Get It Fright This Time!

On a second excursion into the realm of the trilogies-of-teeny-tiny-terror known as Fright Time, Eric welcomes a new guest into the treehouse--his girlfriend! Take that, everyone who says I'm patently unlovable. Adana fills in for the pretending-to-be-busy-to-get-out-of-work Jose and gives her thoughts on Creatures from the Ice, Dead-End Drive-In, and Strange Exchange. We'll either have to bring her back on the show someday or else kill her now that she knows where the treehouse is located....

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
N Sara's

(00:30):
Hello and welcome to the Black Magic Treehouse, the podcast where I start talking way too
loud because my girlfriend makes me hold the microphone right up to my lips.
Also the podcast where we revisit the children's horror literature that we are always find

(00:52):
it ice to flee.
Really like run away from FLEE like ice to see, nice to see.
Anyway, my name is Eric and joining me today is not my regularly scheduled cohost Jose,

(01:13):
but there's a different person sitting on this couch.
I think I've known her as a woman that I've dated and continue to do so.
So she's really kind of a nepotism cohost.
Do you want to tell us what your name is and what your qualifications are?
I'm Adana and my qualifications are that I'm your girlfriend and I know how to read and

(01:39):
I read as a kid.
All right, great.
Did you read any of these books that we talked about on the podcast as a kid?
Well I think you know that my memory is pretty bad so who knows?
I'm just kidding.
I know I read Goosebumps.
I know I read that one that I recommended to you that you said was awful while back,
Uncanny.

(02:00):
Remember those with the weird cat on the front?
Yeah, the story we read was, what was it called?
The book was called Uncovered, I think.
And the story was, we read it on the podcast, the one with the kid who makes toilet paper
snow for his dying brother.

(02:22):
The title is escaping me right now.
Yeah, the books were like Uncanny, Uncovered, and I don't know, Uns.
There were three Uns or something.
But reading Fright Time felt really familiar.
So I mean, in the time that I have read Fright Times, in the past, if ever, it felt familiar,

(02:44):
whether it was for today or another time.
So I may have read those.
Three spine-tingling tales for young readers.
Yes, we are revisiting Fright Time because we did the episode that dropped last week.
Which I listened to.
Where we talked about two different Fright Time books.
And the one that, or we talked about three different ones?

(03:06):
Did Jose read just two?
It was two books because I just listened to it.
Okay.
I remember Jose bragging about the fact that he had read two books, but I guess we didn't
talk about both of them.
But yeah, I totally forgot.
The book that I read was number four, which was on Open Library.
And I totally forgot that in the closet, I have a little bookshelf where I keep all these

(03:29):
books that usually my girlfriend buys for me when she's out thrift shopping.
She always goes to the bookstore and looks for things that would suit the podcast.
And she had already bought me a Fright Time book that I totally forgot about, which is
even more egregious considering that I referenced the cover to this one specifically on the
last podcast where I said there's a cover that I, as of that episode had learned was

(03:53):
from Fright Time where there's a couple of kids skating on the ice and then there's a
skull crashing up from beneath the ice with glowing eyes.
I said that I had seen that like appropriated for like joke children's horror books with
like funny titles or whatever.
And that is Fright Time number 10, which is the exact one that I had and totally forgot

(04:13):
about.
So I figured since I'm, I kind of knew that I was going to have to record an episode without
Jose because our schedules just haven't really been lining up lately.
So I was like, well, we might as well just kind of complete the thought and go ahead
and read this new Fright Time number 10, which has stories called Creatures from the Ice,

(04:36):
Dead End Drive-In and Strange Exchange.
New Fright Time.
Okay, yep.
Are you, are you ready to get into the meat of this terror sandwich?
I'm so ready.
Great.
She took notes and everything, everybody.

(04:57):
And then right before we started recording, she's looked through the notes and said, I
have no idea what any of these mean.
So I guess we'll see.
And it's been like, I thought we were going to record this like several days ago.
So I read this book like a week and a half ago, and so I guess we'll see how our memories
hold up and talking about this.
Yeah.
When I was listening to last week's podcast, the, or the one that y'all dropped, whatever,

(05:19):
the last one, Jose's like, I read this two years ago and here's all the minute details
I remember.
And I was like, I finished this the day before yesterday and I am really hoping I can talk
about it.
So yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Well in our defense, I think Jose had taken copious notes because he was planning on making

(05:40):
a blog post about Fright Time.
Number one that I think never officially got published or maybe it did, but I think he
was spelunking through all the notes that he already had to read jug his memory.
So Fright Time for anybody who didn't listen to our past episode is a series that was published
in the mid nineties that I think included like 18 books altogether.

(06:04):
And the conceit of it was that there's three complete stories of haunting and horror.
And apparently these were sold at the dollar store.
I don't remember them at all.
And they're about 200 pages each.
So every story is somewhere in the 60 to 70 page range.
And what I discovered last week was that some of the stories at 60 pages are like kind of

(06:28):
feel like a complete goosebumps book with all the fat taken out.
And some of them feel like a very thin premise that is stretched out from you know, what
should be like a 15 page story for and this one is no exception, I would say.
So the first one is Creatures from the Ice.
And I'll go ahead and read the little teaser on the back.
Vermont is a winter wonderland for Tim skiing with his cousin Joel.

(06:52):
Even his tag along kid sister can't spoil the fun.
That is until she finds a boom box that only plays its own tune and brings a sinister warning
along with four frightening phantoms from beyond the grave.
So that's this one.
How should we tackle this?
What were your thoughts on this story?

(07:13):
Do you remember it at all?
Yes, I do.
My first question is, is there anything reoccurring in this story?
As you're reading it that you thought this might be bothersome to a Dana.
It stood out not as a fright thing, not as a just as a me thing.

(07:37):
I'm just wondering.
And I will tell you the answer.
That you hate twinkle twinkle little star.
I mean, I haven't brought that up.
So no, that's not it.
I'll tell you what it is.
The body shaming in this story is out of control on like the first little bit.

(08:01):
And I know this is just your first podcast with a girl coming in and right away she's
like body shaming, blah, blah, blah.
But right away, let me quote, there was Katie.
Katie's the sister.
That's not part of the quote, but there was Katie looking a little fat.

