Tagline: See no evil…
Back tagline: A deadly attraction
Summary: Paulette Fox refuses to let her blindness stop her from living a full life. But one thing she’s never done is fall in love—until now. Paulette knows Brad Jones is the only guy for her.
Even when her friends see Brad commit a horrible crime, Paulette is sure that he’s innocent. Her friends tell her he’s out of control. That she will be his next victim. But Paulette knows he would never hurt her.
Is Paulette right about Brad? Or has her love put her in terrible danger?
First impressions: Oof, sounds like we’re gonna get a lot of toxic behaviour in this one. Should we start hating Brad now? He probably won’t be the bad guy, but he’ll still probably be awful anyway and gaslight her the whole time. I’m glad to see a disabled protagonist though! It’s not much, but at least we’ve got a main character who isn’t cis, white, hetero and able-bodied, right? Who knew Stine was so progressive back then?!? Only took him 49 books to get to this point. Anyway, I love her outfit and she’s rocking some nifty shades. It’s a bit worrying that she’s at the top of the stairs on her own, though. Is this a scene from the book? Let’s find out!
Recap
Roll call:
Paulette – Our blind heroine who’s totally infatuated with Brad.
Cindy – Paulette’s best friend that we love.
Jonathan – Another one of Paulette’s good friends.
Brad – Paulette’s love interest with a bad boy reputation.
We begin with a prologue where our anonymous bad guy is spying on Paulette:
He liked spying on the blind girl.
She never knew when he was watching.
He watched her a lot. On her way to school, on her way home, in her yard. He enjoyed watching her.
[OK, so we’re starting off strong and creepy! But is it Brad?]. Our bad guy likes what he sees when he looks at Paulette – tall, slim and pretty with wide, green eyes and pale skin, she’s ‘The type of girl he liked best.’ The blind girl doesn’t know it yet, but she’s gonna be the bad guy’s property soon – apparently something’s always gone wrong in the past for our bad guy, but it’s going to be different now because this time ‘he would get what he wanted.’ [This guy sounds awful. He must fit right in in Shadyside!].
Onto the main story now, and our blind heroine Paulette Fox is being driven to Shadyside Music Academy [Never heard of it] for a lesson by her good friend Jonathan. She wants him to slow down, somehow able to tell he’s going 45 in a 30mph zone, insisting ‘”I can hear. I can feel the wind rushing by the window.”‘ [I mean, I’ve heard losing one sense heightens all the others but how the hell can she accurately detect what speed limit someone’s driving? And how does she even know where she is to know what the speed limit is?]. Jonathan jokes that she’s the only blind backseat driver in history, and Paulette’s glad that he can joke about her disability, because she hates people feeling sorry for her. That doesn’t stop her bringing her blindness up ‘”every twenty or thirty seconds”‘ according to Jonathan [Oh, she’s one of those people, is she?].
Conversation soon turns to Paulette’s decision to sign up for a self-defence course in gym this year. Jonathan knows she can handle herself, but he’s worried about how her parents will react. Paulette hasn’t given them the paper to sign yet, planning on handing it to her father before his morning coffee when he’s still half asleep [Good plan!], but she can tell Jonathan doesn’t think she’s making a good choice:
She sighed. She was used to other people doubting her abilities.
Even her parents didn’t realise how capable she was. They never understood that she didn’t feel handicapped. Paulette had been blind since birth. She didn’t know anything else. She never felt as if she were missing something.
She could get around perfectly well with her cane. And her years without seeing had made all her other senses much sharper than most people’s.
[I like that she’s not letting her disability define her] They arrive at the Academy where Jonathan lets Paula out while he goes to find a carpark. As she makes her way up the asphalt [Asphalt as in the road? Jonathan didn’t even let her out at the footpath?], using her cane as a guide, she hears something heavy coming up behind her [!!!]. Someone screams ‘”Watch out!”‘ but as she turns to the direction of the cry, someone knocks her to the ground.
There’s a mighty crash behind her before she’s helped up by a guy who explains there was a car headed straight for her [The driver couldn’t stop? Lol]. The car just missed her thanks to the guy’s heroics, and he apologises for knocking her down. Apparently there was no-one in the car because ‘”Some idiot doesn’t know how to park on hills”‘ and didn’t set the emergency brake [Wow OK]. Paulette thanks her mystery hero for saving her life, and to her surprise he already knows who she is:
His voice didn’t sound familiar. She was sure they hadn’t met before.
“Everyone knows who you are,” he replied. “Everyone at school. I’m Brad Jones. I’m a senior at Shadyside.”
“I’ve never heard of you,” Paulette blurted out.
Handing Paulette her cane, Brad explains he just transferred in September and it’s super hard starting a new school as a senior [Why’d you change schools, Brad? Hmm?]. She asks if he takes lessons at the Academy as well, but unfortunately it’s to expensive for him and he just work here part-time as a janitor. He loves music though, and plays piano just like Paulette, who he thinks plays beautifully. Paulette likes Brad’s smooth, deep voice – ‘It reminded her of a baritone saxophone.’ [Specifically a baritone one? OK].
Paulette suggests maybe she can hear him play sometime, and Brad jokes about his poor playing skills before their flirty banter is interrupted by Jonathan who’s wondering why Paulette’s face is bleeding. She explains why she’s got a few cuts and scrapes and wipes her face with a tissue from her purse before stuffing it back in [Gross, find a bin!].
Brad and Jonathan are in the same English class at school, so they don’t need an introduction, and Brad heads off to start his shift, although Paulette notices he walks ‘in the opposite direction from the annex’ [I have no idea what that means, but I’m assuming it’s the first of many suspicious behaviours from Brad?].
Paulette can’t stay focussed on her music during her lesson and as she walks with Jonathan back to his car afterwards, Brad comes rushing over and asks for her number, ‘”so we can set up a time for you to hear my bad piano playing.'” Paulette’s super excited that he wants to get together and recites her number for him, before he heads back to work.
