“Before the worms turned mean, before they slithered out to get their revenge, Todd Barstow had a great time with them.”
Todd Barstow is a quirky little kid who likes to collects worms. In fact, he has built a worm farm in the basement of his family home. One day, he hopes to be a scientist. Together with his best friend Danny Fletcher, Todd collects worms on rainy days near second base on the school baseball diamond (they attend William Tecumseh Sherman Middle School in Ohio). Todd likes to use the worms to torment other people with pranks, particularly his sister Regina and her best friend Beth Baker.
The bulk of Go Eat Worms! concerns a series of discontinuous scenes: Patrick MacKay (a rich kid “copycat jerk”) starts scooping up worms for his own worm skyscraper to be displayed at the big Science Expo, Todd has his own worms on display for the Science Expo, Regina and Beth create a giant papier-mâché robin bird (“Christopher Robin”), Danny wins for his balloon solar system, Todd and Regina have a squabble through the Science Expo that forces the students to evacuate, Then Todd and Danny start experiencing minor localized earthquakes and cracks in the ground out near second base where they typically gather worms, they sneak into Patrick’s huge old dilapidated house where they encounter a fearsome dog with bright red eyes in addition to a mysterious creature with decaying green flesh, a bony jaw, and a hideous toothless grin with sunken evil eyes… but this is never really expounded upon. And as it turns out, Todd’s sister Regina had sent them to the wrong address (the old Fosgate Mansion) for some reason.
Then Todd starts finding worms hidden in all of his things –in his Raiders cap, in his cereal, in a sandwich, backpack, math notebook, and even in his bed. He blames Regina, but then she has an alibi for not pranking him with the worms. She convinces Todd that the worms are actually watching Todd, planning to rise up against him, seeking revenge for Todd cutting one of the worms in half… but then this compelling little mystery simply goes away (unfortunately) as we learn it was actually Regina pranking Todd all along. There is also an odd little sequence wherein Patrick displays a comic book called “The Adventures of Todd the Worm” but this never goes anywhere either.
At any rate, the underwhelming conclusion comes when Todd and Danny start digging for worms out by second base again but then the earthquakes crack open the ground and a giant worm slithers up (perhaps it is the mother worm) and it starts strangling Todd. But then, just at the last moment, Todd’s sister Regina walks out of school carrying her huge papier-mâché robin and apparently the shadow of the bird frightens the giant worm so it disappears back underground…
In the end, Todd gives up on his obsession with worms. He dumps all his worms in the backyard and takes up a new hobby: collecting and chloroforming butterflies. But, in the twist ending, after killing and pinning a beautiful monarch to his collection, Todd is startingly confronted by a giant butterfly in his room who seems ready to pierce Todd with a pin!
Go Eat Worms! is a flimsy Goosebumps that seems to have been rushed into publication on little more than a vague concept with minimal editing and revision. This one introduces several intriguing plot angles that unfortunately ultimately go nowhere, particularly the mysterious creature Todd and Danny spot in the old house which is never explained or revisited, as well as the intriguing revenge theme wherein the worms appear to be visibly watching Todd and planning to strike back at him. Plus the conclusion is farcically ridiculous as a giant worm (perhaps akin to the sandworms in Dune) is instantly frightened by a papier-mâché bird so it suddenly disappears just as abruptly as it arrived. And no one seems to wonder if the giant worm will ever appear again. Go Eat Worms! is apparently one of R.L. Stine’s least favorite Goosebumps books and with good reason.
Stine, R.L. Go Eat Worms! Scholastic, Inc., New York, NY, 1994.
This is one of the rare goosebumps stories I don’t remember at all — apparently for good reason!