(08:22):
I don't even remember this stuff.
And so on and so on.
It goes like his friend, he left him downstairs.
He had had some chips that he gave his friend and lo and behold, his friend ate all the
chips he gave him.
Good grief.
And later someone ate all the cookies they gave them.
Good grief.
Like it just kept coming up.
But I was like, one in the world is a deal with this author and people eating the food

(08:46):
they're given.
So that did stand out to me in this story.
We can go on about other things though.
Well speaking of recurring the last episode, the story that was called in my mind is called
aftershock, but I know that's not true.
Oh, camp overnight, overnight.

(09:08):
Nightmare is what it was called.
It was a story that I didn't really talk about that much because it was pretty boring.
It was one about kids who trespass on like, you know, whatever, uh, whatever you call
land that you're not supposed to go into to camp in and they get transported back in time
to the civil war.
But one of the things I didn't touch on was there's a friend there.

(09:29):
There's three boys, only two of them get, uh, pulled back in time.
And one of the boys is like the comic relief fat friend who like the, the other two kids
are like, we're going to go out and go exploring.
And like the fat best friend is like, I'm going to stay here and eat all these potato
chips.
And so he does, and then he falls asleep and misses the entire pulled back in time adventure.

(09:55):
So then in the morning when the two guys, uh, the two kids, you know, change history
so that the South wins a battle, hooray in the civil war.
Um, they come back and discover that their friend, I think his name is Mike, maybe it's
like still asleep in the tent.
And they're like, you miss out on the, this entire adventure we had.
And he's like, that's because I'm a fat best friend.

(10:15):
And then they, they grab him by the arms and like pull them outside and like throw them
in the lake as revenge.
So I wonder if this is the same author.
I mean, fat jokes were so ubiquitous in the nineties that I think it could be multiple
authors going to the same.
Well, I know I was thinking, I was like, well, here I was thinking all my issues came directly

(10:41):
from my mom, but I guess a lot of it just came from my early childhood reading of horror
stories.
So sorry, mom, I'll talk to my therapist about this next time.
It wasn't all you also.
Yeah.
That last story you read, it had a lot of problematic things in it.
And I just want to be clear that we all see that as problematic, very problematic.
I'd rather be with a fat friend.

(11:02):
Thank you.
The civil war one.
Yeah.
We don't need to rehash it, but I didn't like that.
Yeah.
That's why I didn't talk about it very much because it was just like, I can't figure out
what this author was really going for or where they're from or what kind of flag they have
on the back of their truck.
But creatures from the ice is, so this is a story that I don't think we need to go beat

(11:26):
for beat because this one was like a solid, like B minus to me.
It wasn't like amazing or anything.
Maybe a lower grade for you because of the fat sister, Katie, Katie overweighty.
We will not.
But there were, this is a weird, like there's a story about the boom box where every, like

(11:50):
they find it in an old attic or something, which I think the house that they're in belongs
to the ant or whatever.
Yeah.
So they go up and they find this boom box in the attic.
And then every time they try to play a tape in it, it starts playing twinkle, twinkle
little star and like this echoey spooky, like where is this music coming from beyond the

(12:17):
grave?
And then they hear a woman's voice saying, like just general warning phrases, like, you
know, watch out, you know, watch after Katie or don't let her go with, I don't remember,
you know, stay away from the lake, whatever random stuff she's saying.
And then that ties into a story about how, uh, when the boy is the main boy, Tim is looking

(12:39):
out his window at night.
He sees, uh, a figure at first one figure shadowy figure, like out skating on the lake.
And then I think later more figures appear.
Well, it's all the brothers.
Yeah.
The four brothers who die.
And the resolution basically is like, they're trying to take Katie because Katie looks exactly

(13:00):
like the aunt's sister or, I don't know who she is to them, but to the ghosts, she's their
sister.
So, but she's related to this family somehow because they find the photograph also up in
the attic of the four boys.
Great aunt or dead great.

(13:21):
Yeah.
I guess the, how this house has been in the family for generations, but anyway, these
four boys died on the ice and their sister lived and she grew up, um, and I guess played
the piano and then died as an old lady.
Uh, so then she's trying to warn them.
Like my brothers are trying to take Katie because she looks so much like me when I was
younger and they want to be reunited in the afterlife, which I don't know why that was

(13:45):
a weird plot point was like, it would have made more sense if Elizabeth, who is the ghost
who's talking to them through the boom box was still alive so that they could go visit
her and then she could, cause I don't understand why if she's already dead, why can't she just
be a ghost and go talk to her ghost brothers?
Uh, yeah, I, um, I didn't think about that, but you're right.

(14:08):
And also like the brothers are dead and young, still skating around and sad, but well, maybe
it's because they died on different age planes.
So they wouldn't believe it because she'd be an old ghost and they'd be like, yeah,
they're like, no, we want young blood.
We want your young face to live with us, not this old decrepit face.

(14:33):
And that that's the truth is they want little baby face.
They want baby meat.
Um, yeah.
And then they find out that these boys died because they got snowed in or avalanched into
a cave and died like frost death in there.
So then they go to the cave where the boys died.
They find this locket with a picture of their sister in it, which is weird.

(14:55):
I would never have a picture of my sister in a locket that I wore, but that's the thing
that makes them, they give it to the ghost or whatever.
And they're like, okay, we'll, we'll move on now.
And then that's basically the end.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would say like in my mental visual of this brain, I mean, mental, you know what I'm saying

(15:17):
here?
I was picturing the, um, are you afraid of the dark with the, I'm cold boy.
I'm always picturing that I'm saying it constantly to myself cause I'm always cold, but I was
picturing that kid, you know, they're ice skating out there.
It feels like it's probably the same window they're looking out of.

(15:38):
It's definitely a second story window.
It's definitely that same feeling of a house.
And so I, even when the story ended, I pictured it kind of fading out to the fire pit and
then ending the story there.
Like, and the, and ghost Elizabeth opened up the cave and saved us all.

(15:59):
Cause at one point our real live kids do get stuck in the cave with the ghosts, but then
ghost Elizabeth opens the cave for them.
So I just, uh, it was all very, it all felt like, are you afraid of the dark to me?
So that's how I picked it up.

(16:20):
I would agree with that.
The things that this story had going for it was, but it also kind of didn't have going
for it was I thought there were two really creepy motifs.
The motif of this boom box instead of playing the tape that I just bought of, you know,
chumbawamba or whatever it is, it's playing this old, uh, song, uh, this creepy old song

(16:41):
that seems to be spanning, you know, across dimensions from the world of the dead.
And then this dead lady is talking to us.
I thought that was creepy, but the specification that she was playing twinkle twinkle little
star very much undercut that for me.
And this moment where the boy looks out the window and he sees a shadowy figure skating

(17:03):
around on the ice in the middle of the night was very creepy, except for the fact that
he could very clearly see that it was just a boy like without a coat or whatever.
So I was like, Oh, it would be creepy if it was just a shadow and he didn't know what
it was, but specifying that like, Oh no, it's a boy without a coat or hat.
It was like, that's what's so scary about it.

