34: Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes
“It was way after midnight, but I couldn’t sleep. The gnomes with their leering smiles danced before my closed eyes.”
Joe Burton has a problem. His house has become the laughing stock of the neighbourhood, and it’s all because of his dad’s unhealthy obsession with landscaping. Deer, a family of skunks, a few flamingos — Mr. Burton has every lawn ornament imaginable. But it isn’t until he adds two gnomes to the decorative family that Joe’s problem goes from embarrassing to something worse.
Each year, Joe’s dad and his neighbour, Mr. McCaull, engage in a little friendly fire, competing to win a blue ribbon in the town’s annual garden contest. Their goal? To outgrow each other and harvest the nicest, largest vegetables and fruits. Of course, it wouldn’t be a story without a thorn in the bush, and that’s where the gnomes come in.
Just like in Goosebumps #7, “Night of the Living Dummy,” the inanimate objects come to life and stir shit up, and the protagonist — Joe, in this case — takes the heat. First, the gnomes, Hap and Chip, pulverize Mr. McCaull’s precious casaba melons, then they draw faces on them, then they douse his Jeep in white paint. Initially, it seems like they’re helping Mr. Burton get a leg up on his neighbour, but then they turn on him, too, mashing his tomatoes to a pulp.
Eventually, Joe, his sister, and his best friend catch the gnomes in action. But the gnomes are smarter than they look. They fool the kids with a sob story about how they were taken from their home in the woods and doomed to be lawn slaves for the rest of their lives. They trick the kids into taking them back to the store to rescue their buddies from retail captivity. There, in the middle of the night, after breaking into the basement, the kids find hundreds of gnomes eagerly awaiting their arrival, chanting in unison, ready to dish out the torture.
The kids make it out alive, of course, and the story closes in classic Goosebumps fashion: Mr. Burton buys a new ornament, an enormous gorilla, which winks at Joe as the book wraps up.
There’s no doubt, “Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes” is a good story with a playful, lighthearted tone (think Dennis the Menace or Grumpy Old Men). But for loyal Goosebumps readers, it’s nothing new. Being so similar to the Dummy stories, the plot is easy to predict: something bad happens; a kid gets blamed for it, tries to convince his family he’s innocent, doesn’t get taken seriously. What’s interesting, though — and a key differentiator — is that Stine takes the mischief further. The consequences of the gnomes’ wrongdoings aren’t just superficial. Eventually, things go too far, and the once-friendly neighbours become enemies.
Also, I was surprised to see Stine inject some environmentalism into the story. Even though the gnomes are bullshitting the kids when they share their backstory, there’s a relevant lesson to be learned: if you clear-cut forests for corporate gains, it’s catastrophic for residents, including mischievous gnomes.
Lastly, Stine does a good job personifying his characters. Take Joe’s sister, Mindy, whose need to be organized comes through in every scene she’s in, or Mr. McCaull, the ex-military neighbour watering his garden like clockwork on the strictest schedule.
Again, aside from a formulaic plot (and one too many tomato similes), “Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes” is a fun, engaging read with good characters and suburban charm. If nothing else, you might look at lawn ornaments differently the next time you’re in a garden centre—and isn’t a fresh perspective why we read in the first place?
4/5 drops of Monster Blood.
