Crystal's Mom (real name unknown) is a character from the first book in the Goosebumps Series 2000 book Cry of the Cat, along with its television adaptation.
History[]
Crystal's Mom was a scientist who conducted experiments on cats. In the book her motivations for why she started the experiments are not explained, but in the episode, it is elaborated that she was trying to create a cure for a deadly virus, and given how cats and humans have similar immune systems, she experimented on cats. However, in both the book and episode, all of the cats would die, with exception of Rip, who returned from the grave as an undead monster. After being revived, Rip would time and time again return to Crystal's Mom, scratching her and taking a bit of her life energy each time. Initially Rip was interested in Crystal, but Crystal's Mom gave herself up as a means to protect her. With each scratch, Crystal's Mom would inherit more of Rip's cat features.
Eventually, Alison Moore would become Rip's new target, and after a few of unsuccessful visits to her home, Alison would finally get through to Crystal, and Crystal would take Alison down to the basement to meet her mom as a means to help her. Not long after meeting her mom however, her and her mother would turn on Alison to sacrifice her to Rip, as Crystal's Mom had no more life to give to Rip. In the book, Alison manages to defeat Rip by getting all of the ghost cats to pounce on him, and after destroying him, Crystal and her mother come up and hug her, thanking Alison for saving them from Rip. Afterward, Crystal's Mom announces that she and Crystal are going to leave town, presumably to distance themselves from everything that had happened while they were living there. The ending of the episode is much the same, although with Ryan being more involved, and the curse on Crystal's Mom being undone, with her no longer having any visible cat-like features.
General Information[]
Personality[]
In the book, she is relatively calm and friendly, not taking offense to Alison's initial fright at the sight of her appearance and attempting to lick Alison's arm clean upon meeting her. Like Alison after Rip scratched her, Crystal's Mom also has cat like tendencies, such as the aforementioned cleaning and her meowing. Despite her friendly demeanor, she is willing to sacrifice Alison to Rip as she had already giving up all of her life energy to save Crystal. Due to the sorrow and regret she expresses in regards to her experiments, it does not seem that her attempt to sacrifice Alison was at all malicious. After Alison kills Rip for the final time, Crystal and her Mom run up and hug Alison, thanking her for saving them from Rip.
Physical Appearance[]
In the book, Crystal's mom looks mostly like a normal human, with a human face with dark lips and a thin nose, and a normal right arm. However, she also has many cat-like features, such as whiskers, cat ears, fur on the back of her neck, a cat-like left arm, a tail, and a scratchy tongue. She also has gray hair, but it's unclear if that is her natural hair color or something she inherited from Rip, as he has gray fur in the book. She wears a baggy black sweater and a long red skirt with a hole cut into the back for her tail.
Trivia[]
- Strangely, when the book directly refers to Crystal's Mom in the third person, it opts to refer to her as "Mom", instead of denoting her with her daughter's name. This is odd as the book is entirely from the perspective of Alison.