(17:28):
Yeah.
That kind of undercut the, uh, tension a little bit.
Anyway, do you have anything else to say about this one?
Um, I do know that like part of the scary part was they were all skating on the ice
and all of a sudden the ice starts melting.
I don't remember everything that was going into that part of the story, but, um, I remember
thinking that part was dumb.
So I guess that's all I have to say about that.

(17:48):
Do you remember anything about that part of the story?
Nope.
Okay.
Is that when they're trying to take Katie away?
It was like at the very beginning.
It was, it was, oh, it was in the beginning.
Because the, we didn't really know what the deal was with the, the radio ghost.
We didn't know she was Elizabeth and really trying to help them.

(18:09):
So at that point she had only said, stay away from the lake.
And then all of a sudden they're on the lake and the lake all of a sudden starts melting,
even though it's freezing out and has been freezing forever.
And um, so then, uh, it just starts melting and they all get off of the ice.
But I don't know, that part was a little strange.
So I guess that's all I have to say about that.

(18:31):
Um, I enjoyed this ghost camp melt ice.
Is that your complaint?
Yeah.
Like what, what kind of story is this?
I don't understand.
Like they're in charge of the weather.
I don't even understand, but I'm afraid of skating on lakes.
I would never.
So I guess, I guess it did get me a little fear.

(18:54):
I did as a child, but only in the mall in Texas.
So yeah, um, this is probably my, um, second favorite of the stories, I guess.
Yeah.
I think, I think I'm curious too.
I am also curious too.

(19:17):
Maybe it's my first favorite.
I don't know.
I also want to pause here before we go on to talk about this actual physical book we
have.
Um, one there, there's a, a nice little sticker in the front that says property of Sarah with
a little bear in a heart.
So that's tender, loving, you know, background.
There's a squished bug right on page, you know, the copyright page.

(19:41):
But the most important part that did kind of creep me out as I was reading the book
is on the top, it's as if someone has smushed a red marker in the top and it just looks
like there's blood dripping into our book.
So as I was reading it, it just kind of the blood marker grew and grew and I hate it.

(20:02):
So that's all I just kept thinking.
Blood marker.
So that added to the creepiness on my part.
So that was pretty cool.
You should just blood marker all the books.
Well I will clarify that blood when it dries on paper is brown and not red.
So well it's children.
You can't make it, you know, it's children.
Oh, children's blood.

(20:23):
Blood for children.
I didn't know they follow different rules than adults.
Yeah.
So can we move on to Dead End Drive-In by TWAers.
I didn't say who the first one was by.

(20:43):
My ice point at the beginning was based on the fact that this is creatures from the ice
because I couldn't think of anything to do with fright time.
Eve Marco is the fat phobic author who gave us creatures from the ice.
And you would think that that like, at least if it was a plot point, like she was really
fat and then she fell through the ice or something that would at least be justified.

(21:06):
The girl on the front of the book is not fat.
Like it's just giving me body dysmorphia issues even looking at this.
Like freaking hate it.
But to give us body, trying to think of a pun that has to do with aliens, body exomorphia

(21:31):
maybe issues is Dead End Drive-In.
Marvin and the rest of the kids, you know, the rest of the kids, we all know who those
are, the gang are excited that the old drive-in theater is about to reopen.
But when the monster movie creatures come off the screen and attack them, there's no
place to run and no place to hide.

(21:53):
Even the refreshment stand is stocked with terror.
And stocked with terror is indeed italicized on the teaser on the back.
What was your opinion of Dead End Drive-In?
Well, thrilling, beginning to end, really, truly.

(22:13):
I don't know that I saw all of that coming, you know, from the very beginning, what did
end up happening.
There was a pretty big, you know, foreshadowing moment when they're talking about baseball
and the kid from the drive-ins like, oh, we didn't have that in my dimension, I mean neighborhood.

(22:37):
So I thought that was kind of funny.
That's verbatim, by the way.
Yeah.
In my dimension, I mean neighborhood.
And all the kids are like, yep, well, we'll teach you baseball, no big deal.
Nothing to worry about here.
So I did like it.
I love slime in a story.

(22:59):
I'll tell you that.
I know.
Whenever I tried to write my stories growing up, which I did try to write horror, little
horror stories, horror stories to be clear on that word that I was trying to say, they
were all slime based.
It was a slime monster coming through my window, a slime monster taking over the city.

(23:23):
I was a big Gat kid.
You know, I always wanted to go on that slime Nickelodeon show.
Slime.
Still like slime.
So double dare.
Yeah, yeah, double dare.
I wanted to get in that nose.
So yeah.
So there is a bit of slime in this, you know?

(23:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which I mean, can't go wrong there.
I was definitely pictured in some Gat.
And so I like that about this story.
I will say this one especially felt like I was writing it as a kid though.
Like an actual child was writing this unedited and no one ever edited it again or thought

(24:12):
maybe we should use maybe a little bit bigger words.
Yeah, that is exactly what I was going to say about it.
I think the story might be my favorite of all of the stories that I read for Fright
Time so far because it is so...
We talked on the last episode, Jose and I, about how there are some stylistic characteristics

(24:38):
that may or may not be intentional across some of these stories where it makes it feel
like it was written by a kid and we don't know if that's like, were they trying to write
like a kid or was it just a sloppy adult writer who was trying to meet a deadline?
But this story legitimately feels like it was written by a 12 year old.

(24:59):
I was like, is this familiar because I've read it or is it familiar because I wrote
it?
It feels like I could have written this exact story as a kid.
It feels like I did write parts of these in my little kid stories when I was in middle
school and then I was drawing slime monsters next to them.

(25:21):
It was baffling my mind.
Also does it make me feel like now I could write a story?
Absolutely.
We should write our own horror stories now.
It's got that kind of breathless disregard for punctuation that I think you see in stories

(25:43):
for kids, cramming several ideas into one paragraph in a row, sentence after sentence
without any regard for stylistic, E.B.
Strunk and White's elements of style.
This is how you actually should organize your story.

