Changes: Cry of the Cat

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Book

The cover illustration depicts a closeup of Rip the Cat's face.

Plot

Alison Moore is meeting up with her best friend Ryan Engel on her way to school. She is on her bike, rehearsing lines for a school musical when she accidentally runs over a cat in the road, and kills it. She tries to return the cat to a creepy old house, but the girl who answers the door screams in horror, saying her mother won't like this at all. She introduces herself as Crystal and says that the cat Allison killed is named Rip, and he is no ordinary cat. Rip then springs back to life.

Allison goes to school to rehearse the play, but she starts to hear a cat that no one else hears. Rip appears and is killed again, this time by a play prop. He springs to life again, but Ryan doesn't believe this is the same cat Allison killed.

During dinner that night, Allison finds cat hair in her soup. She goes back to her room to see that her toy mice collection has been ruined. The next day during lunch, she finds a cat head in her lunch bag but Ryan sees nothing when he takes a look. Rip returns that night and tries to choke Allison, but she throws him out the window, killing him for a third time. He once again springs back to life and claws Allison. She notices that her cut isn't bleeding.

The next morning, she finds herself gobbling down three cans of tuna. During rehearsals, she starts licking her hands. She climbs a ladder up to a balcony for a scene, and when she gets a phone call from her mom, she jumps down, thinking she can land on all fours. Mom calls Allison to inform her and Dad have to take care of Aunt Emma, so Allison must go home to babysit her brother Tanner. At home, Allison coughs up a hairball and decides she needs to visit Crystal to find out what is happening to her.

She visits Crystal and tells her that Rip has been stalking her, and Crystal says Rip has now used up 8 lives. She then slams the door on Allison. She walks away and bumps into Ryan. She explains to him the creepy things going on, when she finds herself walking to a pet cemetery. She finds Rip's gravestone, revealing that he has been dead for years. She opens Rip's coffins, and the cat comes out. Suddenly, the other tombstones start rumbling and several other undead cats come out. The ghost cats form a tornado and the cats start chasing Allison.

She runs to Crystal's house, where she takes Allison to the basement to meet her mother. It turns out she is a half human, half cat creature. Crystal's mother explains that she is a scientist and Rip was part of a failed experiment that killed many cats. Rip was too evil to die, so he came back and started taking her life force so he can keep living and not use all of his nine lives. His scratch also turns people into cat creatures, which is why Allison has been acting like a cat. Rip wanted Crystal's life but her mom wouldn't allow it, so she let Rip use her life instead. Now her life is almost out, and they will use Allison as a sacrifice.

Rip and his cat friends appear, but Allison throws out one of her toy mice, hoping it will distract them. This works, as the cats defeat each other while fighting over the toy. Rip gets caught up in the cat fight and is soon lying on the floor, defeated. Crystal and her mom thank Allison for freeing them of the evil cat.

The next day, Allison and Ryan are walking to school. Ryan dives down to get something and Allison sees that it's a mouse. She claws at him and demands that Ryan give it to her, because she saw it first.

International releases

No.	Book	Country/Language	Translated title	Release date	Publisher
45	Danger, chat méchant ! Ver. 1 Ver. 2 Ver. 3	France French	Danger, Bad Cat!	April 12, 1998	Bayard Poche
1	Cry of the Cat	United Kingdom English	Cry of the Cat	September 18, 1998	Scholastic
1	El Aullido Del Gato Ver. 1 Ver. 2	Spain Spanish	The Howl Of The Cat	October 11, 1999	Ediciones B
63	L'urlo del gatto	Italy Italian	The Cat's Scream	November 23, 1999	Mondadori
33	صرخة القط	N/A Arabic	Cry of the Cat	N/A	N/A
1	Collection 1 Books contained: Cry of the Cat Bride of the Living Dummy Creature Teacher	United Kingdom English	Collection 1	2000	Scholastic
12	Edición Monstruo 12 Books contained: Cry of the Cat Bride of the Living Dummy Creature Teacher	Spain Spanish	Monster Edition 12	2001	Ediciones B

Merchandise

Television adaptation

"Cry of the Cat" was adapted into a two-part episode of the Goosebumps TV series. It is the fifth and sixth episode of season four, and the seventy-first and seventy-second overall.

