Goosebumps Month: "It Came From Beneath the Sink"

On the cover of “It Came from Beneath the Sink,” there is text reading, “It’s warm! It’s breathing! And it doesn’t do the dishes!”

I guess at least this one didn’t put me to sleep every time I tried to read it.

There are no words.

“It Came from Beneath the Sink” focuses primarily on Kat, her brother Daniel and his best friend Carlo after they discover a strange sponge while moving into their new home (which they never explain as to why, except that it’s a really nice, so obviously this took place during the 1990s when people could just move down the street for fun).

Already there are some aspects of this story that I didn’t see in the other books I've read this month. For one, the story takes place during school time rather than the summer (although I can’t figure out what kind of school they go to as they seem to have the day off every other chapter), and the other is that they meet the monster so early on. In the first chapter Kat (who has a weird way of making jokes involving her name) discovers a sponge under the cabinet, and quickly realizes that it’s no ordinary kitchen tool, it produces heat, seems to pulse with a beating heart and has eyes. I suppose the last part was what really set her off.

In addition to that, the family starts begins a series of bad luck -- her dad falls off a ladder, a branch almost falls on her, her birthday party gets rained out. And all them point to a connection, which we luckily get told about two chapters before any kind of reveal.

"I wouldn’t find out the frightening truth about the sponge creature until the next day.
When I learned it, I understood why there were so many accidents in our new house.
And it made me wish that I had never opened that cabinet, never reached under the sink, and never found the spongy … thing.”

Now this section is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.. There is a not so thin line between foreshadowing and blatantly telling the audience what is going to happen next. This book takes that line out back, shoots it for potentially having rabies, and then gives a Power Point presentation of the plot at the end of every other chapter. One of the Goosebumps characteristics I’ve grown to love is that each chapter is basically a “And then, suddenly...” as the previous page ends on a cliffhanger. It’s not to say that it doesn’t occur in this book, because it does almost constantly, but this need to constantly provide updates that “Things are going to get worse” is not clever. It’s actually really annoying.

So as promised, she finds out what is going on the next day at school. After trying to have her teacher figure out what is wrong with the sponge (leading to an accident wherein the teacher smashes her fingers in a drawer), Kat catches up with Daniel who says he has figured it out -- the sponge is a mythical creature called a Grool that lives off bad energy and creates bad luck. It’s said the Grool cannot be given away or “destroyed with force or violence” (remember that, it’s important), and warns that if the owner ever tries to get rid of it, they will die within a day.

Ladies and gentlemen, your monster this evening.

Although not convinced, Kat tries to neglect the Grool for a few days, but soon after her dog runs away, and when it rains on her birthday, ruining her plan of going to a theme park with her friends, she declares it enough and tries to bury the thing -- only to find out it has killed the grass and flowers. Without options, she decides there is nothing more she and can but live with the bad luck.

The kicker here is that while Kat doesn’t believe in the Grool’s ability to kill her if she were to get rid of it, there’s still a concern in the back of her head. So later when Carlo takes the sponge, she and Daniel get worried that something bad is going to happen to her. Through a series of meandering events (don’t worry, a group of bullies show up, this is a Goosebumps book after all), they get it back and take it home. But Kat has an idea.

Remember that part in the description, about how it cannot be killed with force or violence? Well Kat decides it’s a riddle, and ends up killing it with kindness. Yes, the book was 112 pages leading up to an ending where the day was saved by the healing power of love. Except in this case, instead of healing, it was the murdering power of love. Fantastic.

Honestly, this book was pretty poor, and it, like “Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes” is an example of this series hitting the point where the ideas are beginning to dry up (the book before this was the third “Monster Blood”). And honestly, the quality is a little better in this one than say “Monster Blood” or “The Ghost Next Door” which both feel a bit cobbled together toward the end, but this one develops nicely. Sadly it’s boring, the monster is unconvincing and ultimately it has not held up. Then again, I could be wrong -- I’m sure there is a grade school book report somewhere in history stating this is the best book ever written in the English language.