The Bookworm: Cheerleaders: The First Evil
Cheerleaders: The First Evil, by R.L. Stine. 166 pages. Pocket Books. August 1992.
Wisps of fog floated over the graveyard. The moonlight filtering through the fog tinged everything with a pale, sickly green. Shadows shifted and simmered in the eerie green light. The jagged tombstones glowed (p. 149).
For the third Halloween season in a row, I have decided to reread fitting R.L. Stine thrillers. First up was Cheerleaders: The First Evil — a funny, agonizing, spooky, and entertaining romp complete with spirited cheering. Its autumn setting also fits the season. I assumed it took place during football season, which was one of the reasons why I chose to reread it now.
The First Evil focuses on Bobbi and Corky Corcoran, whose family recently moved to Shadyside from Missouri. Bobbi and Corky were cheerleading superstars at their old high school and they manage to join the Shadyside High cheerleading team despite the fact tryouts were held in the spring and that the squad is already set. The addition of the Corcoran’s creates bitterness among the other cheerleaders, especially Kimmy, the team’s annoyingly obstinate, envious, and egotistic co-captain. Kimmy feels the Corcorans are given preferential treatment by the team’s captain, Jennifer, and manager, Miss Green, who have their eyes set on state and national cheerleading glory.
After leaving the school for an away game, the cheerleading bus makes a detour to the Corcoran’s for forgotten equipment. On the way, the bus skids off the road during a heavy rain storm and flips over near the Fear Street Cemetery. Jennifer is thrown from the bus (I’ll get to that later) and is found facedown on the grave of Sarah Fear. Jennifer is presumed dead at first, but she miraculously awakens. She is paralyzed from the waist down and Bobbi is made captain, much to the ire of Kimmy, who successfully turns the other cheerleaders against the Corcoran’s.
Once she is made captain, mysterious events begin happening to Bobbi. Locker doors swing open and slam on their own as she walks the halls after school. She sees the supposedly paralyzed Jennifer walking again. And, while practicing a dangerous new routine, she is momentarily paralyzed and unable to catch Kimmy after she jumps off Corky’s shoulders and dives toward the floor. Everyone suspects that Bobbi let Kimmy fall on purpose and Bobbi is asked to quit the team, which she does. Then Bobbi is trapped inside the shower room at school with scalding hot water shooting from every shower. She dies and her body, “red as a lobster,” is found by her sister.
Corky then takes over as the main character. After accusing Kimmy of trapping Bobbi in the shower room, she follows clues to Jennifer and the entire mystery is unraveled in a tornado of dirt at the Fear Street Cemetery.
That’s right: a tornado of dirt
Though I hate to play favorites, I think The First Evil is my favorite reread thus far. Despite the usual lack of believability and all the illogical twists and turns, the story was compelling. The writing was well above average; the descriptions were sharp and concise, and Stine did an excellent job of conveying the character’s emotions. I felt the sorrow, the exhilaration, the uncertainty, the embarrassment, the fear — perhaps because those are feeling everyone can relate to. Whatever it was, The First Evil was a very visceral experience. To be honest, I have never felt so empathetic toward cheerleaders. It helped a lot that Bobbi and Corky were likeable characters. Despite the fact they were better cheerleaders than everyone else, they were humble and kind to a fault. They broke the cheerleader mold — unlike Kimmy, whose vindictiveness pissed me off. Bobbi, I felt, was a poor choice for captain because she never stood up to Kimmy’s disrespect. That obviously played to the conflict’s advantage, though. In that sense, Stein really used the cheerleader stereotype to his advantage; he did a great job portraying the other cheerleader’s pettiness, enmity, and conceit. Also, the ending was quite spooky, which I loved.
One thing about The First Evil that I found completely ridiculous was when Jennifer was thrown from the bus. The bus driver, a man named Simmons, is described much like the school bus driver in The Simpsons:
Simmons was one of the Shadyside High custodians. He also drove a school bus. A laid-back young man with a blond ponytail and Walkman headphones that seemed to be permanently glued to is ears, he wasn’t terribly reliable in either job (p. 27).
Anyway, Simmons begins driving in the rain with a busload of cheerleaders. The rains starts falling harder, and harder, and harder. The wind is blowing, the sky darkens, and the windshield steams over and the wipers cannot keep up as sheets of rain pour from the sky. So what does Simmons do? Does he slow down? Does he pull over? Nope:
Suddenly, Simmons reached out and pulled the lever to open the door. The sound of the rain grew louder. Cold, wet air cut through the bus (p. 32).
He opens the door and continues driving. Why? Probably so Jennifer can conveniently fly out the opening when the bus begins to bounce and careen. However, having ridden the bus to junior high, the thought of it strikes me as absurd and hilarious: a school bus barreling down the highway in a downpour with the front door wide open. It makes no sense.
Since The First Evil is the only book of the Cheerleaders series I own, I have a daunting but hopefully fun task ahead of me: I need to track down and buy the Second Evil and Third Evil.