(26:04):
There's a lot of passages I remember where it would like a page of action would happen
and then the main character whose name is, what did I say, Marvin?
Marvin would like meet up with somebody right after the action finished happening and then
he would just give another paragraph of exposition which we are reading to this other person
about like, well, I went to the place and then this thing happened and then I went over

(26:27):
to this other place and then this other thing happened and then I thought that this was
happening and so I came over here.
Like summarizing exactly what we just read for a whole page instead of just saying, I
explained to them what had just happened.
Yes.
And when you were on your last podcast, sorry to keep going back to that but y'all, if you

(26:48):
haven't listened to it, maybe go listen to it.
So not sorry.
But on the last one you had said you spent like an hour and a half reading the last Fright
Time that you read.
Well this took me longer than that because of this story because he kept doing that and
I just kept putting it down.
I'm like, I don't want to reread what you just did, kid.
I don't want to.
So it did take me a while.

(27:10):
But yeah, I got through it and I liked it all right because here's what I liked.
We're movie people and there's movies.
I like things coming out of movies.
That's fun.
So in the story, listener, there are aliens.

(27:31):
Yeah, there's a new family that has moved to Rock Island, which I don't think it says
Illinois, but it says Rock Island is in the exact middle of the United States right next
to the Mississippi River.
So reading that I was like, I wonder if this is like an analog for Rock.
I'm trying to remember.

(27:52):
There's that song, Don't Go Back to Rockville.
But then there's also a rockdale or something.
I don't remember.
But I grew up right next to a place that was Rock something.
So I was like, I wonder if this is supposed to be like, you know, like a little kid being
like, I live in Rock Island.
Yeah, that's a fictional place.
So these this new family moves in and they're opening up this new abandoned drive in.

(28:17):
And coinciding with that, the main character's father, who's a, you know, chemistry scientist,
professor guy, keeps finding like purple slime all over just the ground, I think, and like
gathering it up and using it to wax his car.
And he's like, I don't know, I found this slime goop on the ground and I'll just put

(28:38):
it on my car and it seems to work.
I don't know what else it can be used for.
But yeah.
Yeah.
So that's when you talk about the drive in movies.
They the the new family is playing these drive in movies.
I think before officially opening, they're just playing them.
And then the kids wander through a cemetery, which is a shortcut to get to the drive in

(29:01):
and see these movies playing that's like a war movie with like blue aliens with bumpy
skin.
And they're like, whoa, heads, tiny heads.
It's the tiny heads that get me because I just immediately, you know, their voices also
shrink in my mind.
All of a sudden, once they're well, I'm jumping ahead.
But yes, their tiny heads make their voices into the voices because how can you have a

(29:26):
big voice and a tiny head?
I'm flipping through the story because I'm trying to find some of the characteristic,
some of the characteristic stylistic things that make me think like this really does feel
like it was written by a kid, which is why I wanted you to hold a microphone and you
just.
Well, I was holding it and then took it.

(29:47):
But anyway, they have tiny heads.
But the the dad and kid that moved to town look like humans.
They have human skin and bodies over their alien bodies.
So then, of course, in my mind, when those human bodies come off, their their voices

(30:08):
shrink to.
That's what I was getting at with with that.
OK, let me read this page.
This is in the middle of a baseball game.
And I feel like if I read this couple of paragraphs, it will give you an idea of exactly how this
story is written.
It's these kids heading out to the baseball field after something which is kind of not
really explained as they're walking through a bunch of like car speakers in a junkyard

(30:30):
or something.
And then it's like the speakers were attacking us.
Happened on the previous like these wires are like reaching out and like grabbing the
kids.
I think the speakers are at the drive in like their speakers that go on the cars at the
drive in.
Oh, right, right.
So they just got caught up in those.
And now they're going on to their baseball game.

(30:52):
When we got to the field, I knew that I needed to put the thoughts about the speakers out
of my mind.
We had a game to play and win.
If we beat the other team, we would be in first place.
All of us were counting on this.
The game was tight.
After six innings, we were behind by one run.
The opposing team came up to bat.
Becca was pitching.
We had to hold them each inning and then score some more runs for ourselves.
Tommy and I were on the bench with Sean.

(31:13):
I acted like the manager sometimes.
And today Tommy was our relief pitcher.
There were two outs and two men on base and two strikes on the batter.
The other team's top hitter was up.
We called him Orange Crush because he had red hair and always crushed the ball when
he hit it.
It was the most important pitch that Becca had ever thrown.
She went back into her windup.
I saw her eyes focus on the strike zone.
She swung her body around with tremendous speed and let go of the ball.
I saw it float through the air.

(31:34):
As it entered the strike zone, Orange Crush's bat began to swing.
Honk.
I turned around and see Tommy squeezing the trigger on a foghorn to distract the batter.
Suddenly I saw Sean come flying through the air.
His face was white with fear.
Sean is the son of the new family that moved in and bought the drive in.
Sean landed on my back pushing me forward and knocking me off balance.

(31:55):
I started slipping down but I still kept my eye on the ball and the batter.
It must have been because of the foghorn that the batter jerked his bat into the air and
missed the ball by six inches.
Another thing that we talk about a lot is, yeah, it's like by six inches exactly.
Unfortunately Sean didn't miss me.
Unfortunately Sean didn't miss me and I didn't miss the ground.
My face went into the white chalk line and I could feel the dust go up my nose.

(32:18):
Sean was still on my back as we hit the ground.
I reached back to grab him and try to get him off me.
I reached up and touched him.
My hand jerked back.
His skin felt cold.
Not only cold, like rubber.
Chapter 6.
I pulled him off me and looked right into his eyes.
I realized that his eyes were more purple than blue.
Sean was quickly becoming the strangest kid I knew, what with his purple eyes and cold

(32:39):
rubbery skin.
And that was my favorite sentence in the whole story.
Just that matter of fact.
Sean was quickly becoming the strangest kid I knew, what with his purple eyes and cold
rubbery skin.
No punctuation whatsoever in that entire sentence.
So yeah, I thought that the way that the story moved along at this elliptical pace and that

(33:01):
way that kids write things where it's just sort of like, and then I went to this place
and this person was there.
And you know, you don't bother stopping to explain like, why was this person there?
Oh, they just were.
Anyway, you know what I mean?
Like don't sweat the details.
Just whatever you need to write to make the story move forward.
And things just kind of happen that you need to happen.

(33:21):
But here's every detail of how a baseball game works.
Yeah, exactly.
Like if you're not familiar with baseball, we needed to not let them have runs while
we got runs.
Yes.
Yeah, it just, it's a weird editing that happens there or lack of editing that happens throughout
this.
This one in particular, I really feel like it's the worst one of the three, which I will

(33:46):
say, and this is just a lack of my paying attention.
I didn't realize until listening to y'alls that these were three different authors, but
you can definitely hear three different authors when you read them.
I mean, there's the fat phobia author, there's the 12 year old author, and then there's the
third author that we'll get to eventually.
Yeah, and at one point, the, what's his name?

