It contains the following stories:
- "The House of No Return" - Three kids dare another kid to go into a supposedly haunted house.
- "Teacher's Pet" - Becka's new teacher is obsessed with snakes, and has a strange secret related to them.
- "Strained Peas" - Nicholas isn't excited about the idea of having a baby sister. He's even less enthused when she turns out to be a monster.
- "Strangers in the Woods" - Lucy is staying with her great-aunt Abigail. But when she sees lights in the nearly woods, she comes to believe an alien invasion is going on.
- "Good Friends" - A day in the life of Dylan, his friend Jordan, Jordan's bratty sister Ashley, and Dylan's own mean brother Richard.
- "How I Won My Bat" - Michael 'Mike' Burns is obsessed with baseball, even though he's no good at it. But he soon develops an even bigger obsession — keeping a magical bat he borrowed that really helps turn his game around.
- "Mr. Teddy" - Willa falls in love with a new teddy bear, but when strange things happen, she suspects her new toy is alive... and evil.
- "Click" - Seth Gold loves channel surfing, and becomes obsessed with a universal remote that he soon discovers can control his universe.
- "Broken Dolls" - Tamara Baker collects dolls. Unfortunately, her little brother Neal loves destroying them. One day at a crafts fair, they meet an old woman who makes dolls, and decides to punish Neal for his habit in her own magical way.
- "A Vampire in the Neighborhood" - Maddy Simon and her friends think the strange new girl in town, Helga Nuegenstorm, is a vampire... and set out to prove it.
It was later collected in the 30 Tales to Give You Goosebumps hardcover set.
"The House of No Return", "Teacher's Pet", "Strained Peas" and "Click" were all adapted into episodes of the third season of the 1995 TV series.
The stories contain examples of:
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The House of No Return
- Asshole Victim: The Danger Inc kids, who dare another kid to go into a supposedly haunted house, only to end up trapped there themselves.
- Bait-and-Switch: While Danger Inc in the beginning of the story was waiting for a possible initiation with the house, Robbie noticed a single light crossing around the street, coming towards them. Robbie was at first frightened. But then it's revealed to be a driving car with only one headlight on in the dark.
- It's Probably Nothing: After the Danger Inc team sends Chris into the haunted house, they wait more than an hour to see if he comes out, so they enter in there themselves. When they do, the front door slams shut behind them. Robbie pipes up that it was just the wind. But then they're suddenly surrounded by a ghost couple whom won't let them leave.
- Muggle in Mage Custody: At the end, the three protagonists end up trapped in the titular house forever with a pair of ghosts.
Teacher's Pet
- Big "NO!": When Becca and Benjy find out that the giant python that was sleeping in the big glass cage in their classroom was actually their science teacher, one of the two children does this trope "like some unearthly creature". Becca wasn't sure if she was the one who howled this, or Benjy.
- Catapult Nightmare: Becca has this one night in which she imagines snakes slithering onto her bed and crawling all over her.
- The Darkness Gazes Back: When sneaking into the classroom at night, Becca sees what she believes at first to be tiny lights around her. She realizes that they were actually the glowing eyes of the snakes in the classroom staring at her.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When a student in class knocks a cage open, causing a mouse to be freed and escape out the window, Mr. Blankenship furiously tells the entire class that he wants each of them to write three pages of an eastern diamondback rattler's feeding habits done tomorrow. And when he overhears Becca complain about him to Benjy, he snaps that she will be doing a ten page essay. When she sputtered in indignation, this prompts him to add that she will also clean the snake cages for the next two weeks.
- Foreshadowing: Becca and Benjy notice a gigantic glass cage behind Mr. Blankenship's desk, and the latter guesses that it holds a giant python. He was technically correct, just not that this giant python was actually their teacher.
- Hand Gagging: When caught by Mr. Blankenship of complaining about him, which gets her a harsh punishment, and her sputtering in response, which gets an even further harsh punishment, Becca does this trope to herself to prevent herself from digging a deeper hole.
- Not so Dire: After finding out that Mr. Blankenship's a were-snake, he tells Becca and Benjy to stay after class with him the next day. They were alone with him now, and he moved toward them, rubbing his hands together. It then cuts to Becca narrating that he was actually making a deal with them: he wouldn't harm them or tell the school that they broke in there, and in exchange they would keep his secret and feed him white mice every afternoon.
- Operation: [Blank]: Becca calls her and Benjy's revenge against Mr. Blankenship "Operation Mouse Rescue."
