Tales to Give You Goosebumps Volume 3: Even More Tales to Give You Goosebumps (R.L. Stine)

The Chalk Closet:

Travis is so distracted by stuff happening around him that he never seems to get his homework done. And it's not hard work either! He can't even write down five reasons why he would want to be a pilgrim. So, he winds up in summer school. Mr. Grimley, their teacher, warns them that if they don't do well, they'll wind up in the chalk room. One kid gets sent to the chalk room and is never seen again, and then the same thing happens again. Travis tries calling their homes and finds their numbers disconnected. After failing his next test, the teacher takes him to the chalk closet, opens the doors, and slams it shut behind him. He turns to see all the missing kids and hundreds more in the room with their hands over the ears. Then he hears the noise of chalk screeching across the board and realizes he'll spend eternity the same exact way.

Home Sweet Home:

Sharon is 12 and stuck sharing a room with her seven year old sister and her sister's large dollhouse. Alice, the sister, is always complaining about the stuff she does to her dolls like putting one upside down in the sink. One day, Alice asks Sharon to go to a garage sale with her. It's at Mrs. Foster's house, a creepy woman from around town. No one is there, but there is a sign saying to leave money for anything you want to buy. Alice finds a dollhouse lamp that she pays for. Sharon picks up a bowl, sees a big spider, and drops it on the ground. When she sees it shatter, she hops on her bike and takes off. She has a dream that night about the creepy old woman spending a spider after her. Sharon then keeps seeing the same spider all over town until one day she sees it in her room. The spider jumps on her head, says she's small now, and shrinks her. Sharon ends by saying that the dollhouse is actually pretty perfect for her but that she wishes her sister would stop putting her head in the sink.

Don't Wake Mummy:

Jeff lives with his parents and his annoying sister Kim. His dad is a curator at the Natural History Museum and accidentally has a mummy delivered to their home, which they store in the basement until the company can pick it up. Kim convinces Jeff to go downstairs and then locks him in when he gets scared. He keeps thinking he hears the mummy coming to life and coming after him, so he spends $20 on mummy dust to protect himself. Jeff completely freaks out, which causes his parents to rush in and check on him. When he tells them about the noises he heard, his dad turns pale and says there's a rumor this mummy comes to life. His museum got it because the guards at another museum refused to be around it. As long as the chains are in place though, it's perfectly safe. They run downstairs, see the chains missing, and throw the chains back on. Later, Kim bangs on the basement door after getting locked downstairs playing a joke on her brother. She looks over, realizes the chains are missing off the mummy and then hears a thumping noise coming closer and closer to her.

I'm Telling:

Adam is out playing in the woods by himself because his best friend Nick decided that sixth graders shouldn't play pretend anymore. He imagines himself as a warrior trying to take down a huge monster. He reaches for his water gun and shoots the statue of a monster in the woods. Green slime suddenly pours of the monster's mouth, which he uses to fill up his gun. When he shoots a tree, it suddenly turns to stone. That's when his little sister Missy catches him and keeps screeching about how she'll tell his parents he was out playing instead of working on his art project. Adam shoots her, she turns to stone, and then he feels so bad that he puts her in a wagon and tries to take her home. His teacher sees him, thinks he made a sculpture of his sister, and puts it in the art show. After winning first prize, he hears his sister begging him for help. A large gargoyle comes out of nowhere and tries to attack him, he sprays it with his water gun, and it drops to the ground as it turns to stone. He then sprays his sister a second time, which turns her human again. Missy immediately starts chanting I'm telling and threatening to go to his parents, so he apologizes and sprays her again, turning her back into stone.

The Haunted House Game:

Jonathon is stuck at home babysitting his siblings Annie and Noah with his best friend Nadine. He suggests they play Haunted House, which makes everyone groan because they play it all the time. The game involves players working their way around a board shaped like a haunted house. Every time something happens in the game though, it actually happens to them, including a creaky stair, a knock on the window, etc. When someone lands on the Scared to Death square, the lights go out, they see ghostly hands, and everyone starts screaming. Jonathon goes to run out the door and comes across a newspaper article about four kids dying in an unexplained fire. He suddenly remembers that they died years ago and keep forgetting about it. Jonathon then goes back into the room with no memory of what he saw, suggests they play Haunted House, and they have the same conversation they did in the very beginning.

