Stanley

Stanley is an antagonist in the twentieth Goosebumps book, The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight.

History
Stanley is the hired farmhand of Jodie's grandparents, Kurt and Miriam. He has worked for them for over twenty years and lives in the guest house on their farm with his son, Sticks.

Stanley has a superstitions book he simply refers to as "the book." Many of his actions are a result of the book. He has Jodie and Mark circle the barn three times on their way to the fishing creek because the book says they should do it. He freaks out at rotten corn, sour milk, and a turned-up pine cone because the book says they are bad omens. Stanley uses the book to create walking scarecrows, which he controls with chants from the book.

At the urging of Jodie's grandparents, Stanley put the scarecrows asleep, but not before he made a list of demands. Grandma Miriam makes Stanley's favorite foods, and Grandpa Kurt does not tell scary stores anymore because they scare Stanley. Jodie's grandparents are careful around Stanley, eager to keep him happy so he does not bring the scarecrows back to life.

When Stanley put the scarecrows to sleep, not all of them went back to sleep, a fact that Stanley's son, Sticks, keeps from him to prevent Stanley from waking up the rest of the scarecrows. After a scarecrow stumbles to their house, which Sticks successfully convinces Stanley wasn't alive, Mark walks out in the cornfield dressed as a scarecrow and scares Stanley into waking up the rest of the scarecrows in an attempt to put Mark, who Stanley thought was a real scarecrow, asleep. Stanley cries out to Jodie and her family that the scarecrows won't listen to him; he can't control them. Dressed as a scarecrow, Mark has control of the scarecrows rather than Stanley.

After Sticks burns the scarecrows to ashes, things are seemingly back to normal for the book's characters, and Stanley is in Grandpa Kurt and Grandma Miriam's living room reading his superstitions book. Jodie hears him murmuring something, and then the stuffed bear in the family's living room comes alive.

Physical appearance
Stanley has dark hair that he wears shaved close to his head in a crew cut. He has big, round, brown eyes. He has big ears. Jodie describes them as always sticking out, and always bright red.

Personality
Stanley is described as "slow" by the other characters. He makes comments that either do not make sense to others, or that others would find inappropriate. He is forty or forty-five years old, but acts very childlike, whining and scaring easy. Stanley is a very hard worker and is respectful to his employers. He does what they ask, and on the way to the fishing creek, he carried everything and would now allow Jodie or Mark to carry anything. Because of this, it is likely that he does not realize the severity of his actions.