- Snake People: Mr. Blankenship, who turns out to be a were-snake.
Strained Peas
- Death Glare: Nicholas' dad gives him his "stony glare" when he's in trouble. Nicholas notes that there's no fighting it.
- A Dog Ate My Homework: One morning before school, Nicholas discovers Hannah eating his math homework, much to his anger. At school, his teacher asks him where his math homework was, and he replied that his baby sister ate it. She kept him after school.
- Enfant Terrible: Hannah, a baby who takes this up a notch by being a literal monster who wants to be the only child. This is eventually revealed to not be the case with her, as she's implied to be just an innocent baby. Played straight with Nicholas' actual baby sister, who warns him that she will get rid of him as soon as she can walk.
- Hope Spot: Nicholas gets his real baby sister, and he genuinely warms up to her, not believing that she's a monster at all. But then when he's tickling her, she threatens to pull his arm off.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: When his parents' room (which had all white surroundings and furniture) is ruined by paint with Hannah found in the middle of it, Nicholas' father thinks he did it, and asks him for an explanation. He responds that Hannah did it.Dad: (laughs sarcastically) Hannah did it? Hannah took your paint set, brought it all the way to our room, opened the jars, and splattered paint all over everything?Nicholas: Yes.Dad: Nicholas, Go to Your Room!
- Mark of the Beast: Exploited in a comic book that Nicholas is reading, in which Iron-Man unmasks a villain with a birthmark on his face, the Mark of Evil. Nicholas sees a similar birthmark on his newborn sister's face, and this leads him to believe that she must be evil as well. This belief is further cemented by all the evil occurrences that he observes Hannah do. It actually turns out to be coincidental, as Hannah is most likely not really evil, just a misunderstood baby.
- Shared Unusual Trait: When Hannah is picked up by her actual mother, she has a tiny heart-shaped birthmark on her cheek, just like the baby's.
- Switched at Birth: Revealed near the end of the story to have happened with Hannah. Nicholas' mother is quite devastated by the news.
Strangers in the Woods
- Anger Born of Worry: After Lucy returns from the woods at night, Great-Aunt Abigail was waiting for her at the house, scolding her for running off like that.
- Cosmetic Horror: When coming down the stairs one night, Lucy is stunned to see her Great-Aunt's face glowing green. She later explained that she had on a green mint julep facial mask. Lucy ends up being even more horrified by Abigail's true alien green face.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Lucy is reportedly warned this by her Great-Aunt involving the woods near Fairview, which Lucy wonders if it's because of something sinister involving aliens. But when she actualy travels in there, it turns out that there was actually a movie involving aliens being filmed in these woods, and Lucy just interrupted filming.
- Drives Like Crazy: Great-Aunt Abigail does this throughout the story when driving Lucy to various places across town, which terrifies her and other passerby. The cause of this behavior is revealed to be that she lost her glasses before Lucy arrived, and she couldn't see where she was going.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Lucy brings her dog, Muttster, with her to Great-Aunt Abigail's, who goes crazy whenever the old woman is near. It seems to be subverted later on, as a woman on the woods movie set had a dog whistle that drove dogs crazy, to which Lucy surmised that this is what made Muttster bark so much here. This turns out to be a Double Subversion, as Lucy realizes at the end of the story that Muttster was right about her Great-Aunt.
- Face-Revealing Turn: Lucy finds her Great-Aunt's glasses, and she goes to her room to give them back to her. When she enters the room, the woman's back is to Lucy. But when Abigail turned to face her, Lucy was shocked to see an utterly alien face.
- Mind Your Step: When eavesdropping on her aunt one night, Lucy decided to head back up to bed, but the bottom step creaked.
- Red Herring: It turns out that the woods, with all the bright lights and shadowy figures that Lucy was warned not to investigate, was a film shooting of an alien movie. This all precedes the reveal of her great-aunt's true identity.
- Small Town Boredom: Lucy complains to her friend about having to stay with her great-aunt in Fairview, which was more dreary than she remembered. The town only had a grocery, a hardware store, a gas station, and a tiny library. She does later gain interest in a peculiar woods near the town, which was actually housing a film set.
- You Watch Too Much X: When explaining about her assumptions about the strange goings on between her relative and the woods, Great-Aunt Abigail replies that she's seen too many movies. This gets inverted when Lucy's assumptions turned out to be correct.
