The Nightmare Room 08 – Shadow Girl

R. L. Stine's Shadow Girl is a creepy Nightmare Room story for 11 year olds about a girl sent to stay with the cousin she can't stand.

What happens

Selena is twelve and she's dreading this month away. The last time she saw her cousin Jada, they were both six. Jada cut off one of Selena's pigtails while she slept and then blamed her for it (and gave her a nickname she's never forgiven).

Her mum won't really say why she has to go. At the bus station she hugs Selena far too tightly and bursts into tears. Then she runs off without looking back.

Things don't get better in Chicago. Jada is tall, glamorous and absolutely horrible. Her trick on Selena's first day at school, all about wearing the wrong colours, will make any reader wince. Who hasn't had a moment where the whole room turns to look at them?

But the prank is the least of it. Jada's bed is empty at three in the morning. A friend staggers in bleeding, and the "blood" on the washcloth smells like paint. When Selena rings home, the number isn't in service. Her best friend Beth says she's been told not to talk to her at all.

Then there's the letter her mum tucked into her suitcase. It asks Selena to forgive her. It reads a lot like goodbye.

This is Stine at full speed. The chapters are short and nearly every one ends on a jolt, which makes "one more chapter" very hard to refuse. Selena is funny too, which helps. She cracks jokes when she's nervous (she's sure Jada has grown claws by now), and that stops it feeling too dark.

A couple of things are good to know. Selena's dad died before the story starts, and that grief sits quietly in the background. The worry about her missing mum grows chapter by chapter, and the whole story leans on that horrible feeling of nobody telling you the truth. For most readers at the top of the shelf that's the delicious part. A child going through a family worry of their own might find it a bit close to home.

What to read next

If this one hooks them, the series starts with Don't Forget Me! Danielle is fifteen, her little brother drives her mad and the family has just moved into a creaky hundred-year-old house. She jokes about losing him. Then she very nearly does.