(34:13):
Marvin sees, he thinks he sees somebody sneaking into their garage and then leaving with a
can in his hand, a can of slime.
But he thinks it's a dream.
And then when he wakes up in the morning, his dad burst into his room and says, Marvin Manchester,
Montgomery, you had no right to go into my garage and take the purple slime to play with.

(34:33):
It is not a toy.
I still need to do experiments with it.
Now, where is it?
And I thought that was very goose bumps.
See in RL Steinian is just like this vague idea that like, what does your dad do?
Oh, he's a scientist.
He does experiments.
The end and watches his car.

(34:55):
Yeah.
And then this one ends.
Basically they realized that the aliens want to like, the screen is not a movie.
It's a portal that leads back to the dimension that the aliens came from.
And they want to bring the humans back there for some reason to eat them or something.
Yeah.

(35:15):
To serve man.
So,
Well, anybody who's seen the Twilight Zone episode would know that already.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
I didn't get the reference.
Sorry.
I didn't get the reference.
And then there's something to do with a fire alarm.
Is it like a,

(35:35):
Yeah.
So they go back and they think there's aliens, but they still think that the dad and the son
are people.
And they're in the concession area when suddenly something happens and they realize, oh, these

(35:56):
are not people.
So they spray the handy dandy soda on them.
Again, there's another warning against the dangers of soda, as y'all had referenced before.
The soda melts their skin off or their artificial skin and they are revealed to be tiny headed
aliens underneath their human bodies.

(36:19):
So then a whole, it progresses to where the main, Marvin's friends are taken away by the
aliens and they're being pulled into the screen, but somehow Marvin gets away and he knows
if he can turn off the projector, then the portal will go away and his friends will be

(36:41):
saved.
Also, we learned back at the baseball game that loud noises freak these things out.
So he figures he can get away from the dad alien that is after him if he pulls the fire
alarm.
So he has to pull the fire alarm and the fire alarm does not go off.
So out of anger, he punches the fire alarm and then the fire alarm goes off.

(37:02):
Yes.
Yeah.
And I'll just go ahead and read the last two pages because it'll show you just how quickly
this thing wraps up.
Sean, Sean is the alien kid from earlier who had his strangest new friend.
What with his glowing eyes and I already forgot what the sentence was.
What with his rubbery skin and purple eyes.

(37:24):
So this is where Marvin is trying to get to the projector after he's pulled the fire alarm
to unplug it, to turn the screen off so that the aliens can't bring people into their own
dimension anymore.
Sean was crouched in the corner holding his ears.
I did not see him at first, but as his body rose up, I realized that my battle wasn't
over yet.
The projector was next to him.

(37:44):
It looked like the plug was on the other side of the projector.
There was no time to waste.
I looked around and found an old movie reel as Sean stood, which makes me think of the
moment in evil mirror where he's like, I looked around and I saw a skeleton holding a weapon
that I conveniently needed.
Wait, can we pause?

(38:05):
Right before this, there is a moment that really annoyed me.
Hold on.
Beep, beep, beep.
I'm backing up.
Editing.
Oh.
So, we're backing up.
So, he's just defeated the dad.
His friends are still being pulled into the screen.
He's defeated the dad and he pulled the fire alarm.

(38:29):
But it's still like a high action moment and he needs to get upstairs quickly in our minds
to get the projector turned off to save his friends.
But then it says, I reached for the handle on the door to the projection room and twisted
open.

(38:49):
My weary legs carried me slowly up the stairs.
The monsters were ready to take Becca and Tommy to their dimension, but the loud obnoxious
sound of the fire alarm stopped them in their tracks.
If it wasn't for the alarm, my friends would be inside the screen somewhere.
And I just thought, what the hell?
Why are you not running up those stairs?

(39:11):
Because his legs are weary.
Well, you know what?
Give him one more push up those stairs for your friends.
It's building suspense, honey.
I just pictured him slowly going up the stairs and I was annoyed by that.
So, proceed.
I'll just start where you left off because it was only a paragraph above where I started.

(39:33):
Just as I got near the projector, the alarm shut off.
What could happen next?
I never should have asked myself that question because I got the answer a split second later.
Sean was crouched in the corner, holding his ears.
I did not see him at first, but as his body rose up, I realized that my battle wasn't
over yet.
The projector was next to him.
It looked like the plug was on the other side of the projector.

(39:54):
There was no time to waste.
I looked around and found an old movie reel.
As Sean stood, I wound up and aimed it at him like a frisbee.
It banged him in the chest and he went flying against the wall.
That's a powerful throw.
That ought to teach you not to mess with Marvin Montgomery and his friends.
I gloated.
But not for long.

(40:16):
Lives were at stake.
I scrambled to the floor and slid under the projector.
I grabbed the plug.
Then I felt a tug on my feet.
Sean had crawled over and latched onto my legs.
He pulled hard, but it was too late.
My hand firmly gripped the plug and out it came.
The projector stopped.
Sean was pulled like steel to a magnet.
He flew up in the air.
I looked through the window.

(40:36):
Sean's father and all the other beasts flew faster and faster into the screen.
The four holding Becca dropped her.
She landed with a thunk.
Tommy was even closer to the screen.
His fall would be painful, but I was sure he favored the fall over being some monster's
omelet.
I saw my friends fall and it made me smile.
It was finally over.
I went outside to my friends.
Tommy picked up his knapsack and we dragged our exhausted and beaten bodies back home.

(41:00):
We didn't really talk.
Then Tommy spoke first.
I guess I know now how they did the special effects in that movie.
They were real.
Becca laughed and smiled.
I guess we still need another new player for our baseball team.
At first I didn't say a word.
I was thinking that Rock Island isn't such a dull town after all, but I couldn't resist
for long.
I used to think that this place was boring, but I guess there's always something to do.

(41:24):
I even heard that someone was going to reopen the movie theater downtown.
I said, Oh no.
My friend screamed at me.
Not again.
Freeze frame.
Roll credits.
That's the end of that story.