On the way home, Paulette gushes over how cool it is that Brad doesn’t treat her like ‘”some kind of freak”‘ and even though Jonathan doesn’t either [And clearly has feelings for Paulette – could jealousy turn him into our bad guy], Paulette points out that they’ve known each other since kindergarten [Back in the friend zone, Jono!]. Paulette asks what Brad looks like, but Jonathan doesn’t ‘”exactly go around staring at other guys”‘ [Tbh I never understood why it’s so taboo for a straight guy to compliment another guy’s looks? Straight girls do it all the time!], but he thinks he has brown hair [You think, Jonathan? Appearance is the first think anyone notices about anyone! Don’t be a flog].
Paulette decides she’ll just ask her best friend Cindy, who has a rating system and ‘could give a description of every guy in school’ [Cindy sounds great hahaha], and Jonathan’s surprised that gossip girl Cindy hasn’t already told Paulette all the rumours about Brad. Apparently everyone’s saying Brad was arrested over a robbery back in Springfield, his old town, and Jonathan heard all about how ‘”Brad Jones is bad news”‘ from a guy in math class who used to live there too. Paulette doesn’t believe it since they’re just rumours and that guy could be making it all up [Why is Paulette’s first instinct that it’s all made up? Like, why would this random guy lie about it for no reason? Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? On the other hand, a very jealous Jonathan could be lying through his teeth right now, too! Where’s Cindy to confirm or deny these rumours?!].
Jonathan suggests Paulette ask Brad herself, and she just might do that when she knows him a bit better. She thinks he seems really nice so far, but Jonathan points out that she only spoke to him for two minutes. Paulette reckons Jonathan’s a little jealous [Same], but he denies it, explaining he just thought she’d want to know what everyone’s saying.
Later that night, Paulette chooses her outfit for the next day day of school, which is an easy task thanks to colour-coded bumps on the hangers [Paulette’s been blind from birth, so does she even know what each colour actually looks like?]. We learn that she’s a bit of a neat freak, which is completely understandable given her disability, and everything in the house and backyard is kept in precise locations so she knows where everything is at any one time. As we’ve learnt already, she prides herself on being independent and doesn’t like when he parents try to help her with things [It sort of comes across as ungrateful, but I guess Paulette trusts her own capabilities, so it must be frustrating when no-one else believes in her].
As she settles down into bed later, best friend Cindy calls wanting to know all about Paulette’s hot romance with Brad Jones that she’d heard about from Jonathan. Cindy reckons Brad’s ‘”totally cool looking”‘, with wavy, brown hair and dark eyes [Again, Paulette can’t really visually understand what these descriptions actually look like, right? Maybe wavy because that’s something you can feel, but colours? No], and Paulette confirms she would 100% go out with him if he’d asked. They discuss the rumours about Brad, and Cindy believes that although rumours don’t start from nothing, they could be heavily exaggerated. Cindy reckons Jonathan just worries too much and Paulette agrees that he’s worse than her parents, which drives her nuts sometimes [He’s just overprotective because he likes you! I wonder if she’ll end up with him in the end?].
Later as Paulette’s about to drift off to sleep the phone rings again, and this time it’s Brad! He’s whispering because he’s at a friend’s house [So?], and he gets super intense straight away:
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he went on. “Ever since I saw you this afternoon.”
For a moment Paulette didn’t answer. She felt the same way herself. Should she say that to Brad?
“Did you hear me?” Brad asked. “It’s like you’re the one I’ve been looking for.”
“I…I don’t know what to say,” Paulette whispered.
“You’ve been thinking about me too, haven’t you? Haven’t you, Paulette. I know you have. I can’t feel this way unless you did too.”
“I—we hardly know each other!” she protested.
“That doesn’t matter, Paulette. I know all I need to know. You feel the same way. You have to. Admit it,” Brad said.
Paulette didn’t answer. He sounded so intense.
What am I supposed to say? She thought.
[Lots of red flags there, Paulette! What a clinger]. Brad just breathes heavily and raggedly into the phone [Sexy] before he hangs up, not waiting for an answer.
The next day, Paulette struggles through her first self-defence lesson in gym class. The teacher, Ms. Tillotson, is super encouraging, explaining it’s all about anticipation and concentration rather than seeing, and Paulette is finally able to get the hang of it [This is definitely gonna have something to do with how she defeats the bad guy later]. Before Paulette heads off, Ms. Tillotson reminds her she’ll need her parents’ signed permission slip by Friday, otherwise she’ll be dropped from the course [I wonder what her parents are so worried about. You’d think they’d understand how self-defence classes could benefit her as much as anyone else, if not more so].
At lunchtime, Cindy meets Paulette at their usual table with lots of gossip about their classmates. Paulette’s too busy thinking about Brad to pay attention though, and mentions his weird phone call last night. Before they can properly discuss, Brad appears and Cindy makes up an excuse to give them some alone time [Great friend!]. Paulette invites him to sit with her, and since he doesn’t bring up the phone call, she decides she won’t either [Something tells me a lot of whatever’s gonna happen in this book could be easily prevented if she’d brought it up right now. I bet it wasn’t even him on the phone].
Brad comments how nice it is to be sitting next to her for once rather than watching her eat from the other side of the lunchroom, which he’s done ever since he started [That’s creepy] and apologises for chasing Cindy away. Paulette assures him Cindy would miss out on a lot of gossip if she sat with her the whole time, and they both bond over how boring they think gossip is. He also lets her feel his face so she can get an idea of what he looks like [Another thing I don’t understand – I’m sure she can get a rough idea from the shapes and textures and all that, but since she’s blind from birth, she wouldn’t be able to put together an actual face in her mind, would she? Like, how would she know what things look like if she’s never seen them in the first place to compare it to? I hope I don’t sound ignorant! I’m just trying to get an understanding of how a blind person’s imagination works. A Fear Street book is probably not the best place to learn though hahaha].
