... and you're going to take good care of me!
The Goosebumps book where a monster boy lives in a human boy's basement.
Marco's mother is annoyingly overprotective. She won't let him do anything fun, or hardly even mundane. One day, tired of her behavior, Marco sneaks out to play softball, only to get hit in the head by one of the other players. Soon after, he receives a call from Keith. A boy who expects Marco to take care of him. A boy who says he lives in Marco's basement.
And then things get really weird.
It is one of the nineteen original series books that was not adapted into the 1995 TV series. However, Keith later appeared in the Download and Die! story in the comic series.
The book provides examples of:
- All Just a Dream: The ending reveals that the character who had been dreaming ever since he was hit in the head with a bat was actually Keith the monster boy, not Marco. Keith dreamed that he was Marco.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Marco and Gwynnie don't have a father around and it's never explained what happened to him.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: While in his room working on homework, Marco is shocked to feel an arm wrap around his neck and pretend to choke him. It turned out to be Gwynnie, who came over. She asks him if she scared him, to which Marco sarcastically replies, "No. I'm used to people sneaking in and strangling me from behind."
- Batter Up!: The first chapter ends with protagonist, Marco, knocked out cold after getting whacked over the head with a baseball bat swung by the athletic girl, Gwynnie. Supposedly. Gwynnie is revealed to be his sister later on, and Jeremy was really the one who hit him with the bat.
- Being Watched: Marco is getting into bed after a fun day, when he suddenly had the strange feeling that he was being watched. Sure enough, he turned away from his bed, and saw Keith leaning in the bedroom doorway, staring at him.
- Big Little Sister: The athletic girl Gwynnie, who smacked Marco over the head with a baseball bat, is described as being big and strong, and at least half a head taller than Marco. It's later revealed that Marco had only dreamed that Gwynnie hit him over the head, and that Gwynnie is actually his younger sister.
- Big "YES!": Marco and Jeremy simultaneously say this when they successfully chase a squirrel out of the basement.
- Body Horror: Taken to EXTREME levels, in which one of the characters actually turns inside out! Needless to say, it's rather disturbing even for a Goosebumps book, and it's taken this trope to a whole new level.
- Brain Theft: At one point, Marco goes to the doctor and the doctor says he needs to remove Marco's brain and look at it under a microscope. Marco is scared out of his mind, but his mother reacts as if the doctor said he needed to take Marco's temperature.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Marco constantly has to hear his mother warn him of doing anything she considers wrong. And when he decides to go to a softball game, which he knows that his mother would not approve of him joining, he gets whacked in the head with a softball bat and knocked out.
- Captain Obvious: Marco's mother catches him downstairs late at night, and she asks him why he isn't asleep, to which he replies that's because he's awake.
- Creepy Basement: It's home to a family of monsters.
- Downer Ending: The ending still manages to be bleak and sad even if it doesn't doom the characters. Keith has been dreaming the events of the whole story, reflecting his desire to be friends with Marco, and realizes they can never be friends because of the pain it'd bring. When Marco finds Keith in the basement, Keith tells him to go back to sleep, and the book ends without revealing what Marco does next.
- Dream Deception: Keith attempts at this at the very end when Marco catches him puking his guts out. The book ends before we find out if it works, though.
- Dream Reality Check: In one confrontation with Keith, Marco wonders if he is awake. He does so by pinching his arm and scratching his cheek. It hurt, whcih convinces him that he is definitely awake. Subverted when this all actually does turn out to be part of a dream.
- Growling Gut: One night, a little after midnight, Marco's stomach growls, so he decided to get a midnight snack. But he forgets this when he comes downstairs and sees the basement door open...
- Hiccup Hijinks: Whilst Marco is waiting for the doctor with his mother, a little girl is also in the room waiting with her father. She hiccups every few seconds with her whole body shaking each time. According to her, she's been hiccuping for ten days, and her father tries to give her advice such as holding her breath, which she says doesn't work. And as Marco is leaving, the girl continues to hiccup, and he internally believes that her problem is getting worse.