(41:47):
But just remember the aliens had tiny heads.
Always remember hashtag tiny headed aliens.
And then the last story.
I would say this one was my second favorite, um, strange exchange by Roy Nemerson.
Barry's family is hosting an exchange student and Andy from Australia is an instant hit

(42:11):
with Barry's friends.
But why are Andy's eyes brown in his photo and blue in person?
Why is everything running backwards?
And why is Barry the only one to see italics?
The strange miss that suddenly appearing.
Beep beep beep.
That's that one.
Um, yeah.

(42:32):
And this one is, uh, I don't even know if it's really worth summarizing that much.
They are hosting a, I said this by Roy Nemerson, Nemerson.
I understand that.
Um, so yeah, they get a foreign exchange student.
He doesn't look like his photo cause his eyes are different color.

(42:52):
Uh, oh, and then it opens up with a legend.
They live in Seville.
So it opens up with some legend about there was a old guy who wanted to be the first person
to land at Seville airport because he was like a war pilot, I guess.
Apparently owned his own fighter jet.
Yeah.
So he was like, I want to be the first person to land at Seville while they were building

(43:16):
it.
So then like against everybody's wishes, he like got in his fighter jet and was like bombing
around up in the sky and like, I'm going to land, I'm going to land.
And then he disappeared in the clouds.
And so ever since then, there's been like a legend that like, oh, this atmosphere is
haunted and I don't think there's been any subsequent plane disappearances since then,
but I guess it's just the specter of that hanging over everything else.

(43:39):
So when the plane is landing, um, it seems to disappear into a cloud of mist as the protagonist
Barry is watching.
And then he's, he freaking out cause he's thinking about the legend of captain Lennox
is the guy's name.
Um, and he's like, Oh no, this plane is going to disappear with our, our new foreign exchange
from Australia friend.

(44:01):
But then all the adults are like, what are you talking about?
There's no cloud out there.
And then he looks out and he sees that the plane has landed and Andy gets off and he's
off the plane with his striking blue eyes.
Boy, he is a dreamboat.
This Andy sure is accent blue eyes.
Meow.
Yep.

(44:21):
And then basically the story kind of gets into a groove where lots of things happen
backwards like, um, I'm trying to, the only one I remember is the dad is like trying to
push the door open to get to Barry cause Barry is in some kind of peril.
So the first one is that Barry is trying to wash his hands or I don't know.

(44:46):
Oh no, Barry's nervous about something.
So he needs to get a cup of cold water, even though he only ever drinks orange juice at
breakfast, but he needs a cup of water.
Will he fills up his water with a cup of cold water, but it's hot and it burns his mouth
so much that skulls his little lip and it's going to be puffy at school.
Crazy.

(45:06):
Somehow the faucets have been twisted to where the hottest cold and the coldest hot
opposite day.
Then our everyday living situation here.
Yeah.
We'll talk about our own kitchen and so many things in our house.
My dad bell.
Anyway, um, then he goes to school and some ladies dropping off her kid puts a car in

(45:32):
what we think is drive, but apparently it's reversed and it almost hits him.
Oh my gosh.
But she doesn't understand cause it was definitely in drive, but when she puts the car in drive,
it goes forward and I guess she just leaves.
She put it in reverse, uh, to drive forward and she's like, oh yeah, that works.

(45:55):
And then there's some line that's like, boy, this has been a wacky day or something like
that.
Yeah.
And we never hear from her again, even though she almost ran on a kid off the sidewalk.
Um, and then another thing happens where Barry's racing the new Australian child whose name
I forgot.
The line is things have been a little reversed today.

(46:18):
I said, that's what Barry says after he almost gets hit by the car.
And then he knows on his cigar.
Um, and then he's racing the Australian kid, um, up a hill, but he knows when he gets to
the top of the hill, he needs to put on his brakes and then turn around to go back down
the hill.
But when he gets to the top of the hill, he puts on his brakes and suddenly his bike is

(46:40):
going faster and goes right over the hill and he thinks he's going to die.
And it keeps going faster and faster the more he breaks.
But then he remembers he needs to, it's opposite everything.
So he starts pedaling and it starts slowing down and thank the Lord Jesus Christ.
He slows down at the bottom of the hill and everyone's like, are you nuts?
He's like opposite day.

(47:00):
And then another thing happens.
He's crossing the street.
The light says he can go.
For some reason they say he has a green light, but what they really mean is he has the walk
sign.
You know what I mean?
Well, then he's out in the middle of the street walking and a car comes in and almost hits
him and the car's like, dude, you don't have the walk sign.
You have the red hand in so many words.

(47:21):
And he's like, no, I had the walk sign and they're like opposite day.
You idiot.
So then he almost dies again.
Two car incidences.
And then he gets home and here's the big doozy.
This one's pretty scary.
He goes upstairs.
It's a little stuffy in his room, but his dad has installed an air conditioning unit
that he really appreciates.

(47:42):
So he turns on his air conditioning unit, but it starts blowing hot air.
And the more he turns it cold, the hotter it gets.
And he thinks he can turn it off, but then it just does not turn off.
So they try to leave his room, but you're supposed to pull his door to open it.
He pulls and pulls and pulls.
It won't open.
He starts banging on it to get his dad to come.

(48:03):
His dad pushes from the outside because if you're pulling from the inside, you push from
the outside as one would understand, but they lay it out clearly in the book that if you're
pulling from the inside, you would push from the outside.
Well dad can't get it open, but then he remembers opposite day.
So he tells his dad, move out of the way.

(48:23):
I'm going to try pushing and the door opens, but he's almost passed out.
I don't remember what the last one is.
Oh yeah.
There's a boomerang.
He throws the boomerang.
Australia.
And he's got us new toy, a boomerang.
He's throwing all of his friends, all of his friends throw it up with a little twist of

(48:45):
the wrist and it comes flying back.
But then our guy Barry throws the boomerang.
It flies off into nowhere.
No one can see it.
And then out of nowhere in the complete opposite direction, it comes flying right at his head
and his other friend has to knock him down so it doesn't kill him, kill him.

(49:08):
He almost died again.
Well during all this time, his parents are like, why don't you all go camping alone together
in the woods?
And by this time he's like, it's fine.
I will go camping alone.
It's just my death sentence.
I'm just going to go.
So they go camping alone and I don't remember what happens.

(49:32):
I'm flipping through the story as you talk because I was also trying to remember all
the things happen.
You forgot the part where he goes.
He gets up to give his report on the American revolution.
Oh yeah.
Oh, I wanted to talk about this.
No, no, you go ahead and then I'll talk.
I'll chime in.
I cleared my throat and began speaking.
I see the best in the best in the night.
You didn't issue a little bit.