They talk about how her lack of vision probably improves all her other senses, and Brad suggests it helps with her piano playing as she can probably feel differences in the piano keys other people wouldn’t. He downplays his own skills again, mentioning he’s never had lessons because his family could never afford them and that he would just practice whenever he’d find one free at school. Paulette kindly offers for him to come over and practice on her family’s piano sometime, but he says ‘”I couldn’t do that”‘ and explains he found a piano in an abandoned house on Fear Street that he’s been using [Something’s suss… why wouldn’t he want to come over and practice on her piano?].
As she heads home from school later, Paulette can’t stop thinking about Brad, unsure if what he said about the abandoned house is true. She also can’t stop thinking about that phone call, which she found a little scary – why had he acted so strange then, so different from how he was at the Academy, or at lunch today? [I just had a thought! What if it was someone else on the phone, like Jonathan maybe, trying to frame Brad?!?].
At home, Paulette makes her way up to her room, remembering her parents won’t be home til much later, and hits her shin on the wastepaper basket in her room which isn’t in its usual spot [Uh oh]. Returning it to its spot, she decides she must have forgotten to put it back after emptying it [No girl, someone was definitely in your house!].
She heads downstairs for her daily piano practice and although she initially can’t stop thinking about Brad once again [Girl, please], eventually she gets lost in the music until the doorbell rings. It’s Cindy, right on time to work on their history project together. They head up to Paulette’s room to study, but Cindy screams ‘”No!”‘ as soon as she enters:
“I’m sorry, Paulette,” Cindy replied. Her voice still shook, but she sounded calmer. “I…I don’t know how to tell you this. It’s the walls,” Cindy explained. “Someone has…has written on the walls with red paint.”
[Did you really have to scream about it, Cindy? Idiot]. Along with a skull and crossbones are the words ‘”You will be dead, blind girl”‘ [Wow, rude] but everything else in the room seems OK, except that her bedroom window is open. Paulette closes it before school each morning, but somebody must have climbed onto the porch roof and opened it to sneak in. After checking the house to make sure no-one’s still inside, Paulette refuses to let Cindy call the police, worried that her parents will become even more overprotective and never leave her home alone again. Cindy suggests that she shouldn’t stay alone, angering Paulette who declares how much she hates that everyone thinks she can’t take care of herself, but Cindy soon puts her in her place:
“That’s not true!” Cindy cried. “You think everything has to do with you being blind. But it doesn’t. I wouldn’t want to be alone if this happened to me. Someone wants you dead, Paulette”.
[I’m taking Cindy’s side here because Paulette bangs on about people not believing in her because she’s blind way more than we’ve seen it happen]. Paulette believes someone was just playing a joke [Pretty weird joke to play] and refuses to discuss it anymore. She promises she feels safe now and will be extra careful from now on, and the girls get to work cleaning up the paint before her parents get home.
The next morning, Paulette has breakfast with her parents and hands over the permission slip for gym class for them to sign. As she suspected they’re concerned about her taking on something she can’t handle, but she assures them she’s already making good progress. They finally agree to let her continue the course, although Dad warns her not to let it lull her into a false sense of safety and not to ‘”start thinking you can do things that you can’t”‘ [Wow, can you have some faith and give her a bloody chance first?!].
She heads off to school, walking her usual route, and on the way she can hear someone running up behind her. Thinking it’s one of her friends, she slows to let them catch up, asking who it is. The stalker doesn’t answer but slows down too, and she wonders if it’s the same person who broke into her room [I’m gonna say yes]. She keeps walking, hearing the footsteps continue behind her and she stops at an intersection to wait for the lights. That’s when she hears the footsteps speed up, pounding the pavement. As cars start to cross the intersection, two hands slam into her back and she goes toppling onto the road as a horn blares and tyres squeal [Why is someone trying to kill her already, she hasn’t done anything?!].
As Paulette tastes ‘the sour gutter water on her lips’ [omg yuckkkkkkk], a woman gets out of the car and makes sure she’s OK. The woman offers to drive Paulette home, but suddenly Brad’s there, his voice sounding husky, ‘as if he had a cold’ [Because it’s Jonathan posing as Brad, maybe?]. He promises the woman he’ll take Paulette to the school nurse and Paulette reassures her she’s fine, telling her she can go. Once she’s gone, the gaslighting begins:
“What happened?” Brad asked. “Did you trip over something?”
“Someone pushed me into the street!” Paulette cried. “Do you see anyone? Maybe they are still around.”
“Pushed you? No one pushed you,” he replied. “I was down the block. You were all alone.”
“No!” Paulette protested. “I heard someone behind me. I felt someone’s hands—”
“You must have tripped,” he said. “There’s a hole in the sidewalk right near the corner.”
“No, I didn’t,” she replied. “I’m sure I was pushed. I guess you just didn’t see–”
“You’re in shock,” Brad said.
[I really don’t think this is Brad but whoever it is is awful and hardcore gaslighting her. I’ll keep referring to him as Brad though, since that’s who Paulette believes it is]. Brad then pulls her to him a little too tight, and when she tries to move away, he ‘placed his hands on both sides of her face. Forcing her closer to him.’ [Ew, get off her!]. He tells her he’s here for her, that he thinks about her all the time and insists that she thinks about him too. Paulette denies it and is like “Brad, what’s wrong with you?”, because he’s acting so intense, but he just shoves her cane into her hand and takes off [Poor girl. Surely she’d be disoriented after being pushed onto the road, right? How’s she gonna find her way to school?!].
Later that day in study hall, Paulette’s unable to focus because yep, you guessed it, she’s thinking about Brad. Cindy and Jonathan are there too, and Cindy’s worried because Paulette looks spaced out. Paulette assures her friends she’s fine, but Jonathan isn’t, because he can’t stop thinking about lunch! Cindy reckons that’s why he looks like a beached whale [Wow, not my girl Cindy fat shaming her friend :(], and Jonathan shoots back that she looks like a sick guppy [Your insults need some work, Jono].
