How I Got My Shrunken Head
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| Author | R. L. Stine |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Goosebumps |
| Genre | Horror fiction, Children's literature |
| Publisher | Scholastic |
Publication date | January 1996 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 119 pp (first edition, paperback). |
| Preceded by | The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena |
| Followed by | Night of the Living Dummy III |
How I Got My Shrunken Head is the 39th book in R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series. It was first released in January, 1996.
Plot
 | This section may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. (June 2010) |
Narrator Mark, a chubby twelve year old boy who prefers the company of video games to actual human interaction, describes to the reader his favorite video game, Jungle King. His eight year old sister Jessica will only play with him if she can kill herself immediately because she likes the sound it makes in the game when she dies, and Mark's two friends, Joel and Eric, are too busy playing a version of solitaire where the cards themselves fight.
Mark's video game playing is interrupted by a visitor. Opening the door, Mark comes face to face with a leathery, authentic shrunken head. The head is presented as a gift for the boy from an older woman wearing sinister black specs, who claims the head is a gift from the boy's Aunt Benna. The woman introduces herself as Carolyn, a co-worker of Aunt Benna's on the island of Baladora, where the two do scientific work.
Carolyn assures the family that Aunt Benna had written of her visit in advance and Mark's mother invites Carolyn to stay the night. Overnight, the strange shrunken head begins to glow as it rests on top of Mark's dresser, eventually shining brightly and floating towards him in bed. Mark understandably freaks out and runs around screaming that the head is alive, however no one believes him. He takes his mother and sister back into his room to show them the glowing head, only to find the head missing. Jessica produces the head from behind her back, where she has given it a long scratch from roughhousing. Mark freaks out about her mishandling of the head. Mark calms down and heads back to bed, but not before noticing Carolyn staring at him from the hallway.
The next morning, Mark's mom surprises him with the best news he could receive so early in the day. Aunt Benna sent Carolyn to visit so she could bring Mark back with her to the island to visit! Jessica complains that she wasn't invited, but twelve year old Mark continues to gloat and dance, bragging that the jungle is just too dangerous for kids. Carolyn and Mark fly out on to the small island on a little plane and the pilot informs them that since he never learned how to land, they'll have to jump out of the plane. Oh and also there are no parachutes, so they should aim to land on something soft. The nutty pilot then reveals he's just a jokester and that he said that to prepare Mark for thinking fast in the jungle.
The pilot safely drops them off on the island and leaves. Carolyn informs Mark that Ernesto, the pilot, is their only contact on and off the island, but he can arrive within an hour of them calling the mainland. Mark is very excited to see his aunt, whom he has not seen since she last visited him when he was four years old. Carolyn leads Mark into a scientific-looking building where he meets a white haired scientist named Dr. Hawlings, whom he initially mistakes for his aunt. Dr. Hawlings introduces Mark to his 12-year-old daughter, Kareen, who has shining blue eyes just like her father. Mark tries to be nice to the pretty girl but Kareen is a bit of a brat and complains a lot. Mark asks where his aunt is and is informed that no one knows. They brought Mark to the island not because his aunt invited him, but because they thought he could help them find her. You see, Carolyn and Dr. Hawlings believe that Mark has Jungle Magic.
Kareen tries to get her father to lay off Mark, but Dr. Hawlings is convinced that Mark's Aunt gave her nephew Jungle Magic for safe keeping when he was four years old, and that Mark can use the Jungle Magic he possesses to help them find his missing aunt. Mark and Kareen both have a hard time believing in Jungle Magic, mainly since it's Jungle Magic and is called Jungle Magic. According to the notebooks Aunt Benna left behind, since Mark saw the shrunken head glow, he must possess Jungle Magic. Dr. Hawlings stresses that the ancient jungle tribe of the Oloyans were the ones who shrunk not only the head in Mark's possession but the hundreds of other shrunken heads which line the cozy outdoor decor of the scientific workstation, and that Mark must use their magic to find his aunt.