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Artwork

Trivia

The plot of this book is notably similar to that of the book Pet Sematary by Stephen King. Both books feature dead cats coming back to life. R.L. Stine has also admitted that he has taken influence from Pet Sematary for several of his books.
This was the only Series 2000 book to receive a trading card. However, the trading card's back has a different format than the ones that came before.
Stine reportedly wrote three different versions of this book before he and his associates were satisfied with it.^[1]
In an interview, illustrator Tim Jacobus revealed that he bought a small lot of Goosebumps books so he would be able to better relate to his fans. He praised the books' writing and named Cry of the Cat as being especially good.^[2]
Rip's name is an allusion to the acronym R.I.P. The acronym is often seen on gravestones, and it stands for "Rest In Peace."
Alison and Tanner's mother was mentioned by name in the book: Margo Moore.
R.L.'s other hit series, Fear Street, also did an evil cat story, simply called Cat, released a year before this book.
The story follows similar beats to The Cat's Tale, a short story from More Tales to Give You Goosebumps. Similarities include an evil cat and the protagonist behaving more and more like a cat as the story progresses.
The book references Tom & Jerry and Godzilla.
One of the tombstones in the pet cemetery is for "Whitey". Whitey was previously the name of a dog in Let's Get Invisible!.

References

Goosebumps Series 2000 series

#01 Cry of the Cat	#10 Headless Halloween	#18 Horrors of the Black Ring
#02 Bride of the Living Dummy	#11 Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls	#19 Return to Ghost Camp
#03 Creature Teacher	#12 Brain Juice	#20 Be Afraid — Be Very Afraid!
#04 Invasion of the Body Squeezers: Part 1	#13 Return to HorrorLand	#21 The Haunted Car
#05 Invasion of the Body Squeezers: Part 2	#14 Jekyll and Heidi	#22 Full Moon Fever
#06 I Am Your Evil Twin	#15 Scream School	#23 Slappy's Nightmare
#07 Revenge R Us	#16 The Mummy Walks	#24 Earth Geeks Must Go!
#08 Fright Camp	#17 The Werewolf in the Living Room	#25 Ghost in the Mirror
#09 Are You Terrified Yet?

[1] Talk With An Author: R.L. Stine, Creator of Goosebumps

[2] "Getting the Picture with Goosebumps Illustrator Tim Jacobus" (Archived)

[1]

[2]

@@ Line 196: / Line 196: @@
 ==Trivia==
 *The plot of this book is notably similar to that of the book ''[[wikipedia:Pet_Sematary|Pet Sematary]]'' by [[wikipedia:Stephen_King|Stephen King]]. Both books feature dead cats coming back to life. R.L. Stine has also admitted that he has taken influence from ''Pet Sematary'' for several of his books.
+*This was the only ''Series 2000'' book to receive a trading card. However, the trading card's back has a different format than the ones that came before.
 *Stine reportedly wrote three different versions of this book before he and his associates were satisfied with it.<ref>[https://youtu.be/wQOlcqdu5ng?t=1456 Talk With An Author: R.L. Stine, Creator of Goosebumps]</ref>
 *In an interview, illustrator [[Tim Jacobus]] revealed that he bought a small lot of ''[[Goosebumps (franchise)|Goosebumps]]'' books so he would be able to better relate to his fans. He praised the books' writing and named ''Cry of the Cat'' as being especially good.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/19980504152734/http://thebumps.com:80/tim316.htm "Getting the Picture with Goosebumps Illustrator Tim Jacobus" (Archived)]</ref>