Jonathan reveals Brad’s just walked into the library, and Paulette’s glad she didn’t mention this morning to her friends because she doesn’t want to give them more reasons not to trust him. She decides he must have acted so strange because he was so shocked by almost seeing her hit by a car [Omg Paulette, no].
Brad comes over and asks for a chat, so she follows him into the stacks where he invites her to come hear him play piano tonight. She’s not too sure she wants to be alone with him after this morning, so tells him she’s not sure, but he insists:
“Well, okay,” Paulette agreed. Brad seemed completely back to normal now.
“You know how sometimes you’re thinking about someone and the next thing you know you see them or they call?” Brad asked. “That just happened to me. I was hoping I’d run into you.”
“But you saw me this morning,” Paulette said.
“This morning?” Brad repeated. He sounded puzzled. “The librarian is looking at us,” he said. “I have to get back to class. I’ll talk to you later.”
[Well, that’s all the confirmation I need that someone’s pretending to be Brad. I wonder if Paulette’ll figure it out any time soon though. But is it Jonathan, or someone else? Maybe if Jonathan can’t have Paulette, nobody can, which is why he’s trying to kill her!] After school, Paulette meets Brad on Fear Street via bus and he leads her to the abandoned house. There’s no electricity but the gas is still connected, so at least they’ll have some warmth. The house smells ‘as if it had been abandoned for years’, and Brad tells her he heard that the house belonged to a music teacher that was murdered along with his family one night [Is that from another book? I don’t remember ever hearing about that plot before!], and nobody must have cared abut leaving the piano.
Brad demonstrates his playing skills and Paulette likes the feeling he puts into his work, but notices him stumbling over several notes, so teaches him to play scales. After practicing for a while, Brad says ‘”Now let me show you something”‘ [Gross], pulling her in close. Paulette’s sure he’s about to kiss her, but a loud crash from upstairs interrupts the moment as they realise someone’s in the house [!!!].
Brad goes to investigate and soon Paulette can hear heavy footsteps and muffled shouting. Who’s up there with Brad?! Paulette can’t make out the words but soon hears someone come bounding down the stairs and out the door. She yells out for Brad, but there’s no answer. Realising he could be hurt up there, she grabs her cane and finds the stairs. As she makes her way up, she hears rustling behind her — someone’s moving towards her! Whoever it is doesn’t answer her calls, so she tries to scramble faster up the stairs, but is quickly grabbed by the waist and held tight.
She realises it’s not Brad, since the scent is all wrong [But you couldn’t tell it wasn’t his scent after he pushed you into traffic? OK], and suddenly she hears Jonathan telling her to calm down [Why didn’t he say anything before grabbing her? Suss! And why couldn’t she recognise his scent?]. He explains she was about to step on a missing stair and admits he followed her [Of course he did]. He saw a flashlight waving from room to room before going out, so he decided to investigate. Paulette explains that Brad went up there to suss out a noise and never returned, so Jonathan tells her to wait downstairs while he tries to find Brad. Jonathan searches the whole house, but returns with bad news – ‘”There’s no sign of him. Brad’s gone.”‘ [Or did Jonathan knock him out earlier and is now lying to make Brad look bad?].
Jonathan drives Paulette home and in the car she demands to know why he followed her in the first place. He explains he saw her get on the bus and thought it was weird, and then when he saw her meet Brad at the bus stop, he was concerned because of all the rumours about him. Paulette briefly wonders if it was Jonathan she’d heard Brad arguing with in the house, but then decides her oldest friend wouldn’t do something like that. Following her was a weird thing to do, though, and he is super suspicious of Brad after all, so who knows [The fact that she’s considering Jonathan might be the bad guy makes me wanna eliminate him as a suspect. But who else could our bad guy be? Cindy’s the only other person we’ve met, and surely it’s not her]?
That night, Paulette still hasn’t heard from Brad and she’s worried sick [Was it him she heard running from the house?]. She ‘lay in bed—staring at the phone’ [But…she can’t see?] and willing it to ring, and after 11pm [She’s got a braille alarm clock and watch, which is how she can tell the time, which is cool], it does ring, but it’s just a wrong number [At 11pm? That’s a late call].
The next day at school, Paulette finds Brad in the cafeteria and he apologises for leaving her alone in a deserted house and not bothering to call later to tell her he’s OK, but ‘”Something came up.”‘ [Really? You’re not even going to give her an excuse? Axe him, Paulette] Like me, Paulette doesn’t think that’s good enough, and Brad takes her hands and tells her how glad he is that he met her, but ‘”I can’t see you anymore.”‘ Paulette’s as confused as I am and demands to know the truth:
For a long moment he didn’t answer. Then he took a deep breath. At last, Paulette thought, I’m going to get some answers.
But Brad abruptly dropped her hands. She heard his chair scrape back from the table.
“No!” he said in a choked voice, almost to himself. “No! It’s no good! I can’t let this happen again!”
He rose from the table so quickly that he knocked his chair over. Paulette heard his footsteps rushing away from her.
[His words make me think of the prologue – maybe Brad is the bad guy after all? Maybe Brad’s got a jealous ex-girlfriend from Springfield that’s terrorising him and Paulette?]. Two days later, Paulette and Jonathan are at Cindy’s place for a movie night, but Paulette can’t really concentrate on the movie, and I think we all know why [Starts with B and ends in rad]. She hasn’t [For lack of a better word] seen or heard from Brad since the cafeteria, and she doesn’t understand what went wrong.
Cindy and Jonathan ask why she seems so down lately, so she tells them what happened in the cafeteria. Paulette’s worried Brad just doesn’t want to be with a handicapped girl, but Cindy and Jonathan don’t see what she thinks is so great about him anyway, especially after he left her alone in that abandoned house [Right?!? Like, what possibly could have come up that made you leave a blind girl all alone in an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar street?! So dodgy and unforgivable].