- Hospital Hottie: When Marco sees his doctor for the second time, he notes that he didn't look at all like the Dr. Bailey he saw in his first dream. This Dr. Bailey was blond-haired and blue-eyed, young and tanned. He looked like a TV doctor played by an actor than a doctor in real life. This is averted in Marco's third dream with Dr. Bailey, in which he is a hairy, seven-foot-tall man.
- Identical Twin Mistake: Two of Marco's classmates are the Franklin twins, whom are constantly arguing with each other. Marco cannot tell which one is which. He and Jeremy even discuss this while playing a round of billiards, wondering if they fight each other for this reason, to prove that they're different from each other.
- I Warned You: Marco dearly hopes that his mother doesn't say "I told you so" after he disobeys her orders on playing sports and gets hit by a softball bat. Too bad for him, she launches right into it when he wakes up after his injury.
- "Just Joking" Justification: Upon returning to school after his head injury, Marco is asked by his teacher (Miss Mosely) what he remembers about the hospital, to which he can't recall anything about that. Then Gwynnie makes a joke about it, which Miss Mosely is rightfully cross with her for this, considering that she was the one who gave Marco his head injury in the first place. She defends herself with this trope.Gwynnie: Maybe I should hit him on the head again. You know. To help bring back his memory. (a few students laugh)Miss Mosely: (frowns at Gwynnie) That's a terrible thing to say. It's not a joke. Memory loss from a hit on the head can be very serious.Gwynnie: (shrugs her shoulders) Just kidding. Can't anyone take a joke?
- Mind Screw: The book is this... and then some.
- My Beloved Smother: Marco's mother is incredibly overprotective of him, even going as far as to prevent Marco from sharpening his pencils because she believes he'll poke his eye, much to Marco's annoyance. Marco even says at one point he half expects his mother to say "Don't breathe so much! You'll break your nose!"
- Ominously Open Door: Marco is going downstairs late at night for a snack when he sees the basement door open, which he finds weird, because his mother usually likes to keep doors in their house closed. And when he starts to close it, he at first hears what he believes to be Keith downstairs talking to him, but it was actually his mother coming up doing laundry.
- Overly-Long Tongue: At the doctor's appointment that Marco goes to, his doctor asks him to open his mouth and stick out his tongue. He does, and the doctor starts pulling his tongue out, and Marco is shocked to see that his tongue rolls out and piles on the floor like a snake.
- Please Wake Up: After struggling with an attacking Keith, Marco grabs a paperweight that's nearby and smacks him in the head with it. Marco is shocked at what he had done, and desperately begs the unmoving Keith to wake up. He does wake up after a moment... as he starts to transform.
- Puppy Love: Marco speculates that Gwynnie likes his best friend, Jeremy, considering how she is always trying to talk to and impress him whenever he comes by.
- A Rotten Time to Revert: After all the fantastical dreams that he had throughout the book, Keith decides to revert back to his true form instead of his human one, and so he starts to turn himself inside out. Unfortunately for him, Marco goes down the basement at that moment, and catches Keith unfurling his bodily guts out of his body. He realizes that he is exposed, and sucks his insides back in, but it is too late as Marco had seen enough.
- Sinister Scraping Sound: While playing billiards with Jeremy, Marco hears a scratching sound and he thinks it's Keith. It actually turns out to be a squirrel that was trapped in a cabinet.
- Surreal Horror: So bizarre that it's taken to unnerving levels when children start pulling themselves inside out!
- Staircase Tumble: Marco and Keith, with the latter clinging to the former, find themselves tumbling down the house stairs while fighting each other. Because Keith is in his squishy monster form as this is happening, his body inadvertently cushions Marco's like a pillow, saving him from injury.
- Switching P.O.V.: The last chapter is told through the point of view of Keith, the monster boy.
- Terrified of Germs: Among Marco's mother's worries, her biggest one is germs, which are consisted in the most reminders that she relays to her son.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: The book is one dream sequence after another from the main character getting hit with a softball bat.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: After Marco witnesses a bunch of scary stuff, his mother takes him to the doctor. Said doctor explains that he needs to remove Marco's brain and examine it, and his mother reacts as if the doctor had just said Marco needed a blood test.