Kareen convinces her father and Carolyn to lay off Mark for a little while and they start to bond. The next night, after everyone has gone to bed, Mark sneaks out and explores the workstation. He grabs a flashlight and begins reading his Aunt Benna's journals. Mark discovers a passage about how Carolyn and Dr. Hawlings are evil and want to use Jungle Magic to do evil. She writes in her journal that she gave her nephew the secret of Jungle Magic to keep it safe, as he lived 4,000 miles from the island of Baladora. She fears that once the two villains possess Jungle Magic, they will shrink her head. He slams the book down and heads out of the workstation to escape his certain fate of death, only to be stopped by Kareen, wearing only her nightshirt.
Kareen admits that her father and Aunt Benna had their differences, but assures Mark that her father isn't evil. She then offers to aid him in sneaking out to find his aunt. Armed with the shrunken head, Mark sets off into the jungle alone. Kareen tells him to let Jungle Magic guide the way. Mark still doesn't know how to do that, but Kareen tells him he'll figure it out, and that she'll stall for him back at the station. Mark wanders around in the dark and finally stops to rest. He is later woken up by giant ants that have swarmed all around him. He can't swat them off fast enough and it looks like all is lost until, gripping the shrunken head, he lets loose his video game battle cry, "Kah-Lee-Ah!" The ants instantly flee from his body. Mark realizes the key to Jungle Magic is the word he thought he'd made up; his battle cry would lead him to his aunt!
Mark encounters more obstacles on the way to finding his aunt, including falling in quicksand and encountering a tiger, yet saves his own life every time by uttering the magic word while holding the shrunken head. After falling into a pit to escape the tiger, he finds himself stuck and upon uttering the magic word, Kareen appears at the top of the deep pit and she lowers a vine in to help him climb up. Kareen explains that she got worried about Mark so she followed him into the jungle. Mark shows Kareen the head and how every time he steps closer to where his Aunt Benna is, the head glows, and when he moves in the wrong direction, it fades. He also tells her about the secret word and recites it for her, to her delight. She is convinced that he'll find his aunt and save the day. Mark expresses more doubts as to her father and Kareen assures Mark that her father isn't evil, that though Dr. Hawlings and Benna disagree, they still have respect for each other and he would never want to wish her harm. Mark buys this because he is has a crush on this girl.
Finally , the pair comes across a lone shack in the middle of a clearing. Mark calls out his aunt's name and she appears, shocked but happy to see him. She then gets angry at Mark for coming to the island, and when he tells her that he brought Kareen, Aunt Benna gets furious. Mark tries to explain that Kareen is on their side when Kareen starts hollering into the distance, flagging her father and Carolyn down to the shack. Kareen screams "They're over here.” Dr. Hawlings try to get Aunt Benna to reveal the secret word and she refuses. Unfortunately, Mark told Kareen, so she proudly tells her father that she knows it, but before she can vocalize it, Mark slaps his hand over her mouth and wrestles her to the ground. Aunt Benna takes the cue and tries to attack Dr. Hawlings. Unfortunately, the tag team of middle-aged woman scientist and fat child is no match for two fit sinister adults and their preteen cohort, and Aunt Benna and Mark find themselves held prisoner beneath the shack.
That night, Aunt Benna tells Mark that the secret to Jungle Magic is two-fold, and that to enact it, you must both grip the original shrunken head and utter the secret phrase. She tells him that when she gives him the signal of three blinks, he is to produce the shrunken head and utter the phrase, saving them.
The next morning, Aunt Benna and Mark are trotted outside. Dr. Hawlings and Carolyn have been preparing a giant boiling pot. With guns raised against the two, Dr. Hawlings again asks for the secret to be revealed. Aunt Benna refuses and Dr. Hawlings informs the two that since they won't reveal the secret, it will simply have to die with them. As Dr. Hawlings prepares to shrink their heads, Mark waits for Aunt Benna to give the signal. Once she does, he pulls the shrunken head out of his pocket, but before he can say the word, Dr. Hawlings smacks Mark's hand, sending the shrunken head flying into one of the exterior piles of heads.