Paulette explains that ‘”Sometimes Brad is so fun to be around,”‘ [Just sometimes? Not a good match, hun], but other times there’s something different about him [Because it’s a different person]. She reveals how someone pushed her into traffic, but Brad had said he saw the whole thing from down the block and told her no-one else was there. She knows she felts hands on her back, but can’t figure out why Brad would lie. Cindy can’t get over the fact Brad left her in the abandoned house and couldn’t give her a good reason, and admits she thinks he’s dangerous. But in true Shadyside girl fashion, Paulette protests that she really likes him [Classic].
When Paulette arrives home later, her parents reveal her grandmother fell down and broke some ribs, so they’ll need to go into the city and help her out over the next few nights and probably won’t get home until late. Paulette assures them she’ll be fine on her own while they’re gone and heads to bed, still thinking about Brad. As she’s about to drift off to sleep, a sound from outside jolts her awake. There’s scraping sounds and a loud thud from outside her open window [Why are you still keeping your window open, you idiot?!], so Paulette heads over for a closer listen [Bad idea, someone’s already broken in once!]. As she reaches up to close it, ‘just to be on the safe side’, a strong hand grabs her wrist [!!!].
Whoever it is tries to yank her out the window, but Paulette holds onto the window frame with her free hand, digging her fingers in. As the intruder tries jerk her free, ‘one of her nails ripped away, shooting pain up her arm’ [Oof], and she screams for help. The attacker loosens his grip and Paulette hears them scramble across the porch roof and drop to the ground before running away. Her parents rush into the room, but Paulette lies about having a bad dream and being too cold, which is why she’s at the window to close it [Girl, someone just tried to fucking kill you again! Tell your parents!].
She knows she should tell the truth, but then her parents would make her stay with her aunt while they look after her grandmother, and ‘what if Brad called while she was there?’ [Omg Paulette, you’re killing me here]. Paulette’s parents notice a man’s ring on the floor by the window and place it in Paulette’s hand to see if she recognises it. [If I was Mum or Dad, my first instinct would be that she’s sneaking boys into her room!] and Paulette realises it’s a signet ring engraved with the initials B.J. – Brad Jones[!!!]:
What was he doing out there? Why didn’t he tell me who he was?
What is going on with him? He told me he couldn’t see me again. Then he shows up here and practically pulls me out the window.
What if he comes back? she thought. What will he do next?
[Go fucking stay with your aunt, you dumb bitch! Also, it was clearly Brad’s imposter continuing to frame him, but she doesn’t know that] She quickly lies that she was looking after it for her friend Bobby while he went for a swim las week and had forgotten to give it back, and her parents buy the excuse and leave her to get some sleep.
Paulette’s too busy being confused about wtf just happened, though. If the ring is Brad’s, that means he was at her window. Paulette knows he likes her because of how upset he was when he told her he couldn’t see her anymore, so why was he trying to yeet her out the window?! She wonders if maybe Jonathan and Cindy are right – ‘Maybe Brad is dangerous.’ [You think he tried to pull you out of the window, I don’t think it’s a maybe anymore].
After school the next day, Cindy and Jonathan drag Paulette to Pete’s Pizza to cheer her up, but she doesn’t have much of an appetite. She hasn’t told them about the window incident, but they can tell she’s upset about Brad [Because what else would she upset about, am I right?!]. Jonathan reveals that Brad dropped out of school and Cindy tries to comfort her friend, saying the best thing to do is just forget about him. But Paulette thinks he’s soOOooOo00OO00oO0o perfect for her [After like three conversations, mind you] – he loves music as much as she does and he doesn’t care of feel sorry for her about her blindness. As the trio talks, the door to the restaurant slams open:
Jonathan grabbed Paulette’s hand and held it so hard that his short fingernails cut into her skin. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“Everybody freeze!” shouted a hoarse, rough voice from the front of the store. “This is a holdup!”
Paulette thinks someone’s playing a joke, but Jonathan assures her it’s real – ‘”He’s wearing a mask and he’s got a gun!”. The gunman orders everyone to take off their jewellery and empty their pockets and wallets onto the tables. Paulette’s bag has slipped to the floor, so she gropes around the ground to find it, which the gunman doesn’t like. Jonathan stands up and tries to explain that she’s blind [You don’t need to stand up for that, Jono. Also, why not just help her find it? That’d be quicker]. Before she knows it, the gun goes off and Jonathan falls against her as Cindy screams ‘”He shot Jonathan!”‘ [!!!!].
Paulette can feel that he’s still breathing, and as she finds his wound and tries to stop the bleeding, the robber orders someone to collect all the money in a bag. Paulette can hear sirens in the distance, grateful that someone in the mall must have called the police. Then she hears a crash, and another voice declares they have a gun:
“What’s happening?” Paulette cried.
“Two guys just knocked over a table in front of the robber,” Cindy answered. “They got the gun away from him. Now they’re ripping off his mask!”
“Brad!” someone cried. “Brad! It’s Brad Jones!”
[Well there goes my imposter idea.. unless Brad’s got a twin!?] Brad manages to escape before the police arrive and Jonathan’s quickly taken away in an ambulance. The police begin to question everyone in the restaurant, and basically everyone identifies the gunman as Brad Jones, but Paulette isn’t so sure, because she would have recognises his voice:
She concentrated, remembering every detail of the robbery. As if listening to a tape, she heard the gunman’s hoarse voice. Again, she heard Jonathan defending her and his scream when the gunman shot him.
She remembered the gunman’s final words, and his faint scent as he ran past her their table. He smelled like cinnamon, she thought.
Absolutely positive it wasn’t Brad’s voice or his scent [OK, so assuming it’s the same voice/scent as the guy who made clingy phone call and pushed her into traffic/gaslit her afterwards, wouldn’t she have recognised that guy as not being Brad too?], Paulette pipes up and tells the officer everyone is wrong, that it wasn’t Brad Jones [Paulette, everyone else actually saw him]. She explains that she’s blind, but recognises voices ‘”the way other people recognise faces”‘ and that the robber didn’t smell like Brad [Brad’s leathery scent has only been mentioned once that I can remember, but she’s made a note of his voice each time. I just don’t understand why she hasn’t realised there’s two different Brad’s she’s been associating with].