Good Friends
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The French novella adaption extends the ending. Dylan's older brother Richard still mocks Dylan for having imaginary friends, just as their mom comes home and asks if Richard's been playing with his imaginary little brother. Not only that, but Richard's pet spiders aren't real either because he's terrified of actual arachnids.
- Breather Episode: It's a simple slice of life tale that doesn't involve any creepy or weird stuff. Aside from the twist that Jordan and his sister are all in Dylan's head.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Subverted. It turns out that the main character's best friend and bratty sister, who has an imaginary friend herself, are in fact imaginary themselves.
How I Won My Bat
- And I Must Scream: The narrator wins the eponymous baseball bat, but he's transformed, fully conscious, into a store display mannequin of a batter. He is actually pleased by the outcome though, because people pass by the exhibit and admire his swing, and now he will actually be able to keep the bat forever.
- Baseball Episode: The story is centered around Michael 'Mike' Burns, who loves baseball but is lousy at it until he gets the titular bat.
- Exact Words: After the game, Mike goes to the sports museum in town to return the special bat, and he asks Mr. Smith if he can keep the bat. He replies, "Okay. You can keep it forever." And Mike's request was definitely granted, just not in the way he exactly wanted.
- I Never Told You My Name: When introducing himself to Mike, Mr. Smith casually addresses him by name, causing Mike to think, "Had I told him my name?"
- Taken for Granite: It ends with the main character getting turned into a self-aware statue, holding the titular baseball bat.
- Wax Museum Morgue: What the sports museum that Mr. Smith works at turns out to be. The place is filled with players frozen like statues with the sports instruments they requested to keep and hold onto, with Mike eventually as one of them.
Mr. Teddy
- Killer Teddy Bear: Willa buys a new teddy bear that appears to be trying to terrorize her, and at one point seeming to attack her. It turns out that the new bear was not alive and it was all her old bear's doing.
Click
- Asshole Victim: Seth Gold, who abuses the power of the universal remote and ends up alone when he accidentally turns off the world.
- And I Must Scream: Seth accidentally turns off the world around him, and he's only surrounded by darkness; the only light being a faint glow on the remote control that reads BATTERY DEAD.
- Foreshadowing: At the beginning of this story, Seth mentions that he used to have a hobby of channel-surfing on the TV. Because he's now trapped in an empty void with his remote control now dead.
- Karmic Twist Ending: The story has the protagonist abusing the universal remote to suit his own ends. When he's confronted about this he tries to use the device against the accuser but it doesn't work properly, so he presses the "off" button in frustration, and the entire world vanishes as he finds himself in a black void. Then the battery runs out.
- Universal Remote Control: Seth's father gets him a "Universal Remote" that turns out to control time itself. He quickly starts to abuse it for various petty reasons, like cheating on a school exam, which eventually alienates him from his best friend. At the end, he accidentally makes the world around him vanish when he presses the "OFF" button in frustration, only to find that the batteries have run out.
Broken Dolls
- The Blank: The story features a creepy old woman who crafts dolls, but doesn't include facial features on her creations. It is later revealed that she uses a type of magical gel (referred to as "dolly jelly" by the protagonist's younger brother) which not only robs the unfortunate victims of their faces, which then end up on the specific doll, but their souls apparently become trapped in the dolls, too.
- Description in the Mirror: How Tamara's physical appearance is described.
- Genre Savvy: Tamara. Upon receiving the old woman doll, she gets her brother to try and break it before anything else can happen.
- Here We Go Again!: Actually defied for once. Someone sends Tamara a doll that resembles the creepy doll maker, but instead of ending the story there, Tamara decides to goad her brother into breaking the doll before anything can happen.
- Ordered Apology: After Neal breaks Tamara's doll in the beginning of the story, she tells him that he could at least say he's sorry. He at first does so, but then he adds, "NOT!", and then runs out of her bedroom, which Tamara slams the door behind him.
- Sssssnake Talk: When returning to the old lady's doll stand, Tamara is startled to hear a doll speaking with this type of voice, telling her to stop the witch.
- You Fool!: The old woman says this over and over when Tamara drops the doll goop in a nearby pool, destroying it.
A Vampire in the Neighborhood
- Foreshadowing: Maddie says she and her pals have been friends for a "long long time". Because they are immortal vampires.
- Tomato Surprise: It is revealed that Helga isn't a vampire, but the main kids are.
- Vampire Episode: Notably the first of a scant few examples in the franchise. It revolves kids suspecting a girl of being one. She isn't, but they are, and decide to remedy this by making her into one too.