Mark ducks away from the doctor's hands and dives into the pile of heads, trying to find the right head. They all look so similar, and then Mark remembers Jessica scratching his head. Mark grabs the head with the white mark on it and utters the secret word. The two adult villains and Kareen all shrink down to the size of mice and flee into the jungle. Upon returning home, Aunt Benna transfers the power of Jungle Magic back to herself. Mark is allowed to keep the shrunken head. The first morning before school starts, as he walks towards his friends to show them the head, he looks down and sees the head's eyes turn towards him as it says, "Hey kid, let me tell the part about the tiger!"
Tagline
Heads up!
TV Adaptation
This story was adapted as part of the Goosebumps TV series, with a few changes:
- In the book, Mark has a mom and dad. In the TV version, Mark is only shown with a single mom who dates (with no explanation of where Mark's real father is or whether or not he's alive).
- In the book, Mark had a little sister named Jessica. In the TV version, Mark is an only child.
- In the book, Mark's parents are implied to be okay with Mark's interest in the jungle. In the TV version, Mark's mother doesn't care much for it (especially after Mark scares off one of her boyfriends).
- In the TV version, Carolyn doesn't personally come over to give Mark the shrunken head. It is delivered by mail and Aunt Benna calls Mark about the trip to Baladora (which is revealed later to be a computer-generated message done by Benna's colleagues).
- The shrunken head has a bigger role in the T.V. version than in the book.
- Mark's friends Eric and Joel was not shown in the TV show.
- Mark is thinner than in the book.
- Mark's last name was not mentioned in the novel. In the T.V. show, his last name was Rowe.
- In the book, Mark found out about Dr. Hawlings and Carolyn wanting Jungle Magic from one of the notebooks he found on the bookshelf. But in the T.V. show, he found out about Carolyn knowing about Jungle Magic from one of the video tapes he found.
- In the book, Carolyn is Dr. Hawlings' sister. But in the T.V. show, Carolyn is Dr. Hawlings' wife. Because of this Carolyn is Kareen's anut in the book. In the T.V. show, Carolyn is Kareen's mom.
- In the novel, Mark has to have the shrunken head to use jungle magic. In the T.V. show, it is later revealed that the shrunken head had nothing to do with jungle magic, the magic was in Mark all along.
- In the book, the pilot who takes Mark to Baladora is a military officer. In the TV version, the pilot is an Asian man dressed like Elvis Presley in his later years (in the famous white, rhinestone-studded jumpsuit with sunglasses).
- The TV version includes a plot point about a group of Asian men and women who work as servants for Dr. Hawlings, his wife, and his daughter, Kareen, which Dr. Hawlings says is from Aunt Benna abusing the "Kah-lee-ah" (Jungle Magic) she discovered before she went missing, but is really the byproduct of an experiment Dr. Hawlings performed on the natives to make them mindless zombies.
- In the book, when Mark discovers that "Kah-lee-ah" is the magic word behind the Jungle Magic, Dr. Hawlings, Carolyn, and Kareen shrink to the size of a mouse and then disappear into the jungle. In the TV show, the word is what snaps the natives out of their trance and they end up pushing Dr. Hawlings, Carolyn, and Kareen into the pit of green liquid.
- The TV version turns out to be a flashback as told by Mark to one of his mom's boyfriends.
- The book ends with Mark taking his shrunken head to school and the shrunken head telling Mark to let him tell the part about the tiger. In the TV version, the story ends with Mark keeping the now-shrunken Dr. Hawlings, Mrs. Hawlings, and Kareen in a terrarium and feeding them a piece of his sandwich. Mark then tells the three (in the TV version) that Aunt Benna won't come back to visit Mark until he's 16 years old and promises that she will have a spell to revert the three to their normal sizes.
See also