The officer doesn’t seem to believe her [And I don’t blame him… 5688681924 eyewitnesses vs a blind girl’s hearing and smelling abilities? Not much competition there. Brad is definitely a twin though] but agrees to take it into consideration with the other information. It’s obvious to Paulette that Brad’s the number one suspect and the police won’t even consider another suspect, and one thing is clear to her – ‘Brad was in terrible, terrible danger.’ [I’m sure he is, but not for the reasons this idiot thinks. God, I really wanted to like Paulette, but she’s making it impossible].
That night, Paulette is at Cindy’s house as the girls wait for Jonathan’s mother to call with news of his condition. She eventually does and luckily for Jonathan, he’ll be alright in a few weeks. Paulette and Cindy then get into an argument about Brad because Paulette refuses to believe Brad was the gunman [I’m sure Paulette’s right because she’s our heroine, but logically, she should trust that literally every other person visually identified him as the robber, right?].
Paulette insists Brad’s innocent and Cindy and everyone else just ‘”saw someone who looked like him”‘ [Like a twin?!], and Cindy declares the truth will come out when he’s arrested. Paulette wants to warn Brad that the police are after him, because he probably doesn’t even know [If I was Cindy I would have strangled Paulette by now], and asks Cindy to drive her to the Academy where he works nights. She explains she’s not saying he’s innocent because she likes him, but because she knows it wasn’t him, and and insists she’ll make her own way to the Academy if Cindy doesn’t drive her.
Cindy reluctantly agrees and the Academy is mostly dark by the time the girls arrive. The girls enter and are met by one of the teachers there, who reveals Brad didn’t show up for work today. ‘”He wasn’t here because he was out robbing Pete’s Pizza,”‘ says Cindy [Hahahaha], but Paulette insists they go check out his staff locker to see if it has his address or anything, since she doesn’t even know where he lives.
Luckily for them Brad’s locker is unlocked and inside the girls find a folder with newspaper clippings about a string of small business robberies in Springfield, one of them mentioning Brad Jones being arrested for the crimes, although he always maintained his innocence [Yep, twin]. Another article mentions he was the main suspect in some house break-ins, too. Paulette’s in disbelief, wondering how Brad got to Shadyside if he had been arrested, but lucky for us, the clippings conveniently have that covered:
“That’s here too,” Cindy said. “According to the last article, they let him out on bail because he was an honor student and had no previous record. He jumped bail and disappeared. The article says it happened just before the beginning of the school year.”
[This book is like ‘Runaway’ except not told from the runaway’s perspective]. Paulette finally accepts all the evidence and admits she’s wrong, but doesn’t understand how that could have happened because she’s ”so good at recognizing voices and smells”‘ [Well, apparently you’re not].
In bed that night, Brad calls to let Paulette to know that he’s innocent. He wishes he could tell her everything, and hope’s he’ll be able to one day [A lot of your problems could probably be solved right now if you just fkn tell her]. He can’t talk for long and doesn’t know when he’ll have a chance to speak to her again, but warns her that things might get worse over the next few days and begs Paulette to believe that he’s not responsible. Paulette promises to believe he’s innocent, and Brad just has one last thing to say:
“I don’t quite know how to say this, but… things may happen in the next few days. I can’t say more. Except… you must be careful, Paulette. Please—be very, very careful.”
[Well, Brad, it’d help a lot if you told her what or who to be careful of! You’re leaving her totally clueless!]. The next afternoon Paulette attempts to do some homework in the backyard, but as usual her mind is on Brad and all the confusion surrounding him. Her parents had already left to visit Grandma, so she’s startled when she hears what sounds like footsteps crunching in the yard as well as something being dragged. She calls out to whoever it is, but of course there’s no reply so she decides to head inside.
Now, as mentioned earlier, everything in the house and yard is kept in the exact same place, so Paulette knows where everything is and doesn’t need her cane to move around here. So imagine her surprise when she takes a few steps down the path and reaches out for the guardrail to guide her to the house, and it’s not there [Huh? So whoever it is detached the guard rail without her hearing? Or does it just stand in place, not screwed in or anything?]. She feels around for the picnic table that should be by the porch, but that’s not where she thinks it should be either [!!!!].
Totally disoriented now, Paulette heads in the direction she thinks the house is in but whacks her ankle on something and tumbles over into the grass. And that’s when she hears someone else breathing close by [!!!]. She calls out to the person again, but once more there’s no answer. Paulette stays calm and gropes around for something familiar so she can figure out where she is.
She touches a paving stone and realises she’s near the back walkway that leads to the porch, and quickly makes her way inside, locking the door behind her. She locks the front door and all the windows too, then calls Cindy to tell her someone was in the yard, stalking her. Cindy rushes over and Paulette asks her if anything looks different in the backyard. Nothing is out of the ordinary though, and after Paulette tells her what happened, the girls realise the stalker must have put everything back [Sounds like a lot of effort to me]!
Paulette refuses to call the police because they don’t know who’s responsible and besides, it’s not like she was hurt, but Cindy points out that they were showing her that they could hurt her, and it’s pretty obvious who the main suspect is [Braddy boy!]. Cindy offers for Paulette to stay over, since can’t stay at Paulette’s because she’s gotta watch her brother, but Paulette feels perfectly safe now and refuses the offer [You’re such a fkn idiot, Paulette].
After hearing sirens in the distance, Cindy unmutes the TV as a breaking news bulletin airs about an armed robbery a few blocks down.The anchorwoman announces the description of the suspect matches guy who help up Pete’s Pizza, and the suspect’s name has been released – ‘”It is former Shadyside High School student Brad Jones.”‘ [It’s gotta be a secret twin, right? It’s the only thing that makes sense to me right now! But why is the twin such a secret?]. The bulletin also reveals the address Brad had given the school doesn’t exist and that he’s armed and dangerous, so citizens should call the special number on the screen rather than approach him.