Change for the Strange:

Jane and her best friend Lizzy are completely different. While Jane loves track, Lizzy only cares about new clothes. Even though she didn't make the track team, she wants to keep practicing and maybe make it next time. Lizzy convinces her to take a break and go to this new clothing store, Change for Strange, with her. Jane finds a super cool red and yellow snakeskin jacket that she buys, and Lizzy buys a pair of bunny slippers. She loves the jacket so much that she puts it on right away and wears it around. Jane starts feeling a little strange and finds herself transformed into a snake. Lizzy runs away in fear, so she keeps trying to do things to prove who she is like dancing to their favorite music and turning the television to the show they always watch. Lizzy yells for her brother Ivan to come in and get one of his snakes that got loose. He says it isn't his but puts her in with his own snakes before seeing a tiny zipper on her stomach. When he pulls the zipper, Jane becomes herself again. A few days later, Jane is on the track team because she can now jump so high. As she and Lizzy talk, she thinks about how much she loves her new bunny slippers.

The Perfect School:

Brian is such a pest that his parents decide to send him off to boarding school. On the bus, he meets another new student named CJ. On his first night, he thinks he hears voices in the vents and gets told to shut up by a guard. The next day, they take him to the Pattern Room and he hears a voice tell him not to go inside. They take a bunch of measurements and make him take a test that asks random questions like his favorite food, what he calls his parents, and his Halloween costumes from the past few years. Brian then hears voices in the vents, investigates, and finds a bunch of kids there. They tell him that the school makes a robot of each child, sends the robot back home, and keeps the kids locked up. Brian runs to get CJ, who then takes him to the same room, and informs him that he works for the school. His parents come the next day to pick him up, and he thinks about how he'll act just like a good robot should. It's only because he doesn't want anyone to know that he threw CJ in the room and switched places with his robot. Besides, he can be good. All he's done so far is torment the dog, spill food everywhere, and act like a giant nuisance.

For the Birds:

Kim is extremely unhappy because her parents dragged her on a bird watching vacation with her older brothers who also love birds. Mr. Dove, the owner, puts the older kids and parents in these huge and elaborate rooms before putting Kim in a much smaller room on the opposite side of the hotel. He also tells them to put off the hedge maze outside until the next day. Kim accidentally sits down on a pair of hedge clippers, and Mr. Dove thanks him for finding them. He asks her if she wants to pay her parents back for taking her on such a boring vacation. Kim just brushes him off. The next day, they enter the hedge maze. Mr. Dove shows up with his clippers, makes a few jokes, and snaps the clippers at each one, which turns her parents into love birds and her brothers into mockingbirds. He then tells Kim that he's ready to help her get revenge. When he snaps the clippers at her, she suddenly transforms into a cat.

Aliens in the Garden:

Kurt is outside by himself when Flip the bully comes at him with his dog. Flip only leaves him alone when it stops raining. The next day, Kurt finds a tiny little spaceship outside and sees three little aliens climb out. Flip comes over, tries to take it from him, and one of the aliens shocks him. He returns with his dog and his friend, but Kurt and his friend Jenna go to great lengths to get the aliens off the ground and save them. He even tosses one in his pocket. They get two, and the other gets the spaceship started. The aliens zap Flip once more before taking off. Later, Kurt realizes that he has a piece of one of their uniforms in his pocket. They put it under a microscope to get a better look at it and see part of a flag with red and white stripes and little stars. Is it weird that it took me a few minutes to realize it was an American ship and Kurt et all were our aliens?

The Thumbprint of Doom:

Trisha and her friends Harold and Jeremy are hanging out when they meet the new girl Carla. She's incredibly superstitious and keeps warning them of all this stuff. Like they can't go out in a blue canoe on a certain day of the week. She even makes Trisha strike out during a ball game by screaming at her that she can't hit a ball at that certain time. She also warns them of the thumbprint of doom and how it will ruin their lives. Trisha and her friends ask her to go to the carnival with them, but she says that she can't go because the stars aren't aligned right. They drag her out of her house and take her anyway. When they find a fortune teller, they all of inside. The fortune teller looks deep into her crystal ball and flips out. She shouts at Carla and gives her the thumbprint of doom. Carla and the other kids run outside. That's when Carla tells them the woman is crazy because only she has that power and then does the thumbprint of doom to each of them. As they run away screaming, the fortune teller steps outside and gently scolds her about lying to them like that. Carla says it's fine and that they learned their lesson before thanking her mom for her help.