Goosebumps #51: Beware, the Snowman

Jaclyn and her aunt Greta are moving to a remote snow village, for reasons her aunt can’t explain. As soon as they arrive, she notices that everyone has snowmen with red scarves on their front lawn. She’s also fascinated with a huge icy mountain just outside town that everyone warns her about seeing up close. She makes the mistake of trying to get up the mountain and is kind of attacked by a wolf. His owner Conrad warns her not to try it again.

Later she meets Rolonda and her little brother Eli. They explain that the snowmen are part of tradition, warn her about the top of the mountain and generally act a little weird. Rolonda then gets her alone in a church and tells her the true story of what happened in the town. Originally two sorcerers lived there and practiced magic. They accidentally created a snowman monster and trapped in at the top of the mountain. Eli pops out of nowhere and tells her that he saw it himself and wanted her to know because he knew she wouldn’t believe the story.

Jaclyn can’t keep her mind off the top of the mountain. It’s also driving her crazy because she keeps hearing this poem in her head that her mom read her about a snowman. She can only remember the first verse and scours the house for the poetry book, to find the rest of the poem. She finally decides to visit the mountain herself and gets her friends to help.

They distract Conrad, while she climbs the mountain. She comes face to face with the evil snowman, who has a surprising secret: he’s her real dad. He explains that he and her mom were sorcerers and one day, she accidentally turned him into a snowman. When she couldn’t fix him, she took Jaclyn and disappeared. He asks her to recite the poem, which will free him.

Aunt Greta suddenly appears and begs her not to say the poem. She’s carrying a spell book and says it was her mom’s book. The snowman was a creature her parents accidentally created, but not her father. They fight over the book, but Jaclyn tears it from her hands. Greta then reveals the snowman poem, crumbles it in a ball and tosses it over the mountain. It floats back into her hands, so Greta rips it up.

Luckily Jaclyn remembers the poem in the nick of time and recites it. The snowman turns into a huge monster and attacks. Conrad appears from out of nowhere and recites a spell that brings life into all of the smaller snowmen. It turns out that Conrad is actually her dad. He stayed in town to keep an eye on the snowman and keep it from attacking. Her parents created it on accident and he always thought about her, but didn’t recognize her when she came back.

The small snowmen attack and the big snowman gets trapped in an ice cave. Conrad and Jaclyn hug, before he explains that he created the snowmen as a defense for the town. As they hug, a little snowman tugs his arm and she freaks out, thinking he might attack. Nope, the poor little guy just wants to go back to town because it’s way too cold up on the mountain!