out the TRUE answer: the girl at Sumner Island. This has to do with Ken, and he eyes her suspiciously. Turns out that the girl at Sumner Island was a girl named Barbara whom April saw making out with Ken. This is a problem since he's with Jenny, her best friend. April hasn't had the courage to admit the truth to Jenny or confront Ken. She's going to regret her nonaction soon enough.

That night the snow really starts to fall. Dara picks up one of the jackets in the pile of parkas and ventures out to get firewood. Josh is also gone, but nobody notices until in the morning. During Truth or Dare Dara really picked on Josh. They used to go out, and Dara was on the verge of telling everyone that Josh was a rotten kisser. Josh hates being picked on more than anything in the world. He stays upset with Dara for the night.

When April comes down for breakfast in the morning she notices that Dara and Josh are missing. Her descent into Crazytown slowly begins. Being an actual smart person, she instantly suggests that they must call the police. Tony and Carly Rae don't want that to happen, however, because their parents don't know they are at Dara's house, and they aren't supposed to be. Everybody persuades April to give it some time. April has become suspicious of Tony due to his refusal to call the police.

The snow has escalated to a blizzard and tensions are high. The gang hears a knocking at the door and goes to investigate, only to find that it is a door outside banging against another door. So much for that. Ken and April volunteer to go shut the door so the banging won't drive everyone crazy. But just as the go to shut the ski door, something tumbles out of it. SomeONE. It's Dara, and she's dead. Her face is blue, and her lifeless eyes are boring into April's. There is a hatchet in her back. This whole entire scene gave me the serious heebie jeebies. It is reiterated so much what she looks like that it's just - ugh! Creepy as fuck.

So now Dara is dead, and they all have to stare at her dead body through a glass door. They finally move her to the garage. Being that Josh isn't back yet and they haven't found him dead, they assume he must be the killer. Their suspicions are confirmed when they search Dara's room only to find a letter written in a red ballpoint pen - a letter signed from Josh!! He writes that he wanted Dara to meet him at midnight. Alone. This is about all the proof they need. At least they can rest easy knowing the killer isn't one of them. April is frantic about calling the police now and insists that Tony do it. He tries, but he can't. The phone line is dead. 1994 had it rough, man. No cell phones!!

The next day April turns to see Josh's dead body at the door. Only... he isn't dead! He's pounding on the door to be let in. Now, if these characters lived in Scream, they might understand better not to let the alleged killer back into their home. However, these are stupid white people, so they decide to let Josh back in the house. I can picture them all just glaring at him accusingly while he is dying from frostbite. April is ready to convict and punish, but Josh insists on something warm to drink. After all, he did just walk in a blizzard for miles. They oblige and then approach him about the letter. Josh is incensed. This isn't his handwriting! He explains his side of the story. Yes, he was very, very upset about what Dara said to him during Truth or Dare. He did leave around the same time she did, fleeing in her Jeep. He took it because he wanted to piss her off and get her back. He acted irrationally, but he certainly didn't KILL Dara. April doesn't quite believe him, but, well, she doesn't really believe ANYBODY. She is starting to lose her mind. Heeeeeere's Johnnnyyyyy!!!!

April decides she has to get out of the house. She goes to find her blue parka in the pile, but it's missing. She is certain she left it in the pile. Until she remembers what Dara was wearing when she died. A blue parka! April revisits the gruesome scene only to have her fears confirmed. Dara was killed in April's blue parka. This means that Dara's death was a complete accident. The person meant to kill April - he/she thought it was HER under the blue parka. Well, clearly there's no use sticking around now that she's the target for murder. April grabs a random red parka from the pile and heads out the door.

It's still snowing pretty heavily, and April has nothing on but the parka, which isn't keeping her all that warm. She stuffs her hands in the pockets - only to find the red ballpoint pen. Ruh roh. April realizes the parka is so big that it must be Ken's. Since the pen is in his pocket, Ken has to be the murderer! It isn't Josh.

Lo and behold, who should come running after April but Ken! She screams as he grabs her and tries to drag her back to the house. April realizes that Ken tried to kill her over the Truth or Dare secret she spilled about him. She still doesn't want to confront him though - now he could kill her and bury her in the snow!! This book is so morbid and creepy. She tries to keep the conversation light in order to distract him as they head back to the house. Ken doesn't pull anything weird, but April is still hella scared and suspicious. Of course.

April's got one more trick up her sleeve. This time her brilliant plan is to tell Jenny, her best friend, what has happened and escape with her on skis. The snow has let up enough for them to be able to ski out. She isn't able to tell Jenny that the Sumner Island secret involved Ken, but Jenny doesn't really need any convincing in order to escape the house. Hmmmm. They ski for a while until they come upon a ski lift. There is a man in the booth who tells them that if they travel up the ski lift they will see a ranger station. I don't know why they don't just ask if he has a phone to use and just call the police from there and stay on the ground. It is common knowledge that anything up in the air is a bad idea.

Jenny and April hop on the next available ski lift and start towards the top of the hill... until suddenly Jenny turns to April with a sneer. Well. I wasn't really expecting this, folks!! Jenny tells April she's sorry (but not really, of course), and gives her a giant shove towards the ground. April doesn't fall all the way, and she and Jenny struggle in the ski lift car. Then Jenny plays the Big Bad Villain and tells her story in an almost-trance. Apparently she knew about Ken's Sumner Island bitch, Barbara, all along. In fact, Jenny killed her!

Yes, Jenny killed Barbara, and when April blurted out her secret during Truth or Dare, Jenny assumed that April knew that she killed Barbara. Jenny swears it was an accident. After Ken wouldn't stop seeing her, she confronted Barbara. She didn't mean to hurt her, honest. Somehow, though, Barbara ended up dead as a result of Jenny's recklessness. I don't know why she didn't just kill Ken, but whatever. The actual cheater is the one who deserves to die, but RL Stine doesn't really seem to make that happen. It's very disappointing. Anyway, April tries to dissuade Jenny's attack on her life by talking to her and telling her that she wasn't referring to THAT secret. Jenny has gone all Howard Hughes and keeps repeating that NO ONE can know her secret. She finally succeeds in pushing April off the chairlift.

April lands and expects to be dead until she realizes that they had reached the top and she only fell about a couple of feet. Ken is there, magically to the rescue!, and everything is finished in the next three pages. Jenny is still babbling on, but she seems to have realized that April really didn't know her secret. April fills Ken in on this nonsense. She says that their game of Truth or Dare revealed more than it was intended to. Ken says that next time she should take the dare. Yes, because I can see how well THAT book would go. April says they should just stick to Trivial Pursuit.

Might I suggest Clue?? :-)