Paulette’s heard enough and turns the TV off, but Cindy definitely doesn’t want to leave her alone now. Paulette refuses to go back to Cindy’s in case Brad calls [I am genuinely so frustrated with this girl that I had to take a breather for five minutes], so Cindy agrees she’ll just phone Paulette later to check in [She might be dead by then, Cindy]. With Cindy gone, Paulette settles down at the piano, hoping it will calm her down, but the phone rings and it’s Brad, his voice hoarse and faint [Probably because it’s not actually Brad, it’s the imposter]. He apologises for not telling her the truth sooner and reveals he’s got an identical twin brother named Ed who’s always been jealous of Brad and made trouble for him everywhere they lived [A twin! I knew it! This is definitely Ed on the phone right now though, but I’ll play along and keep calling him Brad].
Brad reckons Ed arrived in town almost as soon as he Brad did, saw Paulette, and decided he wanted her for himself [So that was Ed in the prologue, I guess?].
“As far as he was concerned, you were his. Then, when you and I started seeing each other, he couldn’t stand it. He told me he’d never let me have you. He said he’d rather see you dead.”
“I don’t believe it!” Paulette gaped.
“I realized I had to break it off with you, to protect you,” Brad went on. “But by that time it was too late. Ed had become obsessed with you. And he was furious with you for choosing me over him.”
“All those times I thought you were acting strange…”
“It was Ed,” Brad said. “He told me he called you. He told me he’s been following you. Spying on you. I’m sorry, Paulette, so sorry.”
[Wow, yet another teenage boy who thinks a woman belongs to him! And Ed’s not even a true Shadyside boy, so we can’t even blame the town!] Ed was also the one who committed the robberies to frame Brad, and when Brad tried to get away, Ed followed him! They got into a scuffle and now Brad’s apparently hurt. Brad forbids Paulette from calling the police to help him though, because he’ll be arrested and will ‘”never straighten it out”‘, so he wants to find and stop Ed first [So if this is actually Brad on the phone, why would he think telling the police he has an evil twin won’t help his case?]. He can’t do it alone though, so Paulette agrees to help. His voice sounds weaker and weaker, but Brad manages to tell her he’s at the abandoned Fear Street house before the line goes dead [100%, that was Ed. There’s gotta be some other twist coming though, because we’ve still got about 30 pages left].
Paulette shivers as she remembers all the times she must have been speaking to Ed instead of Brad, and realised Ed must have pushed her into traffic that time. She has to get to Fear Street to help Brad and catches the next bus, realising she needs to do it alone. She worries about Brad on the bus ride, hoping he’s OK. He sounded so weak, so hoarse… it reminded her of Ed’s voice [Because it was Ed, you nitwit. How is she not realising this? Is Paulette the most stupid protagonist we’ve ever had?].
At her stop on Fear Street, Paulette finds her way back to the abandoned house from memory, since she has a habit of counting her steps when in unfamiliar territory. Letting herself inside the abandoned house, she calls out for Brad but the only reply is a creaking hinge that she mistakes for a pained shriek [Paulette, please].
Finally she hears Brad faintly calling down to her from somewhere on the second floor, and being careful with the wobbly bannister and avoiding the missing step, Paulette manages to make it upstairs. She finds Brad in a room down the hall and he sounds even weaker, but he absolutely refuses to call the police or a doctor [Super suss!], insisting they need to trap Ed first. Ed’ll be back any minute, having told Brad he’ll be back for the jewellery and money he stole that he’d hidden somewhere in the house, and Brad plans on getting Paulette to lure him upstairs where Brad will overpower him [But… you’re sooo00Oooo0oOo00o weak from your injury, Brad?].
Against her better judgement, Paulette resists the urge to call for help and agrees to Brad’s plan, and almost straight away they hear the front door open. Paulette calls out at Brad’s insistence and soon Ed’s footsteps come thumping up the stairs. As soon as the door opens she hears ‘a sickening thwack’ and then a body hitting the floor. For some reason, Brad hands over a rope and makes Paulette tie Ed up while Brad just waits in case Ed comes to, urging her to be quick because he’ll recover soon [I get why he’s making her do it, but like you’re also wasting precious seconds while she finds his hands to tie up? Just do it yourself?]. Paulette binds his hands together and pretty soon, Ed regains consciousness and reveals what’s been obvious for quite a while:
“I’ve told her everything, Ed,” Brad replied. “Everything. And she agreed to help me trap you.”
“No!” Ed cried. “No! Paulette, he’s lying to you!”
“Shut up—” Brad began.
“Listen to me!” Ed shouted weakly. “Paulette, he’s tricked you. He’s Ed! I’m Brad!”
Of course, this is a classic Stine end-of-chapter cliffhanger, so much like Paulette we’re not supposed to be sure what to believe [But I think it’s safe to say tied up Ed is really tied up Brad. Unless that’s what Stine wants us to think so he can shock us with the real twist that tied up Ed actually is tied up Ed!], especially because Ed ‘sounds so much like Brad now that Brad’s voice is so weak and husky.’ [But why is the real Brad’s voice so husky and course right now anyway?]. There’s some back and forth between the boys as they both swear up and down that they’re the real Brad and the other one is Ed, and at first Paulette decides the standing boy is the real one, since he hasn’t acted strangely like Ed has every time he’s been around her [Paulette, no, don’t use that logic].
Then she remembers Brad’s scar near his eye from when she touched his face in the cafeteria that time – he’d said no-one’s noticed it before because you can’t really see it, but Paulette knew it was there because she’d felt it [Do not voice your plan out loud, Paulette]. She tells the standing boy to let her touch his face [fkn hell, Paulette!] and he’s all for it, while the tied up boy tells her to stay away because he’ll hurt her [I’m not really sure why the standing Brad, who is clearly actually Ed, is going along with this? He has the upper hand, not Paulette. She can’t even see! Why wouldn’t he have just knocked the real Brad out again as soon as he started talking?]. Despite his warnings, Paulette gropes the standing boy’s face and realises the truth:
No scar. The skin was smooth.