(49:52):
I made.
I said, I looked up.
Some of the kids were giggling.
That was strange.
I continued.
I'm just going to skip to his dialogue so we don't need to see all this stuff.
We don't need to know about the mayhem happening in the class as he he's reading.
Yeah, I said the kids exploded in more laughter.

(50:14):
Mrs. Foster started working to me.
Everyone was getting fuzzy.
And that's the last thing I remember before everything went completely blank.
So clearly this child is having a stroke in the front of the room.
The entire class is laughing, which kids will be hands.
So they take this kid to the school nurse when he's passed out after saying what we

(50:40):
realize now are words backwards.
But to them was just slurred speech and then fully passed out.
And then we find out he's been passed out for an hour.
And who do they call?
An optometrist to see if his blurry vision is OK.
Not an ER doctor.

(51:01):
Not anyone else.
An optometrist.
And he's just like, hey, by the way, I was wondering if people wear blue contacts because
this Australian kid.
He asked Andy about why do your eyes look blue?
But in this old photograph, they look brown.
And Andy's explanation is, well, mate, that says they keep dropping in mates every time

(51:23):
Andy talks to remind you where he's from.
Well, might that's easy enough to explain.
I used to have to wear dark contact lenses because I have sensitivity to the light.
But then it stopped bothering me.
So now I don't wear those contact lenses anymore.
That was so good, babe.
So good.

(51:43):
So I keep forgetting our little guy's name.
Barry.
Barry didn't believe this really.
He didn't believe that contact lens story.
So he was like, no to sell.
Next time I see an optometrist, I'm going to ask him about these contacts.
So as it would happen, they call an optometrist for when he has a stroke in front of the class

(52:03):
and passes out for an hour.
So he takes this as a moment to ask the optometrist, would you ever prescribe contacts to someone
for light sensitivity?
And turns out no.
And then the optometrist leaves and no other doctor ever comes.
But it's fine.
Barry's fine.
Whatever.
It's just opposite day.
Oh, and then I just got to the part where they have the race on the bikes, Andy versus Barry.

(52:24):
This is the one where he hits the brakes and goes faster.
But the chapter starts with I had never gone down the hill before on a bicycle.
No one had.
It was illegal because it was considered too dangerous, which is another thing that made
me think like, I wonder if this was also written by a kid.
Because I don't think you can make it illegal to ride a bike down a hill.

(52:50):
But maybe I'm...
It feels like something I would have told my sister so I wouldn't have to.
Exactly.
That's what I was thinking.
It sounds like something an adult would...
I guess that could be the intention of what's happening here is some adult told him, hey,
don't do that.
You'll get arrested.
But I'm flipping to the end because I also don't really remember.
There's a point where he hears Andy talking in his bedroom to another presence saying

(53:15):
like, I don't know, please don't make me blah, blah, blah, whatever.
And then...
Clearly possessed.
We do learn that.
And so I was a little confused because a big part of the story is Mr. Barry is very popular.
He is the star soccer player.
Oh yeah.
Did you talk about how he...

(53:36):
Oh yeah, another opposite day thing.
So as the star soccer player, he's out there.
Big game, big, big game.
Again, we learn how soccer is played just like we learned how baseball is played in
the last game.
And it is a huge goal coming up.
He blocks the other team's goal as the goalie, as he should have done.

(53:58):
He catches the ball and then he holds it above his head.
Everyone's cheering.
And then he turns around without knowing it and throws the ball into his own net.
Oh no.
And then he gets kicked off.
He gets benched.
And guess who happens to also be a pro goalie.

(54:26):
It's our Australian mate.
And he just comes down.
I can't do it.
He comes down.
I mean, neither can I, but I still will.
Well, I tried.
I tried and it was just going to end up getting offensive.
I can't do it.
He comes down.
He immediately puts on a jersey.
It's like he was waiting for this to happen.
And then he is the star player.

(54:46):
And everyone's like, screw you, Barry.
Sit on the bench.
We don't care anymore.
We don't even need you.
We have our star player now.
And his name is Australia.
So the big part of the story is that Barry is very jealous of everyone living this other

(55:06):
dude.
Would you say he's very jealous?
I would never.
But anyway, so we have the setup that Andy has been taken over by the mist that I don't
know if that's revealed until the end or if that's something that our hero suspects beforehand.
Well, when so he he goes down and he hears what is the Australian kids name?

(55:31):
Andy.
My goodness.
Of course it's Andy.
He hears Andy talking to himself, but also with another voice.
Clearly demons are involved.
So he opens the door and there is a mist hovering above his head.
We don't really tie together because we have tiny little brains that it was the mist from

(55:55):
the plane.
Yeah.
So we don't it's not fully tied together, but he's like, I thought I saw a mist and
then it may have gone into his head.
I don't know.
But anyway, he was talking to himself, but then he stopped.
But anyway, he might I think he was just asleep.
And then he opened his eyes and he was just talking to me and he said, there's no big
deal.
So I think it was fine.

(56:15):
Anyway, we're going to go camping together.
It should be fine.
Also, it may be the end of my life.
I don't know.
Whatever.
I just have to go.
So he does know something weird is up.
He doesn't know it's tied to the mist necessarily, but he does know like something weird is happening
here with Andy duty.

(56:36):
Yeah.
I think if I remember correctly, when they make the plants, you know, camping, Barry
is thinking in his head, like, this will give me the chance to confront Andy and confirm
my suspicions about what's going on.
Because yeah, I saw it because he saw the plane get stuck in the mist and nobody else
saw this.
So I think he sort of connects like this has something to do with Captain Lennox and harkening

(57:02):
back to fight time number four, which had the moment where there was a talking mist
that followed the kids around like an anthropomorphic mist that was threatening everybody.
When they're camping in the woods, the he hears a voice from the tent and he looks inside
the tent thinking it's Andy, but like that doesn't sound like Andy.

(57:24):
And then he goes in and sees I looked up directly into the face of a misty foggy form gray all
over except for one thing, a pair of piercing sparkling blue eyes.
And then Captain Lennox says like all those opposite day things that were happening to
you.
I orchestrated those as a test.

(57:44):
Captain Lennox is the mist.
Yes, Captain Lennox is the mist.
I use any closer to you Barry to test you to see if you would be a suitable host for
my spirit.
You pass each test, Barry.
Oh, and also going back to evil mirrors, unfortunate wording.
You were inside Andy's body, weren't you?
I said so then Captain Lennox is like, Hey, look, we should join forces.

(58:10):
You let me possess you and we'll take revenge on everybody in Seaville because they wouldn't
let me land in time.
And then I got stuck in the mist and then the mist absorbed me into it.
And then Barry just to humor him Barry's like, okay, let's go for it.
That's the spirit Barry.
He cried, prepare for the invasion.
May we have a long revengeful life, which I think I'm going to start saying that as

(58:32):
my what's the opposite of a greeting when you're saying goodbye to somebody.
Have a long revengeful life.
Oh, and then he uses a flashlight.
He shines a flashlight on the mist.
And I guess once the mist is outside of somebody's body, it is very susceptible to light.
So he basically just shines a light on it like in Mario Party when you have to get rid

(58:54):
of boo.
And yeah, you shine the light on him to make him shrink and disappear.
That's what happens in this story.
And then Andy comes back to himself and is like, sorry, Mike.
And Barry's like, that's okay.
You were possessed.
Oh, and the reason he puts it together that the light will hurt the mist is because when
they were landing, Andy said something about like the cabin lights went out for like a

(59:16):
split second and Barry was like, oh, that must have been when the mist was overtaking
them.
Yeah.
So he knew that he knew it couldn't handle light because it had turned off all the lights
in the cabin to come in.
Yeah.
Uh, and then this one ends with usually these stories wrap up pretty tightly, but this one
has a bit of a cliffhanger.

(59:37):
I checked my wristwatch.
What time is it now?
And he asked, I checked my wristwatch almost 11.
I said, I stared at my watch and I started to slow up.
What's the matter?
Andy asked.
I didn't say a thing.
I couldn't.
I just kept staring at my watch.
The big hand was approaching the 12th.
The little hand was on the 11, but it was the second hand I was staring at.
Wait.

(59:57):
But it was the second hand I was staring at it.
Oh, I think that's a typo.
It was moving, ticking off each second.
There was only one thing wrong.
It was moving backwards.
At that moment, I thought I heard the sound up in the sky of an old plane engine.
I looked up, but there was nothing there.
Just the clear blue sky, piercing blue.

(01:00:20):
Uh, and you know, that's pretty good ending, I think.
So did you have any theories about what was going on with regards to the opposite day
stuff before you realized that it was just a test arbitrarily designed by Captain Lennox?
Never did I think it was just a test.
I thought somehow, well, I definitely thought that, um, that our Australian mate, Andy,

(01:00:45):
y'all I'm so bad with names.
I can't even do this.
I thought Andy was for sure possessed by a mist.
I never thought it was Lennox trying to test that made no sense to me, but whatever.
Um, the opposite day stuff, I did just think that Andy's ghost guy was trying to like kill

(01:01:07):
or destroy or humiliate into like, I thought Andy was the ghost guy in Andy was trying
to make Andy the most popular, like take over, take over Barry's life.
So that's what I thought was happening because that's what was happening.
Like the parents were like, we don't care that you were benched.

(01:01:28):
This is our new star player and all his friends were like, we don't care about you.
Andy has a boomerang and we don't care that you have homework.
We're going to watch a movie with Andy.
So I just thought he was just trying to take over his life and be the popular one and humiliate
Barry in every way possible or kill him.

(01:01:50):
Yeah, it's supposed to, I guess it's just a test of his reflex or something, which doesn't
even make sense.
Cause I think when the boomerang is coming at his head, somebody tackles him.
It's not something he does, but I'll tell you what I thought.
I thought that because Andy was an exchange student from Australia and because toilets
flushed their own way in Australia, I was like, I thought the reveal was going to be

(01:02:13):
that there was some, maybe it was going to be like some Aboriginal spirit or something
from Australia that was making everything go backwards here because of the fact that
toilets flush the other way in Australia.
And I was very disappointed that that didn't turn out to be the case.
Yeah, the Aboriginal, that word spirit is what makes the toilets flush backwards in

(01:02:35):
Australia.
Did you know that?
Nope.
I thought it was the equator.
No, it's the spirit.
Okay.
And that would have been admittedly, if it was Aboriginal, that may have been problematic
in the same way that like I've heard that like white authors should probably stop using
like the Wendigo and you know, like spirits of Nate, but like, I just, I just really wanted

(01:02:59):
to be connected to the toilet flush.
Like I wanted the kid to be reading a book about Australia and come across the fact that
toilet water swirls the other way, which I also think is not true.
Like I think that's an urban legend.
But I just wanted him to read that in some encyclopedia about Australia and be like,
that's it.

(01:03:20):
I figured out why everything is backwards here.
And then maybe he would like purge the spirit by flushing it down a toilet the right way
or something.
That would have been more of a goof lumps book, I think, than a fright time story.
I mean, I love it.
So no, toilets do not flush backward in Australia.

(01:03:42):
Well, the opposite is backwards.
If we're in America, it's forward.
Like how Brits drive on the wrong side of the road, not the other side of the road.
Here.
I'm just kidding.
Everybody, if you don't know me, I'm kidding.

(01:04:03):
So yeah, I was hoping for a much more xenophobic story than we actually got.
Well, I guess we got the very problematic ones out last week.
This week we just have fat phobia.
So you know, you can't have it all in one book, babe.
Yeah.
Um, I guess that's it.
I don't know that I have anything else to say about this.

(01:04:23):
Do you?
No, I don't think I do.
But I did enjoy this.
I did, and I appreciate that you let me into the clubhouse.
Yeah, I guess we got to take down our no girls allowed sign.
If you like our podcast and you want to communicate with us, email us at blackmagictreehousepodatgmail.com.

(01:04:48):
Tell us about your fright time experiences or your experiences with frightening exchange
students.
If you want to look at photos of the covers of these books and maybe I'll post a picture
of the blood seeping into our fright time thrift store.
Read.
Um, that's black magic treehouse pod on Instagram.

(01:05:11):
There's an at symbol in front of that, I think, but everybody knows that I, it annoys me when
people still say my handle on Twitter is, you know, at blankety blank.
Like what else would it be?
You don't have a choice about the ad.
It's like when people say WWW dot like you don't need to, we all understand the prefix.
Yeah.
And Twitter doesn't even exist anymore.

(01:05:31):
So like X, I mean, Twitter never existed for me anyway, but we're not on it.
Um, but you are on Facebook now.
Oh yeah.
We have a Facebook group called black magic treehouse Facebook group.
So go there and talk about books and start conversations about children's literature.

(01:05:53):
Uh, and, uh, I don't know.
Do I have some kind of sign off?
Do you have a, uh, a button for this episode that I can end on?
That's not what I meant.
Goodbye listeners.