“Ohhh,” Paulette moaned.
I helped Ed trap Brad. I even tied Brad up.
[Should have just touched one of their faces sooner like you wanted to, Paulette]. Because the idiot’s given away that she knows the truth, Ed grabs her and gloats about how easy it is to pretend to be Brad. Stalling for time while she thinks of a plan, Paulette gets Ed to admit that he pushed her into traffic, broke into her house, left Brad’s ring in her room for her to find and moved everything around in her yard. Now that she’s so close to Ed, she recognises the faint scent of cinnamon, just like the Pete’s Pizza robber and scolds herself for not knowing the truth before today [I guess it’s pretty convoluted, but still].
Anyway, she fails to come up with a plan in time and is quickly tied up alongside Brad, getting a slap to the face from Ed [No wonder everyone likes Brad more, Ed] when she struggles against him. Brad begs Ed to let Paulette go, but if Ed can’t have her, why should he let anyone else [Ew I hate him], and rambles on about how he’s the forgotten twin because everyone thinks Brad is such a star [Maybe if your personality wasn’t based around framing your brother for things?]. It’s also revealed that their father died when they were young and their mother died last summer, which is why it was so easy for Brad to start fresh in Shadyside after jumping bail.
Ed gloats that because no-one even knows he exists, he can easily get away with murder. He then turns a handle somewhere in the room before breaking the handle off, allowing the room to fill up with gas [What room is this? Why is there a gas tank in it?]. He plans to leave them to suffocate before returning to untie Brad, framing him for a murder-suicide. Before Ed leaves the room though, Paulette finally comes up with a plan and begs him to take her with him.
She lies about realising Ed’s the one she loves, explaining she really felt alive with him when he was pretending to be Brad. She didn’t know any better at the time because she didn’t know he existed, but begs Ed to give her a chance to prove he’s the one she wants. Ed doesn’t believe her at first, but she does a good enough job to make him untie her ankles and take her with him to the master bedroom [Her plan involves somehow saving Brad too btw, she’s not just looking out for herself here haha].
He leaves her hands tied because he still doesn’t trust her and hands her a flashlight, instructing her to keep it pointed where he positions it [Is it pitch black all of a sudden? Or I guess Ed could have had a flashlight this whole time and we just didn’t know because Paulette can’t see hahaha]. Paulette does as she’s told as Ed moves to the room’s fireplace, where he’d stashed the money under some loose bricks. Paulette pays attention to the scraping noises as Ed digs around, making a mental picture of where she is, and then flings the flashlight at the hearth to make the playing field more even, quipping ‘”Now you can’t see either!”‘ [I’m sure his eyes will adjust, but let’s go with it].
Ed’s totally enraged now and stumbles toward her, but Paulette backs away towards the door. He brags that his eyes will adjust soon and as Paulette enters the hallway, the overpowering stench of gas makes her realise her plan to lead Ed away from Brad and escape to a neighbour’s house to call the police may not be a very good one [It was never going to work Paulette. Brad would 100% be dead by the time help arrives]. She heads down the hallway and trips over the carpet, revealing her location to Ed. She remains quiet but he can see her silhouette in the dark now, and quickly catches her as she reaches the stairs.
Remembering Ms. Tillotson’s advice from self-defence class [Yes, remember how she was taking self-defence, even though it hasn’t been mentioned since early in the book?], Paulette remains calm and waits for the perfect moment to strike. When Ed tries to yank her forward, she surprises him by throwing herself in the same direction. Ed pushes her away and she grabs his wrist, pulling her with him as they fly toward the rotting staircase [!!!].
I’m not actually sure what the hell happens because Paulette lets go of Ed and lands on the carpet while he goes tumbling down the stairs. She waits a few moments but he doesn’t make a sound, so she rushes to the room Brad’s in and finds him [Surprisingly] still conscious. She manages to help him crawl from the room and he guides them safely down the stairs where Ed lies dead at the bottom with a broken neck [Good]. Paulette and Brad escape into the cool night air and hear sirens in the distance as a neighbour calls out to them, having called the police after seeing flashlights moving around the house. Brad assures him everything’s all right [Well, besides his dead twin, I guess], and the book ends with this gem as Brad turns to Paulette:
“I feel as if I’m finally coming out of the dark,” he told her. “I really do.
[At least Paulette didn’t say it, I guess?]
Final thoughts
Oof, I really wanted to like this one, but I don’t think it met my expectations. It was great to see a handicapped heroine who prided herself on her independence, but my god was Paulette a fkn idiot. I think there were too many inconsistencies with her other senses too – her voice and scent recognising abilities are apparently really good, yet she never really considered that the husky, coarse-voiced Brad wasn’t actually Brad at all, especially when Ed’s cinnamon scent seems pretty distinct too?
Storywise, it wasn’t that exciting either. I guessed the twist halfway through, and while that normally happens anyway, there wasn’t enough excitement going on to keep me interested. Paulette was getting dumber by the minute too and I could feel my brain cells dying one by one as my will to live slowly withered away, so I was wanting this to be over ASAP.
I also think Jonathan was pretty pointless. I thought he was going to be a red herring but he basically ceased to exist after being shot so he easily could have been combined with Cindy, who I thought was great with her limited time and deserves her own book. At least Brad turned out to be a nice guy, but a lot of the book could have been avoided if he’d just told everyone he had a twin. Like, he thinks the police wouldn’t have believed him but like, medical records are a thing that exist so there would have been pretty easy proof, right? Also, obviously the reason he left her alone in the abandoned house that time had something to do with Ed but like, he knows Ed is dangerous and he still chose to run away and leave Paulette there alone? Not a fan.
I guess the scene depicted on the cover is supposed to be Paulette at the top of the abandoned house’s stairs, but judging by the doorway it’s 100% basement stairs and even if it wasn’t, she was never at the top by herself. Just another letdown.
Oh well, 57 blind girls telling a room full of seeing people that what they saw was wrong out of 124.
